Emily Pereira

If you’re going to be serious, be serious about something beautiful!

I’ve been noticing lately just how serious we are ‘required’ to be in our lives. Fulfil this responsibility, then that one, then that one…..if you do all your chores and be a very good person, then maybe you can chill out and enjoy yourself for a while. It’s all so SERIOUS.

So then I meet more and more people who really want to bring meditation into their lives because they believe that therein lies blessed relief from the stress of their busy lives and minds. BUT….they approach it with the same ‘seriousness’ with which they approach other things and then stress themselves out by thinking about how ‘good’ or ‘bad’ they are at meditation, feeling guilty when they don’t do it and approaching their practice each day like it’s a chore.

Meditation is a serious thing, in the sense that it helps us in seriously important ways, and it can be hard work! But it’s also supposed to be beautiful and there are ways to make it beautiful if it doesn’t feel that way already.

Here are a few ideas:

• Meditate somewhere beautiful/make the space where you meditate beautiful – go up a mountain and meditate while looking at the view; use beautiful scarves and cushions; create a little alter and put beautiful things on it; create atmosphere with low lighting, candles, incense etc. Make the space beautiful every time you meditate there so that you associate meditation with being in a beautiful space.
• Go to group meditations - it’s such a joyful, uplifting feeling to meditate with others
• Use meditation techniques that have an unavoidable element of beauty – use a beautiful nature scene or photograph of a deity or person you associate with joy and beauty (Saraswati and Lakshmi are beautiful examples from the yoga tradition) or listen to beautiful music.

What are some things that you do to bring beauty to your meditation practice? Please share in the comments below!

Happy meditating!

Namaste,

Emily