How To Meditate In 5 Simple Steps

This is the part-2 of a 3-part series on meditation, its benefits and how you can learn to meditate yourself.

• Part 1: 10 Reasons You Should Meditate
• Part 2: How To Meditate In 5 Easy Steps
• Part 3: Vipassana Meditation 10-Day Course

I frequently get queries on how to meditate so I thought it’ll be helpful to write an article on it and share with everyone. My intent for writing this article is to share what I’ve learned from my personal meditation practices. I’m not an expert in this area and my exposure to meditation thus far has been through personal learnings since there aren’t many around me who have a habit to meditate.

Key Forms of Meditation

Since meditation is such an age old activity practised by different religions and cultures, there has been a huge range of different meditation techniques developed and amassed over the years. To date, many books and articles have been written on this topic.

Below is a list of three key forms of meditation which encompasses majority of meditations today. Many popularised meditation methods such as the Jose Silva method and Sedona method fall under one of these forms. I once came across a meditation book which covered over 100 meditation techniques – but most of them were really just nuance variations of the below:

1. Still Meditation or Mindfulness Meditation - Meditating through focusing your attention on an object or process, such as your breathing, a flame, a mantra, a visualization, music, etc. An open focus is maintained. This means even though you are concentrating on something, you keep an open awareness of everything else that is happening around you and inside your mind.
2. Moving or Walking Meditation - Gaining awareness through using simple repetitive steps. Some examples are Tai Chi, yoga or even simple walking exercises.
3. Concentration Meditation – This is usually practised in religions. It is similar to mindfulness meditation with 2 differences (1) you concentrate on a religious prayer (2) you are required to maintain a closed focus where you close your awareness off from anything other than the prayer.

Common Objective of Meditation

While there can be many schools of thoughts on how to meditate exactly, the basic underlying objective is the same – to raise your consciousness or energetic ‘vibrations’.

Brainwaves in Meditation

Most people use meditation to achieve the Alpha brainwave frequency – where deep relaxation occurs. It can also be used to access the other brainwave frequencies, especially through the aid of meditative music (read section below on meditative music). There are five different types of brainwaves: – Gamma, Beta, Alpha, Theta and Delta. Note that our brain displays each type of wave every time, just that one of them tends to dominate at a certain consciousness.

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