yoga practice information guide

Yoga meditation is a unique blend of physical movements, mental relaxation and spiritual self-awareness. There are countless goals individuals hope to achieve when beginning yoga meditation ranging from regaining lost flexibility to gaining spiritual enlightenment. Regardless of your own personal goals, this article should give you a decent idea of how to begin practicing yoga meditation.

Proper preparation for meditation

Once you have ensured that you will have no distractions, either from others or yourself, take a few moments to contemplate what you want to get out of your yoga meditation and also various thoughts concerning your day. After silently contemplating for a few minutes, you will now be ready to start yoga meditation.

The process of yoga meditation will be broken into 4 main steps.

Step 1: Loosen the Body

This can be accomplished in multiple ways, with the most common being basic stretches you already know.
If you know any "light" yoga poses designed to warm you up, feel free to use those, otherwise basic arm and leg stretches are acceptable.

Step 2: Internal Observation of the Body

This step requires you to observe your body for signs of tension. This tension can manifest itself in the form of knots in your muscles, or general discomfort. Once you have discovered these "tension points" consciously focus on letting this tension go.

This can be done by either a mental command to yourself such as "I am relieving the tension within my body now." Or a more physical method such as tensing the affected muscles for a count of 10 and then releasing them.

Step 3: Pranayama (Breathing)

After you have released the tension in your body to a noticeable degree, you must begin to focus on your breathing.

Breath awareness is a skill you must develop with practice. You will notice at the beginning; there are various jerks and pauses in your breathing. These issues will diminish with practice, and eventually they will be nonexistent.

Next you must deliberately manipulate your breathing in various ways such as breathing from your diaphragm for 5 minutes, and then returning to your regular method of breathing.

Step 4: Yoga Meditation

To perform meditation properly, you should close your eyes and again focus on your breathing. Do not attempt to change the way you breathe, simply allow it, while you observe it.

Some practitioners find that either repeating mantras such as "OM", or simply counting each inhalation and exhalation helps them.

When the amount of time you have chosen has ended, open your eyes, and slowly bring yourself back to the present.

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