I'm no expert on meditation. On the contrary, I'm one of those people who can't seem to meditate even for a couple of minutes, no matter how hard they try. The following exercise is perhaps the only thing that has ever worked for me. So, I thought I should share it with others who have the same problem as me. It's from a book by Paula Horan called, Empowerment through Reiki – The path to personal and global transformation. It's a little long, so I'm going to break it upto into three posts. Hope it can be of help to somebody else too.

During my Reiki classes, there is a very simple process that I like to teach my students, to help them focus their consciousness in their hara or feeling center of their bodies. When we are centered in the hara or chi center, as the Chinese call the emotional/sexual chakra (spleen chakra), the opposite polarity chakra located in the third eye becomes balanced and opens up. By literally allowing the intellect to “step aside”, and bringing the center of our attention (the focus of our conscious awareness), into the “belly” chakra, we begin to connect with our true feelings. Once we are centered in the hara, we naturally open up to the intuitive faculties located in the third eye chakra.

The process involved is quite simple: I ask students to sit in a comfortable position either on the floor in lotus position with legs folded and back slightly forward, or in a chair (also learning forward so that the spine is perfectly balanced and relaxed) with the ears over the shoulders and the shoulders over the hips. I then begin to lead them through the following visualization, which you may want to record on tape and play back to yourself:

Begin by taking nice long slow deep breaths. Inhale through the mouth and exhale through the nose. Good. Just keep on breathing – nice long slow, deep breaths. Begin now to visualize a beautiful golden glowing ball floating just above the top of your head. This ball is the golden glowing ball of your conscious awareness. Continue to breathe. ( Can't resist smiling at that -Eagle) See your breath expanding the golden glowing ball of your consciousness. Each time you exhale, the beautiful golden glowing ball of your consciousness, emanates outward. Continue breathing nice long slow deep breaths. Take one more deep breath into the golden glowing ball of your consciousness. When you exhale, begin to see the golden glowing ball float gently down through the top of your head and begin to blend with the lovely purple glowing ball of the crown chakra. Take another deep breath into the now golden purple glowing ball float gently down through the top of your head and begin to blend with the lovely purple glowing ball of your consciousness. When you exhale, begin to see the golden glowing light of your spiritual consciousness. Watch as it expands with your breath, filling with warmth and light, and as you begin to exhale, see the light emanate and sparkle outward, sending the beautiful light of your consciousness to those around you. Continue to take nice long slow deep breaths into the golden purple glowing ball. See it expand again with your breath, and then, as you exhale, see the beautiful sparkling light glowing, radiating outward. Continue to breathe long slow deep breaths. Inhaling slowly, and now as you begin to exhale, see the golden glowing ball gently separate from the purple center of your spiritual consciousness and float slowly downward to the center right behind your brow, the beautiful indigo glowing center of intuition – your third eye.

Notice the golden glowing ball as it melds and becomes one with the beautiful glowing ball of your intuitive knowingness. Continue to breathe. Take another deep breath into the now golden indigo glowing ball, filling it with the warmth and light of the breath, and then, as you exhale, see the beautiful golden indigo light permeating the air around you. Take a nice long slow deep breath into the golden indigo glowing ball. Feel the breath filling it with the light of your intuitive consciousness and then sparkling and flowing out into the surrounding environment. Continue to breathe. Take one more nice long slow deep breath into the golden indigo glowing chakra. As you exhale, see the golden ball begin to separate from the indigo glowing chakra and descend slowly down toward the throat into the lovely light blue-turquoise glowing chakra. See the two become one, filling your communication center with the energy of your breath. As you exhale, send the light and love from your communication center out toward those around you. Keep on breathing nice long deep breaths. As you inhale, see the golden turquoise ball fill with the light and energy of your breath. As you exhale, see the turquoise-golden light emanate and sparkle out toward those around you.

Now begin to take one more nice long slow deep breath into the turquoise-golden glowing ball. As you exhale, see the golden ball again begin to separate and float slowly and gently down into the heart center, the lovely emerald glowing center of your heart. See the golden ball begin to merge with the lovely emerald green ball, filling your heart with the consciousness of your love. Continue breathing as you inhale. Feel the breath fill your heart with the light an energy of love, and then slowly, as you begin to exhale, see the beautiful emerald-gold light sparkling and radiating the energy of your love to all of those around you. See it continuing out in waves, washing over the planet filling it with love, and then, as you inhale again, feel the energy of love returning with your breath as it fills you and expands you with the emerald-golden glowing light of the heart center. Take one more long deep breath into the emerald-golden glowing ball, again filling it with the light of love, and as you exhale, begin to separate and float slowly down into the solar plexus – your center of power and wisdom. See the golden light merge and become one with the brilliant yellow glowing ball of the solar plexus right between the rib cage. Continue to take nice long slow deep breaths. See your breath expanding the now golden-yellow glowing ball with the energy of your wisdom and power center, filling it with the power of love.

As you exhale, see the light sparkling and sending out it’s rays of power to those around you. Take another deep breath, and as you exhale, feel the light and warmth of your power and wisdom radiating outward and filling each person with the empowerment of love. Take one more nice long slow deep breath into the golden-yellow chakra, and then, as you exhale, see the golden ball slowly begin to separate and float gently down into the lovely orange chakra, three finger widths below the navel, filling the ki or chi center wit the golden light of your consciousness. With each warm breath, feel your belly filling with the golden-orange light of your emotional/sexual center, and as you exhale, feel the emotions of love sparkle their lovely golden-orange light to all around you. Just keep on breathing into the belly, filling it with the consciousness of your love, feel the warm flow of the orange-golden light as your consciousness rests in your center. Feel the peace and tranquility. Continue to breathe. Take one more long slow deep breath into the hara, and as you exhale, see the golden light begin to slip away and again float gently downward toward the tip of the sacrum, down into the red root chakra. As the two merge and become one, feel the heat of the beautiful golden-red light begin to fill the entire pelvic area, filling it with the light of love and abundance. As you inhale, feel; the golden-red light fill the pelvic area with the consciousness of love, transmuting all of the survival issues of this chakra with the energy of abundance. As you exhale, see the beautiful golden-red light abundance outward in waves of light, and then, as you inhale, feel this light returning and filling you again with an overflowing of energy of prosperity and abundance fill your entire body, starting in the root chakra and radiating out from there, continuing to fill the entire body. As you exhale, see the light and love of abundance flowing out around you.

The next time you inhale, see the golden glowing ball gently separate from the red root chakra and float gently upward, back toward the hara, returning to the beautiful orange glowing light of your feeling center. As you exhale, see the orange and golden light become one. Continue to breathe nice long slow deep breaths into your center, feeling very tranquil and totally at peace. As you inhale, the orange-golden light fills your entire being with the emotion of love. As you exhale, feel all disruptive emotions fading away. Each time you inhale, you feel more fully grounded and at center, flooding your belly with love energy of your breath. As you exhale again, see the orange-golden light of your love energy streaming out, overflowing with the abundance of your love; and then, with the in breath, flowing back to you with the same waves of love and abundance. Contemplate the peace and calm in your center, and the open channel this creates as you feel at one with all those around you, and with your environment. As you relax in this calm center, slowly begin to open your eyes and again become aware of your environment.

The above exercise is designed to help you develop the feeling of being centered. As you move progressively through each chakra, you may occasionally feel resistance at specific charkas to the movement of your consciousness between them. If you feel blocked in any area as you follow this procedure, you can exhale several times in an abrupt and powerful manner to help “blow out” any clogged areas. Once you develop the feeling of being cenrtered, you can shorten this exercise by exhaling two or threee times, within seconds bringing the center of your consciousness quickly down into the belly, as you allow your intellect to step aside, and at the same time, put yourself into an alpha state, two of the benefits inherent in this centering exercise.

Thanks Eagle, this is a great centering exercise. Very much in line with some of the T'ai Chi meditation/centering exercises, and it does work!

Love,
Greg

Yes, it does. If nothing else all that deep breathing is extremely relaxing! lol.

My mind is so noisy... it never shuts up!.. i've tried to meditate before.. but i start thinking about things.. anything... video games, whats for dinner?, politics, my boyfriend, my friends. Anything...i cant stop thinking. I even often have trouble getting into it and letting go when it comes to sexual experiences.. i cant even stop thinking then. I have a very overactive mind. drives me nuts sometimes. I think to much, then i start to worry about things.. im such a worrier, i get myself depressed sometimes from just thinking about things that worry me.

Oh, and i have trouble sleeping.. i can easily stay up for hours in bed thinking, but never actually getting to sleep anytime soon. And i "space-out" alot.. get lost in my own thoughts and become oblivious to whats around me.... i've walked right through red lights more then once, or walked past streets that i was suppose to turn at.

Oh my God! You just described me! lol. That's exactly what happens when I try to meditate. I think about every silly little thing that happened that day, over-analyse why somebody behaved a certain way, guess what's cooking for dinner, etc., etc.

And it's the same about falling asleep. I can never fall asleep directly after I hit the pillow unless I'm exhausted. I keep thinking for atleast half an hour and then never realise when exactly I fell asleep. I think so much that sometimes I give myself a headache. And yes, I can worry a lot too. Sometimes, I wish I could cut out the chatter like I can switch off the radio. lol. It really is noisy in there.

Ditto on the "spaced out" part. I've walked past bus-stops and acquitances, nearly banged into vehicles on the road, looked at people and not "noticed" them and there used to be a time when I rarely noticed my surroundings. I still have that problem, but it's not as bad as it used to be.

Nice to know I'm not the only freak out there!

Where is your mercury?

My mercury is in Aquarius, and so is my sun, and my sn, and my mars too. and i have 4 planets in libra, so i have alot of air

Ah! That explains it.

I have four planets in Libra too - Saturn, Pluto, Jupiter and Mercury.