Wednesday, October 26, 2011

ShantoHam Meditation- Passive Meditation for YOU


Authentic Yoga Tradition offers thousands of practices of meditation, written and taught by great masters in over 1000 texts. There are many classifications of meditations depending upon the path of yoga to be followed. One classification is Passive, Active and Dynamic meditations. Other classification is Shtula (gross), Sukshma (Subtle) and Jyotirmaya (light) meditation practices. Still other classifies practices of meditation as Discursive, Reflective, and Concentrated meditations.
All meditation is a journey from outside to inside. All meditations aim at self-discovery. All meditations aim at awakening to higher ranges of consciousness beyond mind. In reality, all meditations transcend the mind, opens to higher, generally termed as spiritual consciousness.  What is very important to understand is that whether we are moving into meditation consciously, subconsciously, or unconsciously. There are many practices of meditations especially in Hatha Yoga that begins the journey consciously but make a transition unconsciously. The practitioner is not at all aware of what is happening as these meditations progresses. When he returns from meditation, he recalls what had happened in meditation. Many a times, these experiences lead person to hallucinations i.e. altered states of consciousness.
There are masters who inspired their students to follow the meditation practices consciously. It helps to know how mind moves within, how mind moves without thoughts, how mind understands through visions and images, how mind melts or transcends even when awareness is maintained. This moving consciously into meditation leaves no chance for any hallucinations. Further, it opens the ranges of consciousness and their movements and interaction with body, brain, mind, and the emotions.
ShantoHam meditation is also a meditation practice that follows every step consciously. the practitioner knows what he is doing at every moment into meditation. It follows strictly the fundamentals of authentic Yoga tradition. There are few steps that includes in ShantoHam Meditation
  1. Being Comfortable, Carefree and Causal
  2. Raising the energy from lower to higher consciousness
  3. Inducing Stillness and Quietness
  4. Expanding awareness in order to drop the mind
  5. Enjoying the state of meditation
  6. Maintaining or state of being while being aware of the mind and its activities on the surface
  7. Returning by moving from outside to inside
  8. Chanting to influence the mind again
ShantoHam means, “I am the Peace.”  All the steps above allow the conscious mind to identify with “ShantoHam” so that mind drops all its activities , thoughts , feelings that either come from outside or from unconsciousness, thereby awakening to higher consciousness. This leads to conscious awakening and experience of Peace as peace consciousness.
It is also important to customize the practices or steps of meditation that varies from people to people, depending upon their state of consciousness, mental, emotional, physical states.
Sita (name changed) came to me with anxiety , depression and conflicts. She carried all negative impressions of her problems in relationship. Later she divorced and started living alone. The aloneness became painful and her mind constantly started nagging her about her decision to divorce. She also developed fear of meeting people. When she was introduced to me by her friend about 3 years ago, she told that she wanted to practice yoga and meditation to maintain her health. Authentic Yoga session introduced her consists of 10 groups of practices helped me to observe her states of mind, emotions