by Kelvin Chin, Meditation Teacher and Life After Life Expert
Meditation should be effortless if it follows the natural processes on which everybody’s mind operates.
We all notice that our minds wander. This should therefore not be a problem to be overcome in meditation. It should be embraced. If it is, then the meditation can be effortless.
Credit should be given to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi for bringing world attention to this fact — that meditation can and should be effortless. That it is the natural tendency of the mind to experience itself in this way effortlessly if you are taught how to set up the initial conditions to allow it. Maharishi was a spiritual revolutionary. He revolutionized the practice of meditation globally.
By inference then, any teacher of meditation who suggests or instructs that the student needs to focus the mind, needs to control it in order to meditate, or needs to clear the mind of thoughts does not yet understand the basic principles of the mind on which meditation operates.
This was Maharishi’s gift to the world — his understanding of how the mind works. And it is a gift from him for which I am very thankful.
The meditation I teach is effortless. It is also more flexible and less complicated than the way I taught in the 1970’s. There are no rituals or religious trappings or lifestyle changes involved. Meditation should also be effortless in this way — it should easily fit into your daily life. It shouldn’t have to take very long, and you should be able to do it anywhere. Alone or with others, quiet or noisy place, eating whatever you want, wearing whatever you wish.
Nothing outside of yourself should matter or affect the meditation benefits. It truly should and can be universally portable because you can take your mind anywhere. And it should be easy. If it is, the mind will settle down — easily and naturally — and experience itself.
Kelvin H. Chin is a Meditation Teacher, Life After Life Expert, and Author of “Overcoming the Fear of Death,” “Marcus Aurelius Updated: 21st Century Meditations On Living Life” and “After the Afterlife: Memories of My Past Lives.” He learned to meditate at age 19, and has been teaching Turning Within and coaching others in their self-growth for 40 years. He helps people understand their life challenges through their individual belief systems, and helps them find their own solutions. His past life memories reach back many centuries, and he accesses those memories in his teaching and his coaching in the same way all coaches draw on their own available experiences for perspective and effective analogies. He can be reached at www.TurningWithin.org.