Good morning and welcome.
Settle down.
Gently stretch your back and neck.
Clasp your hands.
Place them on your lap.
We will start by relaxing our external body.
We will start by scanning through our external body.
From the crown of our head to the toes.
As you scan through,
Wherever you find any pain or discomfort,
Pay attention to it,
Pausing for a few seconds and auto-suggesting to relax.
We will start by checking your muscles and joints.
Your calf muscles,
Thighs,
Lower back,
Upper back,
Shoulders,
Neck muscles,
Facial muscles.
Auto-suggest.
Relax them.
You may want to gently open your eyes and softly close them back again,
Mindfully relaxing your eyelids.
Relax.
A relaxed body is the first step to prepare for meditation.
With the external body relaxing,
We will now harmonize the physiological processes in the body.
We will start by taking a deep breath in through alternate nostril breathing.
Block your right nostril and slowly breath in through the left.
Then breath out through the right by blocking the left nostril.
Now breath in through the right and breath out through the left.
This is one round.
We will do several rounds.
And every time you breath in and out,
Remember to breath in deeply,
Consciously,
Using your diaphragm.
Slow,
Steady,
Deep breaths.
With the duration of exhalation at least equal to the duration of inhalation.
But never exceeding twice the duration of inhalation.
Remind yourself the purpose of alternate nostril breathing.
At a physical level,
It harmonizes the five internal physiological processes of respiration,
Digestion,
Illumination,
Circulation and reversal processes.
At a subtler level,
It calms down the mind,
Preparing the mind.
Remember.
The mind and brain are two different things.
The brain is physical.
The mind is subtle.
Slow,
Steady,
Deep breaths.
After one last round of alternate nostril breathing,
When you have completed exhalation through your left nostril,
Just let go.
Observing how your body and mind feels.
Notice if you are feeling a little relaxed at a physical level.
Notice if your mind is feeling less agitated or more agitated.
Notice your general energy levels.
With your physical and physiological bodies relaxed a bit,
We will now deepen the relaxation and prepare the mind further for meditation practice.
We will use the technique of deep breathing where we will breathe in and out with both the nostrils slowly,
Steadily,
Deeply.
Remembering that exhalations should at least be equal to the duration of inhalations.
Exercising your diaphragm and your rib cage muscles,
The intercostals.
Breathe in and out.
Slow,
Steady,
Deep,
Conscious breaths.
It would help to visualize as you exhale that you are letting go of any tension,
Physical or mental tension.
And as you inhale,
You are breathing in the positivity and energy to nourish your body and your mind.
It's just a visualization but please try it.
You may notice that your body is tightening up sometimes.
When you do this,
Consciously relax them.
Remind yourself now,
Once,
That you play multiple roles.
All through your day,
All through your life.
But during this meditation practice,
You are giving yourself permission not to play those roles.
Just let them be.
And assume that you are a very basic person with no roles daunt on you.
Just by giving yourself this permission,
Let your mind settle down.
Now gently let go of your deep breathing and pay attention to your natural breath at your nostrils.
The meditation practice is to help you concentrate and focus on a choosing anchor of your focus which is your breath.
Despite making the choice to stay focused,
The emotional,
Liver mind by its very nature would want to run away jumping from one topic to the other.
It's your responsibility to bring it back.
Every time,
Your mind moves away and gently bring it back to your breath.
Exercise your intellect,
Your higher mind to manage what your lower mind should do which is to focus on the breath right now.
Think of it like an alignment between your thought and your action.
The thought is to stay with the breath and you are acting that,
Bringing back your mind to stay focused on that breath.
Stay with your breath without judgment of any kind,
Suspending all judgment.
Just intently observing your breath.
Stay with your breath.
Stay with your breath.
With as many body movements as possible,
Ignoring any distractions either on your body or in the environment around you,
Stay with your breath.
Stay with your breath.
Stay with your breath.
Stay with your breath.
Stay with your breath.
Stay with your breath.
And today,
We will seed our mind,
The higher mind,
Intellect,
A simple idea about acceptance and choices.
Now slowly visualize that the breath is reaching out to your entire body.
Visualize your entire body,
Noticing if you feel lighter or heavier than a few minutes ago when you started this meditation.
Take a minute to go through the journey from your birth till now.
You did not have a choice when you were born.
Your place,
Your country of birth,
Your parents,
Siblings,
Your sex,
Male or female,
Color of your eyes or your hair,
The first few years of your life.
So many things were predetermined or taken care of for you.
Accept them.
It is a choiceless situation.
Acceptance means not ignoring or hiding or being overly proud or feeling inferior.
It just means saying to yourself,
It is a choiceless situation.
It is what it is,
Good or bad,
Positive or negative.
Fast forward to today,
Your present,
Your now.
Recognize you cannot change what has happened from birth till your present.
It is also a choiceless situation.
Apply the same principle of acceptance.
Accept your past.
True,
You could have made a few choices differently in the past but that cannot be changed now.
So better to accept.
Any body pain,
Disease that you may be experiencing in your present,
It could be a combination of choiceless situations or maybe few wrong choices.
It is the effect of a past cause.
If we can change some aspects of our body,
We must do it.
If we can't change few other aspects about it,
Then it becomes a choiceless situation in the present.
Just accept it.
Appreciate that you have choices only in the present.
Present does not mean this very second,
It means the immediate future.
The choices that you make now will determine your future.
Ask the higher intelligence for the serenity to accept the things you cannot change.
The courage to change the things you can and the wisdom to know the difference,
What can be changed and what cannot be changed.
Whenever you are ready,
You may gently open your eyes.
