Meditation is a practice of non-doing being during which one seeks to disengage from the interactions with the world around as well as the interactions within their minds with their thoughts and emotions and sit as a witness to all that is happening within and around. Depending on the skill or ability to stay disengaged, whatever is around may either distract a person from meditation or support them in being so.
Our thoughts, our emotions, our sense perceptions are all energy vibrations in the space around us. The digital information flow around us in the form of cell phone network, Wi-Fi, satellite connections, radio waves, etc around us are also energy vibrations in the space around us. Our own energy body is a field of energy vibrations around our physical body.
When we sit to meditate, our energy is in a restless state of activity and it gradually slows down to give us an experience of peace and stillness. As we start to meditate, the energy vibrations in the space around us may prevent us from being able to disengage and begin the process of slowing down. On the other hand if we are in a space that is already filled with conducive energy vibrations such as in the presence of an adept meditation master, a place of worship, in a group of seasoned meditators, in some naturally peaceful spot such as a beach or mountain or forest or lush garden, it would enable even a beginner to settle down into a meditative state with ease.
When one is into the practice of meditation, it is a purely an inner experience and the surrounding world doesn’t matter. Nobody, not even a mentor or a guru can come with you into your mind to help or practice together with you. So it is a matter of what helps to achieve that mental shift from a restless state of activity to a resting state of non-doing being.
To answer your question, is it possible to meditate with others? Yes it is possible, if it helps you go through that mental shift with more ease. It is an individual matter and for each person it can differ. The only way to find out is to practice it with others and experiment.
The following articles may be helpful if you wish to learn more.
Humanity “THE BEST RELIGION” · December 6, 2022
Does meditation sometimes happen without any efforts?
Meditation always actually happens without any efforts. In other words when one stops exerting effort they would find themselves in meditation. I am talking about mental effort. What is mental effort and what is effortlessness? Let us take the example of our body. What is physical effort? Whatever we do physically is considered to be physical effort such as walking, talking, running, or doing some other physical work. But what about the efforts our body keeps doing all the time? Such as breathing, heart beating, blood circulating, the churning and digesting happening throughout the digestive track, the filtering, the excretion, production of hormones and enzymes, movement of electrical impulses in our nervous system, etc. These internal physical efforts keep happening all the time, we never take rest when we are awake and some activities even continue at a slower pace when we sleep. With our mind, the mental effort is not just that which we intentionally do as part of our work, such as studying, planning, working, calculating, computing, watching something (videos), listening to something (such as podcasts), reading, focusing, concentrating, paying attention. Even when we don’t do any of the above, our mind keeps being engaged in mental activity all the time.The mental activity that we don’t usually consider as effort includes the monologues in our mind with ourselves, the dialogues we carry out mentally with an imaginary person, the voices of others in our mind usually telling us what not to do, memories of past events, worries about the future, fantasising, imagining, dreaming, etc. We are habituated to this and so it seems to be happening effortlessly and automatically, although we are doing it. We don’t know how to stop it. When our mind gets tired, we get restless and end up increasing the mental activity. It goes round and round, on and on, mostly repeated, restless and useless mental activity. Doing this effort seems effortless and stopping this effort seems like work! It’s actually a different kind of effort. We first need to learn how to refresh our mind and be mentally energetic and sharp all the time by adequately resting our mind. This practice is known as grounding or regaining our connection with the earth energy flow. Once we learn this we can begin the long process of cultivating a habit of frequently returning back to the practice and recharge our mind whenever we start getting mentally tired. I call this long process our Awareness Journey. You can find plenty of free resources and information on this and also seek mentoring support in my website.
Enthusiastic Engineer · December 18, 2022
Your first tool for an effective Meditation Practice – Fixed Gazing and Conscious Breathing – FGCB:
Do this for just three minutes and see if it helps. Sit on a straight back chair with feet flat on the floor, the entire soles of the feet from tips of the toes to the heels firmly contacting the floor. Keep your back erect, you may place a cushion behind your back for support if required but do not lean back on an inclined backrest of the chair. Let your head be held straight, neck straight, shoulders square and relaxed. You may tilt the head very slightly downward to gaze at a point on the floor in front of you a few feet away from you. Keep your eyes fixed on that spot for the three minutes without moving your eyeballs. Allow your eyes to be half open and half closed and hold that spot in a gentle gaze and not a stare. You are not looking there to see something but simply holding that spot in a gentle gaze. Exhale with a loud sigh from your mouth and use gentle effort to empty your lungs as far as possible without straining too much. Then relax your body and allow the inhale to happen effortlessly and soundlessly through your nostrils. When you sense that the inhale is over, do not put any further effort to breathe in but repeat the exhale from the mouth with the sound and gentle effort. I call this conscious breathing. Effort only for the out breaths and allowing in breaths to happen effortlessly. This entire process is called FGCB or fixed gazing with conscious breathing. You may set hourly reminder alerts on your smartphone and repeat this 3 minute FGCB every hour throughout the day today and see how it helps with calming your mind. This is a powerful grounding practice and you can do this even when you are driving and waiting for the red signal to turn green. Allow any such interruptions in your day to remind you to come back to the practice of FGCB repeatedly. For more information and plenty of free resources to aid with the practice of meditation and deep healing, please visit my website.