Hi,
Welcome to your meditation space.
In today's session we will be practicing a guided meditation called antarmona,
Which means inner silence.
This practice is suitable for all levels,
As you will be able to go as steep as you want and can.
If this is your first time trying out meditation,
Don't give up if this exercise does not come easy in the first round.
Meditation as many other things gets better with lots of practice.
So we will start our practice by finding a safe,
Quiet and comfortable space.
Go ahead and sit down on your mat or chair and make sure your spine is long,
Your arms relaxed on your thighs and your eyes closed.
We start now breathing through the nose,
Becoming aware of our breath.
This exercise is a very good tool to enter or experience dharana.
Dharana is the sixth step in the Ashtanga Yoga of Patanjali and means deep and full concentration.
For this reason you can practice this exercise as a warm-up before going into deeper meditations as well as before a yoga nidra session.
Pay attention now at how your breath flows throughout your body.
Let's try to make the exhalations a bit longer so we can calm our mind and the senses.
What we will do in this session is to shift our attention,
Bringing it from the outside to the inside.
Most of the time our mind is busy thinking about stuff,
Meetings,
Tasks to do,
Calls to make.
And we also keep our senses mostly hyperactive,
Getting all these inputs from our surroundings.
That is why we are rarely aware of our minds and how they work.
In this session we will learn how to observe our mind and its processes so that we can understand how to slow down the quantity and speed of our thoughts and hopefully enjoy some moments of inner silence in between thoughts.
So breathe in and out through the nose once again,
Being aware of how the air flows in and how it flows out.
Let's do that three more times,
Fully consciously and aware.
Very well.
Try now to become aware of the external inputs that you can feel around you,
Like sounds,
Smells or feelings.
Try to really concentrate on those and identify them one by one,
Name them,
It's kind of making a list of all the things you can notice around you.
We just identify and name them.
Perfect.
Bring now your attention to what is going on inside of your body.
Observe the sounds and sensations that your body is creating and make again a short list of what you can experience here and now.
Now take a look at the thoughts themselves.
Try to become aware of the thoughts that are arising in your mind and once again we identify and name them,
We allow them to come and go.
We simply make a short list of the thoughts that we are experiencing in this very moment,
One by one.
The next step is to voluntarily create and push away some thoughts.
For that,
We will first create a random thought in our minds,
Like for example,
I like chocolate.
We create the thought,
We repeat it internally,
We inhale and as we exhale we push up and away this thought,
Removing it from our body and mind.
Let's try this one more time.
Create a thought without wondering too much about its meaning,
Just create a thought in your mind and as you exhale you push it up and away,
Letting it exit your body through your crown chakra or sahasrara chakra.
Once again,
Create a thought,
Repeat it in your mind,
Inhale and with the exhalation push it up and away.
Continue this process of thought creation and removal with effort and attention so that you can do it smoothly and without breaks.
The next step is to observe the natural spontaneous thoughts that come and then to push them away as we did previously.
So this time instead of creating a thought at our will,
We will simply observe the mind and let it flow naturally and if a thought arises,
We observe it,
We inhale and on the exhalation we push it up and away through our crown chakra.
Let's continue with this process without forcing it too much.
Simply observe without judgement and if a thought arises,
Push it away slowly and calmly.
Maybe now you realised that in between thoughts there is a pause,
A silence.
As you can see,
The mind takes some tiny seconds to go from one thought to the next one.
What we want to do is to enjoy these moments of silence,
To really relax ourselves to a point where the mind has no longer the need to create more thoughts.
We allow our body and breath to calm down,
We close down the senses,
We stop the flow of outer inputs as well as the inner ones so that we can become aware of the silence in between thoughts.
Keep practising now,
Keep lengthening those moments of silence but if a thought does arise,
We simply push it up and away without anger or remorse because your mind is designed to think so when it does so,
It is accomplishing a natural and human task.
In this practice,
We just want to slow down a little bit the process to help us recharge our energy and give our minds a break because these moments of inner silence are as natural and necessary as the active ones.
So let's keep going,
Try to observe and lengthen those silent moments and you will have some time now to practice that.
Just observe your mind,
If a thought arises,
We push it up and away and we enjoy the silence in between thoughts,
Trying to relax everything so that we can lengthen those quiet moments.
Yes,
I like that you Very good.
Now slowly,
Breathe deeply three more times,
Bringing your attention back to your body.
Good job.
You made it this far with patience and practice.
And as I always say,
The most important thing is the practice itself and not the end results.
Take your time now and slowly start perceiving again the outer and inner inputs.
Try to feel and hear your heartbeat,
Your breath,
The sounds in the room.
And we will breathe here together one last time,
Deeply through the nose.
You can now open your eyes.
I hope this exercise was helpful and thanks so much for sharing your practice with me today.
I see you soon in this space for more meditations.
Have a nice one.
Namaste.
