Ok just wondered if anyone could shed any light when it comes to the differeces with different meditations. A person has told me regular meditation and spiritual meditation are two seperate things.. can anyone tell me (keeping it basic) what the difference is between the two if there even is one. I always thought there was only one meditation but seems theres different types. Any information about the differences in how they vary and how spiritual meditation works would be greatly appreciated.
Basically, "meditation" simply means familiarity. Now, if you will excuse me, I need to spend some time getting familiar with this this thing called living.
Well, in a sense your friend is right, generally speaking. Meditation can probably be broken down into two major types - stillness types of meditation (maybe what that person was calling "regular" meditation), where emptying the mind of thought is the goal. And then there's devotional meditation, called Bhakti yoga in the Hindu tradition, and also present in the Mahayana traditions of Buddhism. With this, you're concentrating your awareness on a particluar something, usually a guru or god form or some other visualization. But I belive that any type, if well-taught, will eventually get you to the same place: tranquility of mind and transcendece of the egoic self. The are many, many different types within those general distinctions - you can read about a lot of them if you Google "meditaion" and "types." What works best for you is a personal thing, or ideally, you find a teacher to guide you and you learn their way. In my opinion this is the best way - so much will come up as you begin to go into the mind, and it's really important to have a teacher showing you how to work effectively with that. It's very easy to go off track if you're trying to do it on your own - it's hard work, even with a good guide. Best of luck!!!
Milkdrops, I wanted to respond to your question about the two different 'types' of meditation. Meditation is widely misunderstood. And there are alot of people who talk about a certain meditation technique done this way, or some other thing like Buddhist meditation done this way, and this and that one, etc. But in actuallity meditation is a very specific thing. It is technically called Dhyana, which is sanskrit for meditation. It is actually a stage of a process leading to Divine Realization through a genuine authentic ancient Yogic practice. And literally, meditation is the concentrated flowing of consciousness into the center of the head, initiated by various other Yogic techniques. This is really the context in which meditation, as well as an authentic ancient Yoga practice, should be understood. Namaste
