Twin Hearts Meditation – like exercising, only spiritual

Often I see people who experience Twin Hearts Meditation (also called Planetary Peace Meditation) for the first time, and are ecstatic about it, they immediately feel the love and elation and power. Then there are those people, like me, whose first reaction is ‘that was nice, I feel sort of relaxed although my mind was racing the whole time’. If I hadn’t seen the effects regular practice of Twin Hearts has, I probably wouldn’t have continued at all. In fact, I almost didn’t. My meditation was sporadic, every time I went to a group meditation I made a decision to start meditating regularly, and a month or so later I realised I hadn’t. It was exactly like my plans to start exercising more. Every time I for some reason manage to get my running shoes on, I promise myself I’ll do it more often, and then I didn’t. Yet.

Then the Finnish Pranic Healers and Arhatic Yogis started doing a weekly meditations via Skype, and it was a lot easier to stay regular. A bit like joining an exercise class, you’re more motivated to go because the hassle of letting people know why you’re not coming makes it easier to just go 🙂 Especially as all you have to do is turn on Skype!

First benefit: the nice feeling of being in a group.

Second benefit: doing meditations in between the Skype meditations got a lot easier. Close door, sit down, close eyes, press play. And remember physical exercises before and after the meditation, especially if you spend your days sitting down at work etc. Just move or rotate all parts of your body (eyes, neck, arms, torso/spine, hips, elbows, wrists, fingers, knees, ankles) 12 times each (in both directions when rotating) and do semi-squats 50 times. This is to prevent the energy from getting stuck. Don’t try to avoid this step, you might thing you don’t need it because you’ve done other kinds of meditation before, but it’s not worth the risk of energy blockages, trust me.

Third, and by far the best benefit: increased energy levels, increased calmness and happiness, increased effectiveness, motivation for general life improvement, and so on and so on. It’s something that’s difficult to explain, as the benefits are not simple, definable things. It’s more of a feeling of being more aware, more alive. It’s about being able to understand things, see connections, be inspired! It’s about not wasting time complaining but finding ways to make the best of everything, and once in that mode, it’s hard to see why you’d do anything else, ever! Of course there are down-days too, nothing’s an eternal fix 😉 But even the down-days can be useful, you’ll see 🙂

But again, it’s not always an instant result (although I have seen that happen too, for some people. Rare though) Like with any exercise, it’s tough at first, you get frustrated when you don’t see the results you want, but once you get into it you don’t really know how you managed without it before. So a small warning – if you do decide to take up this kind of powerful meditation as a regular practice, be prepared to make it a lifestyle, as it won’t stay a ‘once in a while’ thing once you start getting the benefits of it. And it’s brilliant!

For more information on Twin Hearts Meditation go see http://pranichealing.com/meditation-twin-hearts There is an audio file at the bottom of the page with a short version of the meditation if you want to try it. For more information on the benefits of Twin Hearts Meditation you can go to http://www.meditationontwinhearts.org/benefits.htm

NOTE:
Twin Hearts Meditation is a powerful meditation technique and should NOT be practice by the following:

1. Persons below 16 years old.
2. Patients with severe heart ailment, hypertension, glaucoma, or kidney and liver problems. (Contact an experienced Pranic Healer and your medical doctor before practicing the meditation)
3. Pregnant women.
4. Heavy smokers.
5. Heavy meat eaters (particularly pork).
6. Persons with excessive alcohol consumption or use of addictive and hallucinogenic drugs.

This is for your own safety.

Creating your own space for inner stillness

Creating your own space is important for many things, and meditation/spiritual practice is one of the things where it can make a world of difference. Of course it’s not essential, and a good meditation can bring you away from any uncomfortable setting if you can tune in properly. But for those times when tuning in is a bit difficult and the right mindset is proving elusive, being able to create the right setting can smooth things along very nicely indeed.

Having been a student for several years, and moving around a lot after that too, it’s been difficult for me to be able to create a permanent meditation/spiritual practice/mindfulness space in my home. Often the bedroom is the only available space that is private in a shared flat, and often that bedroom is not very big. While dreaming about the day when I can have a whole room dedicated just for my spiritual practice, I’ve been finding creative solutions in my quest for that something that will help me find the peace of mind needed for a really good meditation.

My altar/centre of calmness/decorative candle stand/miniature bookshelf/photo display-bedside table.
Copyright: Fanny Johansson

This picture is of my current bedside table/bookshelf doubling as a place for candles and pictures. It’s not much, but it does the trick. If I’m feeling frazzled and finding it hard to focus on my inner stillness, and the presence of my favourite picture of my teacher isn’t enough to shut down the noise in my head, then I light the candles, turn off all other lights, sit myself down on the bed and drape my meditation scarf over my head so it shuts out all other visual stimuli except for the scene of candles and icons. Nine times out of ten this helps me find my inner peace and be able to enjoy meditation more, whether it is Arhatic meditations or the joyful simplicity/complexity of Twin Hearts Meditation (if you haven’t tried Twin Hearts Meditation, you can find a short audio version of it here, see if it’s to your liking).

Being on the spiritual path in this modern day and age is both a challenge and a blessing. On the one hand, with the internet and the ease of travelling to different places, the availability of spiritual teachings and the possibilities of connecting with teachers are bountiful compared to a hundred years ago. But unless we want to hide away in the mountains somewhere and live like hermits, we have to learn to balance the spiritual practice with the buzz of everyday life. And everyday life can be very loud.

I used to feel that if I let myself be distracted by the hustle and bustle of material life enough to be more tempted by watching TV than by meditating, then I wasn’t really worthy of the live and blessings anyway. And while this in some ways is true (truth comes to those who seek it), sometimes we need to trick ourselves into discipline.  The same way that effectivity-self-help books tell us to create routines at work to get into a productive mood (have a cup of coffee when getting to the office, always sitting down in the same chair, opening the computer/documents in the same order etc etc), the same way we can use routine and audio-visual stimuli to help us get into the inner calmness mode.

If we are coming home from being out in a busy city, or from watching TV or talking to friends, it is very difficult to just plop down in lotus position, close our eyes and find inner stillness. It might not even be that attractive, if what you’ve been doing before was enjoyable. In this situation it is much more attractive to do something active, something material: light a few candles, maybe start playing some mantras, light some incense, while still letting yourself be in that active, material mode. This is a way of tricking our minds, emotions and bodies into this new mode of being, and as proved by advertising everywhere, we humans are pretty easily convinced when put in the right mood. After a few minutes in this setting, it is much much easier to let go of the frenzy of the day and enjoy the stillness.

It’s not really self-trickery, it’s being the master of your own mind…

Shower fresh meditation

Pranic Healers know that it’s better to shower before meditating than after, to avoid washing away all the goody good good energies we get. But not only that, it’s also nice to meditate RIGHT after a shower, before adding all the everyday stuff of clothes and thoughts on ourselves.

Beauty meditation – time management!

You know that feeling of freshness when you’ve just stepped out of the shower? Add that to the sense freedom and light gained from doing a Twin Heart Meditation (or any arhatic meditation, for the arhatic yogis out there). I noticed this one morning after I decided to be time efficient and use the meditation time to let the hair rollers do their work (who says spirituality has to mean not wanting to look pretty every once in a while?)

Someone with a degree in shower psychology can try to explain the ins and outs of the ‘shower fresh’ feeling. My layman’s theory is that the sense of ‘me time’ that comes from taking a shower, being on your own, doing something for yourself, is extended by doing a meditation before getting dressed and thereby ‘being ready to meet the world’. Whatever the reason, I’m now loving the feeling of post-shower Twin Hearts, and as a bonus, when I do get out and meet the world (well, the physical world anyway) I’m not only shower fresh, spiritually charged but I also have pretty curls 😀

Have a great day, everyone!