Hate Meditation? Try these 5 alternatives (5th one surprising)

I don’t like sitting for meditation.

It is struggling to sit still, changing breathing pattern or reciting some mantra.

I used to wonder how meditation is connected with my daily life. It didn’t feel like being a part of my necessary routines.

Until I understood that life itself is meditation.

Whatever you do, do it with full care and attention, you will start being meditative. The deeper your focus is, the more joyful you become. You don’t need yogic exercises for that.

Of course, there are benefits if you practice Raja yoga. It helps you bring harmony between your body and mind. It helps you develop a positive mindset and improve your health.

But the ultimate goal of yoga is to find the cosmic bliss within. Reaching this goal through yogic exercises is arduous.

Also, not everyone can tune oneself to such methods. They are a hard journey for most.

Are tired of different meditations and feel they are not creating any juice of joy in you? Simply, try other methods to bring the same mental effects.

Here are those five methods. The fifth one may be new for you. But, that is the one method you can use for long and get long-term benefits. So, let us begin:

What do you feel when you see an ant?

Imagine a rabbit in its place. What do you feel now? Replace it with a bear. How does it feel? Then replace it with an elephant.

Does that feel some kind of expansion happening within you? Don’t you feel that with every expansion, you are getting more relaxed and joyful?

Have you not experienced a feeling of expansion when looking at a high-flowing river? How about an unlimited ocean, a sky-high mountain or an open sky?

The expansion you feel is actually your consciousness expanding.

When it happens, problems in your life begin to appear trivial. And you will feel very powerful and courageous.

Continue to feel the presence of a river or the sky, it becomes a meditational experience.

2. Listen to favourite music

There is something about rhythm that reduces your thought flow.

Listening to music lets you flow into a rhythm, and soon it makes you forget yourself. This is when you go deeper and find the overwhelming emptiness inside.

This becomes an immensely relaxing experience.

So, whenever you are listening to music, don’t focus on any other work. Be with the tune, feel the emotions. With the song getting over, let out a deep sigh of release, as if you came out of a high.

Soon, you will realize the tone of your thought process has changed. Positive thoughts started to enter in you.

Now, you can take up your important works for the day.

3. Walk alone in nature

Walking alone in nature has a similar effect as visualizing rivers or mountains.

Whenever you walk in nature, be sure you are alone. With people, you will soon start a conversation, and forget the nature around. So, be alone.

Walk slowly, looking around. Feel the clouds moving up in the sky, feel the movement of the leaves on the trees. Observe the way the insects and birds living their life.

When you observe, you make them part of your consciousness. It expands you.

Soon, you will know that you are more than the life you are living. You are in nature, you are the nature.

4. Visualize a dreamy life as happening now

We are all daydreamers.

But, most of us do not realize that daydreaming can transform our lives profoundly.

If you practice visualization methodically, you can create actual life experiences.

You can use it to overcome regrets and negative thoughts. It helps you transcend past hangovers.

To practice it properly, sit down or lie down at a calm place. Then start visualizing yourself doing something that you always wanted to do.

The deeper your visualization goes, the deeper it creates impressions in your mind. The more you do it, the more you will begin to enjoy it.

At a certain point, your visualization becomes your meditation.

Sign up to get new articles through email:

5. The Magic of Devotion

One of the four major yogic methods, the path of devotion is one of the most ancient spiritual methods. It is the simplest one too.

The path of devotion, or Bhakti Yoga, helps you to connect with God and let the God function for you.

Unlike yogic postures, which need prolonged physical practice, it is a method of love.

In this method, you find your deity, connect yourself to it and begin to develop your life around the deity.

Being in the presence of your deity itself becomes deeply meditative and blissful.

You will have to try it to experience it.

Originally published at raghavendra.online on March 17, 2018.