Guru Habit: The keys to a successful meditation session...

Photo Kindly Provided Under Creative Commons by Stuck In Customs

The keys to a successful meditation session was something I have been contemplating lately. I put down the ones that I thought were important to share with you:
- Faith
- Mindful Presence
- Posture
- Integrity
- Regularity

Faith
Underlying all effort is the faith, Faith leads to Practice, Practice leads to Understanding or the Zen mind, where one does not know intellectually, but experiences the different level of awareness the practice brings.

Mindful Presence
The key to a successful meditation session is presence of mind. If you find yourself not present in your meditation, you can either do two things, bring your focus back into the meditation continuously, or quit and try later when you are in a better frame of mind to concentrate. It is quite normal for the mind to sway. I tend to think of this as the:

"Drunken Man Walk Home", where destination is arrived, it but in a rather unorderly manner. Sooner or later we become sober and walk in a straight line home, in a quicker and more efficient manner. Similarly in beginning phases of practice, the mind wanders, bring it back, bring it back and bring it back, until you have the proficiency with practice to walk a straight line home!

Posture
The other thing that is the posture, posture has to keep spine upright and erect, otherwise you may hurt yourself falling asleep which can happen easily. Some gurus used an "Om stick", to hold their hands and spine errect, a yoga block works well on your lap. There are many meditation postures, a subject to be discussed on its own right.

Integrity
The next thing is integrity, honesty, and doing the right thing. Negative thoughts and actions freezes up your awareness and muddles up your concentration making it difficult for you to achieve concentration. Lust, Anger, Greed, Attachment and Ego, are all traps for your mind, like chains they keep you in a comatose state robbing you of your divine birth right.

Regularity
And the last thing is regularity. I don't think just one session a day is enough, unless you are a master, where every minute of the day is a meditation for you. Most of us are not that enlightened. So at least 2-3 sessions are required, try before lunch and before sleeping. as well as on waking.

The results of this is that a different sense of awareness is brought about automatically. I would say it is your original sense of awareness you are honing in on, rather than developing a new one. We live in a distorted and perverted world, the distortion and perversion is of our mind, meditation removes these false filters enabling you to perceive reality as it really is, even if it is for a moment!

Finishing up, may you have Faith in your practice, may you practice it with Mindful Presence, and the right Posture, on a firm basis of Solid Integrity, and do it Regularly.

Kirpal