A research project by Prof. Richard Davidson of the University of Wisconsin studied Pomega, a biotechnology company that had a very high-stress workplace, and found a mindfulness meditation training produced astonishing results in reducing stress and generating positive feelings.

Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D., a former professor of medicine at University of Massachusetts Medical School and an acclaimed pioneer in the use of meditation for healing, says meditation is now being used in hundreds of schools, hospitals, and even the military.

According to a study at Harvard Business School published in The Harvard Business Review, business owners credit 80% of their success to acting on their intuition, which can be strengthened by meditation. 

So if you’re feeling anxious about the future, what better way to understand what lies ahead than to meditate and strengthen your intuition and vision. And if you’re feeling more peaceful from your meditation practice, you’ll help create a more peaceful world for all of us—and a better future.

Creative Meditation Techniques for the Home or Office:

Establishing a regular rhythm with your meditation is essential.  Ten minutes each day is better than an hour every once in awhile, as it creates a regular habit pattern and rhythm. Morning is best, as you are fresher at that time, and not yet caught up in the day’s activities.  Meditation in the morning sets the right note for the day. It connects you with higher spiritual energies and a sense of purpose. If you are just learning to meditate, the maximum length should be about thirty minutes.  If you’re at work and can’t take time to meditate, just pause for a minute, take a few deep breaths and invite a sense of peace to fill you.  It’s amazing what even a short meditative break can do.

It’s best to take a scientific approach to meditation -- experiment with different techniques and study the results.  Proceed slowly and with caution.  Meditation should be in balance as part of the rhythm of daily living.  Observe the effects on your life.  Here’s some key steps that you might find helpful for meditation:

1.  Align your posture and relax your physical body.  It’s best to sit up straight with your chakras or energy centers perpendicular to gravity.  If you lie down, you may become too relaxed and fall asleep. Your hands can be folded in lap, or with palms up or down on your thighs. Your eyes should be closed, or if this is uncomfortable, leave them open and focus on one thing in front of you. You can tighten up each muscle group, beginning with your neck and shoulders, and then relax it (or you can do stretching exercises or yoga before meditation to relax your body).  Appreciate and send love to your physical, emotional and mental bodies before you begin the meditation, holding an attitude of cooperation, rather than suppression, of each aspect of your personality. It’s important to stay relaxed, yet aware and awake.

2.  Focus on your breath.  Breathing in peace and stillness, and exhaling any tensions or worries.  Deep breathing helps energize you as you bring in more prana or life force. Create a regular rhythm of inbreath, holding the breath, then outbreath.  You can count to seven as you breathe in, hold it for a few moments, and then exhale to the count of seven (or whatever rhythm works best for you) and release the cares of the day each time you exhale.   If your mind wanders and you become distracted, always come back to the breath. With each breath, allow yourself to become lighter and more expanded. Experience the pause between the breaths expanding into infinity.

3.  Calm your emotions. Observe your feelings, as if you’re watching a movie -- the melodrama of your own life.  Become a detached observer, just noticing what’s going on, without reacting or judging it.

If you’re experiencing fear or anger or negative emotions, you can transform them by seeing your feelings as a ball of energy in your solar plexus chakra (at your navel).  Visualize moving this energy upward to your heart, in order to transform these feelings into positive, loving energy.  You can actually see it as a ball of energy, or you can just hold the intention of moving the energy up to your heart. 

Another technique for calming your emotions is to visualize a calm, clear lake, reflecting the sun on a beautiful day; the water symbolizes your emotions; the sun symbolizes your soul or higher self. Visualize the lake being very still so it can reflect the sun clearly.

4.  Still your mind: Allow your mind to remain poised and alert.  In meditation you are quieting your lower, rational mind and working with your higher, abstract mind.  You are learning to focus your mind like a searchlight into the higher realms, in order to receive impressions and new ideas that can help humanity.  Your mind is held steady in the light, while perceiving a still greater light, the light of your soul.

A good technique for calming your mind is to become a detached observer, noticing your thoughts without trying to stop or change them, and without judging them.  Simply label thoughts that arise as “thinking”; label emotions as “feelings”; label physical experiences or discomforts as “sensations”.  In the East, this is called Insight or Vipassana meditation. You disidentify from your thoughts and feelings, saying to yourself, “I have thoughts, but I am not my thoughts; I have feelings, but I am not my feelings.”

Visualization can be very effective, because energy follows thought. You can visualize pure white light pouring in through the energy center at the top of your head, called the crown center, and see the light circulating throughout your body, as you feel lighter and more expanded.

Focus your attention in the present, letting go of worries about the past or future: be here now.  Be fully present in this moment.

5.  Align with your Soul or Higher Self:  Many meditation techniques end with stilling your mind, but you can go a step further and use your mind and your will to penetrate into the higher spiritual realms, the realm of your soul or higher self, and to align with the great enlightened teachers of humanity such as Christ or Buddha, etc.

This is called “building the rainbow bridge” or the antahkarana as its called in the East. You literally build strands of light from each of your bodies--physical, emotional, mental to their higher spiritual counterparts.  You raise your consciousness to the vibratory frequency of your soul.

If you’re new to meditation, a simple way to do this is to visualize lines of rainbow light passing through what’s called the crown chakra or energy center at the top of your head, and then visualizing this light connecting to a star above your head, representing your soul and the higher spiritual realms.

If you’re a more experienced meditator, you can focus your energy in your brow chakra in the middle of your forehead and then visualize a strand of rainbow light from the plane of the lower, rational mind to the plane of the higher, abstract mind (or manas as it’s called in the East); visualize a strand from the plane of the emotions to the plane of intuition or buddhi; and from the physical plane to atma or the plane of the higher will aligned with God’s will.

Then you can hold open your alignment with your soul for a few minutes in complete inner silence to receive impressions or guidance. This is referred to as the “higher interlude” in meditation.  After a period of silence, you enter the “lower interlude,” where your brain can be impressed with ideas received in the meditation and is stimulated into activity.  Then allow your lower mind to shape the energy or the impressions you received into usable thoughtforms for your life and work, and to plan action if appropriate.

6.  End with a blessing:  The last step is circulation of the energy contacted in meditation as a blessing and form of service.  The spiritual energy you received in meditation is released and directed into the world, to bring healing and transformation to individuals in need or to humanity as a whole.  You can visualize light, love and healing energy radiating out from the brow center in the center of your forehead to where it’s most needed in the world.  It’s important to share and circulate the energy you’ve received in meditation so it makes a complete circuit of receiving and giving energy. 

Lastly, visualize the presence of your soul, and its light, love and healing energy, filling your whole being, energizing and balancing your physical, emotional and mental bodies.  Experience your soul as your true essence, a helpful source of wisdom for your life.

Some people like to begin and end their meditation by sounding three OMs (which can be done silently if needed).  OM is a sacred word that helps to still the physical, emotional and mental bodies, and closing the meditation with three OMs helps distribute the energy. 

After you end the meditation, you might want to write down anything you’ve received in meditation -- ideas, visions, inner guidance -- as a way to remember it and ground it so you can apply it in your daily life, as this is a key purpose of meditation.