Many beginners to meditation ask what is a good length of time to meditate for. The answer depends on the seeker and the inspiration they feel. Generally, it is not easy to give a particular time period; but, in the beginning, it is good to aim for at least 15 minutes.

If you meditate for too long, the mind will start to rebel; it will become very difficult to control your thoughts and you may feel a pressure in the third eye, a little bit like a headache. For beginners it is important not to pull beyond their capacity. When we try to pull in too much spiritual light, we cannot hold it. Similarly, if we meditate for too long, we will just feel a barren desert and derive no benefit at all. At this time, we would be better served by reading spiritual books or chanting mantras.

When we have been meditating for a few times, we will soon be able to tell when we are really meditating, and when we are just sitting there for the sake of it. If we just sit for a long time we may go through different cycles of thoughts and not get anywhere. When this occurs, it is a good time to stop.

We should always remember that we meditate for our own benefit. What matters is our sincerity. Nobody is watching over us giving us a reward if we meditate for a long time. We should always feel we are meditating to feed the inner pilot and strengthen our inner capacities. If we start to feel proud and pleased with ourselves for meditating a long time, we should no this is not a good sign. Real meditation will never give us a feeling of superiority; instead we will gain a feeling of oneness. If we sit in meditation for a long time and feel bloated with spiritual pride, this is a sign that we are meditating too long. As Sri Chinmoy suggests

“It is not how many hours you meditate but how you meditate. If you can meditate soulfully and devotedly for fifteen minutes and sincerely cry for Peace, Light and Bliss, that is better than three hours of meditation without any life in it. When you meditate, if there is a living presence in it, then that is meditation. Otherwise it is no better than sleep or death.” [1]

Another factor to bear in mind, is that when we sit down to meditate, in the beginning our mind will be all over the place. This is because it takes time for the mind to calm down. Therefore, if we meditate after coming home from work, the first 10 minutes may be very unproductive. However, after the initial period of 10 minutes, we may find that we start to really meditate. Thus, we may need to set aside 20-30 minutes, in order to meditate well for 10 minutes.

When we become more advanced in meditation, we should try to advance the time spent in meditation. If we feel an inner urge to deepen our meditation and find the real silence within, then we should definitely follow this. To attain higher states of meditation it is necessary to develop the capacity to meditate for a long time of 1-2 hours. Adepts in meditation can meditate for several hours at a time. However, in the highest state of meditation, we lose track of time; this is because the highest meditation transcends concepts of time. If we are able to enter into the highest state of meditation, we will become completely unaware of time, it will no longer be an issue.

However, we have to start from where we are. To meditate soulfully for an hour maybe our goal; but, in the beginning we need to focus on the quality of our meditation, rather than the length of time.

[1] Excerpt from Meditation: Humanity’s Race And Divinity’s Grace, Part 1 by Sri Chinmoy.

By: Tejvan Pettinger. Tejvan is a member of the Oxford Sri Chinmoy Centre and gives free meditation classes in his home town. Tejvan has studied meditation under the guidance of Sri Chinmoy for 8 years.

Photo from: World Harmony Run site

Researchers from the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles say teaching heart patients how to meditate helped reduce the risk of future heart attacks.

Maura Paul-Labrador is lead author of the study that appeared in the Archives of Internal Medicine. She says there was already evidence that meditation lowers blood pressure, but researchers didn’t know why. She says her new study shows it’s because meditation affects the autonomic – or involuntary – nervous system, which, among other things, helps regulate heartbeat.

“We looked at what we called heart rate variability, which is a measure of autonomic nervous system.” Paul-Labrador explains that heart rate varies from beat to beat. A healthy heart is one that has a wide range of speeds – from a slow heartbeat at rest, to a fast one for an active person. Hearts that change rate rapidly in response to changes in conditions, and then return to rest more quickly have good heart rate variability. Paul-Labrador says, “we were able to show that our meditation group improved their heart rate variability more than the active control group.”

The researchers think people in the study lowered their blood pressure because of improvements in their autonomic nervous system. But they’re still not sure exactly how it works. Some patients were even able to lower their doses of blood pressure medication.

In addition, Paul-Labrador says, “The meditation group was able to deal with their blood sugar better.” Better control of insulin reduces their potential risk for diabetes. “You want your body to respond to lower levels of insulin, and so what we were able to find is that our meditation group was able to lower their insulin resistance compared to the active control group.”

Paul-Labrador says people in the study meditated for 20 minutes, twice a day. She said the researchers had the subjects learn transcendental meditation because the practice is taught in a standardized way. She says other forms of meditation might also be effective, but they didn’t study any other methods.

From:Web source

If you are interested in learning about meditation. There are a few meditation exercises on this site which will help you get started.

It is helpful if you can find a group to learn meditation with other people. When we meditate in a group we gain inspiration from others. A group meditation creates a powerful sense of silence and focus. In many cities, Sri Chinmoy Centres offer free meditation classes. You may find a city near you. Meditation at Sri Chinmoy Centre.

For the latest articles on Meditation, you might like to view Meditation Category at our Self Improvement blog.

Recent articles include:

Concentration exercise

Things I Have Learnt from Meditation

Online Meditation Music featured at Eso Garden

The site is maintained by Ursi Spaltenstein who has created a really beautiful design.

    Ananda is one group featured atRadio Sri Chinmoy

• An Introduction to Meditation
• Basic Steps for Learning Meditation
• Improving Your Meditation
• How To Gain Control of Your Thoughts
• Benefits of Meditation
• 7 Tips for Meditation
• Is Meditation Difficult?
• The Mind and the Heart in Meditation
• Common Questions about Meditation

Meditation Techniques

• Seven Secrets of Meditation
• An Easy to Learn Concentration Exercise
• A Simple Meditation Exercise

Personal Experiences of Meditation

• Things I have Learnt from Meditation
• Giving Meditation Classes
• A Life Less Ordinary

Learning to Meditate

• Learning to Meditate in London
• Bristol Meditation
• New York Meditation
• Dublin Meditation

The latest episode of Inspiration Silence has been released. Episode 3 includes a short talk on the art of concentration by Sri Chinmoy. The video also features Sri Chinmoy meditating in silence and captures a glimpse of the profound depths of meditation.

View: Meditation SilencePodcast at iTunesView all episodes of Meditation Silence at Sri Chinmoy TV

This is a guest post by Teekshanam Dodonu. Teekshanam lives in Geneva where he helps to organise Meditation classes. See: Geneva meditation for more details

Meditation is cool. It really is.

Seven years ago when I first started to meditate, it felt like something beyond reach for us, the mere mortals, that only seriously minded individuals would practice. It also seemed complicated in the sense that you are not supposed to do anything and at the same time something was supposed to be happening. And then there were all the do’s and dont’s — sit straight, keep your mind under control, eat this or do not eat that – as well as the endless approaches to meditation.

As I look back, I am surprised at how simple meditation can actually be. It also amazes me how such a simple thing as meditation can change one’s life – only for the better.

I wake up in the morning. I meditate. I do my workout and then prepare for the day. I come back home. I try to find a few minutes to meditate in the evening and then do something else. My day has a start I can effortlessly control – my morning meditation. My day has a natural transition and ending point – my evening meditation. I am confidently in control again.

Before it used to be sleeping and doing daily duties. Now there is more. There is a time in the morning when I am with myself, consciously with myself. It’s neither sleeping nor working. It’s just being with myself. In the evening, the experiences collected during the day are put to rest. All extraneous mental and emotional weight is acknowledged and let go of. I am with myself again.

And then there is the miracle of seeing results without caring too much about them. Here’s a useful analogy. Try to bring before your mind’s inner eye the image of a bird’s nest. What is it made of? Essentially, it consists of small pieces of wood, straw, dried offshoots and some sticky material like soil or clay. So what? Well, consider the constraints a small bird like a sparrow has to face: a small beak, no arms, not much strength. Yet, despite her smallness, it manages to build a nest for herself and her family to last a lifetime.

What’s the secret? Perseverance and focused repetitive behaviour consisting of hundreds and thousands of trips to locate, collect and bring the needed building material to the construction site of the nest. Tedious and boring? Maybe. Successful, useful and practical? You bet!

Meditation can be likened to a sparrow’s effort to build a nest. Meditating once a month would not amount to much, although it is better than not doing it at all. At this rate of progress, it would take many generations of sparrows to complete the nest. If they can survive many winters without a nest, that is.

Meditating every day, on the other hand, can make a world of difference in a relatively short span of time. You may or may not notice it yourself simply because of the habit of being with yourself at all times. Not so for others, who will notice the change or will see something special in you that they normally do not see in others. Being complimented on your ability to maintain your calm amidst challenging situations or spontaneously exhibiting unconditional goodwill to people who do not expect it are just insignificant by-products of a major transformative cycle of personal growth you embark upon.

I just cannot stop being amazed at how cool meditation is.

Father Laurence Freeman is head of the World Community for Christian Meditation and he’s a Benedictine monk from the Monastery of Christ the King in London.

It’s an independent Roman Catholic Monastery that professes vows of stability in community, conversatio morum (conversion of life through celibacy, simplicity and other monastic disciplines) and obedience.

Father Laurence travels the world promoting the practice of Christian meditation and says it’s very enjoyable, a wonderful gift to me really – I have a wonderful life.

He’s travelled an interesting path to this point in his life. After graduating from Oxford with a Masters degree in English Literature, he tried his hand at Journalism and later worked at the United Nations in merchant banking. He then decided to spend six months in a monastery to learn about meditation and says he decided it was what he wanted to do full-time.

“I felt I had lost my ambition to be the greatest journalist in the world
or the richest merchant banker in the world so I decided to become a monk.”

Father Freeman is in Mount Isa to hold talks and discussion sessions about meditation.

…I felt I had lost my ambition to be the greatest journalist in the world or the richest merchant banker in the world so I decided to become a monk.

“Particularly focusing here on the teaching of children to meditate because that’s one of the great things that’s been happening in the Townsville dioceses. We’re going to take what we’ve learned about teaching children to meditate to the rest of the world.”

He says a child is ready to meditate, they’re kind of born into this. “It’s a great gift for the rest of their lives.”

Meditation is a universal spiritual practice and wisdom, says Father Freeman. “You find it in all the religions of the world, and it’s just that Christians seem to have forgotten or lost touch with their own deeper spiritual tradition of prayer meditation.”

The main thing in starting to meditate is to just do it. Meditation is absolutely natural and normal, and once we begin it is simple to make it an integral part of our lives. Because meditation concerns our own heart and soul, it turns out to be very intimate and familiar to us. Like a close and faithful friend, our meditation will be something that we know very well and is always there for us.

Meditation becomes natural and spontaneous when we do it regularly. We can make a comparison to the food which we need to eat each day. Meditation is spiritual nourishment, and just as we eat daily we should meditate at least once a day. We don’t try to eat all of our food for the whole week in one meal. In the same way we meditate regularly so we can receive the spiritual food we need.

Other comparisons we can make are to training for physical fitness or learning to play a musical instrument. Our ability to meditate grows with practice, like developing a muscle or learning a skill. Doing some each day is really effective, while skipping several days and then practicing a lot doesn’t work well. When beginning to meditate and also as we continue, we should meditate for the same amount of time each day, according to our capacity, and increase the length of our meditations only gradually.

Having a definite time to meditate is important. Then we don’t think about when or whether to meditate, we just do it. Our outer self as well as our inner being starts to feel that meditation is a totally normal and necessary part of our life. Meditation early each morning is a foundation for our practice. At that time all of the stresses and distractions of the day have not entered into us and we are fresh. We can receive strength and light from our meditation and then draw on it during the day. If we can meditate again in the evening, this is ideal. If we have a chance, we might fit in short meditations at other times.

Having a special place for meditation is a great help. People who can have a meditation room are lucky, but just a corner or small space is all we need. This spot is set aside just for meditation and perhaps spiritual reading and music as well. We can keep sacred pictures in that place and any other things that inspire us, put flowers there and burn incense. This place will build up a spiritual atmosphere and associations with our inner life, so that when we sit down there we will automatically feel like meditating.

Meditating right after a full meal is difficult. So is meditating when we are very hungry, so a light snack before starting to meditate can be useful at certain times. Taking a shower and wearing clean clothes are good preparations. But even if none of the supporting conditions mentioned here are available, we should still meditate – any way we can, at any time we can.

Meditation will be easier some days than others, extremely fulfilling at one time and more ‘ordinary’ at some other time. These variations are all part of the process. We must keep going forward with joy and confidence. Wonderful discoveries lie ahead!

-Kusumita P. Pedersen

Kusumita is a meditation student of Sri Chinmoy and lives in New York where she is a member of the New York Sri Chinmoy Centre. For more information about Meditation in New York visit – Meditation New York