Meditation Articles write an article

 
Myth #1
"I'm bad at meditation because I can't stop thinking."
 
Meditation has never been about stopping thoughts. Thoughts arise naturally, it's what they do.  It's our relationship to our thoughts that gets developed through meditation.  Most people spend a lot of time caught up in their thoughts, thinking about the past, planning for the future, running through hypothetical scenarios or conversations.  When we are caught up in these thought-loops we miss what is happening in the present moment, it's a separation from the life we are living in this very moment.  Meditation teaches us how to allow thoughts to arise without following them.  It's simple in theory- when a thought arises let it pass by, like a cloud moving across the sky.  It's about observing the thoughts as they pass, and not following them or embellishing them with additional story lines. 
 
We are in the habit of following our thoughts, so a meditation practice helps break this habit.  Obviously over the course of a day we have to think, but as we learn how to observe our thoughts we are more able to think conscientiously and create space for living in the present moment. 
 
Why is tending to the present moment important? Because that is how we feel alive, nourished, empowered, loved.  There is always only the present. Where is the past?  Where is the future? They are both aspects of the present.  The past and the future are a part of us, here, now.  They never exist as separate entities, although we perceive them as such.  Dealing with the present is how we heal the past and optimize potential for the future. 
 
Also consider this, most people, myself included, spend a lot of...

Adapted From 365 Tao:
"Kicking a pebble by the side of the road,
Watching it tumble pell-mell.
Chance and randomness become order.
     There is chance in this world.  Things happen...

The best explanation of meditation I have come across is from I Am That by Nisargadatta Maharaj.
He says:
"[There is] . . . only one meditation — the rigorous refusal to harbor thoughts. To be free from thoughts is itself meditation."
This explanation is so effective because it contains key practical guidelines. Not just what meditation is-being free of thoughts-but how to accomplish it. And here it is- put very simply.
The key is the verb to harbor, which has several meanings: to take in or provide a place for; to cherish or entertain. Note that Maharaj is not suggesting that we do not have thoughts, which is impossible short of death or stupor. We will have thoughts as long as we are alive.
It is not the thoughts that create problems for us. It is our harboring them. It is our receptivity to them. Our inviting them to remain in our consciousness. Our playing with them. We give them fertile ground to grow in by harboring them, and then, like weeds, the thoughts proliferate, overrun and choke our being, distancing us from what we truly are.
So, we are to refuse to entertain and encourage thoughts. We cannot refuse to have them. But we can refuse to harbor them.
And we must do this rigorously. We cannot be haphazard or sloppy in our application. The mind is insidious and pernicious; given any kind of toehold, it runs rampant. We must understand that it is our lives that are at stake here. What we risk is not physical death but the death-like state of living in and through the mind. When you have begun to move beyond...

Whoever comes to a teacher, whether he is a spiritual teacher, scientific teacher, or otherwise comes to acquire knowledge.  There is a transmission process.  For this wisdom transfer to take place effectively and effortlessly one's mind has to be empty and still.  Only then the teaching, learning, and above all the transmission can happen.
Knowledge is packaged in three ways.  Basic knowledge that we all learn from childhood, the knowledge we learn our three r's with is intellectual knowledge.  To read, write, and caalculate we use our head, our mind to acquire the knowledge needed.  At this level of knowledge transfer communication happens.  Another type of knowledge requires the involvement of the heart; one's head is of no use here.  Can you become a poet using your head?  Can you become a singer or painter using your head?  You need passion to be a...

 
Nowadays there are many uncertainties in the world, and it is being demanded of us to change.  This is a time of evolution for humanity.  We will either do the work inside that will help us to evolve or we won't.  The middle ground has been eroded away by our actions in the past.  Although in reality it has never been truly safe to rest in our illusions.
 
Most of the time we will not change unless it has become too uncomfortable to stay where we are.  But how do we change and what is it that needs to change?  These are the questions that are addressed in yoga and meditation.
 
In yoga we usually want some type of physical attainment.  I want to be more flexible. I want to do an advanced pose. I want my body to be out of pain.  In meditation I want to get some type of higher spiritual attainment, I want to be blissful, I want to be happy, I want to be free from worry, I want some peace from my mind's incessant thinking.  In either case there are two major flaws in our endeavor, one is I and the other is want.  I WANT!
 
I remember a pivotal moment in my yoga practice when I...

In these most unstable of times, one may find themselves increasingly anxious, stressed, worried or fearful, the mind presenting an even more immediate and lethal threat than that of the imposing strikes from without. Not only is the world stage unstable, with fear and threat of terrorism; but as well we face the challenges presented on the social stage in the form of racism, sexism, and economic pressures. Accompanying that, we face a barrage of unstable, confusing, and sorrow ridden relationships. Is it any wonder then that the peace of my mind should falter? One may begin to wonder, hopelessly, if there is even the possibility to remain stable in the face of such circumstance.
For so long as my peace and happiness are linked to and dependent upon things that fluctuate, accordingly my happiness will correspondingly fluctuate. If my happiness and peace of mind are dependent for example on the state of world affairs, the weather, my bank account, or the health or beauty of the body, then I will continue to ride the roller coaster of emotions intrinsically linked with these. My bank account rises and falls. I may experience illness, beauty fades. Weather can be unpredictable and violent, and relationships often start out full of promise, and then as fast as they began, they suddenly turn sour.
Therefore if I want to experience peace in a permanent and unlimited way, I must link myself with the source that never...

Whenever I talk about meditation with people, I often receive the same responses: "Meditation is too difficult." "I can't sit still." "I'm too busy." "I have no time." "I can't clear my mind."
Why is it that many find it so difficult to meditate?
This is because meditation has come to refer to practically any activity — from exercise to relaxation, prayer to contemplative thought, even to sleep. My sister-in-law once told me that drinking coffee is her form of meditation!
Also, some spiritual traditions teach that meditation should be difficult, and that only after devoting many years of arduous study and effort could anyone hope to achieve any success from its practice. All this misinformation detracts from the truth about what meditation really is: a simple, effortless process that's already occurring in our nervous systems each day.
Whether you're aware of it or not, you're meditating naturally every day as your mind transitions from its conscious states of waking, dreaming, and sleeping. As your mind shifts between these states, a brief, hardly noticeable "gap" of silence arises. Vedic wisdom holds the key to understanding the function and purpose of this "gap" as the simplest form of awareness, and the most...

When you started the journey of meditation just a few short weeks ago or may be several months, perhaps your goals were fairly modest. Perhaps you were stressed out at work. Perhaps you had a health or dependency problem. Perhaps you were depressed. Perhaps you were just curious about this meditation thing.So you came to the class and got this unique experience. Maybe fireworks didn't go off. Maybe everything didn't change overnight. But something...

before I started Hooping I never even imagined that.....
a. I would actually be able to hula hoop - let alone start doing it everyday!
b. find a 'hobby' that inspires me to spread love and encouragment to everyone i encounter
c. find an awesome, fun way to exercize and lose weight (i have lost over 10 LBS since I started hooping 6 months ago!)
d. have a sudden interest/motivation/confidence to try anything/everything new
e. inspire/encourage/help other people to experience this same amazing revelation and soothe their mind/body/soul
so why do i love teaching?
because, people sometimes associate the hula hoop with either being easy and boring, or being impossible and only for girls. but - neither of these are...

Pages 120-121 The Advent by Grégoire de Kalbermatten - see www.daisyamerica.com
courtesy and kind permission by: daisyamerica LLC
Let us rediscover the joy of sex in the sancity of marriage. Let us forget drugs and other intoxicants such as drinking and smoking. Let us turn our backs on greed, violence, debauchery and all the subtle forms these vices are taking today, under the seal of the new social legitimacy. This advice is nothing but the first measures to follow in order to bring some respite to our shattered psychosomatic spiritual instrument. I know that for many people this will already be hard to swallow, while it is easy to dismiss me and my sayings. But don’t you see, I am not even speaking of Sahaja Yoga? Don’t we realize these simple recommendations have been made countless times by the prominent teachers and seers of all the great religions? Have we forgotten the causes of the fall of many great empires on this earth? Do we believe that all the saints of the past are a bunch of outdated fools and that...