Vedic meditation

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Vedic Meditation (VM) is often mistakenly defined as Hindu Meditation. In fact, Vedic Meditation comes from the Veda - the body of knowledge from ancient India that is the source of Yoga, Meditation, and Ayurvedic medicine - and predates modern Hinduism.

It can be defined as a spiritual discipline aimed at awakening to the supreme. The normal Vedic meditation posture has the devotee on the floor with his legs crossed and his eyes closed. The purpose of VM is for the devotee to silently repeat a mantra, and thus awaken to the supreme self. The purpose is not to relax, or help a person's health (although followers claim it does), it is to experience deeper levels of mind.

Vedic meditation is over 5,000 years old; its origins are in India. Learning Vedic Meditation is relatively simple. The initiate is given a mantra by a teacher or guru based on Vedic Astrology. The mantra has no inherent meaning but is only a sound used silently (not spoken or chanted) in the mind to induce a relaxed, non-thinking state. The mantra is repeated until it becomes more and more "subtle". The meditator practices twice a day - once in the morning and once in the evening - for 20 minutes in a comfortable upright position. There is no demand on the meditator to change his/her lifestyle in any way save that nothing interferes with his/her daily practice.

It is structured so that there is no formal organisation and meditators do not have to join any group to learn. Vedic Meditation has been gaining in popularity in recent years, and is taught world-wide by independent teachers.