What Is Guided Meditation?

What Is Guided Meditation?

Meditation is one of the most important self help tools to attain peace of mind and inner calm. In view of the stressful lifestyle of today, the popularity of meditation is increasing day by day as more and more people discover about its wonderful benefits. Guided meditation is one of the most popular forms of meditation being used by millions of people everyday. In this article, we shall discuss about guided meditation and the method of doing it.

Guided Meditation, in simplest form is a type of meditation where the person is guided on every step of his meditation practice. Right from the first step of sitting in a meditative pose to the final stage of completing the meditation, somebody guides you. What actually happen is that a teacher or instructor gives step-by-step instructions on what to do while meditating. This is a very ancient way of imparting meditation instructions to pupils. In older times, meditation was taught in group using this method. Now a days, thanks to the advancement of technology, we no longer require the physical presence of a guru to guide us in meditation. Using pre-recorded CDs or DVDs, we can listen the guided instructions of a master and perform our meditation practice. In the absence of any professional CDs/DVDs of meditation master, you can record in your own voice the written instructions of a guided meditation from a book and play them afterwards.

Further, if somebody does not have the facility of a voice recorder or a DVD player, he can ask his friends or relatives to verbally speak the written meditation instruction during a session. This way we can utilize the benefit of guided meditation even without any technical aid. However, I still feel that using a pre-recorded CD or DVD for guided meditation is the better way for guided meditation as it eliminates the need of having a person physically present near by you to read out the instructions. It also helps you to take benefit of guided meditation even if you are alone.

Guided meditation instructions can be of numerous varieties depending upon the techniques being imparted by the instructor. Some of the most popular meditation techniques used in guided meditation are Vipassana - which involves contemplation on breathing process, visual imagination, mantra recitation,

dancing meditation, prayer meditation and mindfulness meditation etc. The best way to use guided meditation is to listen the live instructions from a master. If that is not possible the second best alternative is to record the written instructions of a meditation in your own voice and then listen to it in your meditation practice.

So this was a small and concise introduction of guided meditation that you just finished reading. Guided Meditation can be very helpful, particularly in the initial phase when you have just started out. As somebody else guides you during the meditation, you can expect effective results in the shortest time possible. Even if you fall asleep while listening to the instructions, your subconscious mind will remain receptive to them and you'll gain proper learning experience. If you have not tried guided meditation till now, I strongly recommend you to give it a try.

Source - http://www.livebeingfit.com