Can you learn meditation yoga techniques and bring added peace to your mind and body?

Both yoga and meditation reveal how the mind and body are not independent.  Relax the body on the yoga mat and the mind follows.  Calm your mind through meditation, and the body goes along for the ride

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of techniques for both yoga and meditation. And, guaranteed, the purveyor of each technique will assure you that there's is the fastest route to doing the splits, or enlightenment, or becoming enlightened by doing the splits.

If I pickup my local New Age magazine, I can find Power Yoga, Core Yoga, Hot Yoga — which is similar to Bikram Yoga but without the trademark — Kriya Yoga, Ashtanga Yoga, yoga hatha, Yoga for pregnant women, yoga for children, yoga for dogs (I swear). And I live in a small town!

With the popularity of yoga, I'm surprised sometimes that there isn't a section of the grocery store called yogurt for yoga. Or some yoga wholesale store, like Costco for yoga.

Similarly, I can find Buddhist meditation Christian meditation, Kabbalistic Jewish meditation, Hindu meditations, meditation for parents, meditation for teens… given the American fondness for effortless solutions, I'm amazed there hasn't been a meditation medication yet.

My point is simply that there are so many yoga meditation techniques — from staring at a candle flame, to repeating a word over and over in your mind, to trying to observe your thoughts without reacting, to trying to generate compassion towards people that you normally dislike — the temptation is to either figure out which one is best or simply get overwhelmed and go place yourself in front of the television.

Don't get me wrong, a big fan of the television meditation technique, where I stare mindlessly at screen of moving pictures to which I have no attachment for hours on end.

But if you're looking to find calmness or peace of mind or spiritual insight and you're drawn towards meditation and yoga, simply start somewhere, and then trust yourself. What I mean by that is, don't believe that you're not smart enough to know if it's working for you or not.  Don't rely on some teacher to say, "Oh, you just need to practice more, or come to more yoga classes, or take a yoga retreat, or yoga meditation retreat."

If, within a relatively short period of time, you're not noticing effects, or if the effects that you got immediately start to wear off, that doesn't mean there's a problem with you.  It might mean that you haven't found a technique that's compelling enough to keep your interest.  And if you're not interested, your meditation yoga practice could add more suffering your life than peace.

Next Post: Yoga meditation - how to meditate in motion

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