“How old are you?” she asked me.

“13?”

“You are too young!” she exclaimed.

“But I really want to join.”

I still remember this interaction when I found that ‘The Art of Living’ people were about to conduct ‘Yes+ Course’ (earlier called Young Adult Course) in my school. Children of my age were supposed to get into ‘Art Excel’ but I persisted and there I was, youngest of them all.

Those were the days I changed extensively. It was an eye opener to inner world. Not that I didn’t knew about it already, I’ve know my inner-self since as far as I can recall. But this was a not just a window to peek in. This was a door that once you open and escape limits, you will never again return to limited thinking.

They asked us to write our every day experience in a small note book. I can’t recall all the detail that has happened because honestly, there was so much happening – energy was really high. I am reading those notes and recalling all that I can of those wonderful 7 day course. (Another reason to write meditation journal)

About ‘Guru Ji‘ & His Philosohpy

The Art of Living his lead by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, lovingly called ‘Guru ji’ or ‘Sri Sri’. He is an engineer himself and a profound teacher. He doesn’t ‘tell & teach’ he takes you there and then you can’t help but learn.

The philosophy of ‘The Art of Living’ is based around internal change through yogic practices. Not just any yogic practice, but developed and refined ones.

Sudarshan Kriya – Sadhna (Meditation)

‘Sudarshan Kriya’ is the central attraction or main ‘Sadhna’ (meditation) in the practice. It’s a series of breathing exercises that really tells you the meaning of ‘Yog’ – union. You become one as body, mind and soul. Oh! I cannot begin to describe the blissfulness of those moments and the life altering awareness that follows.

Satsang – Community of Truth

Community plays a big role in this internal change. You will never find a single person in whole family of ‘The Art of Living’ who is not smiling. And they are not smiling to show something, they are smiling because they know themselves. They know their true nature, they have seen it and most important they ‘be it’. So Aham.

I still remember the 3S’s my teacher taught me: Sadhana (meditation), Seva (service) and Satsang (co-creation with like minded). If anyone seeks a change… No, if anyone seeks ‘revolution’ in their lives – go jump right in!

Go Join-in

I am not being paid to write this. I was paid already when I joined. I was paid with a mirror that shows me time and again my true nature. Or as Chitra Roy puts it “Mere Krishna roop se mera prichaya kara diya…” (You’ve introduced me to my Krishna, God, self.) What more a bribe can anyone pay you? Priceless gift it was!

Things must have changed, for I am not in touch with people. But I know change is good. So find local people and get on with it. Don’t miss this chance for eternal smile.

Jai Guru Dev! (Hail the Mentor!)

PS: You are your own mentor.

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I don’t know about you, but I have those days when I wake up and my mood isn’t just the best. I can be really annoyed or angry. No matter who says what, those are the worst days to be. And anything positive is just annoying.

I just had a day like that last week, and the first thing came to my mind was, “Dang! This is going to be bad day. Nothing is going to work out, I just know it.”

Thanks to the years of meditation, along came this spiritual insight. “Since anything is not going to work out, why bother even trying and being more frustrated then ever? Why not just figure out what’s bothering me?”

When you’ve been meditation for a while, ideas and insights like this just pop-up. You have practiced those good feeling state of being so much that nothing else will ever do.

So I sat down in meditation. Which wasn’t easy at all because when everything is bugging you, so does meditation but I was determined to get well so I continued anyways. I was using my favourite ease and flow processes.

To my amazement, I was bugged in meditation too! It wasn’t just working out. But I was determined, so I started again ‘ease and flow’… ‘ease and flow’ and then another though about a friend who is so buggy came to my mind and there I went out of meditation.

But anyways, I was determined to meditate. So I crawled back to meditation and this time it was bliss. It was so good to be back in my state of being that I so much like.

So What?

Why I am telling you this story, and most of those who being to read have left already. But the reason I am telling you this is to share with you want an important lesson I learned from this.

Often when stubborn problems come to our life, we just want to fight and struggle against it. But that never ever works. Fighting against the problem never brings in the solution it’s the Law (of Attraction).

Only way to solve any problem is to be in the right state of mind and then look at it. Meditation is one of the best tools to get into that state of no-mind. It is likely that as you focus on problem after meditation it will drag you back to emotional state where you were. But use your will power and determination, not to fight against anything; but to be your best no matter what.

Meditate.

Photo Credit: AAAARRRGGGHHH by Evil Erin, on Flickr

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This is the time of the week where we have loads of fun, talk about fun stuff and enjoy at our best. It’s like a relaxing feeling after hard work of weekdays but I have a question to ask: Why just weekends? Why not everyday? It just takes 5 min. of meditation to be the best of you and enjoy everything.

You can meditate while eating (it can be a good weight control strategy), you can do it anywhere and anytime. Why? Well don’t ask me that I can flood you with reasons. But I will not tell you a single benefit. In fact, I will say that there is no benefit of meditation. None! Nada!

Even if there are, I am not aware of them. Will you be kind enough to enlighten me on the benefits you have experienced? Look back at your life when you didn’t meditate at all and now when you have meditated. If you have not, please do it now, and tell me what change you see.

I really want to know, is this meditation really worth it? Worth talking about? Worth blogging about? Worth time? Worth effort? Worth no-thought?

I wonder…

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Watch out for links, there is awesome stuff hidden in there.

1. Take it (meditation) easy.
2. Don’t make it homework – homework sucks.
3. Try to meditate same time everyday, establishing a schedule helps in making it a habit.
4. Don’t write it in your to-do list. Let it be a thought in your mind.
5. Put of light music in background.
6. Meditate in soft sunlight.
7. Meditate on beach.
8. Focusing is meditation – not concentration.
9. Write how you feel before and after meditation in a diary.
10. Write what your favourite meditation technique in your meditation diary/journal.
11. Let thoughts come, pay no heed and they will pass.
12. Don’t fight your thoughts, you cannot stop them but you can ignore them and take your conscious away from thoughts.
13. Dance followed by meditation feels awesome.
14. Exercise followed by meditation is twice the benefit and definitely more fun.
15. Painting is meditation.
16. Singing to yourself is meditation.
17. Meditate whenever, wherever you can.
18. Read inspiring people like Swami Vivekananda, Paulo Coelho, Louise Hay etc.
19. Do affirmations in meditation, they are 100 times more powerful in that state.
20. Try chanting.
21. Write love letters to your girlfriend/boyfriend after meditating – you will be amazed at your power of expression.
22. Keep your meditation a secret.
23. Or tell everyone you meditate and see how they react.
24. Write, Write, Write… poetry, articles.
25. Draw doodles or paint (if you can).
26. Blog your meditation experience.
27. Meditate on inspiring thoughts.
28. Visualize your goals/dreams in meditation and see them all come true.
29. Do a group meditation with your friends.
30. Make a music band – they will never know they are meditating when they are making music.
31. Clean a coroner in your room – just empty it and place some cushions – your minimalist meditation corner.
32. Do #31 to a room.
33. Light small candle(s) during meditation.
34. Chant ‘Nam-Myho-Ho-Renge-Kyo’
35. Chant ‘Aum-Mani-Padme-Hum’
36. Chant ‘Aum’ / ‘Om’
37. Chant / Sing ‘Hare Rama Hare Rama; Rama Rama Hare Hare’
38. Chant /Sing ‘Hare Krishna Hare Krishan; Krishna Krishna Hare Hare’
39. Memorize excerpts from Lotus Sutra or Heart Sutra and chant/sing.
40. Watch ‘You Can Heal Your Life’ movie.
41. Donate. (to us?)
42. Grow Flowers.
43. Grow fruits/vegetables.
44. Pet your cat, dog… whatever you have.
45. Don’t have a pet? Watch a sleeping baby.
46. Don’t have a baby? Well…
47. …Imagine one! (Remember these are ‘High School’ tips)
48. … or borrow one at your own risk.
49. Try Mathematics; if you can’t solve it laugh at it!
50. Go on picnic.
51. Go on picnic alone – it’s not lame … it’s called soul searching.
52. That reminds me – Soul Searching.
53. Remind me to start secret newsletter on Meditation Rocks!
54. Imagine – one place you can do anything, be anything and have anything.
55. …believe it can come true.
56. …see it coming true.
57. Learn a foreign language.
58. Make your own secret script/language.
59. Now no one can read your secret diary/journal.
60. Join our fan page.
61. Do some social service.
62. Call your grandma and tell her how much you love her.
63. Text your mom –say ‘mom i luv u’
64. … no enjoy her wet eyes and awesome dinner tonight.
65. Add your parents in your facebook friend list – AT YOUR OWN RISK!
66. Subscribe to our RSS feed – that simply rocks.
67. Bake…
68. …a cake and if it’s good send it to me coz I advised you to bake it.
69. Cookies and if they are good I will join the dark side – coz you have cookies.
70. Donate your old clothes – haven’t used them since year – THROW THEM AWAY RIGHT NOW!
71. … Watch where you throw them. Btw some homeless kid might use them well.
72. Don’t get drunk – for a change.
73. Meditation has same effect and it’s – FREE!
74. Try hoping instead of doping.
75. Buy gifts for your friend on no special day. They will love you.
76. Don’t have bucks? Draw greeting cards saying ‘You’re Awsm!’ no matter how bad they are they will love it.
77. Chuck the friends who don’t love them.
78. Bunk your school.
79. Or maybe attend your school for a change.
80. Respect your elders? Bah! Respect the younger ones – they will be more tech savvy then you.
81. Mail Bill Gates appreciating (for a change) his work.
82. Mail Steve Jobs telling him how he inspired you.
83. Get a life if you don’t know who Steve Jobs is.
84. Follow us on twitter coz we give out awesome tips and inspiration.
85. Read all the tips.
86. Lend your Xbox to your sibling for an hour – at your own risk.
87. Or let them play with you, at least. Your mom is suspecting a gypsy around.
88. Get abducted by aliens, and let me know how you did it coz I want to do it too.
89. Or at least blog that you were abducted.
90. Read Meditation Rocks! Regularly – to keep your life rocking awesome.
91. Learn to speak ‘Super-cali-fragilistic-expialid-ocious’
92. It means ‘fantastic’ – your English teacher might be happy.
93. Retweet this awesome post.
94. Write rampage of appreciation for everyone around you – EVERYONE.
95. Don’t steal? Bah! Steal hearts by doing small acts of kindness.
96. Let me know how I rock.
97. … expect a mail from me – I will tell you how much your rock.
98. We will have an awesome rocking society.
99. Download FRiEnDz magazine latest edition. (PDF)
100. Add your tips in comments. (Remember to number them from 101 and so on so we could know how many we have in total.
101. Make a comment or drop us mail on how you like our blog?

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It’s been 60 days since launch of Meditation Rocks! I’d like to share our achievements so far. Let’s see how much have we progressed as a community and then I’ll make some exciting announcements. And most important, I will need your feedback to make this blog a better place.

Growing as Community

This month was super exciting for us. Thanks to Deepak Chopra’s tweet and to you people who shared the articles with all your friends. We now have 175 fans on facebook and 940+ followers on twitter. That means more loving people are connecting to meditation!

We had total of 37,721 Hits and 6,824 Visits.

I got buys with studies and for a whole week in November, Meditation Rocks wasn’t updates we lost a lot of readers. But I am glad that we have those who will stick around no matter what. Thanks you guys.

Media Exposure

Remember last time I mentioned that we were published in local newspaper? I’ve managed to find one of the two mentions.

Here is the full resolution image. I’ve highlighted the important part.

Also our post ‘10 Most Inspiring People to Follow on Twitter’ got viral and was retweeted like crazy. The post got place in Blogussion’s Weird Weekends which is a great honor.

Thanks to Authors

Last time I was misunderstood on this one, What I meant was that Meditation Rocks is your own place. So everyone of you is invited to share your experience. I am thankful to Manav Dhiman who wrote 15 Year Old’s Advice on Healing Through Meditation and our Gifting Guy Ryan Biddulph who revealed his secret Meditation. If you are thinking of sharing your experience, just write and contact me .

Personal Experience

Meditation Rocks and you guys inspired me to try new things, write, explore, read and meet awesome people. You guys inspired new ideas in me. Asked awesome questions which made me think, explore and learn more. So it’s been so much of fun and learning.

Announcements

Yes we have some awesome announcements to make. And please remember to provide your feedback on this. Your opinion means everything to Meditation Rocks.

Re-Design

We will have major redesign here. Things will be more awesome and easy to find. This place will be awesome to hangout and meditate. So if you love a site’s design, then do let me know. We have Blogussion and Zen Habits on our list.

Weekly Series – Affirmations

Most probably next week we will have a series of posts on Affirmations. So remember to subscribe via Email if you have not, this is to make sure you don’t miss out any article. I know I promised this earlier but I thought let’s start with Affirmations.

Book Reviews

I am not sure about this, need your feedback. I usually read 4- 5 books a month. Many of them are related to meditation. Would you like me to review the books here?

Meditation Weekends

If you have noticed, I usually don’t post on weekends because most of you are busy enjoying weekends so there is no use. But sometimes we just want to meditate on weekends and enjoy more? Or maybe just learn more? So on weekends I’ll  post a list on interesting articles, facts and fun stuff. Would you like to add to his idea?

Favourites

These are the most popular articles, which means they are your favourite:

What A Drug Addict Could Teach Us About Meditation

10 Most Inspiring People to Follow on Twitter

15 Years Old Advice on Meditation

Gifting Guy’s Secret Meditation Revealed

The Lie It’s Ok to Tell in Meditation

Feed Me Back

I mean ‘feedback’ it’s your blog, why not tell me what you’d like to read about more? What you don’t want to hear about again? What changes to do you want? Suggestions, Ideas, Threats, Compliments all are not only welcome but also required for us to grow. So please write a long nice comment or use contact form to mail me (if you want to be anon).

Namaste.

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Sounds sarcastic eh? On one hand we think of meditation as peaceful activity to be performed in silent coroners of world. People even go to the mountain tops and retreats to meditate. Cutting off from rest of the world.

Is Meditation Powerless?

But here is the thing, if meditation needs so much of peace before it could be practiced, if meditation needs you to run away from your lifestyle doesn’t that mean that meditation is powerless in front of all these things?

Is the honking of horn, laughing of people, shouting crowd, raging traffic, chattering mind more powerful than meditation?

I’d say meditation is far more powerful than all these things put together. Meditation is so powerful that Buddha was enlightened, Jesus defeated Satan and You rocked your life!

So Why Go to Silence?

So why do we go to retreats? Why do we run away? Why to we need silence to create silence?

There is not one reason. People what to create a mood, take a break, it’s easier, distractions are less and all sorts of stuff expect ‘I want to meditate.’ And when you really do want, it will happen, right there and then. No matter where you are standing, what you are doing.

Personal Experience

I’ve meditated in my school, in libraries, in public parks, at discos and many places that I will not utter here. And there was no hardly any difference. In fact, I find it quiet amusing and it helps me a lot to feel detached.

When I am meditating, I pay no heed to the meaning of sounds around me. Though I am highly aware of them because of raised sense of awareness but all sounds are meaningless. And this practice helps me render all the struggles meaningless at any point of time and I can walk out of problems with my heart full of gratitude.

Peace is a bridge and so is violence. But bridges can never hinder my practice.

Group Discussion

So after reading this don’t you feel that noisy environment is not only good but in some ways awesome for meditation?

Tomorrow I will discuss with you how to meditate in a noisy environment. Till then let’s discuss what other benefits it could offer. And if any of you have tried that already, please share your experience.
Photo Credits: The Living End White Noise Tour Perth by Michael_Spencer, on Flickr

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Hey there ‘awesome’ readers!
It gives me immense pleasure to announce that Meditation Rocks is 30 days old (think: cute baby). It’s been exciting journey with you guys to here. So I’ve decided that 11th of every month we will share about our progress!
Moreover, we have 135+ fans on facebook fan page and 860 followers on twitter.

Blog Readers

From 0, we have reached 15,674 Hits and 2,785 Page views. We have 26 Feed Subscribers (at the time of writing this post). You can subscribe it too so, it will let you know every time we have a new post here.

You are the true inspiration behind the blog. Thanks you so much for your support.

Press Exposure

This one makes you feel proud. We got mentions in a National Student Newspaper – NIE Times of India (Student Edition) and HT City Chandigarh (City Supplement of Hindustan Times). Isn’t that great? (Sorry my scanner isn’t working but will post the pics soon)

Design Updates

Here are some redesign options on site:
Category View on Sidebar: All the posts sorted by Categories
Archive: Find post via month
Search, and overall design changes: saw something different in beginning of this post? Well that’s what I did. Trying to get the focus on articles, you see. Let me know what you think of new design and yes let me know if something is not working for you.
P.S.: It won’t look great on IE6

Thanks to Authors

Please bear in mind that there is no ‘Guest Post’ on Meditation Rocks. We all are co-creators of the blog! So go on and write a post!
Thanks to these awesome people for sharing their thoughts: Ryan Biddulph, Karthikeyan Ganapathy and Manav Dhiman.

Personal Experience

I’ve learned a lot! Answering all the emails with questions, discussing with people taught me many things and provoked me to think. Especially your comments, they are just lovable! Remember, every blog loves comment. I try to answer every comment, coz I love them!
Also I’ve been reading a lot of books which I will share here soon. Thanks to you guys who keep inspiring me!

Coming Soon

These are some features which I plant to add soon:
Newsletter: A weekly newsletter from Meditation Rocks with awesome secrets that you won’t get on the site!
Podcast: Yes I know I’ve been talking about them a lot. I am experimenting with some ideas. As soon as I get the best one, you will get the podcast! You can download it, make a CD, out in iPod and meditate with it!
7 Days to Meditation: Next week, we will have series of 7 articles which will make sure that you meditate! They will make it a permanent habit and inspire you a lot. So stay tuned.

Earnings

Best thing to share. You see that add on sidebar and one near comments section? (I hope they don’t annoy you). Curious how much they earned? $0.83! Not what you expected? Well, I am not aiming for money… but it’s good if it does make some.

Favourite

I’ve tried my best to provide with quality content and fresh content everyday, let me know how much I succeeded. Here are my 5 favourite posts from past month:

1. 5 Obstacles to Meditation and How to Overcome Them
2. What is Meditation? How to meditate? [Video]
3. How Can Meditation Benefit You?
4. CycloMeditation: Cycling is Meditation
5. Improving handwriting with Meditation

Offbeat

We launched Fall 2009 Edition of FRiEnDz magazine and weBlog –where teens speak.

Off to Readers

Alright so this is already a huge post. I always keep on blah blah! This post is incomplete without you! Please tell me how was your experience with Meditation Rocks and Meditation? Use the comments section for a short description or better! Write 2 paragraph post about it and mail it to me (use contact form). Let’s publish it, you know your story could inspire so many lives!
It’s good to share good things so let’s do it. Also let me know if there is anything you’d like to tell me anything (question, compliment, threats, complains etc.)
Namaste

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