If you’re a beginner at meditation, you may want to know whether guided meditation is a good tool and whether it is worth trying them out.
What is Guided Meditation?
Guided meditation is exactly that: a teacher is guiding you step by step through the process of meditation. You use guided meditations achieve a specific state: Relaxation, Sleep, Stress reduction, Better sleep, etc. In a guided meditation, you listen to someone speaking a set of instructions throughout the meditation. There is some soothing background music playing continuously as well, through out the meditation. Guided meditations are usually available in the form of a downloadable audio or video file.
Meditation instructions are NOT guided meditation
Guided meditation is not the same as meditation instructions before your meditation session. Your meditation audio may contain meditation instructions. However, you get to hear the instructions before and after your meditation session itself.
The benefits of guided meditation:
- Just starting out with meditation: If you’re a beginner or you want to try out meditation in general, then guided meditation is a great place to start. You can just download an audio meditation, start playing it, and get started.
- Trying out different meditation forms: You’re not sure what kind of meditation will appeal to you and you’re interested in experimenting with various styles of meditation. Guided Meditation will give you easy access to various styles of meditation.
- You want it for a specific purpose: If you’re not interested in the spiritual goals that usually accompany meditation, but are interested in specific practical outcomes like deep relaxation, reducing stress, sleeping better, dealing with anxiety, then guided meditations may be for you.
The disadvantages of guided meditation:
If you’re looking for a specific short term goal like relaxation or sleep, then you may choose to use guided meditation. However, if your goal is spiritual – awakening, emancipation, and deep insight, then you need to stay away from guided meditations.
There are multiple reasons for this:
- You cannot learn to listen to your heart when there is an external overpowering voice. Initially, it is going to take tremendous effort to hear and feel whatever is going on within you and a guided meditation is simply going to dominate your consciousness so much, that you will not be able to feel what is going on inside.
- You may get stuck: Guided meditations take you up to a certain point and evoke a certain specific experience, but then you get stuck at that point and try to get there again and again. If you wish to experience spiritual awakening, you need to get past the point you got stuck, but how? There are no guided meditations that can take you to awakening or deep insight.
- Guided meditation may become a crutch: A guided meditation starts out as a support, but ends up becoming a crutch. You cannot let go, because now you would not know what to do. It is like a baby using a walker to get started, but not knowing how to let go once she begins to walk.
- You may not be able to go deeper: when you don’t go into meditation with any expectations you find that you can get deeper. When you’re approaching meditation with an open attitude, you become ready to accept all experiences, good or bad. A guided meditation is like going in with a goal – which is the opposite of being open. This is fine if your intention is to get calm or fall asleep.
Ultimately, all guided meditations – like all teachings and techniques – are like a raft or a boat. When you reach the other shore let go of the raft.
If you’re interested in meditation, check out my meditation courses on Udemy.
