Contradicting! Isn’t it? Rock Music – the freaking stuff and Meditation the clam stuff? Won’t it be a chaos to put them together? Well, not really. Remember I was talking about an experiment I was doing before I wrote about meditating with music? Well here it is…

Can we Meditate with Rock Music? Yes we can and truly I tell you it’s awesome. Now please stay and hear me till the end if you want to know what I am talking about.

How it Works

Observing or rather ‘knowing’ the passing of time, passing of emotion or passing of anything, while you remain stationary, is a state of meditation. So that’s exactly what we are doing here – rock music with comparatively higher tempo (more beats per minute) that usual music for meditation is perfect for creating the sense of urgency or passing of time.

A word of warning here, try this only if you’ve been meditating for a month at least. Otherwise it will do no good to you. You need to be familiar with ‘state of meditation’ before you do this. That’s why it’s been categorized as Advance Skill.

How to Meditate with Rock Music:

1. Select a rock track – preferable in language you don’t know so you won’t be urged into lyrics. But rock music isn’t know for lyrics anyways. You can try hard rock which is better.
2. Play it on normal volume.
3. Sit, stand or lay with your back straight.
4. Close your eyes.
5. And focus on the beats…
6. Count it for breathe in or breathe out with it.
7. Just go with the beats, thought might come – release them – go with the beats.
8. Beat Beat …. faster it will go… go with the beats…. go go go.
9. Go as long as the song goes.

The Real Thing

That’s all to it for beginning. But hear this – this is just the beginning – after practice of a week or so, you will begin to detach from the beats – you won’t be in them but they will be in you.

Now some of you might experience that right away or in a few min. in first sitting. And Voila! You’ve reached the state of meditation with rock music that is unique to it’s listener.

If you ever ask people who go to rock concerts a lot – they will tell you that there are brief moments of time when they feel as if the time has stopped – and they love those. They try to induce it with loud music and even drugs – but here I give it to you without external things and harmful substances.

This will also help you learn to love all genres of music, it did help me.

Recommended Rock Music for Meditation

Here are the songs I’ve often used:

1. 21 Guns by GreenDay || Buy MP3 on Amazon(Omg! Aff Link!)
2. Leave Out All The Rest by Linkin Park || Buy MP3 on Amazon (Omg! Aff Link)
3. Living La Vida Loca by Riki Martin || Buy MP3 on Amazon (Omg! Aff Link)

Let me know what songs you tried and what effect it had on you. If you fond this article interesting, feel free to share with your friends (buttons below), bookmark it and leave a comment. If you want more, do subscribe to our RSS feed or get email updates.

Photo Credit16th Avenue – Adam by seanmcgrath, on Flickr

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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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When I started talking to my friends about meditation, I discovered that many of them think of meditation as a chore, a supplement pill that you could take daily or as a religious ritual. But it is none. Meditation is something as natural as breathing.

Meditation is all about calming your mind’s chatter, letting your body relax, letting your thoughts go and discover the real self in that moment. It is a realization that you are far more than your body, mind and conscious. In fact, most part of us is non-physical and vibrational – soul. It is like going on a treasure hunt, and finding the treasure –you.

What happens next, no language in world can describe. It’s a sleep deeper than sleep and awareness beyond what we know as conscious.
Why should I do it? Why it’s cool?!

“Meditation is pure awesomeness.”

There are loads and loads of reasons. I’ve written the main ones and divided them in sections.

Cool Meditation = Cool Body

• Improves body’s general state of health
• Maintains healthy Blood Pressure
• Increases blood flow to every part of body (especially to heart and brain)
• Increases patience (you don’t loose your temper so often)
• Fast Healing: be it post-operational, wounds, injuries or anything.

And there are many more. If you have a scientific mind (like me ) then an article from my favourite science magazine New Scientist :

“Meditating does more than just feel good and calm you down, it makes you perform better – and alters the structure of your brain, researchers have found.”

Meditation Builds up the brain | Nature

I’ve read articles in Nature magazine too, but you need to pay to read them.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v456/n7219/full/456170a.html

Cool Meditation = Cool You

• Improves concentration: That’s a big one! Very helpful for, both, students and people at work. Make most out of your time, even if kid next door loves rock music!
• Reduces Stress: Tired of looking tired and exhausted? Well, not anymore!
  Boosts Self-Confidence: We know it’s priceless
• More control on thoughts: So when mind tries to procrastinate you can have your control back.

I suggest that mediation breaks the illusion that mind runs the show. We began to realize our true potential and respect & love ourselves even more.

So, where to being?

I will give you some easy steps for starters. Wear easy clothes (you don’t want to keep adjusting that funky jeans, do you?). Now what you need is a comfortable place to sit in. Yoga postures do help, but to start sit in whatever way you like. Just make sure that every part of your body is relaxed. Ease out any stress. Here are steps:

• Close your eyes
• And take a deep breathe in and out ( 2 times)
• Now focus on your breathing, feel yourself breathing in and out.
• Let thoughts come and go, let feelings come and go… just focus on breath.
• If your mind goes on your favourite scene from LOST, lovingly and patiently bring it back and focus on your breathe

Your mind might doze off to sleep or something similar (it’s relaxing finally, you see) let it be. Just focus on your breathe.
That’s it go for as long as you can. Maybe 5 min in beginning and as you will begin to explore and get more comfortable. You will automatically want to do it more.

So how was your experience? Let me know in comments:
Photo by ODDSOCK via Flickr

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