Meditation is the ultimate love affair between individual energy and universal energy. It is the greatest luxury on earth, and the key to health and wellness. In fact, medicine and meditation are derived from the same root word, which means to heal. Medicine helps to heal the physical body, while meditation works on deeper level.

Normally our mind lives either in either the past or in the future. It’s difficult to keep our mind into the present moment, as continuous activities are happening in the mind. When all activity in the mind stops even for a single second, we live in the present for that particular moment. To be in the present is to be in yoga or meditation.

To stop the activity of the mind, it is essential to work on our breath patterns. Have you ever realized that your breathing patterns differ according to your different emotions or moods? When you are relaxed, your breath is relaxed, and when you are full of anger, your breath speeds up. Sadness, happiness, anxiety, and fear also produce different breath patterns.   

So if you are able to relax your breath, the emotions or activities that take place in your mind also become relaxed.

To freeze the breath, we use different paranayama, or breathing techniques. Alternate nostril breathing is the father of all the pranayama.

To meditate, we sit in a crossed leg and hand position called anjali mudra, with the right hand over the left hand so that our energy moves in a circle. We close our eyes to prevent energy from flowing out of the body, and our back should be straight to allow energy to flow from lower chakras to higher chakras through spine until it reaches the last chakra. In this posture we calm the mind by focusing on the breath. Our breath slows and we relax. As soon as the breath is calm, the mind also becomes calm. This is the state of meditation.

Many of our problems and illnesses are the result of our bio-energy being blocked in some part of our body. When it is blocked in the head, for example, we start to feel a migraine or headache; if it gets blocked in the stomach, you become constipated. By practicing meditation regularly, our bio-energy starts to move in a circle, unblocking the energy. Once the energy is released, the body starts becoming healthy again.   

To know more about yoga and meditation retreats and to learn different asana and pranayama techniques, consider joining the 200 hours yoga teacher training program or the 500 hours yoga teacher training programs. For more information, feel free to visit our website or Facebook page.