{"id":121515,"date":"2024-04-15T10:50:52","date_gmt":"2024-04-15T10:50:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.in.yoga\/book\/meditativni-praktiki-v-yozi\/"},"modified":"2024-11-23T13:23:03","modified_gmt":"2024-11-23T13:23:03","password":"","slug":"meditative-practices-in-yoga","status":"publish","type":"docs","link":"https:\/\/www.in.yoga\/en\/ufy-books\/yoga-book\/meditative-practices-in-yoga\/","title":{"rendered":"Meditative practices in Yoga"},"content":{"rendered":"

Psychological aspect<\/span><\/h3>\n

Methods of meditations aim at mastering psyche functions by concentrating attention (passive meditation) or will (active meditation).<\/strong> Not only methods, but the ways to meditate are so different, not to mention that by \u00abmeditation\u00bb we often understand absolutely different processes, so let\u2019s try to define a typology of meditations basing on the method of practicing. <\/span><\/p>\n

In meditations of the first type<\/strong> the attention is concentrated on signals coming from an object. We involuntarily practice it, when we narrowly look at something, attentively listen, sniff and intensively feel the pain symptoms or other sensations of our body. The most common of these meditations are Trataka \u2014 concentration of a look on the shining object, contemplation of the wood ball in China etc. Such meditations have twosided effect. On the one hand, concentrating on an object we actualise<\/strong> it, i.e. consciously percept it, which widens our consciousness. On the other hand, long focusing can lead to distraction, caused by tiredness and self-hypnosis<\/strong>. <\/span><\/p>\n

We can observe not only inner signals, but also people\u2019s stereotypes of behaviour. Here is an example from the Buddhist tradition.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Breathing in, one knows that one is breathing in; and breathing out, one knows that one is breathing out. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 1. Breathing in a long breath, one knows, \u00abI am breathing in a long breath\u00bb. Breathing out a long breath, one knows, \u00abI am breathing out a long breath\u00bb. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 2. Breathing in a short breath, one knows, \u00abI am breathing in a short breath\u00bb. Breathing out a short breath, one knows, \u00abI am breathing out a short breath\u00bb. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 3. \u00abI am breathing in and am aware of my whole body. I am breathing out and am aware of my whole body\u00bb. This is how one practices. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 4. \u00abI am breathing in and making my whole body calm and at peace. I am breathing out and making my whole body calm and at peace\u00bb. This is how one practices. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 5. \u00abI am breathing in and feeling joyful. I am breathing out and feeling joyful\u00bb. This is how one practices. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 6. \u00abI am breathing in and feeling happy. I am breathing out and feeling happy\u00bb. One practices like this.\u00a0 <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 7. \u00abI am breathing in and am aware of the activities of the mind in me. I am breathing out and am aware of the activities of the mind in me\u00bb. One practices like this. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 8. \u00abI am breathing in and making the activities of the mind in me calm and at peace. I am breathing out and making the activities of the mind in me calm and at peace\u00bb. One practices like this. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 9. \u00abI am breathing in and am aware of my mind. I am breathing out and am aware of my mind\u00bb. One practices like this. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 10. \u00abI am breathing in and making my mind happy and at peace. I am breathing out and making my mind happy and at peace\u00bb. One practices like this. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 11. \u00abI am breathing in and concentrating my mind. I am breathing out and concentrating my mind\u00bb. One practices like this. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 12. \u00abI am breathing in and liberating my mind. I am breathing out and liberating my mind\u00bb. One practices like this. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 13. \u00abI am breathing in and observing the impermanent nature of all dharmas. I am breathing out and observing the impermanent nature of all dharmas\u00bb. One practices like this. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 14. \u00abI am breathing in and observing the fading of all dharmas. I am breathing out and observing the fading of all dharmas\u00bb. One practices like this. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 15. \u00abI am breathing in and contemplating liberation. I am breathing out and contemplating liberation\u00bb. One practices like this. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 16. \u00abI am breathing in and contemplating letting go. I am breathing out and contemplating letting go\u00bb. One practices like this.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00abThe Sutra of The Full Awareness of Breathing\u00bb<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Second type of meditation<\/strong> is various forms of suggestion, i.e. active mastering body\u2019s functions by one\u2019s will. Depending on the way the volitional command is given, these meditations can be divided into visualisations, verbal and kinaesthetic suggestions. The most popular are first two of them. <\/span><\/p>\n

During visualisation the command is done to subconsciousness in the form of some familiar visual images, pictures and figures. The most known is the visualisation of energy flow \u2014 as a shining with a certain colour; meditation on chakra\u2019s symbols, the inner organs, mandalas and so on. In verbal meditation a command is done verbally, like in a system of autogenic training by Schulz (\u00abMy right hand is heavy and warm\u00bb) and autosuggestions by E. Coue (\u00abI\u2019m feeling better in all senses every day\u00bb). Practitioners of kinaesthetic suggestion try to provoke various sensations in their body (heaviness, lightness, warmth, coldness etc.) by a volitional effort. <\/span><\/p>\n

The object of active influence in meditations of the second type can be not only physiological feelings, but also our thoughts.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00abAll thoughts, as soon as they are conjured up, are to be discarded, and even the thought of discarding them is to be put away\u00bb.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00abMahayana-Sraddhotpada Shastra\u00bb<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Meditation can also work with elements of one\u2019s worldview, with life position, identification and self-positioning in the world.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00abHe who practices \u2018clear observation\u2019 should observe that all conditioned phenomena in the world are unstationary and are subject to instantaneous transformation and destruction… He should observe that all that had been conceived in the past was as hazy as a dream, that all that is being conceived in the present is like a flash of lightning, and that all that will be conceived in the future will be like clouds that rise up suddenly\u00bb.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00abMahayana-Sraddhotpada Shastra\u00bb<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There is a belief that Western Psychology prefers active techniques, while in Eastern traditions prevail techniques of concentration, relaxation and contemplation, by which one can easily put himself into a state of delight, mind silence and trance. In fact this point of view is superficial. Every tradition had a broad choice of meditations of both types. <\/span><\/p>\n

Considering all the foresaid, we should mention that only meditations<\/strong> of the third type are real meditations in the full sense of the word, and are a synthesis of both types of described exercises. Practitioner makes a volitional command to change his state, and at the same time is observing his state, which make it possible to control the effectiveness of commands and to adjust them, having more chances to achieve the wishful state<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Energy aspect of meditations<\/span><\/h3>\n

We considered meditations from psychological point of view. And what are they from the esoteric position? Meditations are practices for the astral body.<\/strong> Astral body like the physical one can be trained by special exercises, and the aim of this training, like with our physical and etheric bodies, is to make the respective body more flexible<\/strong>, i.e. able to reach a broader spectrum of states; stronger<\/strong>, i.e. more resistible to outer emotional influence; and more energetic<\/strong>, i.e. more vivid in its emotions. This means that meditations, like asanas, should be practiced in complex, with the clear understanding of your task and a plan of training, compensating one altered states of psyche by others, opposite ones \u2014 to make the range of possible states in real life broader, increasing degrees of personal freedom. <\/span><\/p>\n

Sometimes the term meditation is significantly narrowed to some \u00abcalm\u00bb, passive states of psyche. For example, the famous German researcher of yoga Dietrich Ebert defines meditation as \u00abjust a trophotropic state with the prevailing activity in parasympathetic part of vegetative nervous system\u00bb. Nevertheless there are tens and hundreds of meditative techniques evidently shaking practitioner up, i.e. activating sympathetic branch of ANS. That\u2019s why we believe that this opinion is a reflection of the common misunderstanding of yoga in general, reigning in the Western world, which is a result of \u00abreligionizing\u00bb of many schools of Indian yoga. For more details about psychopractices see my monograph \u00abReligious psychopractices in the history of culture\u00bb.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Psychological aspect Methods of meditations aim at mastering psyche functions by concentrating attention (passive meditation) or will (active meditation). Not only methods, but the ways to meditate are so different, not to mention that by \u00abmeditation\u00bb we often understand absolutely different processes, so let\u2019s try to define a typology of meditations basing on the method… Continue reading Meditative practices in Yoga<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"doc_category":[795],"doc_tag":[],"knowledge_base":[814],"class_list":["post-121515","docs","type-docs","status-publish","hentry","doc_category-exercise-en","knowledge_base-yoga-book","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"year_month":"2026-04","word_count":1306,"total_views":"85","reactions":{"happy":"0","normal":"0","sad":"0"},"author_info":{"name":"Kamertab","author_nicename":"kamertab","author_url":"https:\/\/www.in.yoga\/en\/author\/kamertab\/"},"doc_category_info":[{"term_name":"Types of Yoga exercises and their mechanisms of influence","term_url":"https:\/\/www.in.yoga\/en\/ufy-books\/yoga-book\/exercise-en\/"}],"doc_tag_info":[],"knowledge_base_info":[{"term_name":"Yoga: physiology, psychosomatics, bioenergetics","term_url":"https:\/\/www.in.yoga\/en\/ufy-books\/yoga-book\/","term_slug":"yoga-book"}],"knowledge_base_slug":["yoga-book"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.in.yoga\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/docs\/121515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.in.yoga\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/docs"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.in.yoga\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/docs"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.in.yoga\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.in.yoga\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.in.yoga\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/docs\/121515\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.in.yoga\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"doc_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.in.yoga\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/doc_category?post=121515"},{"taxonomy":"doc_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.in.yoga\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/doc_tag?post=121515"},{"taxonomy":"knowledge_base","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.in.yoga\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/knowledge_base?post=121515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}