#15 - Meditation Success Path: from Self-Awareness to Self-Mastery

Following our episode on self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-mastery, episode 13 of our podcast series, quite a lot of people have written to us asking us which meditation practice they should start with and how to use all the various meditations we have on the website.

Which meditations are particularly suited to cultivating self-awareness, which is for self-regulation, and is there a path that can be followed to support successful meditation?

These are great questions because we need to understand what techniques are available, and how to apply them properly.

In this episode we discuss:

1. What is success in meditation?
2. Should we use one technique or many, and if many, how do we use them?
3. The success path is defined.
4. The journey begins with relaxation techniques because self-awareness is difficult if you’re not relaxed. The first is the 3 Easy Steps to Deep Relaxation, which teaches this.
5. The second stage begins once you have attained a degree of relaxation and is when you cultivate self-awareness. The primary practice for this is Inner Silence, Antar Mouna.
6. Being inside the mind is like being inside a washing machine. Inner Silence gets you outside of your mind.
7. The third state of self-awareness and self-regulation is mastering our energy systems, our life force, prāna. Initially, this can be done by learning the breathing technique Ujjayi Pranayama.
8. Once you have developed ujjayi and connected to the breath and prana, you will move to the Pranic Healing Meditations series, which teaches you how to direct prana to specific parts of the body, facilitating healing and revitalization.
9. Once you can charge your body with energy, we teach a very important series of meditations called the Core Strength, Calm Mind. It teaches grounding, the ability to remain grounded and stable in the present moment, and self-awareness while facing stress and life's challenges.
10. Once you can work with your prana and these grounding and energizing practices, you can move into the next stage by developing your connection to your highest self, the source of your intelligence and intuition. Advanced mantras and Ajapa Japa Meditations are taught at this stage.
11. The fifth stage takes self-awareness and self-regulation to self-mastery.