30 Jun 3 Meditation Challenges - Beginner’s Guide

• Celine Zollinger, Switzerland

How would you react if you had the following schedule for an entire week?

05:20 hrs     WAKE UP BELL0

6:00 hrs     SATSANG (meditation & chanting)

07:30 hrs     TEA TIME

08:00 hrs     ASANA CLASS

10:00 hrs     BRUNCH

11:00 hrs     KARMA YOGA

12:30 hrs     ASANA COACHING (optional)

13:30 hrs     TEA TIME

14:00 hrs     LECTURE

16:00 hrs     ASANA CLASS

18:00 hrs     DINNER

20:00 hrs     SATSANG

22:00 hrs     LIGHTS OUT

When you meditate you should turn off all the thoughts in your head and concentrate on one single thing. This could be your third eye located on your forehead, as there is an important energy chakra there, which helps you experience clear thoughts and which supports self-reflection.

But how is it possible to turn off all your thoughts?

In today’s time, we are used to everything happening fast, and that things happen in parallel. It is not uncommon to have a moment where you are writing a WhatsApp on your phone while talking to the person next to you, and playing some music in the background.

It is no longer common to have a single moment when we are just silent and concentrating on ourselves. Meaning concentrating on our breathing and focusing on a single spot of our body without any further reflections. For some people, this could even seem boring. But meditation is all about taking time for a silent moment with yourself.

It was difficult to not let my thoughts distract me during the time of meditation. The biggest challenge at first was to sit so long in a comfortable position. After some time your legs start hurting. When it was not your legs, it was your back aching. At this moment, it helps to focus back on your earlier elected spot on your body.

The second challenge is that thoughts are coming to your mind. They let you swift away so that you start creating stories. They start to be your entertainment. Here it helps to focus back on your breathing while concentrating specifically on your way of breathing in and of breathing out.

The third challenge was to stay concentrated bringing oneself back to that one concentration spot you decided upon when starting the session. If again, focusing on breathing does not work then you can use a word you repeat over and over again. When repeating the word it helps to breathe in and out in a certain rhythm so that the word becomes one with your breathing and it evolves into an inner mantra.

What I learned for sure at the ashram is that meditation needs pure self-discipline. You have to break through your laziness barriers to keep on going. It is important to push your mind to be focused. In the end, it comes down to practice.

“The more you practice the quicker you can get into the zone of meditation.”

In the meanwhile, I can’t wait to get into that state of focused mind. It refreshes the head and you feel free from all thoughts and feelings. That’s the time of the day I feel complete with me, myself and I.