Man
doesn’t start anything without a benefit. It is natural, nothing wrong with it.
So how does one start a meditation habit?
In
my experience people look to meditation for two goals as follows:
- Health Benefits
- Attaining God
Again,
in my opinion, about 90% or more of the people are interested in the health
benefits of meditation. Very few are really interested in God. These are not my
words. Bhagawan Krishna, Himself said
so. Whatever may be the inspiration ultimately meditation is beneficial. That is
good enough. Let us first understand the benefits of meditation before we get
into the nuts and bolts of starting the meditation habit.
Pranayama or breath control is a sister
practice of meditation. Pranayama is
performed either before or as a part of a meditation session. Therefore in this
article wherever I mention meditation it means the twin practice of pranayama
and meditation.
Health Benefits of Meditation Habit
- Peace of mind and calmness
- A Clarity in thinking, riddance of confusion and more focus
- Increased creativity; out of the box thinking; problem-solving
- All the systems of the body slow down
- You will be anger less
- Practice over long periods will keep hypertension under check
Meditation Gives Immediate Results
By
now you would be familiar with the standard promotional language of hair growth
oils. They invariably promise excellent results after 30 to 45 days’ use. Not
so in the case of meditation. You will feel good immediately after a meditation
session. You will experience calmness and peace immediately. This is for sure. The
other health benefits will follow on regular practice. Now let us see how we
can develop the meditation habit.
How to develop a Meditation Habit?
Developing
any new habit requires three essential ingredients as follows:
- Strong motivation
- Do the act repeatedly without break for a certain number of days
- Keeping track
Let
us look at these elements in detail.
Motivation
For
forming any habit whether good or bad a strong enthusiasm is needed. It means a
strong need or wish that drives one to action. Following examples will make the
idea clear:
Need/
Desire
|
Actions
|
Looking
Good
|
Exercises,
yoga
|
A
desire for money
|
Striving
for education, hard work in the job/ business.
|
Kick
|
Smoking/
Drinking/ Use of drugs
|
Good
Health
|
Exercises,
yoga, meditation
|
Attaining
God
|
Yoga,
meditation, devotion, the study of scriptures, etc.
|
When
people start a new habit but give up on the way it means that motivation is not
strong enough. As an illustration, let us talk about quitting smoking. If you
ask a smoker he will admit that he had quit smoking several times in the past
only to fall back into the habit. However, if he is diagnosed with a serious
illness and the doctor warns him that he will certainly die unless he quits
smoking he is quite likely to quit. Here the strong desire to live motivates
the person to give up the bad habit.
Doing it till the New Habit becomes Automatic
Staring the Meditation Habit requires discipline like following the Yama and Niyama in the Ashtanga Yoga. Once the new habit is taken up it should be followed consistently without a break for a certain number of
days. What is this duration? Many people quote many numbers like 21 days, 45
days, 90 days and so on.
However
as per Philippa Lally’s research on an average, it takes 66 days to make a new
habit automatic. It depends on person-to-person, nature and difficulty of the
habit, etc. In fact, it could be as short as 18 days and as long as 254 days or
eight and a half months.
Monitoring or Keeping a Watch
One
important behavioural principle is that what you monitor will improve. If you
keep track of your personal finance diligently your financial conditions will
improve. This is not simply because you may cut down on wasteful expenses, you
may even start getting more income. The reasons behind this are many and quite
complex. Some relate to the physical body-mind domain and some to
transcendental causes.
Besides
the intricate principle described above keeping a watch on the activity on a
regular basis motivates you to keep it up. You will not like to break the good
track record.
I
have been using a spiritual app called BlackLotus developed by Om Swami of
Badrika Ashram for about a year or so. Besides several features it
automatically keeps a record of the user’s spiritual activities on three counts
as follows:
- Chanting
- Meditation
- Kind Acts
The
main statistics it keeps is:
1. Total
Days
2. Longest Streak – the number of days the practice was carried our without a break
3. Total Time
2. Longest Streak – the number of days the practice was carried our without a break
3. Total Time
4. Longest
Session – longest duration of a single session
In
the following picture I show my statistics for meditation since I started using
this app.
Believe
me now I don’t want to break my current streak – that is, break the practice –
at any cost. I travel a lot catching flights at odd hours. Still, I don’t break
my habit of chanting and meditation every day. I do these while in a flight or
in a car on the highway. Even in the worst of the cases (these are very rare
and maybe once or twice a month) I try to meditate for at least for a minute to
keep my streak intact.
To
end this discussion, the secret to forming the meditation habit is to have a strong drive, doing
it without interruption and finally keeping a record.
Om
Shanti!
Best
Regards,
Anand
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