Who doesn’t want to remain calm and composed while dealing with stressful situations at work or home? But in today’s world, the mind is so disturbed that your coveted calmness remains an elusive dream. You go to bed in an agitated state and you wake up in the same state.
But not to worry. If it doesn’t happen naturally, you can induce a state of relaxed awareness in your brain by generating alpha brain waves. These waves are associated with relaxed alertness, enhanced learning, creativity, peak performance, imagination and intuition. If you spend more time in “alpha state” during the day, your problem-solving skills will improve. You will be able to give your best if you allow yourself to relax into alpha just prior to tackling it. Athletes and anyone who needs to give their best will benefit from relaxing into alpha state just before the event.
Osho has devised a simple meditation technique for producing the alpha state in the brain. Sit with a straight spine, but not rigid. Put your left hand on the right hand, so that both thumbs touch each other.
Then let your gaze rest on your left hand, just go on looking into it in a very empty, passive way. This relaxed looking stimulates your right brain, because your left hand is connected with the right brain, and if you look at it, your eyes and your left hand eventually fall in tune and make a cycle of energy. This helps you to drop thoughts more easily, because the right brain never thinks, it is the part from where you feel.
Then inhale deeply, and say “one” inside. As you exhale deeply, say “two” inside. Continue to inhale and exhale counting up to 10, then start from “one” again. Do this for 40 minutes. If you lose count, start again from one and go to 10. The first 10 breaths should be as deep as possible. From the second cycle you can relax and let the breathing be natural, silent and quiet — but continue to count.
Thoughts will come sometimes, but don’t pay any attention to them. There’s no need to fight them or to acknowledge them. Just remain indifferent. Let them be there as if it is none of your business, and continue counting. After you have been doing this for three months, change your counting. Only count exhalations. Exhale — count one, inhale — keep silent. Exhale — count two, inhale — keep silent.
Then again, after three months, drop counting altogether. Just watch the breath. After three months of that, forget watching too. Just devoting 40 minutes of your precious time to creating alpha waves every day will do wonders for the quality of your life.
Amrit Sadhana is in the management team of Osho International Meditation Resort, Pune. She facilitates meditation workshops around the country and abroad.
