Meditation Techniques – How To Master Your Mind

I am frequently asked by people for advice regarding their personal and professional lives and I usually start with questions such as, “What happens in your mind? What do you see, hear, feel, and think?” It is shocking how few people are able to answer these relatively straightforward questions, yet the answers are crucial to overcoming the challenges. The good news is that it is fairly easy to develop this self awareness.

A simple, yet powerful, meditation technique is to create a silent watcher over our own mind. Its a simple practice that you can begin to develop into a daily habit. Take a small part of your attention and assign this part the task of watching everything that flutters through your mind. Imagine this part as a video camera that records everything, to be stored and analyzed almost immediately after it occurs. Stop reading for a few brief moments, and try this RIGHT NOW! As you begin to develop this ability, you can notice thoughts, stories, narratives, emotions, reactions, and many other processes going on in your mind. By watching and then analyzing yourself at all times, in all situations, you can discover what kinds of thoughts are going through your mind, which will quickly bring realizations and epiphanies about your own beliefs, motivations, actions, and reactions.

The only way a fish can understand water is by getting onto the shore, and looking back down into the water. You are the fish and the water represents your thoughts. In order to understand, analyze, and ultimately steer your mind, you first need to watch yourself from the outside, as a passive observer. At first, this may seem to be strange, or daunting as the self now how has to pay attention to the self, but it quickly becomes second nature. I want to make it very clear that the watcher or observer must not participate or be in any way involved in what is going on in the mind. This means that it should not make comments or judgments on what is seen, but simply observe passively and report, similar to a surveillance camera.

Be patient and do not become discouraged if you forget or become distracted, this is completely natural. Keep with it, and in time you will develop the ability to keep mental track of the chaotic landscape of the mind without becoming distracted from daily activities. If I could recommend any one meditation technique in the world, this would be it. It is crucial key to opening the door to self awareness, personal growth, stress management, mental clarity, and peace of mind.

Many thanks to author and friend to Yoga.com Vlad Moskovski who is a yoga practioner and meditator. Vlad Moskovski was born in Russia and at a young age moved with first to Israel and then to the United States. Intrigued by yoga from a young ago, Vlad began his studies of yoga while attending Rutgers University in NJ. During that time, he began exploring additional meditative traditions and working with Zen, Taoist and Tai Chi practitioners. A graduate of the NLP Center of NY, he writes and teaches about meditation. His website is http://www.meditationsecretsrevealed.com/ and he has written a book, Road to Involution.. His belief is that we can change the world around us and effect others in a profoundly deep way, spreading love, compassion, understanding, and mutual respect to all living beings.

Copyright 2009 Vlad Moskovski

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