My-Introspective-Blog

It isn’t always necessary to sit in silence with crossed legs in order to meditate or benefit from the meditation. Walking meditation is an excellent example of this. Walking meditation requires the use of focus much in the same way as other types of meditation. The difference is that the focus is placed upon the walking experience.

With walking meditation therefore, we are mindful of the experience of walking; the movement of our legs, the movement of our arms. We focus upon the rhythmic motions of walking. Walking meditation also differs from traditional meditation in that we are aware of and participating in our surroundings. Whereas with the usual types of meditation, one withdraws into silence and closes the eyes. Obviously we can’t do that with walking meditation because we need the eyes open to see where we are going and to watch for dangers and obstacles. So while we are focusing on the rhythm of our walking movement, we are also aware of the sights, sounds, and sensations around us.

It is actually easier for many people to focus and meditate in this environment, and therefore are more successful with walking meditation than with the more traditional sitting forms of meditation. It is easier to be aware of and focus upon your body while it is in motion; the experience can be powerful and a source of deep enjoyment.

A few different types of walking meditation have evolved; however walking outdoors is the most common. To give walking meditation a try, find an open space like a park or empty parking lot where you can walk safely for about 20 minutes without the worry of encountering traffic or crossing busy streets.

How to do walking meditation

Once you have selected the ideal location for your walking meditation, follow the guidelines below:

Begin by Standing

Begin to focus upon your body with the simple act of standing. Notice how your body feels and be aware of the constant little adjustments your body makes in order to maintain balance. Feel the weight of your body pressing through your feet and onto the earth.

Walk and Focus

Once you have placed your full awareness onto your body, begin the walk. Walk with your usual stride and pace, not too hurriedly. There is no need to try and change the way you walk, all you need to do is be aware of your body walking. Keep your focus upon your body and feel it moving. Be aware of your feet as one raises and then the other. Become aware of all the tiny little sensations in your body from the feeling of your feet inside of the shoes, to your knee as it bends to lift your leg. Stay relaxed, relax your eyes and just let the scenery flow past you. Your goal is to be relaxed and bring your focus onto your body.

Become Aware of Feelings

Once you are fully aware of your body, switch your focus onto the feelings or sensations that pass through your body; not necessarily emotional problems, but rather the overall tone of your feeling of the moment. Are you happy? Bored? In a hurry? Pass no judgment on the feeling and don’t analyze it. Your goal is to just become aware of it and then move your awareness on.

Balance the Inner and Outer

Alternate your awareness between the inner, your feelings, and the outer, your body. Play with the awareness, and focus upon them in equal balance. When you are able to do this, your mind reaches a state of stillness and clarity. Your mind becomes calm. Your goal is to balance your awareness of the inner with the outer.

End by Standing

After you have completed the above steps and brought your awareness into a balance of the inner and outer, bring your body to a natural stop and once again experience yourself standing. Bring your awareness to the feelings in your body as you stand in place. When you are ready, bring the walking meditation to a close.

Selecting the appropriate location for your walking meditation will be an important consideration as you can imagine. It is not necessary to find a place of solitude, but you do need to find a location where you will be safe if your full awareness is not upon the environment around you.

Sarah Thomas is an established freelance writer. You can find more of her writings at meditationteam.com and anxietysos.com.

Many people may have had glimpses of meditation unconsciously. For example whilst walking through nature and being awed by its beauty and magnitude. Others may have been moved by sublime music. At such moments our mind becomes still and we feel a sense there is something greater beyond our usual perceptions. As mysteriously as it came, such experiences may leave, giving only a fleeting glimpse of a feeling that is hard to describe. Meditation is an attempt to make such experiences permanent and also deepen and expand our own consciousness.

People may take up meditation for a variety of reasons which could just be curiosity, a desire for more relaxation, peace of mind, or help in sleeping. Others may take to meditation from a feeling of disenchantment with the outer life. If practised with sincerity and regularity, meditation can give us relaxation and peace of mind but it can also offer more than we ever expected. Through meditation we can expedite our soul’s inner journey and we can become more aware of our own spiritual dimension.

“Meditation is absolutely necessary for those who want to have a better and more fulfilling life. If you feel that you are satisfied with what you have and what you are then you need not enter into the field of meditation. But if you feel that there is a barren desert deep inside your heart, then meditation is the answer. Meditation will give you inner joy and peace of mind.”

- Sri Chinmoy

To begin meditation we need to learn the art of concentration. Here concentration is different to mental concentration. Concentration for meditation means the ability to be aware of only one thing at a time. We need to keep the mind one pointed and focused only on our meditation exercise. If you try sitting still for 5 minutes and observe your own thoughts you will realise how difficult this is at first. However spiritual teachers who have mastered the art of meditation have offered a variety of techniques to help control the mind. If practised these can change the inherent tendency of the mind to wander and we can enter to silent meditation.

Meditation has significant benefits, these do not materialise in one or two sessions, they are slowly accumulated over time as we deepen our own meditation practise. These benefits will include a more focused and calm mind, greater dynamism and better sleep. In addition we will find ourselves less worried by minor irritants because we can more easily detach ourselves from these negative thoughts.

Some people associate meditation with the Kundalini energies, and psychic powers, however these are really like diversions on the path. The real goal of meditation is peace of mind and positive changes to our inner life.

To start meditation is very easy. Just take 5 or 10 minutes somewhere quiet. Begin by focusing on your breathing and let your thoughts drift away, if thoughts come pay no attention to them. Next try to feel yourself diving deep within away from the mind. If you like you can visualise a beautiful garden or vast ocean. Then for 10 minutes try to hold this awareness with one pointed concentration. If external noises come do not let them distract you, they will always be there. Just concentrate on your breathing. Even if this first experience is not fruitful keep persevering for with each try we will be able to add to our capacity and gradually learn the art of meditation.

By Richard Pettinger. Richard is a member of the Sri Chinmoy centre in Oxford. http://www.meditationworkshop.org/

Wealth creation involves a slew of different concepts that can only contribute positively to your life. In the hustle and bustle of a fast lifestyle, people seem to forget the different methods that make individuals successful. For some people, they just lose the perspective to apply the different success methods. When people lose focus and tend to view the small details as part of their success pattern, then the goal loses its value. That is why it is important not to forget the different personal concepts that govern wealth creation.

Having a Wealthy View

Financial abundance and wealth creation is a real and tangible idea. But there is a critical condition to it. In order to grasp the ideas of wealth creation, one must take the view of the rich and the wealthy. To have a wealthy view is to have the mindset of a millionaire.

Wealth creating mindset sees the world in a different light. That fundamental principle allows successful people to adapt to different problems while finding fresh methods to attack the blocks that hinders them from achieving their financial goals. They find optimism when an ordinary optimist says no. They also find encouragement in defeats. Most importantly, they find opportunities when it is most invisible. The key to create wealth is therefore to master personal concepts to develop a wealthy perspective.

Where most people find nothing, wealth creation entails finding value in things. However, the most successful wealth creators not only find value. Instead, they create it! In order to create or increase one’s value, wealth creators increase their own individual value first. Wealth creators realize that in order to succeed, one must always exceed even their own expectations. An adaptive mindset that creates value wherever he goes will find himself very important element in a successful enterprise. .

Wealth creation also entails seizing opportunities. In leadership terms, we call it initiative. Individually, we can call it being proactive. A proactive person finds things to do when others see it as free time. They do not wait for opportunities to bite them. Instead, they come biting at opportunities. Once you become a proactive person, you will suddenly find that opportunities come at you at a much faster rate, giving you way to create more wealth.

If you do not follow your passion, wealth creation is not fun. Wealth creation is hard enough of a process. If you feel that these activities are routine and boring, you will be gasping for air before you get halfway there. The most successful people will usually tell you that they love what they are doing. They will even go far as saying that they will do the things that they love even though they won’t get paid for it. Once we find our passion, everything becomes easy and you will be on the top of the wealth creation chain in no time.

Saving is involved in wealth creation and money making, and that means foregoing what we can spend now for later. While the concept of “delayed gratification” seems easy, only a few people can heartily apply it. Delaying gratification allows us to see into the future and believe that there is a better value for happiness if you save gratification. With the savings compounded over time, wealth is created. Removing instant gratification from our habits will ensure that money always goes wherever they need to go.

Finally, creating wealth involves moving forward. Improving oneself in every aspect and knowing that are different ways to be a better person is a mindset that will help people in the long run. As they say, Rome is not built in a day. We must learn to account each small action and find ways to improve ourselves.

Wealth Creation is not an exercise or a method. Instead, it is a revamp of your current lifestyle to a life that produces a sense of accomplishment. This way we are able to move forward feeling very confident. Wealth Creation is a journey not only of our economic standing but also of our overall happiness.

Steven Miller is a freelance writer and educator. He is passionate about learning wealth creation strategies to achieve financial freedom. Visit the Wealth Creation Academy website for a Free DVD and ebook.

The Wealth Formula succinctly depicts the components that are necessary for you to create real wealth. The Wealth Formula is shown below:

M+K+P+A=W

It identifies four essential wealth creation stages and the relationship between them. These are:

Wealth Mindset
Wealth Knowledge
Wealth Planning
Wealth Action

It links each of these four component through the plus sign, +, which signifies that each of the four components are necessary for you to create wealth. In other words, missing one or more of the four wealth components will dramatically impact your ability to generate wealth.

For example, you could mentally prepare yourself, learn everything you need to make enormous wealth and create the most detailed plan to achieve your desired level of wealth, but if you don’t action it then all that preparation is worthless.

Similarly, if you mentally prepare yourself, learn everything you need to make enormous wealth and run off actioning your newfound mindset and knowledge but fail to make a plan it is like setting off in your car to go somewhere you’ve never been without taking a map. What’s your wealth destination? How will you know if you’ve achieved what you wanted to achieve? How do you know your using the right investment vehicle? How do you know if you’re on track or not to reach your target? Are you surpassing or underachieving against realistic milestones? All of these questions would be easily answered with proper planning.

So let’s look at each of the four wealth creation categories in turn.

Wealth mindset:

Wealth Mindset is the first of the four wealth creation categories and examines the importance of the correct mindset to creating wealth, money making  and financial freedom. Wealth mindset covers the interaction between you and your environment and the process of adjusting your thought process to think like the wealthy.

For example, the poor and middle class generally think that money is scarce and hard to come by. Saying such as “Money doesn’t grow on trees” and “I can’t afford that” spring to mind. The wealthy see a world of opportunity and abundance. They see money as little more than a concept and simply the by-product of providing value to others. They also know that offering value to others is only limited by their imagination and thus money must too only be limited by their imagination. The wealthiest people of the planet simply understand this and have incredible imaginations that create amazing value to others.

For example, Jeff Bezos realised that bookstores were severely limited in the amount of books they could offer their customers due to geographic and physical constraints. In other words bookstores could only service customers that lived near them and could only offer a limited amount of books, which fit in their store. He saw an amazing opportunity to solve these two problems by giving access to anyone anywhere via the Internet and offering a catalogue that is 40 times the size of a large bookstore. Jeff founded the multi-billion dollar company Amazon!

Wealth Knowledge:

Wealth knowledge is the second of the four wealth creation categories and examines the financial knowledge that is essential to create wealth and financial freedom. It is essential for wealth creation that you are knowledgeable about your own personal finances, the economy, the psychology of markets, compound interest and the asset classes and investment products available to you. Further, you need to understand how to interpret financial statements, investment strategies and risk management all from the wealth creation perspective.

Wealth Planning:

Wealth planning is the third of the four wealth creation categories and examines the essential component of planning to create wealth and financial freedom. Wealth planning is absolutely essential, yet on 3% of the population has clearly written goals and plans. A Harvard Business School study found that this 3% earned 10 times the average of the other 97% and they accumulated 98% of the wealth.

Wealth Action:

Wealth Action is the forth and final wealth creation category and examines the element of action in your wealth journey to create wealth and financial freedom. The importance of action to achieving wealth is obvious. Nothing can be achieved without action.

By using the wealth formula you can easily learn where your wealth creation strengths and weaknesses are and where you need to concentrate your efforts at improving.

Emlyn Scott is the founder of Rich1Percent, investor and wealth creation author. He is a wealth creation and finance expert with 4 post graduate qualifications and has amassed a multi-million dollar investment portfolio.