Meditation and Relaxation: How to find Relaxation

By  

Meditation and Relaxation: How to find Relaxation

Relaxation

Are you relaxed when you are relaxed? Most people are not! Relaxing does not mean dumping yourself into your Grandpa's rocking chair. That is dumping . You do not have to fall into something to relax, but if you do not make it a habit to relax, soon you will be falling all over the place!

The mind is like a wild horse resisting all attempts at control. Discipline, order, and specific techniques including determination and courage are necessary to insure progress. Initially, the mind resorts to tricks and rebellion, making progress rather slow and difficult. Relaxation is a necessary prerequisite to any successful attempt at concentration and meditation. One should, therefore, always make certain by the use of a scientific approach to relax the body and calm the mind.

Nature constantly reminds us that at the back of every action there should be a great repose... from the minutest to the most intense activity in our lives; from the simplest to the most complex. But we cannot expect repose of mind when we do not even have repose of muscle. For success in any activity, concentration is important and true concentration entails the ability to drop everything except the subject that the mind is centered upon, which of itself is not feasible without the concomitant ability to relax.

Life today has made us victims of stress, tension, and a plethora of other mental and physical maladies. Each day, most of us go through severe and unconscious bouts of tenseness, burning and wasting precious fuel in the body organs. We clench our fists, tighten our throats, make ourselves taught and rigid ...The gifts of creation, we need to remind ourselves, will be received and appreciated in their varying hues only when we attract abundance through a relaxed mind, a relaxed body, and an ever-loving soul. With relaxation will dawn greater focus, increased magnetism, good health, higher productivity, and an overall unconscious positive impact on the whole of Creation.

Relaxation is not just about the physical body, but also includes the mind. When we are worried about something, there is a constriction of energy in the nerves of the body causing it to get blocked. This causes tension. Tension may also take place when, as in the case of mental healing, energy is consciously sent to any body part or muscle. The withdrawal of this energy in both cases, induces relaxation. Relaxation is a necessary precursor to any physical, mental, or spiritual self-healing. Relaxation not only induces regularity in breathing, but also helps one attain conscious control of the prana or life force. Conscious control of the life energy in due course helps one ascend the ladder to the higher states of consciousness.

The body is like a slave carrying a heavy bag of bones and flesh. Tension is concerned with motion - the restless movements of the muscles stimulated by the nerve impulses - and relaxation with calmness . Break away the binding shackles by the power of relaxation and learn to go within. You are not your body; you are pure consciousness and consciousness can never be anything but relaxed. Loosen the chords of the flesh and the grip of the senses. A body that is relaxed is more attuned to penetrate deep states of concentration and to consciously direct the life force into the higher centers in the spine and the brain where wisdom and deeper awareness of the Divine's presence may be realised.

You have an authentic choice - to be consciously relaxed or carelessly tense. In choosing the first, you automatically help the vibrational waves of energy all around you maintain their balanced and normal flow. These waves are endless, the pith of Creation, and therefore when you relax, you eventually affect the entire universe, no matter how subtly. Apropos, each time you slip into relaxed mode, you do everyone a great service. Think about that!

Relaxation is native to your existence . However, you cannot relax if your attitude towards life is tense; then much effort may yield only minimal results. In reality, you cannot relax, you have to be relaxed. When you lose yourself, you can be relaxed. When the I shall die, then shall I know who am I . Tension results from thwarted desires. Man is like a bridge of desires between the past and the future. When the bridge breaks and the future and the past fuse into one existential reality, relaxation will occur.

Learn to relax by directing the ever-present life force to a particular body part or the entire body simultaneously. Hold the tension for a few seconds, and then exhale quickly feeling the tension and fatigue leaving your body and mind. As you practice, visualize yourself not as a physical body, but as a luminous body of color and light. Feel the life energy flowing into you in hues of white, baby pink, or a golden yellow and suffusing the whole being. As you hold the breath for a few seconds, know that the light is breaking all the balls of energy blocks. In your exhalation, realize intuitively that with the absorbing of God's divine light, the darkness, disease, and worries within you have all melted away. Much is dependent on the power of your will, concentration, and on the depth of your understanding. Everything is energy, and if you identify with the highest vibration of God's energy, techniques will only remain to be a medium for reaching higher states; not the state itself. Contemplate on that!

Practicing the above technique especially prior to sleep , will help you attain deeper states of sleep. So many people are not relaxed even during sleep; their minds are still active, and hence they dream. Retaining equanimity in the face of severe trials, keeping your mind away from worries, fears, memories of past negative incidents, and constantly immersing it in thoughts of the Divine and the Guru, or simply on the silence within will help attain mental relaxation.

Exercises in aware rhythmical breathing, concentration and meditation will manifest positive benefits on deeper subtle body levels and gently work on changing the states of our consciousness to automatically induce relaxation. It can also be helpful to recall a past experience of feeling ease and contentment, and then with will, consciously re-creating that entire feeling in the present. Bring peace into your body, into your thoughts, into your will, into your desires, and into your love. Relax now, because calmness and peace are the true nature of our soul. Release your delusion bound consciousness from the sensual charms of duality and merge it in the one omnipotent omnipresence.

.

.

See also: Meditation and Relaxation, Meditation, Meditation for Beginners, Meditation Techniques)