Six Guided Meditation Techniques in Yoga

All the meditation techniques involve focusing the mind on a single thing.

Anyone can meditate at any time and place. When practicing, you may offer short or extended periods of sitting meditation at the beginning or end of a session. In the midst of the flow of the session, you can always lead yourself to Samasthihi or sit for a few moments of introspective meditation.

Going beyond asana sessions, you may want to offer sessions devoted entirely to meditation or a combination of pranayama and meditation. When you have more meditation tools for healing, you can also locate the time and settings that you find most conducive to deep meditation.

Most people find the most natural inner peace and fill their minds with new thoughts in the early hours of the morning, the day before. Others feel that asana-pranayama practice lends itself to inner conditions most conducive to meditation.

Here we will look at the approach to bring meditation into the practice of asana-pranayama.

Six Meditation Techniques Step-by-step

Here we look at six different guided meditation techniques using different objects of meditation. Each approach produces different qualities of meditative awareness, play with how these feel in your meditation practice. Do each technique at different times of the day, in different moods, before and after practicing asanas, and after using some pranayama techniques.

As is the case with asana (posture) practice, there is no one right or best path, there are only infinite paths that you will find different and that will change in resonance throughout your life.

Six Meditation Techniques are:

1. Breathing as Mantra
2. Acoustic chant
3. Counting
4. Chakras
5. Light
6. Mala

1. Breathing as Mantra

• Sit comfortably tall, draw the attention to the breath. Let the breath flow slowly and quietly, just noticing it, without trying to change the breath in any way.
• Feel and visualize the breath flowing through the nostrils, down the throat and into the lungs, receiving the breath as a pure form of beauty or a gift from the divine universe.
• As easily and naturally as the breath flows into the body, let it back out so effortlessly, the feeling of giving back to the gifts we all share.
• Allow the mind to become completely absorbed in the flow of the breath, noticing how and where it arises and how it feels along the way.
• When the mind wanders away from the breath, slowly bring it back to the stillness, the breathing and the rhythmic flow of the breath.
• Being completely absorbed in the breath and letting it flow freely, notice the natural pause between each inhalation and exhalation.
• Notice the natural calmness and calmness of mind that occurs when you are out of breath, allowing the feeling of calmness to ride along with the following breathing.
• At the peak of the breath, expand the feeling of rising stillness into a sense of openness and spaciousness in the mind, and as the breath exhales.
• Be with it, constantly coming back to the feeling of thoughts as if enveloped in the breath, flowing in and out of the body with one breath.

2. Acoustic chant

• Choose a mantra that works for you. If this is your first mantra meditation, consider using the words inhale-exhale or so-hum: where so means “that,” hum means “I am.”
  • Although you can use any word, keep it simple and consider using words that you want to embed more deeply in the consciousness, such as calm, clear, peace or love.
  • If you feel a deep resonance when using ancient Sanskrit words, try Om or Shanti (“Peace“).
• Do a breath-focused meditation for a few minutes, letting the awareness settle into the natural flow of the breath.
• After an exhalation, with the inhale, slowly say inhale (or so) while absorbing the awareness into the word, not the inhale.
• As easily as the breath is drawn in, let it out by saying the word exhale (or hum).
• Like breathing meditation, notice and allow the natural stillness that occurs in the pauses between breaths. Then, as the breath goes on, start repeating the mantra.
• Like all meditation techniques, the mind will wander—it will think. This is what is good and loves to do! To judge yourself without thinking about thoughts or thinking (or judging), come back to the mantra.
• Instead of jumping from one spell to another, stick with one for at least ten sessions to see what happens. One of the benefits of repetition is that the words themselves become less and less important, with the sound of the mantra gradually becoming like a neutral vibration in the mind, the “Growing” awareness described by Alan Watts.

3. Counting

• Do a breath-focused meditation for a few minutes, letting the awareness settle into the natural flow of the breath.
• With one breath, as the breath comes in, say one hundred to yourself, then say ninety-nine to yourself as it flows.
• With the next cycle of breaths, say ninety-eight with the inhale and ninety-seven with the exhalation, continue in the same manner on exhalation for fifty-one.
• As other words and thoughts infiltrate, simply return to breathing and counting.
• Now while inhaling and exhaling, calling yourself the same number, starting with fifty across one complete cycle of inhalation and exhalation, continue in this manner until exhaling on twenty-one.
• Exhaling as twenty-one, stop counting and just follow the breath. As the words and thoughts arise, just keep watching and come back to the breath.
• Continue to sit and watch for longer than it took to count to zero, noting how the mind slows down and calms down along the way.

4. Chakras

• Do a breath-focused meditation for a few minutes, letting the awareness settle into the natural flow of the breath.
• Descend more consciously through the sit bones, bringing more awareness to the pelvic floor, feeling a deep sense of stillness and inertia with each breath.
• Watching the breath, say Lam to yourself with each breath, imagining the vibrations of that silent sound, drawing in the energy of the earth, stimulating the upward release of energy. Repeat the mantra five times, bringing consciousness to the Muladhara Chakra.
• Staying with the breath, bring awareness to the center of the pelvis, opening the imagination to the deepest reservoir of creativity while resting in the Swadhisthana Chakra. With each of the five breaths, say the word Vam to yourself, imagining that silent sound stimulating the creative juices. Feel the richness of that creativity with each sound of the left.
• Feel the latent determination contained in the Manipura Chakra, pulling the awareness to the center of the abdomen. With each of the five breaths, say to yourself the word Ram, imagining the vibration of that silent sound that intentionally kindles the fire of consciousness that opens you to easy laughter and joy.
• While breathing as if you are doing it through the spiritual heart center, tap to feel the love that you are in essence. Connected to the breath, with each of the five exhalations, say the word Ham to yourself, imagining the vibrations of that silent sound, opening the heart to light and wisdom that beats with each beat of the heart; There is a feeling of love in the breath that you are radiating from the Anahata Chakra around and around you.
• With awareness resting in the light of love and instincts, draw awareness to the throat, imagining every word that emanates from love and wisdom in the heart. After the inhalation, with each of the five breaths, say to yourself the word Vam, imagining the vibrations of that silent sound emanating from the Vishuddha Chakra, creating a peaceful resonance with all other sounds in the universe.
• Feeling the energy being pulled from the base of the spine, through the heart and up to the third eye, imagine light coming into the third eye, opening the inner visual landscape to the purity of light. With every five exhalations, say the word Kesham to yourself, visualizing the vibrations of that silent sound, opening the Ajna Chakra to clarify the awareness of yourself and connection with the universe.
• Now relax the awareness into the breath more slowly, feeling a sense of bliss as the energy flows smoothly from the base of the pelvis through the crown of the head. Imagine the feeling of the crown of the head opening like a thousand-petal lotus flower, the Sahasrara Chakra expanding the light of existence. Live with it at this moment of bliss with a feeling of being whole and complete.

5. Light

• Following either chakra meditation or breathing meditation, draw the palms together over the heart in a Namaste position, Anjali Mudra, the seal of reverence.
• Bring awareness to the feeling of energy rising from the base of the spine and exhaling through the crown of the head. Visualize this energy as warm white light emits out toward the sky.
• Relaxing in a comfortable breath and keeping the palms together, with an inhale raise the palms above the face and slowly through that beam of light upwards, reaching towards the sky downwards, vastness all through you.
• As you exhale, slowly extend the arms out and down, feeling that light stretching in and around you, as you bring the backs of the hands to the knees, feeling that you are in a cocoon of nutritious light.
• Staying with the breath, with the fingers and palms outstretched, a feeling of energy radiating from the heart center through the fingers and the crown of the head.
• Bringing the tips of the thumb and forefinger into Jnana Mudra, let the thumb symbolize all that you consider divine or beautiful in the universe, the index finger all that is divine or beautiful in itself, the touch of the thumb and fingers of that represents yoga, union, all these qualities.
• Inhaling and following the natural flow of the breath, allow the three outstretched fingers on each hand to represent the release of the illusions in your life that keep you from feeling more fulfilled, happy, and complete – ego, fear, anger, and greed giving the way for contentment and clarity of being.
• Staying in the light of this awareness, follow the breath, breathe naturally, creating a sense of deepening self-awareness and self-acceptance throughout this moment.

6. Mala

• Holding a string of Mala beads (108 beads) in the middle finger of the left hand, hold the palms in the lap or on the knees and do breathing meditation for a few minutes.
• Keeping the thumb in front of the semuru (head bead), as the breath comes in, move the thumb around the next bead.
• As the breath comes out, use the thumb to move the Mala to the next bead, as the breath flows, circle it with the thumb, moving the Mala to the next bead as you exhale.
• Continue in this way until you complete one Mala, going about 108 times at the end.
• Using the thumb to move the beads, become fully absorbed in doing so, opening the awareness to each gentle push with the thumb to draw the divine energy, or the essence of nature, deep into consciousness.

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1. Yoga Therapy: Foundations, Methods, and Practices for Common Ailments; By author Mark Stephens. Find all the books, read about the author, and more.[↩]