The basic idea behind meditation is to rejuvenate and revitalize our six sense organs. Meditation can be considered a technique, or practice. Meditation is a practice that is specific to one individual. Only that person can understand the significance and it’s effect on one self.
Experiences during meditation vary significantly from one individual to another. Meditation leaves you with relaxed mental status and clear mental status as to how one want to think and live. How is meditation different from relaxation, thinking, concentration? Relaxation: Relaxation is a common by-product of meditation. Relaxation itself can assume many forms, such as taking a hot bath or reclining in your couch. Meditation is an active process where the mediator remains fully aware of what the awareness is doing. Relaxation does not involve a self implicated restrained on thought process, but meditation is an evoking of the power of keeping all your senses in control.
Thinking: Thoughts are a process of putting an effort on your brain and finding a solution to your problem or thought in perspective, but meditation transcends it all. Here mind does concentrate on an object or an idea, but without putting an extra effort on brain or neurons.
Concentration: Meditation’s stepping-stone is concentration, and higher state of concentration leads to meditation. How to have mediation in my life? Meditation is a practice that is different for each individual. It holds a different meaning to every individual person. There are a few recommended guidelines for meditation: It should be done every day, preferably at the same time.
It should preferably be done before a meal rather than after a meal
A spot should be set aside for meditation, which should be a quiet ..place and used for nothing but meditation.
One should sit with the spine straight and vertical What are the physiological effects of meditation? The most common physiological effects of meditation are reduced blood pressure, lower pulse rate, decreased metabolic rate and changes in the concentration of serum levels of various substances. Before starting Meditation can be performed only when one is convinced and has conviction to do it. It is not a sheer physical exercise like aerobics or weight training, but an attitude that has to be imbibed in oneself. One has to understand the reason for why one is doing it, and how one would like to ensue with it. Meditation is the highest yoga practice, one that require not just association of body to mind but both of them should be in a harmony, a conjunction or mind over body. This is what makes meditation a rare practice to have complete perfection in it.
One more reason that makes it so is the fact that very few people can comply the strict regime of meditation. Meditation demands a
complete understanding of the practices involved in whole process. One needs to understand the reason why he or she would like to perform this technique. Meditation in initial stages has to be on a particular object, a physical object that would be your object of consideration and concentration. Advance stages can be followed up with an idea in mind, a thought that requires some further pondering and time. The steps of meditation Meditation has been classified in three basic steps which leads to the ultimate perfection in this practice.
Dharana – mental concentration
Dhyana – meditation
Samadhi – blissful identification Dharana – mental concentration Smell, taste, sight, touch and hearing are five perceptive senses that constitute our response factors. A sense gives us the ability to deduce an action, and react correspondingly. Respective sense gives attention to a particular action and thus we start giving importance to an object . This importance or attention is an iota to meditation process. But this could be built further on to meditation. As the more of attention we pay to a particular sense, more information can be gathered by that particular sense. Simultaneously mind can be taught to ignore sense organs. Mind has an uncanny capacity of focusing itself on an object or an idea, to an extent where mind can sense only that particular object or an idea. Where all other senses tend to become feeble. Defining the concept Dhrana is sheer concentration, a state of oblivion to lesser issues. When one sense responds to ur mind, to the maximum. When other senses seem to be in least conjunction with your mind. Mind is movement “Dharana” means “holding the mind.” According to the ancient philosophy mind is a very volatile and precarious organ, always on a capricious move. Usually defined as a perpetual movement in process. Our ignorance, prejudice and feeble will make our perception that we just cannot concentrate on things. Concentration is a thing for people with special powers who can churn up miracles with their concentration. That is not what is true, one can make mind to concentrate on anything. You just require a strong will and focus to do it.
Dharana is a sheer 
ability of internal focusing, where no matter what is the object, irrespective of one’s interest in that particular object one should not only be able to focus on that but converge to details of that object. One should not force meditation on to mind it has to be a complete gradual and acquiescent and submissive process. Where every thing works in conjunction with a common goal in mind.How to start ?Sit on floor or on a chair with your neck and spine aligned in a straight line. Relax yourself and close your eyes.
1. Relax quickly and deeply from bottom to top. Let your attention swiftly scan your body and release all tensions.
2. Let your breathing become calm and peaceful.
3. Turn the attention inward (introversive gaze) and disconnect yourself from the outer disturbing factors (noises, etc.); begin to withdraw the mind from any thoughts that arise (as a result of the activity of the senses) by making a brief but detetrmined effort to stop the discursive thinking;
4. Concentrate the mind (dharana) upon the object of your choice. During dharana, the mind is like a mirror: the only activity is to reflect the object. Dhyana – the state of meditation
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“Dhyana (meditation per se) is the continuous flow of the mental processes toward the object (of meditation).” The basic principle one tends to think about a thought or an idea, other ideas tends to fade and become sublime in front of that idea. This is the basic principle of meditation. The prevailing thought is created by concentration and the movement of the mind around that particular thought is meditation. Concentration and meditation, even if they seem very close, are nevertheless distinct phenomena. If you realize a good concentration, this will lead automatically to meditation, because in yoga every step, when perfectly realized, gives the key to the next step. Transition from concentration should be a very gradual. Let it come naturally: this will certainly happen after a certain period of practice. How to start. The first step in dhyana (meditation) is dharana (mental concentration). Keep this in mind: at a deep level, nobody can really teach you to meditate, except yourself, applying the traditional information exposed in this material.
2. The next step is this: while keeping the dharana (concentration) state of mind, let go of it, allow your thoughts to move freely, to make connections, associations. You will discover that now your mind will not jump any more at random but, on a lower level, dharana (concentration) will be sustained almost effortlessly and, on a higher level, the thoughts will start to move, to revolve around the object only. This is dhyana (meditation). To begin with in Dhyana, the movement of your mind around the object will probably not last long. Other thoughts will start to revolve around the object in flashes, and then will stop, leaving you with concentration only. After a while, other spark of thought movement occurs, then stop, and so on. After some time of practice, the periods of thought movement will become longer and longer, ending eventually in a continuous thought movement. Then you reach the true state of meditation (dhyana). The real purpose
Meditation is not a procedure or technique to let you out of tensions or manage your worries. It a a holistic approach to one self going beyond relaxation and cure. Samadhi – blissful identification We saw that dhyana (meditation) is the continuous flow of mental processes toward the object of meditation. This process leads gradually to a blissful identification (co-penetration of the object of meditation with the practitioner’s own being). Samadhi is the highest state of Meditation. In samadhi the mind, continuously and to the exclusion of all other objects, assumes the nature and becomes one with the object.
