The concept of meditation:
There are lots of web sites that explain how to meditate. The purpose of this page is to explain the concept so it can be adapted to the individual instead of a "do it like this" approach.
Meditation is two basic parts. Full body relax and the actual meditation.
1. You can not meditate if you not relaxed, all your muscles must be relaxed for the best meditation.
The best way to relax is to start with the head and relax all the muscles in the head. Then go the neck and fully relax all the muscles in the neck. Continue this process to the arms, shoulders, chest, belly, upper legs, lower legs and feet.
If you are not used to fully relaxing, by the time you have finished you can probably start all over again because you have probably tensed up again.
At some point you have to say enough and start meditating.
2. There are many types of meditation but they are all variations of the same thing.
The idea is to fill your mind with something very simple that will not make your mind think or work.
Some use visualizing on a color. Some use a sound that means nothing to you. Some fill your mind on your breathing or heart sounds. You can visualize a candle flickering, some will try to look at a candle but keeping your eyes open is hard. Some will use the flickering light from a candle as seen through your eye lids, but this can be a fire hazard.
All these are mental visualization or sound techniques to calm and slow down your mind. You can try any of these or create your own technique to do the same thing. You are not locked into one of these; you can try various techniques that you like.
At this point you are ready to start meditating. After your full body relax fill your mind with your visual or sound technique while sitting comfortably and quietly. Being in a quiet place is much easier, but once you have some experience moderate noise is no problem. In a short time you will find your mind drifting off to some random thought. This is normal, expected and actually good. Once you realize your mind has drifted off just let the thought easily go and bring your mind back to your visualization or sound. This process repeats over and over again. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, The one who taught Transidental Meditation says this getting lost and coming back with a thought is the process that actual does the cleaning of the mind, that’s why I say it’s a good part of the process. In his own words he says "Be easy with it, take it as it comes". This cycling up and down will vary day to day. After meditating for years you may close your eyes and not have a thought for a half hour or more, but the next day you may cycle up and down every two minutes, Every day is different, cycling rate going down, getting lost and coming back up with a thought has no bearing on how advanced you are. I have been meditating for almost 50 years and some days I cycle down and up like a beginner. Your mind knows what it needs, let it work at its own rate.
When you feel you have meditated long enough just sit quietly for a few minutes. If you have been meditating deeply and jump up and go into activity, you can have a tense irritable feeling for some time. If this happens, go back and meditate for a few minutes and come out more slowly.
You can meditate any time you like, at least once a day is good, Transcendental meditation says to do it twice a day and they also say you meditate for activity. You should learn to bring this inner quietness into your daily life.
If you are interested in psychic practice or medium ship practice, settling down to your meditative state but not so far you get lost is the level you need to go to.
There is nothing hard about meditation, you just have to do it.