A beginner's guide to meditation practice

[Dr. A ♥ O 203]

I have been meditating since I was 6 years old. It's a long story but we can say my induction began with my Mom's daily several hours of practice and one of her first Guru's who had his own television show and loved children to come sit around him or in his lap. I came by meditation naturally. I don't meditate everyday & I don't meditate for long hours at a time usually, though sometimes I do, and sometimes I go longer periods without meditation but I always come back to it. I've been doing it for 26 years now. Like the article says some days it's very boring and some days it rocks your world. At the age of 27 I had my first experience of enlightenment. Trying to sustain enlightenment when I obtained my first glimpse was like trying to stare at the sun while standing on the planet Mercury. I've mentioned this "meditation thing" about myself before on VJ and that has led some people to pm me about technique's. I never know if I helped them or not because I've have yet to hear feedback but also I don't consider myself a meditation teacher nor have I ever taught classes except with brief sessions with inquiring friends one on one.

I did however come across an article recently in Yoga Journal that I feel is a good one for Meditation Beginners. It's a couple of pages long but if you're interested in learning meditation for it's various benefits then I suggest starting with this article for techniques and tips. The tip in the article about meditating on "love" is how I got my first glimpse of enlightenment. I was thinking about transcended masters like Jesus and Buddha and how they have love for all the world and what that must be like. I started by having love for everyone I knew, friend, foe, acquaintances. Then I thought of all the people in the world and having love for them and then all the animals in the world and all the plants in the world and all the things in the world and all the universe. The love expanded so much it became overwhelming but it didn't stop there. Then I began to have love for all the past people in the world, the generations before and all the millions upon billions of creatures and everything before our time and everything beyond our time to come in the great mandala of life never ending and never beginning. It was eternal and in infinity and I got that love is all there is. The intensity was too much for me to sustain for long so I pulled out of the meditation, but I wondered is that how the transcended masters got there by being able to sustain it? Even though with the time I've been meditating I still seem to consider myself a beginner. For those that KWIM I guess one can't expect to accelerate several hundred life times in just one life time.

Article on Meditation for Beginners

Edited September 9, 2010 by Cleocatra