Fareda Barlas

Journeying Into Meditation

Embark on Your Meditation Journey: Embrace Vipassana Technique. Dive into ancient wisdom, cultivate inner peace, and discover profound self-awareness through consistent practice.

Vipassana Meditation: A Personal Exploration

Over the last few years, I have been on a personal journey of seeking meditation and making it part of my daily routine. In my quest to look for the meditation style that suits who I am, I decided to get into Vipassana Meditation, which essentially means seeing things as they are, not as you would like them to be. Vipassana is one of India's most ancient techniques of meditation. It was taught in India more than 2500 years ago as a universal remedy for universal ills. The teachings of this meditation is based on the fundamental causes of misery which according to Vipassana is craving and aversion.

What a simple yet profound insight. Craving doesn’t allow you to be in the present moment, while your brain is busy craving for the past or things that you may not have. Aversion also doesn’t allow you to accept things as they are and to surrender to your experience, even if it’s an unpleasant one. Rather than maybe staying with the experience and perhaps examining what it might be teaching you, you may be busy wondering why it might be happening and looking for ways of staying away from this experience.

My experience of Vipassana allowed me, through practice, to see that nothing is permanent, not even the most unpleasant sensations during meditation. I felt this on a mental and physical level. I managed to get in touch with my inner wisdom and experience the impermanent nature of life events. It made me realise that I should not get attached to each experience and finally, on the sixth day of meditation, I experienced total stillness, no chatter in my head, moments of clarity and being in touch with what I could best describe as getting in touch with my higher self.

Although not everybody has the same experience and Vipassana might not be for everyone, there are so many other types of meditations one can practice and if you are struggling to know where to start, it would be good to decide what it is that you would like to achieve out of meditation.

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Whichever meditation technique you choose to follow, you can use the following to start your journey:

Make sure you have a private space without any distraction.
Ensure you take a few deep breaths and silence your ‘human’ voice and the internal chatter. This can be very difficult and like many other things in life, it comes with practice and consistency. Vipassana doesn’t encourage any guided meditation and music, because the technique encourages you to have a raw experience, but this may not be for everybody. If this is the case, you can search for guided meditations on YouTube and follow one of the videos.
Once you have settled down, begin to scan your body from top to toe and really get into the sensations you feel in your body. This could be a pleasant or seemingly unpleasant sensations, it doesn’t matter. Just observe each sensation without getting attached to them.
Try to stay with your experience and not wish for a desired outcome. This will elevate your knowledge and understanding around everything arising and passing away. Nothing is permanent in life.
Practice this every day or as much as you can. I think with consistency, you begin to stay with your experience and get to know your inner self and inner wisdom. I believe we have all the answers within but we must learn to listen to our inner voice.

I think meditation is a way of living and if practiced consistently, it can really elevate your life and teach you much about yourself and the impermanence nature of your thoughts and feelings. It familiarizes you with your inner wisdom of all feelings arising and passing away and perhaps the next time you feel an intense emotion, you are not so attached to that emotion. If you find meditation hard, worry not, you will get into it when the time is right for you. I believe everything happens at the right time and this is no exception.