Easy Meditation

Easy Meditation Through Active (coloring) Meditation

As you well know, not everyone (very few perhaps) can sit still long enough to achieve a meditative state. The longer you sit the more difficult it is to push passing thoughts out of your mind and maintain focus. Before you know it you are fretting over work, planning a dinner menu, or just giving up. Our action-oriented, multi-tasking, Western society simply doesn’t mesh with traditional Eastern meditation techniques.

This is where active meditation comes to the rescue.Active meditation, sometimes called moving meditation, is easier to learn, but just as powerful as the Eastern techniques you may be more familiar with. When practicing active meditation you will chose a simple movement, like coloring, drawing, or even walking, to give you stronger focus. The repetitive motions act as a constant reminder allowing you to easily shift your attention back to the meditation, back to the moment, before any fleeting thoughts take hold.

Negative images, past regrets and future worries are simply pushed aside as you take the time to enjoy the present. When is the last time you’ve done that? Or, have you ever done that?In my book and in my workshops, I use coloring as the primary active meditation technique. After all, it’s easy, inexpensive, fun and allows you to open up your creative side, something that most adults rarely do. Below are basic step-by-step instructions on how to effectively meditate while coloring. If you are ready, grab your supplies and find a quiet space to enjoy this peaceful pastime. Step One: Start the session with a smile.

Don’t skip this step just because it sounds a little silly. Holding a light smile on your face will help put you in a receptive mood for the meditation. In fact, studies have proven that smiling, even when you are not happy, can raise the level of endorphins (mood enhancing chemicals) in your brain. So, start smiling!Step Two: Flip through a coloring book and pick the first design that peaks your interest. There are a lot of beautiful adult coloring books available in bookstores and online. Some authors, myself included, offer free coloring pages on their websites.

Step Three: Choose your first pencil or marker and then begin to color. No need to over-think this, in fact I’m always amazed at the color combinations I come up with during a meditation and how wonderful they look together. I often find myself using colors I would normally ignore and then loving the end result. Whenever possible let the colors chose themselves. Step Four: Watch the design take life with every stroke. Allow yourself to experience the movements, hear the sounds of the pencils on paper, or feel the markers as they glide across the page. As thoughts or pictures pop into your head (and they will) simply acknowledge them and then return your focus to the coloring. The coloring will always bring you back. With a little practice you will find it increasingly easy to get into a deeply relaxed, almost detached state.Coloring is a peaceful pastime used by a variety of peoples, religions, and institutions to heal the mind and the body. To learn more about active meditation, explore the topic of color interpretation, or download a free mandala design, please visit my website at www.30minutemandalas.com.

Meditation

Meditation: Higher Purpose

Each morning, I devote about 30 minutes of my day to sitting erect in a comfortable chair closing my eyelids, shifting my eyes in an upward position while focusing at a tiny point just above my brow, slightly inward to perform my daily meditation practice. Sounds rather uneventful huh! Well, not really.

There is a real purpose to this "meditation thing" after all. I have been practicing meditation for several years now. I can remember my very first experience with meditation. I received instruction in a meditation technique called "Transcendental Meditation". While practicing this technique, I quickly learned how to calm my mind and touch upon a deeper awareness of myself that I had never experienced before.

Why was this so important?This was a time in my life when I was looking for something more. Deep down, I knew that there was some deeper meaning to my life that I wished to experience other than what scientific or religious dogma proposed. I felt it was time for me to have some one-on-one time with my "maker". From what I was told by all of the books I was reading at the time, the practice of meditation was going to get me there. It seems that very few people fully understand the true benefits of meditation...just my own observation.

I was on a mission to spend as much time necessary to really understand and learn this ancient art. How was it going to affect or alter my spiritual nature?To let you know how naive I was, when I was younger, I use to think that meditation was only for those people living in a monastery deep in some remote mountain village or for those people limber enough to sit for hours at a time in a lotus position with their legs all wrapped up like a pretzel. I had no idea as to the real purpose or benefits that would result from a daily practice of meditation.

The following are three important insights in which I have come to know and understand about meditation that I would like to share with everyone:First, not all meditation practices are the same. Many of the major meditation practices differ in many ways. They may differ in regards to their goals, beliefs, mental activities, content, and use of breath, imagery and visualizations. I've learned not to label all meditations within the same category. Check out the book - THE EXPERIENCE OF MEDITATION by Jonathan Shear.

This book gives a more accurate review of each of the world's major meditation practices and what makes them different.Second, meditation is indispensable to spiritual development...I'll even goes as far as to say, "Without a meditation practice achieving and functioning at higher states of consciousness is virtually impossible". I have come to learn that the more that you can repeatedly expose yourself to higher awakened states of being (psychic, subtle, causal and nondual states) the quicker you will climb into higher stages of development.

No other single technique has ever proven to have such an accelerated rate of development than meditation.Third, in order to achieve and function at a higher state of consciousness a meditation practice must provide you with more than just a deep state of relaxation. It must provide you with the ability to awaken the multidimensional energy that resides at the base of the spine of an individual (commonly referred to as Awakening the Kundalini) and draw this energy upwards through the spine and throughout the individual's subtle energy fields.

** Refer to Complete Human Being and its ATP program to learn about the incredible Radiant-Current Meditation. This advanced meditation practice teaches how subtle energy moves through the body and reveals why this higher energy dimension is so important to real meditation.This meditation practice will lead to greater psychological maturity, emotional balance, personal strength and spiritual awakening. Also, you may get a better understanding of subtle fields through the book, SCIENCE AND HUMAN TRANSFORMATION by William A. Tiller. His 40 years of research and experimentation surrounding the subtle energy fields helps to present to the reader the efficacy of this new science.

I feel very fortunate to have spent many years with an advanced practitioner of meditation. The information that I learned has been extremely invaluable to me. I will forever continue to practice my meditation daily...it's just that important! Do yourself a favor! If you have not yet started a meditation practice, start one today. Just see where it takes you. You might be surprised by the outcome. I hope that this has been helpful.