Re: advice on "dhyAna" for a novice?
From the Bhakti List Archives
• August 26, 1998
I am forwarding this mail as per Sri Parthasarathy's request. adiyEn RAmAnuja dAsan Thirumalai Vinjamoor Venkatesh ______________________________ Forward Header __________________________________ Subject: Re: advice on "dhyAna" for a novice? Author: parthas@rice.edu at INTERNET-MAIL Date: 08/25/98 2:13 PM > -------------------------Quote------------------------------------- > In such a short time, how can I successfully calm my mind and > concentrate on the paramAtmA? All too often, my mind wanders and thinks > about something completely unrelated to nArAyaNa. > It is easier to focus on the last funny episode of Seinfeld or the next > meal than to think about God! This is my practical experience. > ------------------------Unquote------------------------------------ > In my school (Padma Seshadri), when we were taught transcendental meditation (TM), we were told that we should not make any effort to abruptly curb's the mind's wanderings. I remember my teacher asking us to "go with the flow,... and gradually get back to the mantra." One of the things she told us was that concentration during meditation was a skill acquired only with practice, and that in the early stages, it was not uncommon to have only 10 minutes of "concentrated" meditation in an hour of meditation... Breathing was also something that was emphasized (I think someone described the usefulness of regulated breathing very nicely in an earlier mail); pranayamam was prescribed before we started our meditations. However, I must confess that it is hard to practice all that we learn. I find it very hard to concentrate when I meditate too. It is really so much more easy to get distracted thinking about other things... I am glad that Mani brought up this topic. The discussions so far have been very educational. I am looking forward to learning more as the thread progresses. Regards, -- Partha ---------------------------- Forwarded with Changes --------------------------- From: parthas@rice.edu at INTERNET-MAIL Date: 8/25/98 2:13PM -0400 To: TV Venkat at USMTNMO2 *cc: bhakti@lists.best.com at INTERNET-MAIL Subject: Re: advice on "dhyAna" for a novice? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Next message: Madhavakkannan V: "Thiruvaaymozhi 9.3- Narayanan- avanE avanum avanum avaum"
- Previous message: Raghu Mudumba: "Re: Digest bhakti.v003.n066"
- Maybe in reply to: Vijay_Srinivasan_at_praxair.com: "advice on "dhyAna" for a novice?"
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] [ attachment ]