Some things about Meditation

Meditation is perhaps one of the best things you can do for your mind, body and spirit. Countless studies have been done on the benefits of meditation - the most recent of them found that mediation can help release stress while allowing the body to tap into it's own healing power.

But more importantly meditation quiets the mind so that you can listen to your intuition. Think of it this way: You're in a noisy room with a friend. At first you try to talk to your friend but the noise seems so loud you can hardly hear each other. After a while you adjust and you tune out the noise while tuning in your friend. That's what meditation does - it tunes out the noise in your head and tunes in your best friend - intuition. .

Let me clear up some misconceptions about meditation.

First: You cannot levitate through meditation. There is no way that you will be able make your body rise to the point where it lifts off the ground no matter how much you meditate. It's physically impossible and goes against the law of gravity. Anybody who tells you that if you practice their form of meditation you will be able to levitate is lying or fooling you.

Second: you do not need to face east, sit on a floor with your legs crossed and with your palms up resting on your knees. You don't need to have perfect posture and you don't need to "align" your body so that you are extremely uncomfortable. Meditation is the art of quieting your mind and concentrating on the present - the here and now. How your body is positioned has nothing to do with meditating. You can meditate while your lying down, standing up or while walking. Yes you can meditate while your eyes are open. Remember - your quieting the mind and focusing on the now. Mediating with your eyes open takes a certain amount of practice but it can be done.

Third: you don't need to say a "mantra", chant or say "ohmmm" while you're meditating. Again, meditating is simply the art of quieting the mind and being in the present. Saying a mantra or chanting only distracts the mind. You don't want to distract the mind while meditating you want to quiet the mind so that you listen to your intuition.

If you want to meditate then meditate. Try to quiet your mind 5-minutes. Chances are you won't last more than 30-seconds. In fact - 30 seconds is actually pretty good the first time around.

The reason you can't quiet your mind so easily is because it is used to saying and doing whatever it wants whenever it wants. It won't shut up just because no matter what you do.

There are so many types of meditation...don't feel the need to do all of them when you are first starting out.  You can do simple steps and as you progress and start being able to control your mind, then you can try different ones to see what you are comfortable with...and what works for you.  We are all different and have different needs and goals, so just know that there is a type of meditation that you will favor over another.  My personal favorite is visualation.(as you can tell by the previous meditations that I have posted in the past.)  Yours may be something cvompletely different, but don't think you have to take an hour to do a meditation.  Sometimes five minutes will do.  It is up to you.  Look over the previous posts and just see what appeals to you...then see what you can do with some of them.  Good luck and please feel free to post and let me know what you have learned about meditation and what you would like to see in the future here at Mediative Ways.