Fundamental Initiatives for Meditation

  Fundamental Initiatives for Meditation:


Choose a time to meditate. Find a good time for you to meditate. You can start with shorter sessions in the beginning, but generally you should shoot for between 30 minutes to an hour during each session. Right when you get up or before you go to bed are good times to practice. Make meditation a priority for yourself just like you would for everything else that’s important in your life.

Keep an elevated posture. If you slouch, you won’t be in a good position for meditation and you’re more likely to feel like falling asleep. Elevate your posture and you’ll feel more open to the world. Relax in a crossed legged or other comfortable sitting position and rest your hands in your lap.

Focus on your breath. Your main goal is to keep your attention on your breath as you breathe in and breathe out. It may help to say a mantra and visualize breathing in good energy and letting out the bad energy with each cycle. Breathe at a pace that’s comfortable for you. Work toward deep, long breaths.

Acknowledge your thoughts. You want to remain fully present while you’re meditating, and there’s no doubt that thoughts are going to enter your mind while you’re trying to concentrate. Don’t be frustrated by these thoughts, but at the same time don’t let thoughts take your attention completely away. Acknowledge your thoughts and then bring your focus back to your breath.

Fight the urge to sleep. Many people complain of the urge to sleep during meditation sessions, mainly because it’s relaxing and you’re meditating during early morning or late evening hours. Try to remain awake with focus and good posture.

Maintain your practice. After you discover the many benefits of meditating, it will most likely become a part of you forever. You may not have time to do this every day, but it’s important to keep up with regular meditation sessions.

Meditation will help you keep a peaceful perspective on life and can tell you a lot of things about your true self. You can use it to relax, motivate, or energize you, depending on your purpose for each session. As you get more experienced with meditation, a more joyful and peaceful life will be yours!

Why Yoga ?

Why Yoga

Yoga helps you both physically and mentally. If you follow a regular yoga routine you will find that you have greater vitality-better posture-improved circulation-respiration and digestion-bright eyes-glowing skin and good muscle tone.

Stress

Your grades are slipping. Generation gap doesn't even begin to describe the problems you're having with your parents. You don't have a love life to speak of. You're always short of money, but your parents say you spend too much.  Your hair's not right, your clothes are all wrong. Your face looks like a pimple factory. You're too fat. You're too thin. Are you stressed out or what?
 Is it cool?

Fighting with your parents and siblings, whining about your problems, banging your head on a wall-is no solution. Have you ever considered yoga? You're probably wondering how deep breathing and twisting your body into impossible positions is going to affect your grades or your lack of a love life. Also, you're probably thinking that yoga's not cool. What will your friends say? But just keep in mind that Sting is a yoga enthusiast and see where he is. The fact is that the West is being drawn more and more towards the ways of the East. Why should we wait for an outsider to endorse what is inherently ours before we think that it's cool?
 What's good about it?

The only thing you need is self-discipline, a good teacher, the time and the inclination. That means you don't have to dip into your pocket to pay expensive fees for gyms and aerobic classes. Also, you may not know it, but it begins to take immediate effect though you may only realize the benefits slowly. In addition, it's not about competition or reaching a particular level of proficiency. Anyone can do it irrespective of age, sex, and size. You don't need to have a special talent or exceptional intelligence and no one is going to judge your proficiency. So there's no stress about achievement.
 The actual benefits
Yoga helps you both physically and mentally. If you follow a regular yoga routine you will find that you have greater vitality, better posture, improved circulation, respiration and digestion, bright eyes, glowing skin and good muscle tone. What more could you ask for?

But there's more. You'll also find that you're calmer and more peaceful. You won't fly off the handle so easily. You'll feel more confident and have a more positive approach to life in general. You won't find academics such a drag, as your concentration will improve.
 Don't set goals
As mentioned earlier, yoga is not about competition and reaching goals. It's not about losing 3 kilos in 2 weeks or being more flexible and fitter than your friend. Everyone's mind and body responds to yoga at its own pace. By setting unrealistic goals and having unreasonable expectations you're defeating the point of doing yoga. Don't apply materialistic rules to a spiritual exercise. If you're content, you're doing the right thing.
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