Meditation for Beginners

Namaste, welcome to Yoga & You, where we bring you yoga from its source, India. I'm Rasika, and today we are going to be practicing meditation for beginners.

Meditation is something that, you know, people either are in a practice of doing consistently or people have just heard about it, but they feel like they don't have the time or the patience to sit for it. So today we will look at a very short practice, where we will go over the fundamentals of a seated meditation practice, okay. Something which will help you sort of build a firm foundation, a stable foundation upon which you can build on whatever techniques of meditation that you want to try out, okay.

Whenever you're ready, get seated in any comfortable position. You don't have to sit on the floor like I have, but if you have sat on the floor, you can assume any seated posture, which is comfortable for you, where your spine can be upright. Alternatively, you can always also sit on a chair, make sure you're not leaning back on the chair — if you are seated, be slightly inclined forward, and if you're seated on a chair, make sure both your feet are planted down on the ground. They should be in contact with the floor, and you should not cross your legs or keep them elevated, okay. So if you're able to sit on the floor, well and good — I'm sitting in Sukhasana, so you can assume this as well.

Before we actually even start to close our eyes or do anything else, let's just feel for the physical structure of our body, our posture. That's the most important thing if you are going to practice seated meditation, okay. So you're going to feel the point of contact between your sit bones and the ground below you. Whatever is the surface below you, it could be your cushion, your mat, your chair — just feel that point of contact. And now start to feel for the sitting bones constantly rooting downwards towards the earth. So beyond your mat, beyond the floor, all the way towards the center of the earth, feel like your sitting bones are plugging themselves down deeply, anchoring down. And the more you feel that anchoring, you'll notice your spine begins to lengthen and feel like you're lifting upwards through the crown of your head. So the crown of your head reaching for the heavens, beyond the roof, beyond the ceiling, all the way to the heavens. Rooting down and lifting up, simultaneous tendency. So feel that natural elongation of your spinal column.

When you practice rooting and lifting this way, there is no force in the seated meditation posture. The muscles are still relaxed, but your mind is alert. Allow the central channel to be free. Your chin slightly tucked inwards, not all the way in but slightly tucked inwards, to allow length in the back of your neck. Allow this process of rooting down and lifting up to be a continuous one, continuously plugging and lifting without intermission.

Now start to bring your focus to your breath and just observe your breath as it is now, without changing it. Simply notice the breath, the inhalations and the exhalations. Notice the coolness of the air as it enters your nostrils, and the warmth of the air as it exits your nostrils. Stay here with the sensation of the breath against your nostrils. The breath acts as a bridge between the external and the internal, or the subtle. So allow the breath now to take you inwards.

Now, keeping a light awareness on the breath, let's look at the next physical structure of your seated meditation practice, which is your mudra, or an energetic hand seal. So the most popularly used mudras for seated meditation are either Gyan Mudra, where you have your index finger and thumb touching, palms facing down. If you have the palms facing up, it becomes Chin Mudra. So either of these are great — I like to practice Gyan Mudra while I meditate, with the palms facing down. Gyan Mudra is the knowledge seal — the thumb here represents the universal consciousness, and the index finger represents the individual consciousness. So by bringing both together, you are uniting the universal and the individual consciousness, the Atman and the Brahman. Allow the hands to rest on the lap with the mudra.

The next aspect of your seated meditation is your drishti, or your internal gaze. So if you have your eyes open all this while, now is the time to softly close the eyes and bring your internal gaze to the center of your eyebrows, your third eye center. If that feels a little difficult or uncomfortable, bring your internal gaze to the heart space. So either in between your eyebrows, or your heart space, or even anywhere along the spine is fine.

So let's just go over the physical structures that we built so far: a steady seated position with the sitting bones rooting down, crown of the head lifting upwards, soft face, an energetic seal of the hand or your mudra, and your internal gaze, drishti. These are your physical structures of your seated meditation. The object of concentration is your breath in and out through your nose. You could give this breath a color so that you could watch it as it enters and exits the body. You could even use a mantra if it's in your practice.

When you sit like this and meditate upon your breath, you are blessed to have access to the energetic body, or the pranic body. When you sit and focus on your breath for an extended period of time, the breath converts to prana, the all pervading life force. So meditation upon your breath is always available and very, very powerful.

If this aligns with you, feel free to stay in your meditation for as long as you'd like to. If you'd like to move on with your day, you can slowly bring your awareness back to your surroundings. Notice any sounds around you, notice any smells, the taste inside your mouth, become aware of your body and the space it occupies in this room, and gently begin to wiggle the fingers and your toes, bringing movement back to the body. You may even gently sway your body side to side or bring in any movement that feels supportive for you now.

When you feel ready, you may bring your palms to heart center into Anjali Mudra, prayer hands. Gently bowing your head down, finding gratitude for your practice, finding gratitude for this moment. We'll end the practice with Om, followed by Shanti Shanti three times. You may feel free to chant along with me. Shanti Shanti, Shanti Shanti.

Gently open your eyes, keeping your gaze at your palms, keep gazing down at your palms, shift your gaze to your legs and to the ground below you. And then very gently, without any hurry, when you're ready, you may lift your gaze up to take in the rest of your surroundings. Thank you so much for joining me today.