Meditation 101: The ultimate guide to get started, and how it helps to tackle stress and anxiety

The universe works on the principle of action and reaction. Each and every thing that you do on this planet has a corresponding effect or a reaction. Any thoughts that we have affect the way that we live, and conduct ourselves. That’s exactly why meditation plays such an important role in our lives!

It is a holistic science that helps us utilise our brain power, and builds our capacity. Meditation can help us calm down, upgrade our potential, and increase our capacity. These are some of the ways in which meditation influences and impacts us. This practice can make us strong, powerful, alert, and confident. It also  improves our focus and enhances our capacity to receive knowledge.

Here’s how yoga and meditation can help heal a stressed mind

Every single day of our lives, we are bombarded by external stimuli. We are surrounded by an overload of information and stimuli, whether from social media, news channels, and even the people that we encounter on a daily basis. This, in turn, leads to an incessant chatter of the mind.

Meditation teaches how to be a neutral witness to our thoughts and observe what we are thinking. It helps us to remain detached from the process of continuous thinking. There are a few types of meditation known as seed meditation/aarambh dhyan that keeps our thoughts in check. These meditation techniques help us stay positive, and eliminate any negative thinking that may occur. When we cease to think continuously, a natural consequence of this is that our minds become free, and we achieve more clarity. This relieves the mind of any stress that we may be carrying, and relaxes us.

2 minute meditation tips to stay away from cravings like nicotine, tea, coffee, sugar, alcohol etc

It is essential that we remove this experience of craving from within us. Meditation techniques such as super power meditation can help us overcome these cravings, and any kind of addictive behaviour. There are also other methods known as aarambh dhyan, brahmari dhyan and sthiti dhyan that have a powerful and positive impact on the brain. Brahmari dhyan also helps us to channel our thought processes into something that contributes towards our growth. 

Also, read: Actress Lakshmi Manchu shares how meditation transformed her life

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Instead of becoming a slave to our cravings, we can become the master of our own minds and develop the life that we want for ourselves. These two- minute meditation techniques are quick points to check the triggers that cause cravings. For example, in the case of a child who is crying, in order to soothe the baby the parents may hand any toy to the child. The minute the child receives the toy, he forgets about the crying and becomes distracted with the toy. Similarly, meditation can help train the brain to stay away from thoughts that bring us into a certain frame of mind, and instead move us towards positivity. In this way, meditation can help us with our well-being and health.

Aarambh Dhyan/ Seed Meditation

Formation

• Sit in any comfortable seated position such as sukhasana, ardha padmasana, padmasana, or vajrasana
• Keep your spine erect and gently close your eyes.
• Imagine and visualize two holes — one black and one white, in front of you. 
• The black hole is a powerful force of suction, which only takes from you, and the white hole radiates strong, and dynamic positive energies. 
• Begin with an exhale and send out emotions such as pain, doubt, guilt, shame, trauma, anger, sorrow, envy, negativity into the black hole that you have visualized
• There is a pause between both inhalation and the exhalation. This pause is a very important part of the process.
• In this pause, whenever you exhale, feel that you have emptied all the destructive emotions or thoughts into the black hole.
• Inhale and gather energy from the white hole. This energy will consist of motivation, strength, and transformation that contributes to your growth.
• All this needs to be done through the power of visualization. 
• In conclusion, at the end of the meditation practice, imagine that these two holes are gradually merging into the universe

Aarambh dhyan helps you achieve growth and progress in all your undertakings.  This meditation technique teaches us to pause in life. We can use this method to sow the seeds that can bring about great improvement within us.