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What is Passive Meditation? What is Active Meditation?
Passive meditation is the practice of sitting quietly and observing the body-mind or the external world without any active effort on our part.
We simply allow the life-force and the living systems within the body-mind to function spontaneously in the moment and we observe what is going on. The only thing we need to do is to stay awake and aware of the process that we are observing while maintaining a relatively relaxed, attentive state.
In passive meditation we may direct our attention to feelings in the body, to the movement of the breath or to the thoughts in the mind. We notice the constant changes that occur over time.
If we are feeling good we notice that and if we are feeling bad we notice that without attempting to change anything. We simply accept things as they are. Examples of passive meditation are 'witnessing' techniques and 'mindfulness' techniques.
This has several profound effects:
- it provides information about how we are at this moment in time, how relaxed or tense we are, what thoughts and feelings are preoccupying us, what the issues in our life are.
- it reduces our tendency to constantly interfere with and attempt to control life through excessive mental activity.
- it strengthens our capacity to maintain self-awareness under all circumstances.
Active meditation is used to create conscious change with a purpose in mind, such as increased vitality, health, courage and self-awareness.
Active meditations generally utilize breath, a mantra (sound) and some form of visualization, or some combination of these. We actively engage in manipulating the body-mind to achieve certain desired effects.
We can divide these desired effects into two main groups:
- those effects which induce positive states of well-being, often by reducing negative feelings and cultivating states of relaxation, and feelings of strength, confidence and mental peace.
- those that actively engage negative patterns, old memories, habits or feelings, in order to make certain desired changes. We liberate trapped energy from old patterns in order to transform that old pattern and to make the energy liberate available for new and creative processes. This may not always feel so good in the short term but has very positive long term health and self-transformation benefits.
Examples of active meditations:
- Yoga Nidra, a combination of active and passive components, which induces profound relaxation and removes the negative effects of stress.
- Pranayama and Pranic Healing techniques which allow us to cultivate health and strength.
- Ajapa Japa, an active technique combining breath and mantra, which increase mental calm and spiritual awareness.
We advise people to use a combination of active and passive meditation. It is good to start off with a few moments of passive self-observation, to get an idea of how you are feeling, and then engage an active practice with some definite aim in mind. After you have completed the active practice take a few moments, or longer if you wish, to observe the results of the changes you have made. You can then either proceed with a passive process or engage another active technique depending on your purpose. An active practice can improve our energy levels and our clarity of mind so that passive meditation is more fulfilling.
About the Author(s):
Dr Swami Shankardev Saraswati is an eminent yoga Acharya (authority), medical doctor, yoga therapist and internationally acclaimed author. As a direct disciple of Swami Satyananda Saraswati, he lived in the Bihar School of Yoga India for 10 years (1974-1985), where he trained to teach the highest practices of yoga-tantra.
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