The Right Place, Time And Posture For Meditation

It All Depends On What Your Objective For Meditation Is
People make a great fuss over the right place, the right time and even the right posture in which to meditate. They are not to blame; with the flood of self-help books on meditation available on bookshelves and on the online sites, it is quite easy to feel confused.




For a beginner, the right place for meditation is quite obviously some place quiet. You do not have to go to the mountains to find this place; even an attic or basement is perfect. The quiet helps to still the mind and focus on thoughts -- as the first step towards thoughtlessness. After training, it does not matter where you are: you might even be traveling in a bus or waiting in the security lounge of an airport, with news about yet another flight having been canceled blaring out of the loudspeakers.




For a beginner, anytime is the right time for meditation. It of course helps if one sits at the crack of dawn, after a good night's sleep. This ensures that fresh experiences of the day do not hamper the progress towards no-thought state. With practice, of course, it is very easy to slip into meditative state at any point of time.




For a beginner and casual meditator, the posture does not make a difference, as long as it is comfortable. So you may put up your feet on the settee, arms folded on the stomach, head reclined back in a chair, and off you go! So long as you don't fall asleep! (Which is okay, too - see my earlier post on this issue).



For an advanced meditator, and for one who wants to step up to higher states of self-realization, it is always good to sit in a yogic posture, usually called the "Padma-Asana" (lotus-like posture). One feature of this posture, useful for our purpose, is that it balances all the organ systems in the body, and also keeps the spinal cord straight. Yet another anecdotal suggestion is to sit in a direction that is roughly aligned to the magnetic North-South axis of the planet, with the face facing the north: this alignment is said to tune you in with Nature, and you are said to be in the "flow" of the cosmic stream, not struggling with it.



One point where I differ from quite a few popular books is on activity. Some authors state that one can meditate while performing action. The action, according to them, may be any repetitive, mechanical exercise, such as watering the plants, washing the car, cleaning utensils, etc. While performing such actions, where the mind does not really have to concentrate much, it is quite easy to ruminate on events of the past. These authors suggest that consciously bringing the thoughts under control in such situations - is meditation. To my mind, this is a good mental exercise, and helps one to be in the here and the now. But strictly technically speaking, it is not meditation in the true sense. You may have achieved an alpha-state of mind, but not meditative state of mind. For the latter state to occur, physical activity by the body has to stop.




Taking this line of thought further, after spending some time "being in the here and now", when one sits down in a state of physical inaction with the conscious intention to meditate, the experience is true bliss. So the next time you finish watering the plants while being in alpha state, pull up a chair next to them, and try meditating. You will want to repeat the experience again and again!