Many people cannot sleep at night. They try wearing socks, drink relaxing herbal teas or take tryptophan or melatonin, read a book, keep a stress journal, and try all sorts of other expedients to help them fall asleep and get a good nights rest. What if I were to tell you that you could use this downtime as a chance to practice meditation?
Here’s what you do. In order to practice meditation before you fall asleep, you must first lie on the right side of your body. There is a very good reason for this – it’s because it puts less strain on your heart when you lie down this way. Next, you have to decide what type of meditation you want to practice.
One practice you can try is to set yourself up for lucid dreaming. In order to do this, while you are lying on the right side you can visualize a little flame in the region of your throat (the “throat charka” region). You could even imagine a ball of light or a series of silver discs that spin like a gyroscope in the middle of your throat.
This is one of the basic practices that prepare people for lucid dreaming or the practice of dream yoga wherein you try to stay aware during your dreams and learn to control them. Of course another thing you can do is to take a very deep breath and then slowly release that breath with clenched teeth while letting the energy rise up into your head before you fall asleep. This simple practice alone will help you remember your dreams and may lead to lucid dream states as well.
Another type of meditation practice to use this chance to do a full visualization of the bones in your skeleton to harmonize all the energy all over your body. Starting with your feet, you visualize that all the bones in your feet start shining with a bright white light. As you go up your legs, you progressively visualize that all the bones shine with a bright white color and proceed in this manner visualizing all your skeletal bones up to the top of your head.
Once the visualization reaches your head, you imagine that your whole body turns to atoms and then blows away so that nothing but emptiness is left. Let go of the body and all its tensions and you will often fall asleep naturally this way after you harmonize its energies. If this practice brings too much energy to your head you could do the reverse practice and imagine that there is a golden duck egg filled with ambrosia sitting on top of your skull. Imagine that this golden elixir starts melting and the liquid descends downward caressing your entire body and washing away all the poisons and tensions as it falls. Imagine that your body turns into crystal pure clarity as this happens and then also disappears into emptiness as you do this.
Another practice that you could do is while lying on your right side is to recite mantras in the region of your heart (“heart charka”) behind your breastbone or sternum. All you must do is take an auspicious mantra or prayer and visualize a silvery flame or moon or auspicious vision of a Buddha or some other holy figure behind the breastbone and about two inches within the body. Recite the mantra from that point or imagine that the sound comes from that point. Eventually you will get tired of this exercise as you listen to the endless mantra and then fall fast asleep.
This is how you can use the time when you can’t sleep for something productive that will also tend to restore your energy and lead to relaxation and rest. You keep your mind busy with these visualization, mantra, and energy practices until you’re tired of them, your body’s energy becomes harmonized and you then naturally fall into slumber.
There’s yet one more, and perhaps the most powerful form of meditative introspection you can use if you cannot sleep no matter whether you are lying down or sitting up. Keep inquiring — looking into the mind to find its source, the source behind your thoughts. Look within to find your mind’s owner, the source of the “I” or person experiencing the thoughts. If you can do this while forgetting the body and discarding the thoughts that come up in the mind, you’ll make great progress in Advaita Vedanta or Zen.
That’s how you can use the time when you can’t sleep for beneficial activity which will help rejuvenate your body even though you don’t obtain any hours of nap time.
MeditationExpert.com offers information on learning how to meditate, guided meditation techniques, consciousness studies, vipassana, yoga pranayama methods and more. You’ll find a wealth of free no-nonsense information about how to meditate when you visit.
Tarot cards are fun, entertaining and are great for helping us to find direction to solve our problems. If you want to learn how to read tarot cards, the first thing you need to do is to buy a deck. Sometimes, a used deck is good, but only if it has come from an advanced reader or from someone that you know and trust. Most people will tend to go out and buy a brand new deck, however.
When you are searching for your deck, take a close look at the cards and the illustrations on them. Quite often, a deck will magically “speak” to you, signifying that it is the deck for you. The only two other things you are going to need are a notebook for writing down questions and reading results, and a nice, handy pencil or pen.
To get started, clear out a clean space inside your home free of clutter and distractions. Have a radio by your side to play soft music in order to enhance readings and concentration. You do not always have to listen to music; however, some people prefer to perform their readings in complete silence that is fine. Just choose whatever works for you and your concentration level the best. In order to enhance concentration even more, try lighting a candle or two near you while you are doing your readings.
Here is the order of steps in which to follow once you have gotten your deck out and ready to use:
1) Once you have taken your deck out of the box, separate the Minor Arcana cards from the Major Arcana cards.
2) Some people may choose to flip one portion of the deck upside down while leaving the other right side up, although, this is optional.
3) Shuffle your deck thoroughly at least 5 times. This will allow you to touch every single card at least once and spread your energies over the cards.
4) Once you have asked your question, you may want to try the simple spread. This consists of 4 cards in a diamond shape, it is usually best for beginners, and still provides accurate answers.
5) If you are letting someone else ask the question, you may want to let them cut the deck and choose the cards, although this is also optional.
6) The Minor Arcana cards will suggest the strongest messages while the Major Arcana may seemingly represent background influences.
7) If you choose to turn some of the deck upside down, it can change the meanings. For example, say that the “soul mates” card has been chosen and it is turned upside down, this might possibly mean that your soul mate is being blocked off by some other influence.
Go with the flow during your readings, if a card pops up that does not make sense; try to imagine what it might possibly mean. Most of the time, your initial instinct is the right one.
Now that you know how to perform a tarot card reading, make sure that you store your deck away in a safe place after readings. You may use a soft cloth to wrap the cards up in, making sure that they do not pick up any negative energy. Keep them hidden if you live with other people, if someone else touches them that you do not allow to, they could potentially affect them and bring different energies to them. This is not good because it could affect your readings in a bad way. All together, learning to read tarot cards is easy and fun. Anyone can learn how to read tarot cards if they are willing to learn. Good luck!
About The Author
Keith Ward is the Founder and Director of the Circle of Professional Clairvoyants, which offers Psychic Readings with fully qualified Psychics and Senior UK Clairvoyants.
http://www.psychicreadings.org.uk/readings.htm
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