spiritual journey

The subject of how to meditate used to be associated primarily with the counter culture and the hippie generation. However, these days, it is almost trendy to learn to meditate and it is something that more and more people are seeking to learn about. While there are many Easter cultures that have practiced and perfected meditation techniques over the course of thousands of years, the Western world seems to just be waking up to the full benefits of the practice.

In recent years, an increasingly expanding list of professional athletes, celebrities and business leaders have been learning how to meditate for themselves. These high-profile people have also been more and more willing to speak up and share the benefits they have received from meditation techniques. In some instances, coaches of professional or college sports teams, leaders and owners of businesses have introduced meditation practices to their teams and/or employees to help improve performance.

There are many different approaches these days that people can utilize in order to learn how to meditate. There was a time when the only viable option was going off to an Eastern ashram, where a religious leader or mystic would lead the participants through meditation techniques and principles. Getting to one of these retreats was usually quite expensive and there were limitations on how many people could be accommodated.

Many different books have been published over the years to teach meditation. But, somehow trying to learn meditation through a book was a challenging task for many. As a result, many people were not able to experience the full benefits of meditation and in some ways were even left with a negative experience, simply because they were not utilizing the best learning method.

These days there are many guided meditations on CD, as well as MP3 downloads. These mediums are an easier and more effective way to introduce people to mediation. Most of the time, once they become familiar and comfortable with this practice, they are able to expand and meditate on their own or with special meditation music.

Another popular way to learn how to mediate is with DVDs or online videos. For many people, it really makes more sense to stick with the guided meditations that they can receive as an audio file, because many of the DVDs are simply an introduction to the meditation practice. In most forms of meditation, the person’s eyes are closed and so they will not be watching a video, although the DVD might include a section of meditation music for the person to use.

Once a person learns the basics of how to meditate, they can customize their practice to suit their own needs and to support their own spiritual journey. They may move on to learn Zen meditation, transcendental meditation, or some other form, and in many cases they will develop a practice that borrows elements from various meditation techniques.