Tuesday, 1 November 2011
Guided Meditation - What Is It
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The term 'a guided meditation' often crops up in the world of the spirit, and its important it needs to be clarified and explained. Meditation, however you do it, is ultimately about a sense of freedom, primarily the freedom to explore your own inner world, and create a level of self awareness that is a doorway into real freedom.Part of the discovery of that freedom is the fact that finding out for yourself what your path or your journey is, is a key part of it. The term guided meditation can mistakenly give the impression that the meditation is either guided by some one else, or the process itself is guided to produce or achieve a particular result. Neither of these impressions is true, and it is important to explain what a guided meditation in order to dispel those impressions.All meditation is guided in the sense that there is normally a structure to the process. The structure may be a time based one, ie you meditate for a specific period of time, or it may be around the technique itself. Two of the best known meditation techniques center around breathing and metta, or loving kindness. In both types of mediation there is a structure that gets you to follow your breath in certain ways, or for different time periods.With metta meditations the process is normally around thinking of various people in your life ranging from yourself through a close friend to some one you don't like, and wishing them good or kindly thoughts, in the knowledge that over time this will change your feelings towards people. These are two very simple example, but make clear the process- the guide is the structure that allows the experience to happen -its a freedom, not a constraint.
