Different Techniques of Meditation

A yoga practitioner may come across countless types of meditation techniques. The objective of the yogi is to identify the yoga meditation technique that is appropriate for him/her.

Yoga meditation requires you to concentrate on a focal point inside or outside your body. Some meditation techniques tell you to concentrate on void or emptiness, which is hard to achieve.

Meditation is not a thinking process in itself, but allowing free flow of thoughts, but on a focal point. Swami Vivekananda once said mind is like a chariot and thought is like horses. Controlling the thoughts in a certain direction is necessary to take the life in the right direction.

A yogi doesn’t suppress his/her thoughts. During meditation, the thoughts are naturally calms down take a finite shape. Deep meditation takes you to a state of super consciousness, which is called Samadhi.

The different types of meditation are:

Mantra Meditation
Trataka Meditation
Chakra Meditation
Raja Yoga Meditation
Nada Yoga Meditation etc

Different yoga meditation techniques tell you to take a comfortable meditation posture. Lotus posture is the preferred yoga meditation pose. There are other meditation postures too.

The person then concentrates on his thought. It is then time to concentrate on any focal point. Kundalini energy centers (chakras) or any point on, inside or outside his/her body is where the thought process concentrated.

The most effective mantra is OM. It is a single letter in Sanskrit language. The O is pronounced deeply like a long O as in go, show, low etc. M is pronounced after a long O. The sound can be something like ohm.

People who do not appreciate the universal sound of OM replace the mantra with numbers 1-2-3- Â…

Chant the mantra as you exhale.

The practitioner can also apply visualization techniques while meditation. Here instead of mantra, the yogi visualizes successful actualization of his/her life goals.