free at YouTube. They are helpful in reaching deeper states of meditation or
attaining a specific meditative goal. Some of them are definitely more
effective than others.
Guided meditations should only be used as an occasional enhancement with
other forms of meditation. They can be the perfect tool, but you do not
want them to become a crutch. Your mind will grow much stronger, and
your meditation will become deeper if you can rely on yourself instead of
being guided.
Being silent in meditation, without the mantra’s, centering or using guided
meditation is an advanced skill. I suggest giving it a try regularly throughout
the week, alongside of other meditations forms. This is because it may take
some practice until the method seems more comfortable or natural. Starting
with Mantra or centering meditation and then going into silence meditation
after the mind calms down a bit can make it a bit easier to warm up to.
Turn off all noise, or at least as much as possible. You can lie down or sit
down, whichever you are most comfortable with and just be in the quiet,
with your breath. You will inevitably hear sounds, just let them pass. Your
mind will decide to think, allow thoughts to pass. Do not strain or struggle
with this, just gently return to a place of silence and start with about one
minute at a time. If you can sit in silence of the mind for one minute, that is
an excellent feat even though it may not sound like long.
Once you feel comfortable with one minute of silence, increase the time
slowly. It may take a long time to feel strong for even one full minute. The
longer you practice, the better it gets. Eventually it will become easy for you
and you can then continue on to longer time periods.
