An "Easy" Meditation for Depression

Sat Nam,

This is a very simple and easy meditation that is used especially for new yoga students as an excellent way to teach them to relax and as an introduction to the first stage of meditation, Pratyahar. Why don’t you try it yourself and see how you feel.

An Easy Meditation for Depression

Here is a meditation that is deceptively simple, while offering those who will practice it an unusual and formidable challenge.

Basically, all you have to do is sit (with your back and spine in a straight line) and close the eyes.

Let your hands and legs simply extend from their sockets (as they of course do) and hang limp. In the case of the hands, simply let them rest on the nearest and most comfortable surface in no one special position.

The legs are to be forgotten, whether you sit in lotus, cross-legged, or in a chair, (however we do recommend that if you are sitting in a chair that the legs be separated and not crossed).

Now, use your mental and imaginative capabilities, to let yourself feel as though your legs and arms are no longer even connected to their sockets. There is no reason that there should be any controlled movement by either your hands or your legs.

After about five minutes of practice, begin to concentrate on the twenty-six vertebrae and do nothing else. There is no special breathing rhythm to be performed. Just focus on the spine. Continue first for a total of eleven minutes. With practice you may increase the time to thirty-one minutes.

The spine is the axis of the nervous system. It is structural pathway for the major flow of the body’s life force. If you undertake and correctly practice this meditation, it is Said that an energy will be provoked-one that is incompatible with a depressed state of mind. In effect, it will replace depression with a joy for the infinite and eternal in your life.