I recently finished reading another book on meditation, called ‘Silence Your Mind’, by Dr Ramesh Manocha. This book challenged my views on meditation, but Ramesh is clearly a lovely man and he has done his research, so he won me round.
Ramesh is a student of Sahaja yoga and his thesis in the book is that the most effective forms of meditation are this in which the meditator experiences a silencing of thought. This is not to say that focused meditations such as compassion-focused meditation or mindfulness meditation are of no use, simply that meditation in which mental silence is experienced is more effective.
In the book, Ramesh describes admittedly small studies, which show a benefit for mental silence meditation over other forms of relaxation in reducing stress, improving sleep and mood, reducing menopausal flushes and asthma and in improving overall health on a number of measures.
Ramesh provides very easy to follow instructions for his preferred technique and he has found that most people are able to experience mental silence within just a few sessions. If you don’t want to buy the book, detailed instructions are available on his website www.beyondthemind.com
I have been sufficiently persuaded to alter my own meditation practice to adopt Ramesh’s method. Why not give it a try for a month and let me know what you think?