How Often Do You Meditate?, Poll Poll Poll! Options

I mostly meditate when I am in an extremely stressful sitution because it definately helps to clear my head and focus on one problem at a time. I wouldn't say it is a major part of my life because I only do it occasionally. Maybe for 15 minutes when I think the problems at hand are stressing me out too much.

More meditation = fewer moments of stress.

You can take vatamin C when you have a cold, or you can make sure to get plenty of Vit.C all the time, and get fewer colds.

See?

peace

I meditate to work with my mediumship successfully. People come with hopes when they have sittings, they want a connection, they want to know that life continues and I want to show them it does.

When I medidate before a reading I talk with my guides, the person in Spirit and with my personal understanding of God. I ask that the evidence of the continuation of life is brought forward, I ask that the person in Spirit make themselves known through me as best they can.

When I medidate for me I do it to get closer to the source, the power and the energy. To know the feelings that might follow death and to understand the greater picture.

Sadly, I don't do it nearly enough.

I tend to have a busy schedule, so I don't always get to meditate every day. Yet when I do, it can be from as short as 35 minutes (or so) to like 2 hours. I tend to do it for different reasons though. It relaxes me, and helps me make good decisions, while relieving my built up stress, and its just something fun to do while bored. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/chair.gif)

I meditate every morning when I awake and every night before I sleep. Some where between half an hour and forty five minutes each time, so I total around an hour to an hour and a half each day. I feel a structured consistant way of your times in meditation improves your focus and allows you to have the full experience and a much more improved time over each medative time.

I do so at these times for a few reasons, one being that it is simply the easist time, where I can wake up a little earlier and meditate before I start my day and I can whined down and relax bringing a much better sleep, at night. Also I feel this is the best time of day for it either way, your body is at an appropriate state and you are unlikely to have eaten around the time, especially if you have just woke up lol, in which case you can remain comfortable and enjoy the session.

I meditate briefly each day when I need to calm my emotions and focus. I meditate more on weekends because I teach a magick class. I'll meditate to prepare for ritual and lead the students through a meditation. That can be several hours of my Saturday.

I meditate to improve my spiritual and astral sense, to strengthen the parts of my mind which have ceased development due to the materialistic world, to have quiet time to connect with the spirits, for improving my willpower, for better concentration, for better visualisation, working better with energy (kundalini and prana), to come more intune with the chakras of the body, practice astral and etheric projection... And I also have one meditation I do where I think of myself as being a certain animal and try to live "as that animal", this seems to help me with empathy and other ways, I created it for myself.

All in all, I meditate 1-2 hours daily, every night, i've disciplined myself to do it every night. If I miss a night of meditation I become rather depressed, and this is due to my consistancy. Though when I get better with my meditations and need to go on to more challenging practices i'll end up meditating more hours per day.

I meditate so that i may wipe clean the nonsense planted in my head by the world. And so that i may focus on anything and know the energy and true nature. I meditate so that i can make all my life one long meditation one long stalk. Perception in daily life, and attentiion, and concentration all go back to the ability not to meditate while seated and comfortable but to do it at will until your so in the here and now that you are illuminated. i first became focused while in times of need and emergencies now its just a way of life.

I do meditation to find peace on my being,ballance the emotional, mental and physical states,charge my body with energy and strengthen my being,calm mind and body,do the alighment on my back just to keep my self disciple and do the daily service of my microcosmic channeling system.
It is a personal ritual sacred time that I spend every day to communicate with my inner self,and awake the divine forces wich I need for help.
I meditate to prepare the spirit for my prayers with runes,and to substane the sexual energy to spiritual energy.
I meditate to make my senses more sensitive by awakening conciousnes..

I started meditate daily twice before 3 years on tantra by doing a special meditative procces ,imagine a vision,focusicing my mind at the point between the eyes,chant the chackra mantras and their bijas while focusing and concetrating on the element of each one of the first five chackras,the color, the shape ,and the special ability of each one...

Recently I quited with tantra and do the backty technique focusing the anahata,sometimes chant some special runes or mantras and that depends on what I need to ask and with whom deity I want to ativate its force to help me for a special reason...

And for what purpose/s do you meditate for?

I usually do pranic breathing regularly to keep myself calm and keep my energies in check.

The choice that wasn't up there: Sporadically

My most prevalent motive for meditation is astral projection, even though it rarely works.

I meditate about 20 to 30 min. a day. To clear and still the mind.

I typically meditate a few times per week. In the past, it was mostly for the more mundane benefits - mental clarity, stress reduction, improved memory, etc. More and more, though, I've been using meditation for less mundane reasons.

Constantly by focusing the mind towards inquiries about Self,Universe,Existence and the like,at all times.It is a form of meditation.

My Job allows for about 5 hours of walking meditation where I entirely disconnect my monkey mind, but as far as actual sitting in a no mind frame... I do that rarely and for clarity when the universe seems to intense, I do it for cleansing, usually a elemental type i.e. nearly nude in freezing weather, etc.

I only just started Zazen, for the purpose of doing Zazen.

I'm working on opening up some of my Chakras, developing astral senses, get the energy to flow more smoothly, psionics, and willpower for now. Other reasons for me to meditate may pop up in the future.

I like hardly ever meditate, it's like I'm not motivated to do it.
I get so bored not thinking about anything.
That nothingness really gets to me and then I start thinking. (Which completely defeats the purpose)
Like.
I would be concentrating on my breath.
And then I'd think about breath mints.
And then I'd think about kissing.
And then I'd think about sex.
And it's like I have to start all over again.
Like.
I'd think about a blank canvas:all white:plain.
Then I'd think about race relations.
Then I'll close my eyes and just look at the darkness.
Then I'll start thinking about how pretty the sky is.
It's extremely difficult to shut down your thoughts.
So I rarely force myself to do it although I am aware that I need to do it more to actually start to be good at it.

It's extremely difficult to shut down your thoughts.

Well... it's more discipline than anything else. Discipline in a relaxed state rather than a forced one. My biggest problem is the difficulty in getting music out of my head so that I can meditate. I typically have a cranial jutebox thing going on most of the time and it's pretty disruptive when trying to meditate. If I don't have the music going in my head I can calm my mind and "shut down my thoughts." This is what I do to clear my thoughts of even the music, and I'm sure you can use it to clear your thoughts too: I cross my legs in meditation, close my eyes, and say "AHHHHHHHH" for a full breath as long as I can without forcing it. It may sound funny at first, but the constant droning serves as white noise that disrupts regular thinking, and in my case, helps drown out the music after a few minutes.

Once you quiet your thoughts initially, slowly stop the chanting and try to hold the quietness in your mind for as long as you can. If you start thinking about anything, and I mean ANYTHING, even about the darkness behind your eyelids, begin chanting again, slowly increasing the volume. After a couple of minutes, slowly work the chant out of your meditation and repeat.

Once you get good at quieting your mind, 20 minutes can seem like 20 seconds.

I Meditate only to Relieve Stress when things are totaly out of Control

A few times a week,for the sake of chillin'.