An Old School Meditation

A meditation for beginners, from the 1890s.

a pink lotus flower growing in a pond
Photo by Saffu on Unsplash
I'm re-reading The Subtle Body.  The following are Vivekananda's meditation instructions to a group of Americans back in the day (1890s). Some of his students sat on the floor and some sat in chairs [remember, the ladies at the time would have been wearing corsets].

I find these instructions for meditation to be quite lovely and very accessible to beginners. 

These are my notes, not his verbatim instructions.
  • Start in a comfortable seated position. It's all about the spinal column.
  • Starting with your toes and moving to your head, pause at each body part and think each as being perfect.
  • When you've finished that, think of the whole body as being perfect.
  • Take a deep breath in and then exhale completely [hard to do in a corset!]. Inhale again and hold as long as is comfortable, then exhale. 
  • Meditate on the glory of the being who created the universe and pray for illumination (or if praying isn't your thing then just ponder the vastness of the universe).