Meditation happens when you cross the golden bridge from the logical outer world to the enchanted inner world. All of us have a fairly good idea what the outer world is like.

• It is ordered (or so we would love to believe),
• There are many rules
• We are bound to time and space
• We are dependent on what the five senses perceive as true or real.
• The inner world has far less rules. Here it is easier to travel and to change position.

The inner world is more an experience than being concrete.

• It is also perceived by the five senses, but there is an extra quality to thisp erception.
• There is a heightened awareness, and it is unique and unqualified.
• It holds the key to feelings, wisdom and knowing.
• Whatever feelings, wisdom and knowing comes to the surface, is real to the inner world.
• To be able to meditate, you have to combine two things: focus and relaxation.

Here you are crossing the bridge.

You are entering your own inner world that is unique, yet is has a universal element. To find your way in the inner world, you can use colors, shapes, textures. Some people are guided by sounds. The key is to focus, with a relaxed mind, unbound by the happenings in the outside world. It does not mean that you are not aware of the outside world. It means that the outside world, for the duration of the meditation, has no hold on you. You do not react on any stimuli such as a phone, an event that lies in the future. Relaxation implies that you are fully focused on the now, without any obligations to the outside world.

Try this meditation:

Sit upright in a comfortable position. Softly close your eyes or lower your gaze. Agree to yourself not to react to or take part in the outside world for the next minute or two, maybe ten minutes. For now, you have no obligation to the outside world. It is only you and your breathing. Focus on your breath. Allow the breath to flow into your body, hold it a moment, and follow the breath as it leaves your body. The outside world is still there. Any sound or reminder from the outside, acknowledge it, and let it go with the next breath. All you have to do for the next few minutes, is to follow your breath. It flows inside your body,t here is a pause, and it leaves your body, and there is another pause. Follow this flow of breath that has been there ever since you gave you entered

this world….

There! You had a meditation. It doesn’t matter how deep the relaxation was, how many distractions you had to let go with the breath, or how good your focus was. Energy flows with intention. The intention to stop reacting to the outside world and focus, allows you to meditate. You can now confirm this experience by checking in and see what difference this meditation made to the level of relaxation of your body.

Meditation is an art. The more you do it, the more flow there is. To the average westerner, it is a very strange thing to do. We are used to react to the outside world all the time. We have so many obligations and tasks to be performed in the outside world. But with practice, you and anybody else will be able to find the rhythm of meditation.