What do you do if life is intense? One of the things I see and hear many people are doing these days is meditating. What I wonder is: do we really consider what we are doing or trying to achieve when we are meditating? It is important to know.
My first experience with meditation was when I was growing up. Some people around me would meditate – they would disappear into a room, not to be disturbed for the rest of the afternoon. Especially their mentioning that they should not be disturbed is something that made it all quite mysterious to me and also made it seem a very vulnerable thing to do, in the sense that I could not make noise otherwise the meditation would be disturbed.
If I asked what meditation was and how I should do it, I was told that I had to focus on an object in my mind like a pencil and keep focussing on that… I tried but found it hard and to be honest, not very enriching and even a bit boring. I did not feel my body and I sort of felt isolated in my mind and cold – not the most pleasant feeling.
All in all, this meditation did not do it for me.
Years later, at the age of 19, I came across Universal Medicine. Here I was introduced to the Gentle Breath Meditation by Serge Benhayon. First I was a bit hesitant, remembering the meditation from my childhood and not finding it very supportive, but I gave it a go and the experience was completely different.
We were asked to focus on our body and to choose a quality of gentleness in our breath, starting with the tip of the nose and feeling the air flowing in gently and how this feels cool at the tip. The rest of the meditation continued with focussing on both the in and out-breath and after that, your whole body, by relaxing and surrendering all your muscles to the gentle rhythm established by your breath. What I found was a profound awareness of my whole body; I felt all of my body – warm and delicious, as well as very still and precious in quality.
It was the most beautiful feeling I had ever experienced.
It was from this moment that I learned that meditation is not about checking out of our body for a moment of calm and to basically escape from the intensity of the world. The point is, after this ‘outing,’ we always have to come back to our body and feel it, and the intensity of the world it carries once again. In other words, it does not change anything.
True meditation for me is about connecting to a quality of gentleness or tenderness that is innate in our body and surrendering to this quality that is already there. It is about establishing a quality and a connection that brings my mind and body together as one. When I go out of my body into my mind, I feel I lose my innate intelligence, which includes feelings of what to do and what not to do, what to say, and what is safe to do and what is not.
Thus, when I come out of the meditation I am more surrendered in my body and feel equipped to deal with life and its intensities that we cannot stop from being there. For me this is true body intelligence. In that moment I feel the whole of my body like it is a big space and from there it is very clear what I need to do, how I need to do it and when. It is the most beautiful feeling I know – to be one with my body and mind together.
By Lieke Campbell, Belgium
Further Reading:
Our Breathe As A Tool Of Connection
The Gentle Breath Meditation™ & Discovering my Inner Self
Gentle Breath Meditation in Daily Life
The Truth about Serge Benhayon 
What a difference life is when we learn to understand our body, and feel from the inner stillness that has been made possible from the Gentle Breath Meditation. Feeling our essence is profound in many ways and thus being able to bring a different perspective to the way we look at life and the ways we are imposed upon by the forces that are unseen and thus we can be open to much corruption and lies on so many levels including how we meditate, so thank you Lieke for much can be explained through true meditation and thus feeling our divine connection.
“In that moment I feel the whole of my body like it is a big space and from there it is very clear what I need to do, how I need to do it and when” – I love this statement.
Even reading it makes me realise but also feels beautiful to read on my own body.
There is much to say about the power of the Gentle Breath Meditation. The simplicity of doing it but also how it connects the body to you (and vice versa) is so much better than the other meditations that zones you out, or become a chore.
As far as I’m concerned, I much prefer that, that brings me to my body any day, than that, that separates me. It’s a worldly tool…
Being connected to our body is a wise and loving choice, ‘When I go out of my body into my mind, I feel I lose my innate intelligence, which includes feelings of what to do and what not to do, what to say, and what is safe to do and what is not.’
The Gentle Breath Meditation, when practiced with consistency, is one of the most loving gifts we can give ourselves.
In my experience too, the Gentle Breath Meditation as taught by Serge Benhayon is one that does equip us to handle life, and lovingly so, where as the other meditations I have learned and practice teach the opposite (how to escape and seek a blissful space to ‘get away’ from life and our committments).
Henrietta I totally agree a vast difference between the Gentle Breath Meditation and the others that are out there. The former connects you to you and your body and from there we are in our fulness to serve. Whilst the latter keeps us separated from the world and not wanting to be part of it.
This blog is a great reminder to simply come back and feel the natural innate qualities of gentleness and tenderness that we all hold deep within – to develop a relationship with this in terms of holding an awareness of these qualities and allowing them to be expressed freely.
Thank you Lieke, I like how you have spelled this out: “meditation is not about checking out of our body for a moment of calm and to basically escape from the intensity of the world.” – and in fact this is what most meditations seem to be about.
Gentle Breath Meditation helps us to connect with our bodies, ‘focus on our body and to choose a quality of gentleness in our breath, starting with the tip of the nose and feeling the air flowing in gently and how this feels cool at the tip. ‘
Profound it is, what True-focus on what we are doing can bring to our day, as in the Gentle Breath Meditation. Many ways of living now provide a platform for our Soul-full connection such as simply walking and feeling our bodies as we walk without any mind disturbing distractions.
I have also done those meditations that rely on the mind focusing on something and there is a coldness to them. The Gentle Breath Meditation is so different in that it’s brings you deeper into your body (not away like many meditations) and as a result able to cope more with life and commit to life more as well. What I find supportive about this meditation is that the gentle breath technique can be used anytime during the day at work, home, out shopping, when I can’t sleep, etc, and it supports me to be more present with myself and steady, and not get caught up in what’s going on around me or with what’s happening in my mind. The Gentle Breath Meditation and breathing technique are very settling.
The Gentle Breath Meditation supports us to be still and surrendered, ‘ What I found was a profound awareness of my whole body; I felt all of my body – warm and delicious, as well as very still and precious in quality.’
This is a great sharing Lieke because everyone can feel the intensity of life and when I look around me it seems that we are not dealing with this intensity very well – as we are looking for more and more ways to distract ourselves. So something as simple as the Gentle Breath Meditation is an excellent way to come back to our bodies to build a relationship with ourselves so that we don’t need to numb or dull our senses in order to cope with the stress of day to day living.
One of the most simple yet profound learnings I have taken away from Universal Medicine is the gentle breath meditation. This in itself has the power to resettle the body and support to connect to deep stillness; something in this modern era we all desperately need.
Absolutely Michelle, profound indeed, and with mental illness on the rise this simple way of connection is life changing for many of our societal afflictions. Any mental anguish is an ominous sign, especially when so many are entering into what could be called the modern plague, and this is simply because of the way we are living and something as simple as the way we can focus on our breath as we go about our day brings a presence to all we do.
In presence we get to feel what is around us, the development of this awareness may be a bit scary at first and lead to some unexplainable behaviours (if energy is not considered) but as we get familiar with this sensation and begin to trust it – it is the most empowering relationship we can develop.
With the Gentle Breath Meditation we can be in the world but not of it so to speak.
‘It was the most beautiful feeling I had ever experienced.’ That is the beauty of being with our body. Even when I feel what I have polluted my body with there is the beauty of it to return to, amazing.
Thank you Karin, and as Leike has shared it is about feeling the beauty and the gentleness that we so naturally are within.
And the Gentle Breath Meditation helps us to re-connect with our essence, our inner beauty, ‘True meditation for me is about connecting to a quality of gentleness or tenderness that is innate in our body and surrendering to this quality that is already there.’
I agree a meditation practice that is for everyday life, and not for seeking bliss or checking out, this is the Gentle Breath Meditation. It is life transforming to bring our breathing awareness to the purpose of life, to feel its support, to move with it, to observe it.
Lieke, I like how you have talked here about how true meditation is not about an escape from the world, but rather a way to connect to the loveliness that is within so that we can bring that out in the world that we live in.
Connect to the loveliness within, https://www.unimedliving.com/meditation/free/free-gentle-breath-meditations-an-introduction.html.
Agreed, my understanding and purpose with meditation has transformed in the past decade, from being something to escape life to being a check-in to life in a way that allows me to be all of me in life.
One of the greatest joys in my life is introducing/reconnecting people to that innate stillness that is within all of us… Within the gentleness of the reconnection is that doorway to what humanity seeks and has always been seeking, and it is so simple.
‘It is the most beautiful feeling I know – to be one with my body and mind together.’ Yes it is, it gives the solidness of our being into our daily life and when life starts to be intense and we loose our breath, we can always come back to it and move as one through life again.
The Gentle Breath Meditation brings you back, to connect with who you truly are.
Life is a meditation if we learn to move through it with both body and mind as one and in harmony (working together) with the each other. Without this we ‘get a-head of ourselves’ (literally!) and learn to live in separation – a paralysing state of being in which we compartmentalise the different parts of our physicality so that they are all working at odds to each other so that we create a situation where the body becomes slave to the wanton desires of the mind. We then take this compartmentalisation into life and the way we approach it and then wonder why we feel so lost and unsettled. Meditation is the art of reacquainting ourselves with our WHOLE being so we do not leave any part of ourselves behind.
“When I go out of my body into my mind, I feel I lose my innate intelligence, which includes feelings of what to do and what not to do, what to say, and what is safe to do and what is not.” When we lose our innate intelligence we are like ships without a rudder.
Meditation is not something to be hidden, to be reserved for spiritual seekers and the ‘enlightened’ and it certainly isn’t something that should take you away from life! The Gentle Breath Meditation and the other forms that Universal Medicine offers are nothing like any other meditation I’ve done in the past. These actually bring you to a sense of yourself, to your body and to life. They can even be done while in life doing daily tasks. All meditation is to me now is a moment of connection that is then how I live the rest of the day.
Committing to life and bringing out all to it is one of the most enriching things ever. I have found that the The Gentle Breath Meditation supports with this process and from experience that other meditations actually make one feel less in their body and hence less ready and supported to bring their all to life.
My experience of Gentle Breath Meditation is that it lets me know what it’s like to be connected with my own breath and body, and during the day, at work, out on the street, I can bring myself to that same quality by paying attention to the breath, the way I move my body, and unlike other meditation I have tried before, it allows me to be in life, instead of reinforcing the idea that the world out there is disturbing and ugly and I need my safety cocoon away from it.
We can check in with our breath at any point during the day, and see how our body is feeling, the Gentle Breath Meditation ‘ lets me know what it’s like to be connected with my own breath and body, and during the day, at work, out on the street, I can bring myself to that same quality by paying attention to the breath, the way I move my body’.
“What I wonder is: do we really consider what we are doing or trying to achieve when we are meditating? It is important to know.” – For sure I think this is a key point to contemplate and consider to ask ourselves what we are seeking of something, to really be honest with ourselves about the intent or purpose behind what we’re doing and if that is genuinely helpful or not, without judgement just to be more aware of what we’re choosing.
Such a great point to explore, what is meditation for us, what is the prupose and why do we do it. In many cases it can easily be to escape the things in life we don’t like and yet when we introduce true meditation as part of life to be in constant connection with life we open up something very very special.
The gentle breath meditation changed my life. Connecting to that quality of gentleness and tenderness you speak of Lieke, and ‘establishing a quality and a connection that brings my mind and body together as one’ makes living life a completely different experience. The trick for me is to learn to build the consistency of this quality in everyday life, not just for a one off 5-minute respite. I know that every choice I make will either enhance this quality or slap me straight back into the head and disconnection again.
This is gorgeous that, the most beautiful thing you had ever experienced was a coming back to being present in your body.
The Gentle Breath Meditation re-connects us back to ourselves in only a few minutes. Very simple and very effective.
A magic moment that costs nothing and ask us nothing but to JUST BE!
I agree the Gentle Breath Meditation is the simplest and most powerful meditation that I know.
The Gentle Breath Meditation brings you back, very gently, to connection to who who you truly are.
Sometimes bringing our mind back to how our whole body is feeling may not be so comfortable, there may be aches or pains, raciness or exhaustion but at least by bringing our awareness to that we have the opportunity to be more considerate of how our body is rather than keep overriding it and with that consideration we open the way for a deeper insight into how we are living day to day and the kind of choices we are making…
“True meditation for me is about connecting to a quality of gentleness or tenderness that is innate in our body and surrendering to this quality that is already there.” This is a great way to describe this type of meditation. The response I hear all the time when I explain this type of meditation is usually “whatever works for you” and they are confirming the meditation they are doing however, if meditation does not connect you to your body, what are you connecting to?
Whole body intelligence is not about what to do when we are run over by life, but how to live in a way that prevents this from happening by moving in a way that honors our divine particles.
I am sure if people were aware of what they were actually doing when they checked out from their body and the actual harm this causes, it would be the last thing they would ever ever want to do.
To check, honestly, how your body is feeling before doing the Gentle Breath Meditation and then afterwards is the most incredible marker of the power of this very simple meditation. I feel I’m coming back to a whole different body, but it is the same one, the only difference being that I have reconnected to it once again. Life feels very different when we live in connection to our amazing body.
That is beautifully said Ingrid. Life can change completely just by connecting to ourselves. This shows we don’t always need to change the outer to feel better in life but reconnect to the inner part of us.
True, we don’t necessarily need to change the outer ‘to feel better in life but reconnect to the inner part of us.’
I agree it is super important to know what it is your developing from meditation i.e. connecting to a quality bridged by gentleness claiming that stillness within to be lived outwardly with all the body. Meditation is a connection to then live in expression in the world.
Imagine actually understanding that guided visualisations, upon which so many people place such great store, are simply a mental cul-de-sac within which one parks one’s brain and nothing evolves.
The Gentle Breath Meditation is simple, practical and yet very powerful, and the best thing about this meditation it doesn’t require you to sit for hours cross-legged.
The Gentle Breath Meditation brings you gently back to feel who you are from the inside.
The gentle breath meditation takes only 5 minutes thus is very practical in supporting us in the busyness of todays world to reconnect and settle back into our body, rejuvenate and begin again.
It is very empowering to be able to meditate on a quality that is with us, a stillness that deeply connects us to everything that we know we are. A quality that is not an escape but rather a surrender and a deepening connection to our body and being so that this quality of connection is a marker and can then guide us to truly live through our every living day.
It’s crazy to think we are escaping the very stillness we are trying to seek by ‘meditating’.
A beautiful case of love filled gentle breath meditation where one is truly supported to be with all there is inside their body and feel the richness of their own selves, their inner-heart.
Meditation being all about connection and not escape was revelatory for me. It made it real and useful and the most incredible tool to return to me. And then to bring this inner connection into everything…
I came to meditation as the answer for life’s intensity around 28 years old. However I gradually realised that although it took the edge off the intensity, I couldn’t stop to sit on a cushion for an hour every time I need a chill pill! I then found the Gentle Breath Meditation presented by Serge Benhayon, which was completely different. Instead of relief, I got connection and a building knowing of who I actually am when I am connected. I then discovered through Esoteric Yoga that is my every move, thought and word that affects how I feel, not what is happening around me. This has brought consistency to my day, as I connect with me, feel my breath, body and being.
It makes such a big difference having the intention to re-gather and re-unite mind and body as opposed to seeking relief or escape from how we’re feeling…
Our mind has a tendency to like to be by itself, to be as its own entity so to speak, but if we can bring the mind to work with the body and align with the body’s natural qualities of gentleness, then the mind becomes something far more supportive and flexible to bring so much more.
Yes, I was definitely one of those who would retreat into my room, definitely not to be disturbed. this only happened for 10 years or so… Five hours A day… Oh my gosh… Thank God for the gentle breath.
5 hours a day Chris…That’s the equivalent of a part time job!
Or …more tragically… 18,250 hours, 760 days,… Two full years of one’s life absolutely locked in illusion. it certainly brings home the responsibility that we have delivered in a way that reflects what we are actually here to do.
In my experience there is no other meditation like the Gentle Breath Meditation, the way it helps you to re-gather and re-connect with the whole of you. It’s not a magic cure for all your issues or things you find challenging but it certainly deeply supports bringing a different quality to how you live life and from that the clarity on how to truly deal with life unfolds.
In the search for stillness within, which we all know exists, we can be lead astray down many wayward paths, meditation quite often being one of them. Instead of it being used to support us to connect to our stillness, it can be used to dis-connect from our stillness. Taking us further away from finding what already lays within.
The gift of the Gentle Breath Meditation is the true connection with my body and what I am holding in the body. Staying with the breath supports my experience of being in one place which is natural to the body and no floating around outside the body in the past, future or ‘make it up as you go land’. Staying with my body and appreciating it is pretty awesome.
” When I go out of my body into my mind, I feel I lose my innate intelligence, ”
This is true we lose the connection with the whole of us.
So beautifully shared Lieke on the purpose of mediation and being aware of what it is we are focusing on. True meditation offers us the opportunity to develop a tangible marker in our body and being in, a connection from which we can then live and breathe with throughout our living day. I also have discovered that The Gentle Breath Medication offers the opportunity to explore just that, from which I bring more presence to life rather than trying to escape life.
In my years I came across many different meditations, I never liked them, there was something wrong with what I was observing. When I saw people with their eyes closed and sitting down, it looked like they were not there, there was no presence. I even tried a few different meditations so as to be sure of what I had observed and felt, it felt like I was going into my head and playing a video and ignoring the world by being in the video. I asked what was this all about and it was said that it releases the worries and cares of the day that need doing. It made no sense for me as the amount of time doing meditation could be used to get things done and therefore there would be no need for meditation. When I was introduced to the gentle breath meditation it was different. First of all there was no guiding meditation; this felt very reassuring as with guided meditation before, the people guiding appeared lost in themselves from my observation. The gentle breath is a re-connection to one’s body and therefore a re-connection to one’s true essence, now this made sense. One gets to feel the truth of where our body is at in life and expand the re-connection with one’s essence… just beautiful.
So much of the meditation I did before meeting Universal Medicine was about getting rid of thoughts. No wonder then all you end up feeling is emptiness. Contrast this with the gentle breath meditation which as you describe Lieke let’s you connect to your warmth and fire inside. Amazing to sit and feel how lovely we are.
‘meditation is not about checking out of our body for a moment of calm and to basically escape from the intensity of the world.’ – this is a revelation in the current world of meditation that mostly offer ‘check out’ and relief – a land of bliss that keeps us in our heads and does not connect us to our body and the incredible and infinite inner wisdom it holds.
I suppose it is possible to live in a way where there is much trying, effort and control to clear the mind but what are the consequences if any living in this way? How does neglecting the body to focus on clearing the mind feel? How does this way of being support us in our day? Can we keep it up? Because unless a modality in its consistency supports me in my livingness, in my relationship to self and to others in the world then I see it as the latest trend of the times. Time will tell.
“True meditation for me is about connecting to a quality of gentleness or tenderness that is innate in our body and surrendering to this quality that is already there.” I agree Lieke and I also find this same quality of surrender can be found within my everyday movements too, particularly when I walk and move with a deeper awareness of my whole body as this too becomes a moment to cherish and hold my tenderness and gentle way of being.
I once did 20 days of intense meditation and at the end I felt very, very disconnected from my body. I decided that I didn’t want that and the disconnection went away.
When I first came into contact I had no clue about the meaning or workings of meditation, it to me was all about relaxation and for many this is all that it is.But all I would get from it was a momentary relief from the tensions in my life and body, in fact I was simply checking out from myself to not feel them for a short period of time. With the Gentle Breath Mediation I have found a lasting change in my life, one that has helped me reconnect when I was out. So in short a cheering in instead of checking out.
I think you nailed it when you said you feel the space in your body. When you surrender to allowing your body to just be, all of a sudden it gets the opportunity to let go of al the tension we’ve held it under. It drops and all that’s left is the space and clarity. Pretty Cool.
Yes, if we already are all that we can be, things only need to drop away, not accumulate.
I feel it is very important to recognise The Gentle Breath Meditation is not like any meditation out there, as I too did not want to shut my eyes and try it at first as I had also had a scary experience as a child when meditating. I found the worst thing was all the adults thought it was awesome to feel like you were out of your body when meditating. So I simply decided to not meditate again. Then one day I was in a group of people in Byron who were all closing their eyes. Feeling a bit caught out I chose to close my eyes and try the Gentle Breath Meditation and it was life altering in an amazing, unimposing way. I highly recommend the Gentle Breath Meditation.
Thank you Lieke. It is very important to consider why we choose to do something. The body is great at letting us know what is true and what is not. Meditation can provide a temporary escape or an opportunity to deeply connect to ourselves. They may look similar but one will leave us feeling full and steady once we open our eyes, the other offers a fleeting respite from our everyday intensity.
Being clear within ourself on the purpose behind why we’re doing anything is key to our well-being and it’s something we can keep deepening our discernment of.
Beautiful Fiona – this certainly does highlight how empowering it is to embrace being a practitioner of our own life.
The Gentle Breath Meditation is a great technique to train in moving focusing on quality.
The Gentle Breath Meditation helps support us to re-connect with our innermost essence, and does feel lovely, ‘I felt all of my body – warm and delicious, as well as very still and precious in quality.
It was the most beautiful feeling I had ever experienced.’
If I am honest I have never been great at meditation even after doing a 10 day meditation retreat in silence (which if anything made me feel more depressed); but it makes sense that meditation is about bringing you back and re-connecting the the whole body and not focusing on a random object outside of yourself or just being in the mind. We look to life outside of ourselves far too much for confirmation of who we are as it is let alone focusing on a pencil for this! Which is ironic as the key lies within the body. What I can appreciate is through being a student of Universal Medicine I have a lot more presence (connection in my body) and it was great to feel this just now walking around a busy superstore near Christmas. My walk was calm and had purpose and I was not allowing myself to get caught up in the Christmas Craziness last minute panic yet I could still appreciate everyone else too .. it felt good. I guess this is also a lesson in honouring what we feel instead of what other say.
To be with ourselves or not to be with ourselves, this is the choice we make depending on what ‘mediation’ we chose.
“… meditation is not about checking out of our body for a moment of calm and to basically escape from the intensity of the world.” yet so many meditations I have done in the past do exactly that – support me to escape rather than stay and be in my body. The Gentle Breath Meditation is so simple and takes no more than a few minutes to reconnect with ones innermost.
The Gentle Breath Meditation supports us to re-connect, from there it is our choice to stay present with what we do throughout our day.
More and more I come to understand the commonness in prayer and meditation. Both, when done in truth connect us to the divinity within ourselves.
In my experience there are lots of meditations that foster the belief that we need to escape life by retreating into our mind rather than being fully present with all of us, our whole body and being in tune with what we are sensing. The retreat into the mind may offer a moment of seeming respite but it doesn’t offer any true healing and I would say actually makes us less able to truly handle or respond to what is being called of us. Universal Medicine does offer a different way, one not based on withdrawal or escape but on bringing the fullness of who you are to life, in connection with our whole body.
It is interesting that in a world where distraction in general is so huge, that even a modality, that seemingly should bring you back to you, is actually a distraction from you as well. Actually you are just domesticate your mind, instead connecting your mind to your body, which would mean absolute body presence and raising awareness for everything that is around you.
True meditation is the connection to a certain quality within ourselves, that when in movement reflects the flow of the universe.
We always come back to the in-breath, we cannot escape it, that consistent return, and the opportunity to choose connection and our quality.
The Gentle Breath Meditation has love as its foundation and thus there cannot be any coldness or mind-fullness. Should this be one’s experience, then it is not the Gentle Breath Meditation but the mind that has taken over, albeit in its ‘meditation stance’.
That’s a great reminder Gabriele, to not let the mind run the show.
It’s funny how frustrating meditation can be. There’s so much expectation around it doing the trick, being the answer. I for one have never found it even near possible to achieve whatever goal was set in focusing on not thinking for example. Nightmare!! But, bringing my awareness to my body and giving my mind permission to operate, as it should, has been far more beneficial. When the focus becomes on the body it’s a completely different feeling to trying hard to focus on something like a pencil or a happy place…because both those things are outside of us, hence not bringing union between body and mind and therefore not allowing the stillness of settle-ing of the body.
The Gentle Breath Meditation is A very grounded view and experience of meditation and not at all like I experienced first Lieke. To me I feel the truth of my body and where it is at also.
Having the opportunity to experience the gentle breath meditation early in life means that people will not end up in the spiritual and energetic cul-de-sacs that so many of us of an earlier generation have, and have had to extract ourselves out of.
The thing we need to be most aware of, is there are many ways to live life, but only one where we are connected to our body, feeling and moving with grace. We can go through the motions and the results may seem fine but when it comes to the truth the body never lies. You show beautifully Lieke how listening completely to what it has to say helps us to live in a connected way – to the point that everything we do is a meditation on Love and dedicated to the truth.
True meditation asks us to focus on the quality of stillness we can feel within us and the degree to which we can connect with this or not. This stillness is not necessarily a ceasing of movement but more so the space in which we begin to feel the quality of all that we are moved by and know whether this is in tune with the Universal rhythm we are held by, or whether our movements are made in discord with this.
Along my life I’ve tried lots of meditations. There was always the excitement of thinking that ‘this one will be the right one’, the one that would bring me to a state of peace and understanding of everything. Although nowadays there are lots of meditations in the new age market, no one of them brought me to that state (only distractions and different ways of checking out) because I was running away from myself and looking for somehow enlightment that could make life more beautiful. After this walk throughtout all of those called meditations, a friend of mine introduced me to the Gentle Breath meditation and then I experienced what meditation actually is. It is definitely not an escape, but a deep connection with myself. It is not a checking out from my body, but a deep connection with it. It is not a long, glamourous and complicated exercise, but a simple and natural attention to my breath that I can practice in few minutes whenever I need, which allows me to freely be and express myself wherever I go without absorbing anything less than love. Something really accessible, natural and useful.
A lot of people knock meditation these days, but with about 1.5k minutes and over 100 sessions of various types of meditation under my belt, I can say it has great benefits. Great post!
I remember spending hours meditating in my younger year, but back then it was about checking out from the world and looking for a solution to how miserable I felt. The Gentle Breath Meditation is very practical and can be done in less than 10 minutes. Connecting to my breath brings my awareness inward, and from there I have been able to become a better observer of life, rather than getting pulled in and distracted by it.
In the tenderness and gentleness of connection to the breath our body and mind are brought into a deep harmony that is felt throughout the whole being.
If there was nothing else offered by the course of Universal Medicine then the Gentle Breath Meditation, then this alone would be an extraordinary offering to humanity. This simplicity, grace, beauty and absolutely profound depth can be found within this beautiful cycle and flow that is within us all is simply the doorway all of humanity needs to walk through to reconnect with who they truly are.
The Gentle Breath Meditation is about re-gathering and re-connecting back with our body and a re-introducing a quality that we can take back into our day with us – this was so refreshing to me the first time that I did it and very different to any other meditation I had done before. It’s like it confirms that you have everything you need within you already it’s just that you need to re-connect back with it.
For me my meditation starts with my breath, and these days I play with it. Its not so serious, it informs me of how I am but I don’t use it to judge myself. The playfulness extends out now to seeing if I can maintain an awareness of my breath, my body when other things are going on… being engaged in conversation or working on an email, writing this comment. When I do there is a magic that happens and I tap into a rich source of information from what I’m feeling… I’d highly recommend it!
For me every task during a day can be used as a mediation. When I am in the flow of doing things it truly is a constant state of meditation. Being present with whatever I do is meditation for me. Being connected to that universal flow, that works through space is the ultimate place to live from. Another recommendation 😉
Very true Lieke that is : being in your body, with your presence of your Soul and your mind(spirit).
Great discussion x
Meditation is a tool we can either use to check-out or check-in. The former is harmful to the body, the latter is healing. The key for us is to discern in what way we are using this tool and to be very, very honest with ourselves in this process. Our entire evolution depends on it.
‘True meditation for me is about connecting to a quality of gentleness or tenderness that is innate in our body and surrendering to this quality that is already there’. The Gentle Breath Meditation is not trying to have us believe that there is a place – or peace – that we have not yet attained and can get to if we do this practise. No. The Gentle Breath Meditation allows us to reconnect to what has always been in us, to who we truly are and it does so with the body. It includes our bodies and allows us to surrender to our bodies without the control we might otherwise exert.
I’ve heard a lot about meditation being about picturing something, a ‘happy place’ or even an object to focus on an attempt to stop the mind wandering. It makes sense though, that if we were to connect back to a function our body is actually performing, like breathing, we are keeping the connection of our mind and body together. This feels so much more real, and practical and sustainable, because we can be connecting to our breath all the time, eyes open or closed.
I really liked the way the Gentle Breath Meditation was presented, in that it wasn’t about escaping or getting to some higher place, it was all about earthing yourself really. Bringing you back from wherever we’d taken ourselves off too. It’s presented in a way that says you are already everything and we just need to reconnect to that by bringing attention to our breath which reminds us we have a body.
‘…When I go out of my body into my mind, I feel I lose my innate intelligence, which includes feelings of what to do and what not to do, what to say, and what is safe to do and what is not…’ This is very true and I can say that I feel the same – when I am not in my body – I lose trust. I default to security led by the mind. I cut off from an instant and unquestionable wisdom.
I love this article more each time I read it. Leaving my body and going into my mind never brings feelings of acceptance or knowing that staying in my body does.
The simplicity of the Gentle Breath Meditation is beautiful, just to feel your breath going gently in and out and how your body respond is amazing to feel, not always easy to go there, when we have lived the intensity of the outer world but it connects us with what we know is true, the wisdom of our body.
For me once in my body, I can then feel a readiness for whatever I am about to encounter. The Gentle Breath Meditation has truly supported me to halt the high levels of anxiety that used to affect me.
The difference between having the body and mind work together connected as one, or the mind running the body to its whim is so profoundly different. A difference worth exploring, connection brings simplicity and clarity, whims bring complication and confusion.
The gentle breath is a revolution and a revelation… a doorway to our inner heart which opens the connection to and experience of the divine that becomes a continual living inspiration
Our breath is always such an honest reflection of our connection.
Looking through the comments, it looks like you are not alone with your experiences in meditation. I too tried many different forms and found that the basis of them was not really about connecting the mind and the body but often treating them as almost two separate entities, with a strong focus on just the mind, and ignoring the body that was often in very uncomfortable positions! The Gentle Breath meditation does support a mind-body connection and brings you very much to the present moment.
Thank you Lieke my experience was a bit similar. I used to hear people talking about their meditation , it was mainly people who did yoga. They talked about how great mediation was how great it made them feel . They talked about how long they would mediate for . So an opportunity came in a big group where I joined in on a mediation. I looked around and all I saw was a big group of intense people . But I tried the meditation and I tried it a few time with different groups and at no stage did I get to what people were explaining to me about meditation. At all time it felt like a waste of time it was like eating something my body did not want. I now know that these people were dis-connecting from themselves and feeling the comfort and bless of no responsibility.
Later in life I came across Serge Benhayon and I was introduced to the Gentle breath meditation, my body just loved this, as it was dedicated to a whole body re-connection, responsibility and purpose.
Yes very familiar John, basically if our body does not like it we can be sure that it is not true for us either.
True meditation allows us to reconnect to a deeper level of beingness where our movements can be a reflection of that which is divine.
There are many forms of meditation but none of them offer the space to come back to you in the way that the Gentle Breath Meditation does. When I first did it my mind was all over the place but once I could truly focus on my in and out breath it was amazing to feel the simplicity of this and how my body would respond and be in sync with my breath. The racy thoughts disappeared and there was a calmness and harmonious simplicity in my whole being that was saying this is you, enjoy.
The relief and checking out by going into the mind with many mainstream meditations, to me is no different to when I would drink alcohol. The numbing and relief was just the same. What I loved most about when I first did the gentle breath meditation with Serge Benhayon was that for the first time for most of my life I was in my body instead of trying to escape it.
I used to view meditation as a check out from the world, a moment (sometimes a long moment) where I would take a break from it all. If I was feeling anxious or racy for example I would try to shut off from that. These days I use meditation far differently. I check in with myself. If I’m feeling racy I stop and feel that. Then when I feel that, I can also feel what lies beneath and try to connect to that. It’s now a moment to check in with myself and see where I’m at.
Beware of the state of bliss, for it offers nothing more than temporary relief from the world, but in that state much can be seeded that it not in the realms of your ordinary awareness. That is why they say bliss is the portal to illusion.
Incredibly wise words we would all do well to heed, thank you Adam.
Indeed wise words and revealing that meditation in many forms is not as innocent or harmless as it may seem at first glance. And so this is asking for us to look beyond the surface and be more aware of what it is we are really choosing.
The integrity that Universal Medicine brings to meditation is crucial in my experience, laying the foundation for a meditation that truly supports, helping us to regather and re-align with a harmonious quality of energy that we can then bring back into the way we live.
In the Gentle Breath Meditation that I have done so for the first time when I was 18 years old – made me realize what I had missed the previous 18 years – mind and body being in one time (space). Hence it brought great joy in my heart to have this connection to my body which then brought it all together. Feeling present in the moment, more observant and understanding of what was happening within me and around me. A HUGE gift to receive for the first time, but surely a huge deepening every time I do this meditation. I tried meditations before, well if I look back now I strongly know and have felt that none of them have supported me in any way shape or form – only have caused damage and the opposite effect (being more in my head and disconnected from my body).
On my journey of looking for what I felt, I was missing in me; I came across many different types of meditations. All were, as many here have said, were a way of checking out. Instead of feeling our body we were trying to leave our bodies and go to fairyland and float. The Gentle Breath Meditation allows us to reconnect to ourselves in the madness of the world that surrounds us that helps us observe and not absorb the world we live in.
I grew up that meditation needed to be in a certain way. I had this admiration when people could meditate for hours and me thinking I was useless whilst I sat so uncomfortable with my legs shaped like a pretzel tingling or becoming numb and I would fidget like crazy, or that my mind would wonder with thoughts. Let’s face it, for most of us this is how meditation is projected and there must be something wrong if you can’t sit still for hours on end.
Since I was introduced to the Gentle Breath Meditation, I’ve realised there is no trying, just being with me and the breath that enters into my nose and I can more or less do this anywhere, what a beauty full yet simple way to be with self.
Checking out to not feel the intensity of the world is a most vulnerable and disempowered state. Committing and surrendering to all that life brings, when we are in sync in movement with life, and there is no room for anything but conscious presence.
Stop, check in, connect, confirm, and then get on with life in the same space – meditation in a nutshell
Yes, meditation can be a bit mental, i.e. using the mind to control the practice of breathing, yet the gentle breath meditation was different in that it was all about the body and growing the awareness of feeling how I am. We can’t really ever let go of our tensions if we are in the mind, as it is only from the body that such things can be truly released. So meditation need not be wishy washy, but instead just a simple connection to how we feel and discarding that holding us back from feeling tension free.
The Gentle Breath Meditation can be used as a conformation of our connection and once we are confirmed in that connection it is then our movements that maintain the connection we have confirmed. Thus it is a movement, seeing our breath is a movement, a movement with a quality that is recognised and held. Our breath as a movement is confirming our connection, so then we know our next movement will be a conformation of that quality, which is in this case at-least gentleness. Bringing focus to the quality of our breath keeps our mind focused, as our mind can never be empty, then our movements expand that quality, which deepens our connection.
Connecting back to the body and its whole body intelligence gives us a gorgeous feeling of spaciousness within ourselves. The answers are all there when we ask for them, there is so much to learn from the experiences the body shows us. .
meditation is a check in, a stop, a recollection, a moment. That is all, and nothing more. It is a pause in time to allow you to regather yourself and ensure that your movements are as you want them to be.
Yes, we need to learn to feel again if something is a fix (making it look like the issue is gone but it’s roots are still there) or if it is bringing true healing (digging the weed out with roots and all). If we become aware of this again certain shocking diagnoses, ‘out of the blue’ won’t happen anymore as we can see we built up a way of living that is not in accordance with the body for such a long time that it had to come out big.
“Thus, when I come out of the meditation I am more surrendered in my body and feel equipped to deal with life and its intensities that we cannot stop from being there. For me this is true body intelligence.” Absolutely Lieke, being in a position to make a choice from a body that is more than equipped to deal with what is there because you have given it the space to be itself, which is absolute love.
I like what you share here Lieke. I used to try heaps of forms of meditation, sit in uncomfortable positions and all sorts but they never really worked for me. I have done the gentle breath meditation as presented by Serge Benhayon and it is great but what I love most, is bringing my mind and my body together in everything thing I am doing, so my walk, my work or my drive can be a meditation in itself. In each moment, I can connect me with my mind and what I am doing rather than being on autopilot. It feels great, I know the difference as I often forget and try a few different ways but know really what way works best for me.
Having done a lot of meditation in the past, I found that if I focused on an image of something it became just a mental activity and I would feel quite cold and heady. I didn’t realise how disconnected I was from my body until I tried the Gentle Breath Meditation which brings the mind’s focus to within the body and in doing this I become aware of tensions in the body. As soon as this happens the body naturally starts to let go of the hardness I’ve accumulated in reaction to the world and I start to settle more deeply into my body.The mind always needs something to focus on, but by focusing on the body and feeling the natural warmth and yumminess of the body I don’t get bombarded by thoughts that take me away from myself.
Yes, Lieke, the Gentle Breath Meditation helps us re-connect back to a exquisite quality that is innate within us and there all the time, even though we may lose touch with it when we react to life.
Its definitely not about checking out, but checking in! Bringing all my attention to my relationship with my body and I’m truly feeling. The space inside just expands and the warmth spreads from my heart to my extremities.
The Gentle Breath Meditation supports us to connect with & appreciate the true spaciousness within, slowly, steadily as this is activated and moved it becomes a solid foundation from which to walk through life’s intensity.
What a great review of what true meditation is all about, I loved your line “true meditation is about connecting to a quality of gentleness or tenderness that is innate in our body and surrendering to this quality that is already there.”
Amazing blog Lieke, I have never experienced meditation before the one from Universal Medicine however I don’t feel like I have had to do it to know truth from lies.
‘What are we meditating on?’ A good question, Lieke, and one that needs to be asked. Meditation has become quite popular as an antidote to a busy lifestyle but is it just another form of checking out or is bringing us back to a settlement in our body? If we have a need to block out any ‘disturbances’ it suggests we are trying to create an isolated place where we can retreat to away from the onslaught of the world. If we are using meditation to connect to the body then a short meditation will nourish us, and far from feeling the need to disconnect from the world, we will feel refreshed and able to deal with what comes at us because we are connected to ourselves.
Reality is we can’t just bury it all or turn a blind eye or pretend life isn’t happening, so rather than find ways to escape, it supports us more to find ways to connect, accept and be part of life. Meditating in a way that is short, sweet and connecting is awesome, but hours on end of meditation, to not feel is not the answer at all.
“Meditation has become quite popular as an antidote to a busy lifestyle” great point Sandra, when I read that I wonder if we should not question our busy lifestyle we want a moment ‘out’ of, instead of trying to fix it with an antidote that is an hype at the moment without knowing what we are really doing.
Lieke you have a very sweet way of explaining the beauty of having your mind and body together, working as one whole.
The Gentle Breath Meditation is different to other meditations I’ve done. It is a way for me to connect with the natural rythym of my breath and body, and then to take that into my daily life and to take the gentleness into everything I do…in the beginning this was such a big shift from the rushing and anxiousness I lived with.
Thanks, Lieke, I love the way you have re-defined intelligence here, and clarified that the true purpose of meditation is to re-connect to the body and a quality that confirms the divinity inherent in us all.
It is so simple when the true principles of meditation are learned and how our focus on our breath bring an awareness of our body. Then once there is this connection it is then able to remain as we go about our movements. So why would anyone sit and meditate for hours when the truth is always what we feel in our bodies, could it be that our body is numb and only connects to more numbness? As you have shared Lieke we can all equally connect to our body with every movement so that, when we can align to ‘true body intelligence, it is the most beautiful feeling I know, which is to be one with my body and mind together’.
We have indeed missed the answer to our stress and tension. Relieving stress by avoiding, checkout or imposing a state of calm does not deal with our inability to be in the world and the tension of not living who we truly are.
My first experience of meditation was very spiritual and from what I had heard from religions like The Catholic Church I thought of meditation as though it was something that was actually quite unenjoyable having to sit for hours! The way this form of meditation is done is for sure nothing like the way it is done when you are using it to simply reconnect to the body!
For many years I practiced meditation following Tibetan Buddhist instruction but on encountering The Gentle Breath Meditation I have come to realise that in all those years that the meditation achieved nothing other than relief and escapism from the stresses of life.
I too have experienced different meditations and that’s exactly what happens. They offer temporary relief from stress, but the minute you go back into your life, nothing has changed. The Gentle Breath Meditation was the first meditation I did that offered something diffferent.
And what the Gentle Breath Meditation offers is so much – a practical tool, a bridge to connect to our Soul and our whole body intelligence, the doorway to commit to live in full, …….
I used different forms of meditation to escape big time. The Gentle Breath Meditation is profound in it’s difference, connecting me back to my body, soul and to life. It is powerful in it’s simplicity and a great tool for day to day life.
Lieke, thank you for writing this article, I love this description; ‘True meditation for me is about connecting to a quality of gentleness or tenderness that is innate in our body and surrendering to this quality that is already there’, this is so different from other types of mediation that I have tried in the past which were all about sitting in a certain position and focussing on a picture of something and chanting a mantra – so complicated and actually physically and mentally painful, I love the gentleness and stillness of the gentle Breath Meditation, it feels gorgeous in the body.
I agree with you Lieke that when I do the gentle breath meditation my whole body feels open and surrendered and this makes me more equipped to live life.
It also allows me to respond to life rather than be in reaction to it. It gives me space in a way.
Yes Lieke – thank you. We are everything we truly are. Hence a true form of meditation simply connects you back to all that exists within you. Nothing less , nothing more.
For years I grappled with the belief that I had to quiet my mind, that a still mind was the desired outcome and that would deliver me some kind of bliss. Now I see that as such nonsense and is something that is impossible. I remember when I first heard Serge Benhayon present that the mind needs something to focus on – what a relief. And it’s true, I’m not even sure it’s possible to empty the mind but there can be a stillness in the body when the mind is focused. Generally I find I can connect to that stillness when my mind focuses on the body and what I am doing.
It was relief for me too Nikki, and when I focus my mind with what I am doing in my body, as in when I exercise, I go for a walk, cook dinner or in Esoteric yoga for example, the stillness and feeling I get in my body is so much better than any feeling of trying, getting frustrated, busy lost in thoughts or such that I experienced when I tried to meditate in the past.
Realising how meditation is about connection was so simple, beautiful and powerful – great to get the head right out of the way.
If we are meditating because life is too intense why do we not consider looking at why we are so impacted? Are we living in such a way where we cannot be ourselves in life or are we absorbing others emotions or the drama in life.
A great example of getting to the root cause – the marker for true change!
The more connected I feel in my body, the more spacious I feel inside and out, because with that connection there is an inner-knowing that prevents me from reacting and filling my body and my mind with the energy of emotional turmoil like I used to do.
The Gentle Breathe Meditation is a gorgeous way to bring stillness and harmony back into the body. A beautiful reminder thank you Lieke.
The difference I found with the gentle breath meditation was to be able to surrender to all that we are – a magnificent stillness.
To hold the moment in the stillness is truly a remarkable feeling that is always there on tap if we choose to use it.
Meditation is usually associated with sitting still and being at peace, but the true and greatest form
Of meditation should teach us that moving (what we do all of the time) is where we achieve true enlightenment. Once we have a quality in the body and begin to move it magnifies.
A great blog. The first time I attempted a simple meditation, I was put off, thinking the technique did not work, so anxious and unsettled was I. It was then that I realised that the meditation was perfect, for it was not the meditation making me anxious, but the meditation that was allowing me to clock the true state of my being. And that is in truth what any meditation should do, rather than incite a state of false bliss that will only disappear once you have to return back to reality anyway. Change can never be made through meditation. True change can only be enacted in the movement of life.
As a tool to bring us back to a present, aware and inspired relationship with life I have not come across anything more transformative than The Gentle Breath Meditation.
I am learning more and more how it is absolutely vital to be clear of our purpose in anything and everything. At times we can may be drawn to something that can be vitalising like food with an intent to do the opposite, ie to avoid feeling what there is for us to face. So being clear of my purpose is important. Also when I know why I am approaching something, then I am better placed to be able to discern if what is in front of me serves that purpose and unlikely to be sucked in by what I have heard about it.
Meditation has been one of those areas that needs this awareness. I have in the past approached meditations as a relief from the tension of my daily life, and many meditations have delivered bliss which I thought was great at the time. Since my experience with the Gentle Breath Meditation presented by Serge Benhayon my whole understanding has broadened. Compared to what true meditation is, I can now feel how disempowering my previous relationship with meditation and what was actually offered was for so many years.
I once did a meditation teaching diploma in the early 1990s and after one week of sitting cross-legged I could not walk for two weeks. The Gentle Breath Meditation places no such strains on the body, but it frees the mind and body to be one, so the connection achieved is available so it can be taken into our daily movements.
Is it possible we have got the word “meditation” mixed up with pictures of what we think it should be but not actually clarified what it truly is? What I mean is that there is a general understanding that meditation means coming into a place of centredness and clarity. But what is this place of centeredness and clarity? Is it a place of relaxed numbness where we feel less connected to the dramas of the world but equally in effect ourselves? Or is it a place of deep surrender to our inner feelings, having a clearer sense of what is true and what is not?
For many years I practiced meditation under the auspices of Tibetan Buddhism and I was always ambivalent towards it. It was physically demanding, requiring the dedication of long periods of time and what apparent benefit/relief from the stresses from life or insights I gained were short-lived and in hindsight illusionary. With the Gentle Breath Meditation, however, the time required is very short, there is no physical hardship and the wellbeing I experience is manifestly apparent in so many ways in my life.
It is interesting listening to others talk about meditation, it is a topic that when it is approached from the head it can become complicated and short lived but when it is approached from the simplicity of our bodies and lived consistently and not for just short periods of time the benefits are humongous as we have access to true body intelligence and that is gold! Thank you Lieke
The Gentle Breath Meditation is actually a very natural thing to do, it requires no special poses, thoughts, visualisations or objects – it’s just breathing ourselves and connecting through gentleness. This is why it’s so portable, i.e., it can be taken into life and the quality of gentleness of breath used in work or other activities. It’s not weird or “out there”, in fact it’s like coming home to your true self again to breathe so gently and tenderly.
The thing I love most about the Gentle Breath Meditation is that unlike other meditations I have tried there is no shock when I stop and re-enter the busyness of the world, but simply the stillness I have brought to my body magnified through my movement. And so it is with joy, not trepidation or numbness that I continue my day.
Great point Jane, it’s not a check out from the world and therefore also no shock to come back.
Only when we find settlement in our body can we feel truly at one with the world – we can let go of the busyness of the day and truly feel the beauty within.
I have heard Serge Benhayon speak about meditation as being in movement – and bringing conscious presence to movement. Now this definitely breaks the traditional beliefs about what meditation is and is for. Ultimately we are beings that move all of the time, and whilst laying still and resting is important it is the quality of movement that determines our overall state of being.
Yes and even lying still and resting is a movement because we are breathing and there are processes going on in our body all the time. So making the quality of our breath gentle or tender it makes a lot of difference. I agree that our quality is mainly defined by our movements and to add that I found true rest is only possible after true movement and vice versa.
It’s so important to have tools to back us up when life gets intense, the gentle breath is a great one for me too, there are heaps of ways we can support ourselves when things are intense, I also find walking, exercising and moving my body very beneficial – it’s a bit like pressing a reset button.
Love this. And the more time we spend present in life the more aware we become of the things that take us off course and the more adept we are at simply pressing the ‘reset’ button.
True, the more you discover who you are heading off course becomes such an awful feeling it becomes quicker and quicker to catch it.
Totally agree, meditation is not about “… checking out of our body for a moment of calm…” but to check-in with ourselves and connect.
It is powerful to feel and consider our bodies in terms of space. When we have taken on emotional reactions they crowd out the body and create a build up of tension. But as we clear out these old reactions and heal the hurts, a beautiful feeling of space opens up which allows us to feel who we truly are.
The Gentle Breath Meditation is an amazingly simple beautiful technique bringing us to connect to our inner stillness and truly supports us to be in the world with presence knowing and love.
What I often tell those who I refer to this mediation is my experience of it being like a personal coach. When we connect through the Gentle Breath Meditation and let’s say a day later we find that very hard it gives us a marker and from this marker we can see what triggers us, making us go into reaction and losing connection with ourselves.
I have tried and tested several meditation forms but none ever did anything more then a momentarily escape from what I found intense or the runnings arounds of my mind. Indeed in some cases my mind would be more focussed but still I was mostly in my head. With the Gentle Breath Meditation there was instantly a different experience that did not only settle my mind but helped me get centred deep within my own body. I have experienced it as being a bridge to ourselves within, without escaping what is around ust
Beautiful Carolien, I love this. Appreciating the significance of being able to be in relationship with ourselves deep within, without cutting off from the world.
Understanding that mediation is just a return to our natural connection that we hold and not a journey anywhere or achieving anything releases so much and leaves a simple process of surrender.
I love the feeling of coming back to oneself, back home all in a gentle breath.
Before Universal Medicine and the wonderful explanation Serge Benhayon offers about meditation I was not aware of just what it was possible for me to choose. Until that point I thought the best I could do for myself was to relax using whatever techniques brought relief from the trauma of how I was living life. How wrong that was, I soon started to appreciate the depth of stillness, awareness, harmony and connection available and Universal Medicine’s Gentle Breath Meditation was a perfect tool to start me on the way.
Its fascinating how even the way I close my eyes and sit down greatly effects the quality when I meditate. Every thing matters. And what I find interesting is the more I feel and know it is about reconnecting rather than trying to get anywhere suddenly my body drops and the tension goes.
I agree, we cannot escape the intensities of life and the world around us, but we can learn how to deal with it as opposed to react to it. The Gentle Breath Meditation is a great place to start.
It is wonderful to experience how when we connect with that quality of stillness and tenderness through meditation, there is no need to do it for extended periods for it is about reconnecting rather than avoiding the tension we feel.
When I first started to meditate many years ago I never considered what I was meditating on or what I was connecting to. I understood that there were different meditation techniques but I considered them all coming under the one umbrella and having the same outcome. It is only since I have become aware of the two possible energies we can connect with, one the soul, the other the spirit, that I have realised that all mediations are not benign or healing.
Meditation is one of those misunderstood words. We think all mediations are a good thing, they are something to use for a moment to relax or distract us away from life. But what if meditation was about being active and part of life and choosing to be in a certain quality first before we do anything? We can live meditation each moment of our day – of course, if we feel we need to deepen or have been taken out by life then sitting with ourselves for a moment is very useful.
Yes the misunderstanding and also bastardisation of words is the root of many of our problems.
I agree, no trying, no pictures or visualisation, no harming and stressing the body but a “True meditation for me is about connecting to a quality of gentleness or tenderness that is innate in our body and surrendering to this quality that is already there.” It is a simple sweet physiologically supportive choice and it feels amazingly supportive.
It’s important to understand that true meditation helps us to connect our body. Any other form of meditation simple takes us out of the body which is ultimately an escape. For true healing and true awareness we need to stay in connection with the body, as this is how we feel the truth of what is there and what is going on. Without the connection to the body we are in pure illusion.
I loved your description of what meditation is Lieke and how it is possible to be a normal part of everyday life, a few moments here and there to reconfirm connection with oneself and with the world rather than using it to escape from both.
I like how you describe the coming together of body and mind and how meditation is simply this union instead of an escape into the mind away from the body.
When we mistake meditation for bliss, we’ve lost ourselves in an illusion which is in fact far worse than the more obvious despair we can often find ourselves in. It’s now the vogue thing to seek out meditation as an escape from life. All this does is take you further and further away from the real you. Meditation should be about reconnecting to the real you so that you then bring the real you to life. We are made to be in life and not run away from it – and it is for each of us to learn to not shy away from life but to bring all of who we truly are to every aspect of life – and reflect this commitment and return to everyone else.
Meditation can’t take us anywhere, but true meditation can re-connect us back to feeling ourselves within our body, and thus we can deepen from there.
Checking out is becoming more and more prevalent and the numbers of people with dementia is rising very quickly. When we meditate in a way that has us connected to our body we establish that connection which helps us to keep mind and body together so we do not check out and do not succumb to alzheimers or other debilitating dis-eases.
Thanks, Lieke, for your simple but complete definition of what meditation is truly about – “establishing a quality and a connection that brings my mind and body together as one.”
Meditation for me is about building a relationship with my body and not one that takes me away from it.
Many years ago, when I was learning the various meditation practises offered by the different religions, there was always this sense of trying to achieve something which forever seemed impossible to achieve, and there were those who seemed to be content with this eternal unrest but I could never find a settlement in it. Furthermore, it did always seem to be something that I had to shut myself away to do, to separate myself from my family and from society in general, which always made me sad because essentially I was shutting myself off from the people I love to focus on something that made me feel like a terrible failure.
The first time I tried meditation I found it intensely boring and impossible to keep my mind focused on one thing. Then I dabbled in quite a few other types, most of them designed to get us further into our heads on some creative thinking journey, checking out from reality even further. What I love about the gentle breath meditation is that it is so simple: literally breathing and feeling the gentleness of that breath. No magic tricks, no escaping, just feeling what it is like to breathe, and from there, what the rest of your body feels like, and infrequently at first, but then more so as I get used to it, a deeper stillness that’s underneath any surface level tension, raciness or anxiety. A stillness that’s always there, just waiting to be reconnected to.
Being with and responding to life from our bodies is the key to living in joy, love, harmony and stillness.
I love the simple yet powerful message you have reflected to us in this blog Lieke, thank you.
Thank you Lieke, so simple and yet your blog speaks volumes if taken off the page and put into practice.
Just recently I heard Serge Benhayon relate to the term ‘meditation’ as coming back to your own breath; that´s all. So it seems worth to explore what that actually means: one´s own breath – http://www.unimedliving.com/meditation/gentle-breath-meditation/the-gentle-breath-meditation-in-5-simple-steps.html
And it is when we are connected to our breath that we are able to feel what our bodies are communicating more clearly. I find meditation is a great reflection of the way I have been living during the day.
This is great Alex and really makes me consider what meditation can be about. And how actually is it about being more present and more aware rather than isolating ourselves.
This is such a great description, Lieke – “In that moment I feel the whole of my body like it is a big space and from there it is very clear what I need to do, how I need to do it and when.” Having the space to feel what is next makes me feel so much more confident in everyday life.
“When I go out of my body into my mind, I feel I lose my innate intelligence, which includes feelings of what to do and what not to do, what to say, and what is safe to do and what is not.”
Its fascinating how when i go into my mind i instantly become more insecure and hover in self doubt, suddenly a ‘yes’ becomes a ‘maybe’ and a ‘no’ becomes a ‘not sure’.
What a turn around this is Lieke, from a meditation that tries to transend the body, to escape the reality we live in. To one that brings it all back to the body to connect fully, to breathe gently. So very simple and doesnt take hours of sitting in a certain position or focus on something outside ourselves. Very simply just a re-connection.
‘Thus, when I come out of the meditation I am more surrendered in my body..,’ this allows us to have a powerful marker in our body for the day ahead and to feel the effects of our choices which have gone before.
I spent years trying to mediate and beating myself up that I couldn’t. Yet I was persistent and tried everyday. When I came to Universal Medicine I still remember the first time I tried the gentle breath meditation. In a few minutes I felt more connection and stillness that I had in years of trying to meditate. Trying to clear the mind simply never worked for me but as soon as I gave it something to do that was focused, things changed and I was no longer ruled by the mind.
My understanding is that when we try to understand meditation from the mind, we may reduce the chatter and still the mind, but we are not connecting to the body. Doing the Gentle Breath Meditation, our focus is the connection to the messages that are in the body all the time, but the head is often so noisy, it dismisses them.
This is a great point to make clear, that is … “meditation is not about checking out of our body for a moment of calm and to basically escape from the intensity of the world…” The Gentle Breath Meditation is the only 5minute meditation that has shown me that meditation is all about checking-IN, and this makes all the difference
Yes, Johanne. Where many other meditations are to escape or find your bliss, the Gentle Breath Meditation is about presence and connection to the constant communication from the body.
I think it is very important to know what is actually happening when we meditate and do those meditations that take you away to some wonderful place. If the idea of meditation is to get out of your mind and have some peace, why would you want to go in there to try to find it?
I had to read your comment a few time Julie but see what you mean! If being in your head has been the problem, why would you go to your head for the solution?! I know, probably obvious, but I get it 🙂 The body is so much smarter and more honest but I suspect I needed to feel that for myself to value it as such.
I spent years doing transcendental meditation but didn’t gain anything from it except that I could check out, zone out, more quickly and for longer and longer periods of time. I was blown away when I first did the Gentle Breath Meditation, it energised my body and centred me in myself. A fews minutes of this meditation can make a huge difference and can be done anywhere anytime.
When applied consistently the Gentle Breath Meditation is an amazing tool to check in with the body and keep up a quality that is harmonious and still; putting at bay any underlying anxiousness or tension.
The gentle breath meditation is such a simple and accessible tool for anyone to use, in that it needs nothing other than a full focus on how we are breathing, making it a meditation that can be done absolutley anywhere. In fact once practised regularly it can become a living way and something that is just a natural rythym of the body.
I agree, Lieke. I used to practice a different type of meditation and always struggled to stay awake, whereas with the Gentle Breath Meditation I get to enjoy the aliveness and presence of being connected to my body and my essence.
Meditating to check in and stayed checked in rather than check out.
The beauty of the Gentle Breath Meditation is in its utter simplicity and practicality. No need for any special postures, locations or circumstances as we carry our body around with us wherever we go and whatever we do.
Yes indeed, Gabriele, it does away with the notion that meditation is something that happens behind closed doors in a disciplined and sombre way, and makes it simply a part of everyday life.
When we come back to our bodies the truth is there for us to feel and observe.
Often we can seek things outside of ourselves to deal with the intensities of life, but the gold and richness we crave is always found within.
I feel I have never been great with meditating but the Gentle Breath Meditation is the only that makes sense to me making it about the whole body and not just the mind! Not only that you tangibly feel the difference after doing the Gentle Breath Medication, the warmth within the body, more connected .. or truly re-connected! and naturally more gentle in movements afterwards. It is in fact an incredibly beautifull meditation.
You always knew the true way to meditate was to connect to your body, Lieke so the early experiences were not for you. The Gentle Breath Meditation is the best start ever to come back to ourselves.
So many forms of meditation are used as a way to check out or escape. They are purely in the mind. The gentle breath meditation brings us back to the body so we are fully connected with the whole of us. The body is our home. It is worth getting used to it. Why would we want to escape?
When we know what true meditation is and that it has nothing to do with emptying the mind but about keeping he mind in line with the body then you could never sit for hours looking for Nirvana or enlightenment. We have like so many things in our lives bastardised meditation and it’s true meaning as taught by those that brought it through many thousands of year ago. They knew the body had the true intelligence and meditation was a way of connecting to the body and checking in with it and the gentle breath was a way of doing this.
I’m in LA at the moment and the culture here is heavily into fitness and health. As part of that I see little wellbeing clinics that offer yoga and meditation – but all of them have shops with crystals and music and scents and the whole vibe is all about unwinding rather than being totally with yourself. It’s interesting how far we’ve taken meditation out of context and made it about checking out rather than being in the world.
This is such a pertinent question, Lieke – “do we really consider what we are doing or trying to achieve when we are meditating?” Mindfulness meditation seems to be popping up everywhere at the moment, and one wonders if there is a clear sense of whether it offers a true re-connection to the quality of our essence, or just used as a quick fix to alleviate overwhelming and unresolved tension for a period of time.
I found that meditation was a great way not to feel touched by the world – to be able to separate yourself from the work. What I chose not to be aware of were the consequences from that retreat.
The Gentle Breath Meditation is a beautiful opportunity to stop and feel. When I was younger searching for something to stop with the intensity of life did not stop at all – it was watered down for a moment and then would roar back into its full force and once again the spin would restart. The way out of this was to seek more effective and damaging distractions. The gentle breath asks only that we connect with what the body is and how it is operating – it diffuses and discards the momentums we allow into the body with breathe – our own breathe and this is the powerful part – breathing our own breathe in a world that is constantly telling us how to breathe changes everything and space is created for us to actually choose more of what we feel – the Love that we are innately.
Meditation is not about checking out but checking in! So when life gets intense rather than wish myself away I know what works is being present and committing to life to a far greater degree.
And when I reflect on those around me, the ones who inspire me with how they live are those who fully commit to whatever life presents to them. From this I see the power and beauty in which we can walk our daily lives if we so choose.
When we put quality first, the choice of what we do and don’t do becomes very simple.
Wise words Kylie – whenever we put quality first, true choices naturally follows.
‘When I go out of my body into my mind, I feel I lose my innate intelligence, which includes feelings of what to do and what not to do, what to say, and what is safe to do and what is not.’ – I agree, once my mind takes over I no longer have a sense of my true self and the confidence that naturally comes with that.
I agree and, over time, the fact that in that numbness few things touch me, that experience tends to become less and less desirable as I became less and less connected to the world and … myself.
‘When I go out of my body into my mind, I feel I lose my innate intelligence, which includes feelings of what to do and what not to do, what to say, and what is safe to do and what is not.’ – Beautifully said – true intelligence is found in our bodies and not our minds.
My experience of meditation in the past always left me with a sense of despair that things would never improve and quite often felt down in the dumps afterwards, but with the Gentle Breath Meditation there is none of that – in fact quite the opposite.
The Gentle Breath Meditation has supported me back into a respectful, listening, aware relationship with my body. With this everything has changed and my understanding of, and commitment to, life continues to deepen, expand and inspire me.
Great expose on what meditation truly is, “True meditation for me is about connecting to a quality of gentleness or tenderness that is innate in our body and surrendering to this quality that is already there.” this made so much sense to me, not the other experience you speak to and I also have experienced too, where you are supposed to sit and clear your mind and if you don’t then you have failed!! whereas the true meaning of meditation is reconnection to our bodies.
What you share here so beautifully show us the difference between the mainstream view of meditation and that which the Gentle Breath Meditation brings to the table. A true bodily connection which helps us in more ways than only focusing our minds, but brings us a presence that is deeper, knowing that love is our way.
The first time a friend invited me to try something out he had just learnt, I thought it was a breathing exercise. I had been very agitated, annoyed and emotional about a life situation. I could not believe how quickly that all turned around and I felt alert, open and allowing. The thing is I was in no way numb to the situation, I was aware that there were elements I would rather have been different but I was no longer disturbed. I felt loving even towards the person I was a minutes ago agitated about, empowered and very awake. It was an absolute surprise to find out that this was Gentle Breath Meditation.
Until that moment I thought meditation required trying to blank my mind, feeling blissful and kind of detaching from the world. How wrong I was. This was the first of numerous concepts that meeting and knowing Serge Benhayon has turned completely on its head.
Meditation is there to help us reconnect when we are thrown off, but it is also there to support us to maintain and grow from our foundations. It is in this regard that meditation is not used in its full potential.
Yes, indeed, when we let go of the dominance of the mind and are surrendered in the body, the space does open up inside us for everything to be felt and known.
I love how the Gentle Breath Meditation is not about drifting off or thinking that we need to seek something outside of us but regathering and re-connecting within to a quality we already hold in us that we can then bring to the way we live.
Feeling the tender in breath and then bringing a focus to the out-breath once the connection to the in-breath is established forms the basic of how to stay with our body and through Meditation as presented by Serge Benhayon.
Once a truly deep connection is established, lets say 5 minutes, individually this time can vary, and then we can get up and move, feeling our body so that we remain in the established connection.
Meditation for me now truly listening to myself and being intimate with myself.
Meditation is very popular in our current day, because we feel there is a needed stillness that is lacking in our lives. But if we are not familiar with what stillness means, how can we tell if a certain meditation truly brings us that? So it is a great confirming marker to go back to our body and trust what it feels, this is huge not only on the choice of meditation, but on everything in life.
I certainly know that the steadiness I feel in my body following a Gentle Breath Meditation is the pathway to stillness and it has totally changed my life.
A profound sharing on how the Gentle Breath Meditation works and the effects it has directly on our body and how when we align to our breath, are able to have this flow through our whole body and let our whole body become gentle. How incredible is that to come back and then being able to choose that breath everyday, your breath, your body – not allowing anything else to breath you forth – only gentleness and a breeze of love.
Meditation always seemed to me something weird and escapist and left me wondering what was the point and why . But meeting Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine and realising how beautiful it was to truly feel and connect to my body and the simplicity and beauty of this inner connection bringing me back to me I have never looked back and changed my life accordingly from here as the basis of it all.
What a beautiful sharing on true meditation with its simplicity and oneness of the body and mind together Lieke. The exquisite feeling inside from our connection with our innermost and the all is a very beautiful settling of ourselves in connection that we naturally align to from within.
I have shared the Gentle Breath Meditation with many people over the years, it is the simplest tool for centring and re-gathering yourself back to stillness.
Me too Jenny – the response to the Gentle Breath Meditation is how simple people find it and yet how profoundly still it makes them feel.
Yes after many years of attempting to follow instruction in yoga classes for certain types of ‘circular breathing’, in one nostril and out the other, back the other way, and feeling nothing but inadequate for my inability to stay focussed or feel any different, the gentle breath was a ‘breath of fresh air’, pun intended!
“When I go out of my body into my mind, I feel I lose my innate intelligence, which includes feelings of what to do and what not to do, what to say, and what is safe to do and what is not.” It has been a revelation to me to understand that when I am struggling with something, that it is because I have lost that connection with my self and that I have literally left my body behind by relying on my mind to tell me what to do. So true meditations, such as the Gentle Breath Meditation, are a wonderful and simple tool that bring us back to our body, and from which we can then move forward with all of our being.
It makes so much more sense to me to focus on my body then on a pencil instead. As what would a pencil for heaven’s sake bring other that the quality of a pencil and the particles it is made of? Not something that relates so much to the body I enhouse and the qualities that are held in it.
Some religions and spiritual movements advocate meditating for hours on end. This doesn’t feel very useful in the end result. I’ve found the Gentle Breath Meditation to be the most effective exercise of this type I’ve ever done. It’s super-simple, super-effective and takes about 10 minutes which is all I need to then go about my day.
Meditation based on connection such as the gentle breath meditation is very grounding and simple to apply each day.
Sooo simple.
Amazing what you’ve shared about meditation not being a way to escape from the intensity of life, but rather to create space so that we can observe and not absorb or feel caught up in it. This makes meditation a great tool to help us enrich not escape life.
Exactly, as we need tools to support us to live in life not to escape from it.
There is a big difference – I too tried it when I was younger and could feel that jarring when I came back into the noisy, untidy world that was so at odds with my meditative state. These days I welcome the thoughts, interruptions and noises as they are part of the life that is pulsing around me – the meditation is there to support me to connect my innermost with the rest of the world.
Well said Simon – although I didn’t do any other meditate before I started doing the gentle breath, I could see how when we meditate to check out or escape to a tranquil peace, returning to the real world would be discordant and disheartening – where as I find as you say, that the Gentle Breath Meditation supports me to be full present and active in life, able to see the turmoil without it affecting me.
It could be fair to say that for the vast majority life can be a struggle. From my experience from one who has been part of that many and who is still part of that many, (frequently) the Gentle Breath Meditation has been the best medicine. The perfect antidote to stress it supports the body to open, surrender and a wellness of being that makes it easier to be in the world and getting on with it.
The way we live and the way we support our bodies is all medicine. A lived medicine and I agree Rachel – the Gentle Breath Meditation is medicine for the body.
Having experienced many types of meditation over the years and intense Pranayama meditation practices with yoga I can speak with authority and say none of these meditations ever supported me in anyway, they left me feeling quite numb and disconnected from my body that left me feeling very separate to others, the Gentle Breath Meditation is the exact opposite of my earlier experiences and connects me deeply to myself allowing for a stillness and quality that offers a powerful healing that unifies us all.
I have also tried lots of other types of meditation and struggled to really and consistently connect to the mental focus that it required. Gentle Breath Meditation is indeed a much simple way to connect to the whole body and build a way of being consciously present that you can carry on into your day
I have never been one to seek other meditations or be part of spiritual forays and modalities. However when I hear the experiences of others who have, I become very aware of just how much there is out there to further take us away from the simplicity of being with our body and thus our soul. When I first experienced the Gentle Breath Meditation ten years ago I wanted to implement each morning and night for two weeks to see the difference, if any. After two weeks even in the raciness and disregard I lived back then, I could feel it supported me to connect to a quality that I could say I was missing in my life at that time and it was a quality I wanted more of. I wanted more of me in my life. So I continued with reconnecting.
Meditation is typically an extraction and removal from life… yet, the Gentle Breath Meditation is a preparation for and gateway to living life in full meditation – that is, in the quality of full body connection in all we do.
Exactly. For me meditations nothing greater than simply sitting or laying feeling how my body is, supporting myself with a gentle breath to deepen the surrender and connection and then bringing that quality to the things I need to do in life. When we let ourselves stop and connect we can feel the quality we are.
Being one with our body and mind allows deep settlement and presence, from this place we can read what is going on with in and with out and we are the master of our life.
Being with our body absolutely is the key to life. From here all you share Mary- Louise is possible. And to add when we are able to read life we not only make the choices that take lead in our life but because we can see what is going on then we do not fall suseptible to overwhelm, exhaustion and other Deo learning things that further seem like life is difficult. A life from the mind will always be difficult.
I tested and studied the Gentle Breath Meditation meticulously for months. After having practised other meditation techniques and concepts before I was very sceptical about simply trying another one and wanted to make sure that I really understood in full how it works, what it does and that it delivers precisely what was explained. In contrast to other methods I can attest to the authenticity and effectiveness of the Gentle Breath Meditation, it delivers what it promises without any unknown or concealed side-effect.
Meditation is critical as a tool for helping one to turn inward, which as a society we do not do enough of. However, once that connection is made, the key is to turn outwards and face the world. It is the latter that is not understood by many meditation techniques.
One of the greatest things that the Gentle Breath Meditation has taught me is that at any moment I am the master of my own quality in my body and that I do not have to take on what is going on around me.
The Gentle Breath Meditation offers the opportunity for us to reconnect back to ourselves when we have become anxious, tired or stressed. It seems that as most of us live everyday with this level of tension in our bodies the Gentle Breath Meditation is a powerful tool for all… only 5 minuets needed and continued awareness as we go through our day (to the best of our ability).
What is it that makes us being pulled to meditation in the first place? Besides the images and ideas of what it may hold for us there must be something we are missing and hoping to find. So the question to discern any form of meditation may be if it truly delivers us the opportunity to come back to what we are missing as we only can miss what we once had with us or as part of us. So should meditation deliver us anything else that does not belong to us genuinely it would be wise to discern it as potentially harming.
It is the most joyful feeling to have to be One with your body and mind – true intelligence.
Many people have made meditation part of their lives. Yet, when we ask for details, we find that what people do in the name of meditation varies quite a bit. This is a reality, people have very different experiences and go to different ‘places’. For some people, it is all about living the body and wonder around. For other people, it is all about becoming one with the body. For some people meditation is an activity that cannot be integrated to life. For others, it has to be integrated to life. As with everything else, it is important to know that there are choices in meditation. It is also important to know that the differences make a difference and that not everything under that heading is equally good for you. It is important to meditate on meditation and choose one that really brings the whole of you up and helps you to feel in oneness. The gentle breath meditation does that.
Certain forms of meditations are actually deeply harming to ourselves, other people and our body.
People can often use meditation as a way of shutting down, as you say, escaping, to not feel their hurts, and be fooled that they are connecting to themselves but really they are creating a greater chasm of emptiness inside them selfs – thinking they are doing good or achieving enlightenment for shutting themselves away for ten day silent retreats and sitting in uncomfortable and often for some painful positions for hours on end, shutting out people and the world – this is not so with the gentle breath meditation.
There is purpose to the Gentle Breath Meditation. It sets us up for life, rather than other meditations which are designed to escape us from life.
True Body Intelligence – TBA – this should be a class taught at all schools – supporting our children to expand on what they already know. It would change everything. For example, I watched a documentary recently about a school that changed the food that they cooked in the canteen, got rid of the junk in the food vending machines and swopped out all the sodas for water. Within a week they noticed dramatic changes in behavioural patterns, the concentration of the children and the atmosphere of the whole school. It was startling. Amazing that we call ourselves intelligent when 99% of us are ignoring even these simple messages and continue to pour such a junk diet into our children.
Such a simple remedy to a huge global issue. Interesting to see if any other schools take it up.
The gentle breath meditation is like no other meditation that I know of, in that it is short, sharp and to the point and it has a purpose. You only need to do it for 5 min max, you focus your mind to the in and out breath, you surrender your body and with this whole body connection you get on with what needs to be done.
It was a revelation to me to understand that I can actually breathe my own breath, that I can actually determine how I breathe, i.e. gently and lovingly with myself and in my rhythm, instead of having the world breathe me, i.e. following the busyness and demand in every moment.
This is amazing comment. What I mean is if you read it with no pre-knowledge or judgement then it is actually totally insane!! That we don’t actually breathe our own breath – or even know that we can. It’s totally crazy, yet what you have written is the whole truth of a gigantic proportion of humanity. We need to stop and just take a really long look at the most basic movements of our lives. This is the problem; everyone vexes about the complexities and big pictures; how do we cure cancer, how do we get to space, how do we build faster phones, how do we stop the planet from melting; none of these questions will get answered nor will they support humanity, until we start to have the humility and courage to ask the really, really simple questions – such as – who/what is breathing my breath.
I agree Otto, we need to look closer to home and take the responsibility we have over our own life, with the simple everyday things that life is, that will bring us the answers that we need or more so that will dissolve the complexity we have made life to be.
Babies learn to crawl, then walk, then run. Us adults could learn a lot from that. Get the simple stuff mastered first.
Meditation should offer no more than an opportunity to turn inward and connect. Once the connection is made, then it serves no purpose to keep meditating per say. Rather one should then go about their day in the same level of connection, for that is what will reinforce it.
The Gentle Breath Meditation is the simple yet powerful tool that paves the way back to true connection with ourselves, and with that the greater awareness of all that we hold that is not truly us, but only serves to burden, impose and make us less aware of our connection.
True meditation is a combining, a combining of us with ourselves and yet so many meditations involve the removal of us from ourselves. For example if I am focusing on the tip of a candle flame then I have left myself in order to focus intently on the flame. If however I feel myself sitting on the chair first, and perhaps also became aware of my breath and then without losing my connection to either of these things, then looked at the flame, then this would be much closer to true meditation, as I would have incorporated or rather combined myself in the process.
Gentle Breath Meditation is so simple an easy to do, feeling the connection of mind body and soul is absolutely gorgeous but staying with this feeling through a busy day is another matter and one that is a work in progress.
Before the Universal Medicine courses where I learned the Gentle Breath Meditation the word had a bit of a mystique, to me it was a spiritual alternative activity. Yet with the Gentle Breath Meditation I found it to be simple and normal and enhancing of my everyday activities. The idea that we can improve our awareness and connection to our body through a simple in and out breath is quite amazing, and all in 2-3minutes of practice.
Through the presentations of Serge Benhayon and the Gentle Breath Meditation I discovered that this is not only a tool that brings me back to me – but is ultimately a way of being and connection that I can actively live every moment of every day.
Oh that pencil. I remember trying to meditate on that pencil. I hated it! And then I tried lots of other types as well, and was not a big fan of them either. Leike, you hit the nail on the head when you write that many meditations are only for a moment time, some respite from the world, and then you went back into the fray.
With the Gentle Breath Meditation, it is so simple, yet so powerful. And because it is about the breath, you can come back to it at any time. You don’t need to lock yourself in a room, or sit on a mountain somewhere, it is all about you and your breath. (and we do that breathing thing a lot ;-0 !).
I have had instances in the past where I know that I was meditating to try to find relief from the day or to fix what has happenses and know that this does not work. Meditations power lies in the opportunity it allows for us to understand the quality of connection we have been living and to deepens this with a new marker.
The title of this blog is actually calling us to question and look responsibly at meditation itself: “Meditation – what are we meditating on?” – in some schools they are now enforcing mindfulness meditations – and it appears that it is not doing anything other than sending the kids even more unruly and all the more misbehaved…To me it appears that most mediations currently ‘marketed’ are just another way to be distracted and hence it reveals that meditation when not used correctly (in other words when not used to really connect us to our body and how we feel), cannot truly support our body. It is worth contemplating on what we engage in and how we use it.
‘True meditation for me is about connecting to a quality of gentleness or tenderness that is innate in our body and surrendering to this quality that is already there. It is about establishing a quality and a connection that brings my mind and body together as one.’ It is a very simple technique and feels beautiful.
“It is the most beautiful feeling I know – to be one with my body and mind together.” Lieke I only can agree being one with the body and the mind is the best thing to do as with that there is no time for negative thoughts or this “internal judgement”.
Being connected to our own breath, our own rhythm and in that being connected to the fiery warmth within us is indeed the best feeling ever. And what I now know is that this is in fact our natural state of being. No matter how often I disconnect from my own breath, my own rhythm, it will almost remain. It’s only the connection that we might lose, but our essence remains. Connection with ourselves equals breathing our own breath. How beautiful and scientific is this! Our breath as the foundation of our entire life.
One of the things I have noticed since using the Gentle Breath Meditation is how beautiful it is to take the quality I reconnect to with me into my day and how supportive this quality is in dealing with the everyday challenges of life.
Meditation has been twisted and reverted to be a doing and a means to escape, and in this we damage ourselves much more than we realise. It’s no different really than taking a mind-altering drug to escape – the latter at least being a lot more honest!
This is beautiful, using meditation to support you in dealing with life instead of avoiding it.
A true religious life or experience should be multi-dimensional. That includes awareness of and connection to this dimension This is important, because many meditations seek to give us an otherworldly experience by disconnecting us from this reality. A true meditation should enable one to connect to their universal essence but equally keep their feet firmly planted on the ground. For what is the point in meditating and finding a state of bliss only to have to come back to reality. That provides no assistance whatsoever.
You know what I do when life is intense – I escape – into my head – or I can use the knowledge of the Esoteric work as relief. This is definitely not the answer it doesn’t help nor support me or anybody. Now don’t get me wrong I don’t always do this, but it’s more often than not at the moment. There’s lots of things I don’t want to take responsibility for. I am learning though.
A candle – in all seriousness I was asked to do this once at a Buddhist retreat I chose to go on, and I did as I didn’t know any better so to speak at the time, but something didn’t feel right with the mediation practices I was shown at this time, so I would skip this in the morning and choose to go for a walk in the woods to see if I could see deer, or by the loch to watch the sun rise – for me this was far more meditative as I was totally connected to myself, God and nature – though I may not have realised it in full at this time.
Ah so do I Brendan………..now, but for a very long time feeling what was in my body was very painful and so I avoided it like the proverbial plague. It hasn’t taken too long to clear my body of the gunk that sat in it for most of my life and now, having cleared it really well, I can feel that the years and years of avoiding feeling my body simply added to the amount of debris that I was hoarding. We all have two basic choices, clear our mess up now or do it later once we’ve added to it. There’s no skipping this step for any of us, so we might as well just get on with it.
So many meditations purport to ‘take people inside’ and yet what they actually do is leave people waiting outside. Connecting to ourselves is not a complicated, arduous process, as the Gentle Breath Meditation as taught by Serge Benhayon clearly demonstrates.
What I love about the Gentle Breath Meditation is that it is a 24 hour experience, not just a ten minute sit down stop – we can be aware of our breath at any time, breathe gently all of the time, and stay connected with our body all of the time.
I never understood meditation at all, could not do it when I tried, and did not ever get the point of checking out, then what was supposed to happen? But the way meditation is taught by Serge Benhayon, checking in to the body makes perfect sense, the body and mind becoming one and the connection bringing a way to live life from, gives a true purpose to it.
Love what you have exposed here Lieke, meditation is used far too often as a form of checking out, a way of relief from one’s problems, the Gentle Breath Meditation on the other hand teaches us to be present in all we do.
Being present with ourselves is the only way if we want to have lives that are enriched with our own love.
I tried a short mindfulness course once, and did a lot of experimentation with meditations associated with different kinds of yoga practice, but nothing gave me the connection, clarity and focus that The Gentle Breath Meditation so easily delivers.
A true Meditation like the Gentle Breath Meditation bring such a focus and connection to the whole body that it enables the participant to become a student of their own body. As a student of our own body the Gentle Breath Meditation brings a connection so we know who we are, therefore from this knowing it takes away any criticism and judgement of our self or others.
“I felt all of my body – warm and delicious, as well as very still and precious in quality.” The true purpose of meditation, to return us to a full connection with our essence within us. Anything less is robbing us of our most golden treasure.
Years ago a friend of mine taught me Transcendental Meditation (TM). I only did it once. Everything in me was telling me that it was wrong for me. It felt like I was shutting my body down and going somewhere else, which is exactly what was happening. There was something in me that knew that my body is the place to be, and that true healing comes from staying with myself and dealing with everything that is there. TM felt like an escape and didn’t feel true to me. In contrast, when I discovered the Gentle Breath Meditation it brought me right into my body and showed me how lovely I am. When we connect to that loveliness there is no need to escape.
We could spend a life time on a cushion meditation and seeking enlightenment and the suffering of life and the issues the world faces would not have gone away. What I love about the Gentle Breath Meditation is the fact that it is designed for you to connected and then get up and be back in life in full, bringing that connection to everything we do and everyone we meet.
In my experience mediation in truth needn’t be complicated, arduous or a long affair – it can simply be a moment that we give ourself to re-gather and connect back with our whole body, giving us an opportunity to change the quality in the way that we then go forwards with life. This has been my experience with the Gentle Breath Meditation and no other meditation that I’ve come across offers this…
Many of think of meditation as something that is separate from every day life, as in we have to sit or lie somewhere for hours apart from other people. I have found with the Gentle Breath Meditation, although it can be done alone, that the actual method of breathing in the in and out through the nose is something that has become an amazing habitual choice, and it really supports everyday life.
Yes indeed, Lieke. Using meditation to escape for a while or take the edge off life is never going to be supportive, because we will have to come back to the same state or face the same problem afterwards. The Gentle Breath Meditation helps us connect back to who we are, which empowers us to feel the truth of everything.
What a difference between the two meditation techniques you describe… And yes, I agree, once you know and recognise that meditation is only about connection, then it should take no more than 5-10min, and then to get on with the rest of your day, bringing that feeling of connection to everything you do, which has the capacity to be confirmed and grow – as compared to being in a quite room meditating for hours on end which takes you away (separates) from interacting with life and people.
Meditations have always been sold as a way to back Nirvana. How strange is to try and go to someplace… we can never leave from?
“Thus, when I come out of the meditation I am more surrendered in my body and feel equipped to deal with life and its intensities that we cannot stop from being there.”
How powerful is this sentence? It says very clearly that our only job is to be ourselves in an intense world, we don’t need to take it on, but to present there is a way to be that is not absorbed by it.
I have done a lot of lengthy meditations in the past and they didn’t do me much good at all – a way to check out almost as powerful as using a computer screen.
There are so many different kinds of meditation, and they often promise to bring you something. The gentle breath meditation doesn’t promise to bring you anything. It simply helps you to connect to what is already there. No visualisations or promise of enlightenment,no out of body experience or striving for hours sitting in pain. Just simply the connection to the gentle quality in the breath and then into the body. It’s natural, it’s real, and there is no pretense or arrogance. Simply a return to ourselves in the most beautiful way.
Meditation in the past for me was about ignoring the body often sitting for an hour at a time trying to get the mind to go blank and usually when finished I would be left feeling quite dazed. What I love about doing the Gentle Breath mediation is that it’s a great tool I can use anywhere and anytime during the day and when my mind wanders off it brings me back to being fully present within my body and that supports me to stay focused on what I am doing.
Life is so simply from the body and complicated from the mind.
It is a great exposure if someone needs the world around to be perfectly quiet etc before they can mediate to then come out of that meditation, which is just really a check out, and not be able to deal with the world around them. The gentle breath meditation supported me to feel my true quality and from there I learned to hold myself, my love, to walk with it and do all life requires from me. The deeper I go within the more of me I let out and can be in the world that is far from perfect.
The Gentle Breath Meditation is very real. It provides a stop, a check in with self moment, a moment to realise and feel if we have raced ourselves up or have held a balanced quality. And from here it offers the opportunity to make a choice of how we are going to be and breath with the body – by letting the body’s natural gentle breath be there. I have found the Gentle Breath Meditation to be an amazing foundation to how I now am in my daily life with everything I need to to.
The beautiful support of the Gentle Breath Meditation is that it is simply a reconnection to the body to our own breath and this is then a platform to bring this quality into our daily lives and movements – so life becomes a meditation from the way we are in it.
Escaping and Connecting are two very different things, both of which can be done through ‘meditation’ depending on how we approach taking this time to ourselves.
What do we even mean by meditating – it brings up so many definitions to many people – but the premises of meditation – is to either use as a form of escapism, to get away from the mundaness of life, and go somewhere that is ‘peaceful’, fantasy images, enlightenment etc – all to take us somewhere but not here
OR
Is meditation a tool that can be used as said in this blog ‘It is about establishing a quality and a connection that brings my mind and body together as one’ Bringing full presence to this body that we live in and be in life in our fullness – with commitment to life. It’s about been able to be here in life and with quality, which actually comes from our body, when we are in a state of harmony, connecting to our inner beingness and the body.
There’s a way of being with our body that honours our delicateness, our preciousness, our love, our tenderness. Meditation from the foundation of re-connecting to our body and inner-heart supports us in building this way of being.
After years of relying on just my mind to interact with and deal with all aspects of life, I am still learning more about feeling and connecting to the presence, awareness and wisdom that can only be accessed through our body. The more this develops the richer, simpler and more loving life becomes. A meditation that supports this unfolding is truly precious.
Meditating each day when done in this way can provide a marker of connection and surrender to feel throughout the day and be a reference point in all our activity and movements.
Absolutely. And it is a marker for when we are a little out or are able to surrender a bit more and go a little deeper.
Gosh, how much are we encouraged in daily life to have an ‘outing’ as you say, Lieke, through various meditation practises but also television, social media, sport etc. When we choose to escape reality we do not get to feel the immense joy of simply being present in your body.
The whole world as in everything man has had a hand in is there to take us out. Thank God for nature and the beautiful reflections God has placed around for us to bring us back – and thus includes people who choose to be with the connection of their self.
What made me prick up my ears was when Serge Benhayon presented on being in meditation as a way of living and not just practising a meditation technique to find some relief. Yes, techniques can be helpful and are required but they should serve us to truly improve our quality of living.
Yes me too. Meditations are widely known as something you go and do then stop doing but with what Serge presents it is all one life – it’s about bring a true quality to everything we do.
That is true. Techniques, if they would work, would they really need hour upon hour to practice as is the requirement for many?
Yes, that is the point, Alex. Meditation is simply something that connects us to ourselves in presence, so an essential part in everyday life if we are choosing to live responsibly.
I love the gentle breath meditation – it has been a beautiful game changer for me in my life. It has helped me to connect to my body and come back to a simple way of being rather than connecting to my mind and taking me away from everything as a means of escape.
Lieke, I love how you have talked about the difference between what people call mindfulness meditation where ones focus is being in the mind and in the head but essentially ignores the body, versus a mediation that brings us back to the body and most importantly the quality that we choose for the body (as in gentleness). This explains it so easily and to me makes the difference between a meditation that asks you to escape from what you are feeling versus a meditation that brings you back to life and allows full connection with the body which really is the medium for the soul to express itself.
Beautiful Henrietta – ‘full connection with the body which really is the medium for the soul to express itself’ This is what it is all about and it is a worry that not only is the mindfulness fad off track but that mindfulness mediations are filtering into schools today. We are actually teaching kids to be more in their mind and not with all of their body and being.
I tried to apply the Gentle Breath Meditation with the same discipline that I had other meditations but it made it harder to feel the gentleness. It was such a great reflection for me about how I was living daily and then relying in meditation to fix me up or distract me. Making simple changes to how i was living immediately changed the quality of my meditation so it truly became a support to improve in my connectedness throughout the day.
You have made a brilliant point here Nicole – Meditation when used correctly is a tool for us to feel how we have been living and hence allows us awareness to change this so that we can be more in line with a natural way of being, in other words live from our innate gentleness.
I find this too Nicole. When I bring more awareness and presence to my movements in my day, as in don’t check out during the day. Then when go to stop, to surrender to connect to me during meditation then my body goes deeper as it has been prepared in a quality during that day. And then on other days if I have not been as aware or present it is a beautiful tool to stop and feel where I am at and then choose a true quality.
‘It is about establishing a quality and a connection that brings my mind and body together as one.’ It’s very true, and is where we find ourselves most connected, content and confident – when we are unified as a whole.
‘It is the most beautiful feeling I know – to be one with my body and mind together.’ me too!
Connecting to our body really simplifies things and is the key to making supportive decisions.
As soon as I try to work something out just from my head, a tensions comes over my body straight away and everything seems more complicated and lacks flow. Not a good choice for my body.
I too came across Universal Medicine when I was 19. I tried lots of types of meditation but none really made sense as immediately afterwards I would be back to where I was before. I now use meditation as a tool in my daily life to establish a base line consistency and then take this quality out into the world. So it is not something I retreat to but rather something I use to confirm and bring myself back to the love that I am. And meditation does not have to be sitting down, going for a walk is another great tool that we have. The question I often ask myself is am I starting with the fact that I am love or am I trying to get to what I think love is, as there is a vast difference between the 2.
I love the simple physiology of the Gentle Breath Meditation, it does what it says, there is noting complicated about it, I have felt the sustainable physiological changes and improvements in my body through bringing it into my everyday life
I used to try other different forms of meditation and thought they were doing something for me. They were! They were allowing me to check out from my problems and not feel them for a while, only to feel the full force of them when I checked back in. The gentle breath meditation, on the other hand offers me a moment of connection and clarity which I can take forward into my day.
In a similar way, Serge has also taken yoga to a whole new dimension for me, away from the fitness fanatic regime, to a way of reconnection with the body in the simplest and most profound way.
The Gentle Breath Meditation as presented by Universal Medicine is the only meditation where I have fully let go in my body, stayed present in what I am doing and felt such a stillness and connection within my body. It goes beyond the body thou and there is a connection with my being that I have come to trust is always there and as I live life I step away from it by allowing outside influences. The meditation is a great tool to come back and re-connect to this powerful being that I truly am. My Soul.
Beautifully said, Natalie. The Gentle Breath Meditation is indeed a priceless gift, a guaranteed way back to our soulful essence.
If every move can be meditative then perhaps what is viewed as mediatation needs to be considered more deeply. I love the teaching Serge Benhayon shares in this regard, as he made me re-consider meditation as before my only experience of it had been of people trying to create white space in their head and block out the world, when in fact we can become more attuned to the world around us, and less anxious and more settled in our bodies without having to retreat into a cave and a trance like state.
With meditation and mindfulness all the rage in primary schools, it’s important to know that all mediation is not the same. Mindfulness is just that… keeps you in your mind and disconnected. Whereas, The Gentle Breath Meditation connects the body and the mind together and offers a completely different experience with true connection…it’s very powerful.
Bringing our mind and body together is the most powerful meeting. I feel completely different in my day if I let work/a situation/a worry fill my mind (overwhelmed!) rather than focussing on what I am doing and the quality of my movements, where I feel I can deal with whatever comes my way.
I am deeply thankful to have learned to know Universal Medicine . There I have been shown true meditation, which has to do with how to be in life without loosing the connection to ones own truth and quality.
True meditation restores a body-full awareness that empowers us to simplify and refine our quality of life, to live a normal everyday life in an extra-ordinary way, feet on the ground, heart open wide, vital, committed and awake. We have spent far too long escaping into our heads, the consequences of which are clearly littered around all around us. Time to reconnect to our bodies and start sorting out the mess we are in.
The connection establish when we connect our mind with our body is a connection with the body intelligence that is far more intelligent than our mind which we tend to give the credits for being intelligent. There is a redefinition of intelligence needed as the intelligence of the mind is very limited due the one dimensionality of it compared to the multidimensionality intelligence of the body.
What are we meditating for is it to check out or check in?
When we live in our heads, the decisions we make are not always true: ‘When I go out of my body into my mind, I feel I lose my innate intelligence, which includes feelings of what to do and what not to do, what to say, and what is safe to do and what is not.’ I agree.
When I first was introduced to the Gentle Breath Meditation and practiced it found the technique exposing because it [breathing gently] was such a challenge and different from how i used to breathe (unconscious at first of the quality before The Gentle Breath Meditation) which was harsh, quick, anxious, and was how i lived my life too and worked. What’s so great about this Meditation is that it brings awareness to one’s (breath) quality, and that’s all…but it’s the all that changes everything.
Sure Zofia, it is the all that changes everything and it is that everything that changes our relationship with the all.
Sounds crazy i know, but I too remember feeling irritated at how difficult i found it to release control of my breath!
You beautifully explained the beauty of true meditation. It’s not disconnection from our bodies, it’s connection to our bodies. The bastardised version of meditations takes us away from our divine light within. Where as the gentle breath offered by Universal Medicine, connects us to this divine light within, and allows us to feel what we can chose to live in in our everyday.
The Gentle Breath Meditation as presented by Serge Benhayon is a great tool that connects us back to our body. We are not meant to lock ourselves away from the world, but to be in it.
This is a great question to ask – what we want to achieve from our meditation. If we go to mediation to fix something, feel better, bliss out, this will be all we get. It’s not really something that will help you in real life, as it is only a temporary fix. To come to meditation to re-find or re-connect with our inner self brings all that our true self comes with and from. This connection is what makes the difference in life.
The Gentle Breath Meditation reconnects us to the preciousness and Divine love we all are. Through practicing the Gentle Breath Mediation we restore the value of our breath and that it is through our breath that we actually connect to energy. And that the quality of this energy determines if we either are connected to the source that we are or not. How beautiful and humbling is this?
“It is the most beautiful feeling I know – to be one with my body and mind together.” In a healing session, a practitioner suggested to me that I was a woman who does too much, and always ‘one step ahead’.
For example, when I am in the shower, I am thinking about preparing breakfast, when I am preparing breakfast, I am ‘in the car going to work’, when I am in the car, I am ‘at work going through my lists’ etc….. So my body and mind are constantly separate as my body is say in the shower, but my mind is in the kitchen preparing breakfast.
I am learning how exhausting that is and is a loving work in progress (lots of re-training!) to bring my mind and body together, and together we shower, prep breakfast, drive to work, be at work etc… And i gotta tell you, it lessens the anxiousness and the raciness like nothing else. I highly recommend the Gentle Breath Meditation and the Esoteric Yoga programs – http://www.esotericyogaprograms.com.au/
The more we connect to ourselves in everything we do, the more, in your face it becomes when we have those hallway moments! In the past you would just shrug your shoulders and say ‘oh well’ and move on, but, that would be the start of the downward spiral for that day or longer! Now we can stop and ask the question of what caused me to have that moment, and then move forward with ourselves again.
This is beautiful to read Leike, it supports me to connect immediately to the gentleness and loveliness of how I am inside, my whole body awareness comes alive, and this in all in about 60 seconds. The Gentle Breath Meditation is like no other – I tried many other forms as well.
How is it that meditation has come to mean so many different things to different people, like many things including yoga. It seems that these practices have morphed over the centuries into whatever people want them to be but they seem to have lost what the true and initial purpose of them was. I feel the Gentle Breath Meditation offers what the purpose of meditation is, and that is to reconnect with our inner self when we lose this connection.
When I was learning the Gentle Breath Meditation in workshops I loved how Serge Benhayon each time just organically talked through during the few minutes that it took, expanding and deepening the understanding. Each time there was a slightly different flavour too which took away the idea that I am sitting down to do a technique, but a way for me to choose the quality I am aligning to and also expand my relationship with life. It is wonderful that a good selection of such variations of the meditation are the Unimed Living website http://www.unimedliving.com/meditation.
There are so many things on offer to change and fix us. What I appreciate about the gentle breath meditation is that it simply offers me the chance to connect and observe what is going on in my body. It took me a long time to turn off the critic and the mrs fix voice full of judgment that would come blaring through. It always reveals exactly where I am.
This is a classic case of one word becoming a double meaning in general society. We should say there are in fact two types of meditation… one to escape from life and one to re-connect to our inner core and re-commit to life again. Totally polar opposites!
If we can consider that we can be in meditation when moving than that takes meditation to a whole new level, it isn’t a time fore just sitting and wandering off – it is about moving in conscious presence.
Meditation like everything comes with a different quality of energy. What we call meditation can be a vastly different experience depending on the energy we do it in.
One of the greatest things Universal Medicine has reminded me of is how work can be done and is actually designed to regenerate ourselves.
I agree Abby, I used to think of work as being a strain longing for my days off, time I could go outside. But now enjoy work, in fact I love it! The interesting thing here is that now it is often my days off when I can feel more tired not because I have been doing lots of things but because I have lost my focus and purpose with what I am doing. Essentially anytime I say to myself ok you can have time off without putting a purpose to it I am saying I want a break from life, my body, what is going on etc.. and I have found after that I then feel tired if not exhausted even though I may have just been lounging about all day in the house. We are designed to work and as you say work regenerates ourselves.
What are we meditating on? is a good question to reflect on the intentions we have when we choose to do things. It is the intention that imprints the action with quality and thereby lays the foundation for the outcome. When we e.g. meditate to escape the temporal limitations or stresses of life we will experience escape in form of relief, relaxation, some form of detachment… but essentially it will be an escape, hence it won´t enable us to master life with more quality but less.
To feel equipped to handle life and its intensities because of something so simple as the gentle breath meditation is quite miraculous.
It is revolutionary to discover that meditation need not be an arduous task or require any escape nor complexity and is but a movement of re-connection. The gentle breath meditation is simple and freely accessible for all of humanity to re-connect and breath their own breath. http://www.unimedliving.com/meditation/free/free-gentle-breath-meditations-an-introduction.html
A meditation that supports re-connection and in turn connecting to humanity!
I only tried meditating once using a cassette of a recording that took you on a journey through the forest… it did not change anything, I felt as anxious and tense as before but then just even a bit more aloof and drained. What I felt the first time I did the Gentle Breath Meditation led by Serge Benhayon, was what was in my body… meaning, instead of me trying to escape what I was feeling in my body, I was connecting to it and feeling what it was like when I avoided expressing me.
It felt so very beautiful when Serge shared about bringing yourself to a point of stillness within and then taking that same quality out into the world. You could truly feel the naturalness of doing this and also how powerful would be its effects.
With the Gentle Breath Meditation it’s not about getting anywhere or attaining something, it’s simply a choice to stop and deeply connect with our body, to enjoy the warm glow flowing within – the loving essence of who we are. In the busyness of life it’s very supportive to take a few minutes to check in with our body and the stillness that resides within offering us a clearer perspective on all that is going on around us.
‘…when I come out of the meditation I am more surrendered in my body and feel equipped to deal with life and its intensities that we cannot stop from being there.’
I too find this which is amazing because once I was so caught up in my mind that I was constantly in a spin and didn’t know who I was. This relates to what you were saying about being asked to focus on an object –
something outside of yourself – and not on feeling your whole body. When I was in my mind and unaware of my body, it was actually really boring, empty and of no substance. I had to draw in mental thoughts – usually worries because I had to over think things so to avoid the emptiness that comes from being disconnected with my essence which is found within and accessed through feeling my body. Lovely to see so clearly what I was up to when I did years of meditation in the mind and how that created and kept going a very unfulfilling existence.
‘What I wonder is: do we really consider what we are doing or trying to achieve when we are meditating?’ – great question, particularly as meditation seems to be keenly sought when people are stressed, overwhelmed, unhappy with life, therefore, it seems quite plausible that the intent is to escape how they’re currently feeling and replace it with a happier, more content feeling. However, what if that feeling is happy, but not true, are we/they really any better off?
The Gentle Breath meditation is a great example of choosing gentleness and being gentle – we cannot stop life around us happening, but we can at least choose the quality that we are in life, and feel how things adjust accordingly to this.
When we choose to do the Gentle Breath Meditation we are surrendering to the whole of ourselves, present and aware, and as you say Lieke, that brings us to a place of stillness. We can then continue to breathe gently and live this quality of stillness within every movement and expression in our lives.
I don’t remember ever being told to focus on a pencil during a meditation, but I was encouraged to focus on many other objects. I realise now why the many meditations that I found my way to simply didn’t work; they were missing the most important factor, our body, the wise vehicle that has supported us since birth but that which we have so often taken for granted or just ignored. I have found that it is so easy to reconnect to my body during the Gentle Breath Meditation and when I do I can feel what it is asking for at that moment in time.
It seems that in so many forms of meditation you are encouraged to pursue something and that often you never achieve, leaving you feeling less. The Gentle Breath Meditation is the opposite of this, allowing you to reconnect and feel all of you and the connection to so much more.
This is so true! I remember this constant trying, the hook of maybe next I’ll understand what enlightenment is. Returning to my everyday life then seemed secondary to the promise of what insights etc. meditation could bring and took me away from committing to life. I have never realised how evil it is – evil in the sense that it takes us away from actually knowing ourselves whilst, the forms of meditation I did, promised just that: getting to know oneself more deeply which is what I have found practising the Gentle Breath Meditation has supported me with.
Before I discovered Universal Medicine I went to some yoga classes for a couple of years. In this class the teacher would occasionally do a meditation with chanting with us. On these occasions I would get very tight and uncomfortable and think I was being stupid, but I could never join in but would just sit quietly while this was going on; it just felt weird – plain and simple. When Serge Benhayon first introduced the gentle breath meditation to me it felt very unimposing and natural and was something that I found easy to do. This ease though didn’t negate the profoundness of its results, which are incredibly powerful and come very quickly.
One of the things that really struck me and has stayed with me ever since learning the Gentle Breath Meditation is when Serge explained that the mind is made to be think, and that it is up to us to choose what it is that we give it to think about. Not only did this mean that I could choose to keep my mind connected to my body in the breath (and also in movement) but as an extension of this I could begin to consider that there is always a choice, what we are going to choose – connection or disconnection?
The Gentle Breath Meditation can sometimes be exposing and difficult, simply because it brings us back to the body and how we have lived in it – this can at times mean feeling the tension, anxiety, drive, emptiness etc that we have walked around in until the stop moment to meditate, but when we feel these things we get an honest look at where we are at and can choose to connect to the inner essance that is always within
When I first heard Serge Benhayon present that meditation is about connection, and then you live that connection, it was like a light bulb going on for me and made complete sense. Why else would you bother meditating to reach a place of bliss or Nirvana, to then come out of it and carry on as usual? This dipping in and out of bliss or escape didn’t ever feel right to me.
The Gentle Breath Meditation enabled me to restore a true purpose to my life, to transform the quality that I choosing to live in from one of emotional and physical disregard to one of immense tenderness and care. Such a simple tool has gone a long, long way and will be a lifelong companion because it has enabled me to restore a deeply loving relationship with my best friend – my body.
Very well said, Lieke. You dispel a lot of the false perceptions about meditation here and bring it to its true purpose which is to connect to the body and its innate wisdom.
The Gentle Breath Meditation is the most wonderful support in everyday living in so many ways, in particular keeping one present in everything one does which results in being far more productive, at ease with life and the lessening of stress.
I have found that checking in to my body, reconnecting to my whole body, is a wonderful thing and something that supports the deepening of awareness. Meditation in my view and my experience is about reconnecting, or confirming and deepening this connection within and then, very importantly, maintaining this connection into every activity in our day. Hence this connection becomes a way of life, not just a moment to stop and rejuvenate.
Ha Ha! This brings back memories Lieke! I cannot believe how long I continued to sit cross-legged with my eyes closed for an hour or more in a group of equally keen people, in order to ‘improve’ the art of meditation and ‘bettering’ our lives.
It was not an enjoyable process – numb feet and a very aching back was usually the result with the pain being excruciating at times, which became the total focus of the ‘meditation’ along with the longing for it to be over and finished.
The Gentle Breath Meditation is the complete opposite – a few minutes of deep and true connection within my body during the day simply restores harmony in my body and the day. There is no need to ‘better’ my life now, being re-connected to the innermost essence is exquisite, even though there is so much more to return to.
Great sharing Lieke, as meditation is for many a way to get more healthy when in truth they are checking out and avoid the pressure they accumulate through the day. I have done those meditations myself and it felt like dreaming, not being aware anymore in the body. The Gentle Breath Meditation supports me to connect to myself and from this point discern where I have taken on energies, which do not belong to me in order to come back to my natural expression.
A lot of meditations have a focus of emptiness – to empty the mind and focus on nothing but space and that emptiness. Why focus on emptiness when we are so full of love and rich with awareness and feelings?
“What I wonder is: do we really consider what we are doing or trying to achieve when we are meditating? It is important to know.” So many people use meditation to check out from life, to enlighten themselves and to disappear into another world, I know that is what I was shown when I did meditation prior to Universal Medicine and the Gentle Breath Meditation, I was encouraged to leave my body and use my mind. I used to try quite hard at doing this and got a bit frustrated that I didn’t seem to go to places that others in the group were going to.. Now I know it is not really about achieving anything or going anywhere especially not into my mind, it is about connecting to my breath and finding a deeper connection with my body and when I do this there is a stillness and gentleness within me that confirms who I am, and from here I am much more able to have a better understanding of life. I find the Gentle Breath Meditation is a gauge for how much I override my body in favour of my mind.
In the early days of The New Age and learning about meditation, I would see people doing deep breathing, counting breaths and sitting in awkward positions – I love the Gentle Breath Meditation because we start by sitting or lying comfortably. It is not about being a martyr but allowing our bodies to deeply rest.
It’s true meditation is the next big thing at the moment but great point what are we actually doing when we meditate? Are we simply managing the mind or can we actually reconnect with our bodies and our inner essence or stillness and therefore energetically make a change in our being?
I too meditated in the past but can now classify that as checking out in my mind in complete disconnection of my body. The Gentle Breath Meditation however, does connect to the body instead and in that gives focus to the mid to concentrate, on and as you say Lieke, connects to an intelligence that can only be accessed through the body and never throught the mind, an universal intelligence that will show us the way back to Soul.
In all of my modality sampling over the years, they all had the same kind of base with mediation, to leave ourselves and go someplace and chill, numb, float; anything other than to feel your body was their primary purpose. The Gentle Breath Mediation is the only one I have found that is all about connecting us, to bring us back to our bodies.
The Gentle Breath Meditation a super practical tool for re-connecting the body and the mind and then this awesome combination is ready for anything that life presents it with – having a deep knowing of what is needed in any moment.
Lieke, this is a great question; ‘do we really consider what we are doing or trying to achieve when we are meditating?’ I can feel how we are told nowadays that meditation is beneficial, we can read about it in magazines and books and a friend may recommend it, but indeed what are we trying to achieve?
When I go out of my body into my mind, I feel I lose my innate intelligence…This is something to really ponder on for if we really feel what a decision maybe instead of making a rash choice, our outcomes would be so much brighter.
“It was from this moment that I learned that meditation is not about checking out of our body for a moment of calm and to basically escape from the intensity of the world. The point is, after this ‘outing,’ we always have to come back to our body and feel it, and the intensity of the world it carries once again. In other words, it does not change anything.” This blows the whole concept of what we have been led to believe is ‘traditional’ meditation out of the water as the Gentle Breath model offers the complete opposite. Rather than providing a space where we can literally leave our bodies, it brings complete focus and connection with the mind and body working togetether as one. And by taking that focus into everything we do we have the ability to be completely present all of the time.
What a great point you mentioned, to trust again the feelings from the body. Innately we know if a meditation leaves us warm it feels supportive to our whole body, and to trust in that. No matter what we hear, if something leaves us feeling in the slightest bit of discomfort or pain, it is our body giving us a message. Being cold, being exhausted, being hungry, being in pain, being anxious, being frustrated, being sad etc….all of these are signals and they come about in our life to teach us to NOT disregard them. Rather to learn to read and understand what these signals are telling us and to start choosing what is truly supportive for us.
I used to subscribe to the very false belief that in order to reach enlightenment you had to ascend a kind of spiritual ladder. I thought that I was climbing this ladder and so when I reached the stage of daily meditation I erroneously believed that I was quite high up the ladder. I literally couldn’t have been further from the truth. Not only is there no ladder but the reason why there is no ladder is because we are already everything we could possibly ever dream of being.
I ran away from meditation as I couldn’t justify sitting for long periods of time but knew deep inside that if it was shared to support and build the body with purpose then that made sense to me. Along came The Gentle Breath Meditation presented by Serge Benhayon and life began to make a whole lot of sense!
“Meditation: What are we Meditating on?” – good question Lieke, and also why are we meditating i.e. for what reason. I would meditate to ‘feel better’, or ‘to fix’ something, maybe ‘focus on a decision/dilemma’ ‘to empty my head’ — but all this just takes one away from the simplicity of one’s breath, its [gentle] quality.. feeling this gentleness, and so feeling oneself as being this too – i find it is from this point clarity is felt through quality, not ideal or mental logic.
Beautiful blog Lieke. I grew up with people meditating and anxiously getting irritated if anyone made a sound and snappily telling us to be quiet. Internally I thought to myself ‘how can this meditation be that good, if they still treat people this way?’. Now I can understand that this kind of meditation only offers brief relief – no wonder they were upset. The Gentle Breath Meditation is so different to me – it’s not just a moment but a key to unlocking a quality you then can live throughout the day – a consistency of living joy.
Meditation is a tool that can be used to either reconnect us to the truth of who we are, or a tool used to escape from this.
I’ve never heard such a clear understanding of the difference in meditating based on the mind and as a check out from the body and meditating based on the body and the quality in it. When I hear it like this, it’s obvious as to why any old meditations did not work and how in fact they were just a respite and a relief but not really dealing with anything. I love the Gentle Breath Meditation and how it allows me to come back and feel all of me, body included and to reconnect to the feeling of who I am, super simple and less than 5 minutes, it really has changed my life.
I used mediation as a means of seeking enlightenment, under the belief that once enlightened all my worries would disappear and the world’s woes wouldn’t touch me and I wouldn’t have any issues or tensions. It came with a mystery and escapism from this world of materialism. There was also an arrogance of knowing the world was more than just what could be seen and I knew better. The Gentle Breath Meditation has supported me to appreciate the wisdom in the world -the particles we all share – and to inspire me to be in this world and commit to being here 100% (so less and less checking out); to no longer wish to escape it. This is huge for me and the enlightenment I once sought I now see as just avoiding knowing who I am and the truth of why we are all here.
I tried meditation when I was younger but never really understood why nothing really happened apart from becoming uncomfortable sat with my legs crossed and so quickly gave it up. In discovering the true purpose in mediation and how simple it is having been a revelation and exposing of just how strong our preconceived beliefs on such matters can be.
Only because we have allowed the meaning of words to be bastardised we have lost the true meaning of these. While meditation is there for us to reconnect with the source of our being and that is the universal intelligence that can only be felt trough the body and not through the mind, we have made meditation something from the mind and only through the mind and therefore will never find the connection we are looking for.
The Gentle Breath Meditation as taught by Serge Benahyon is so far removed from any meditation that I ever tried, and the only meditation that I ever truly understood as it made complete sense. It brings such a deep connection to you and your body, and has such a clear purpose to it, where as all other methods I have tried have just left me feeling a bit stranded, not really knowing what I was supposed to be doing and certainly not feeling like I was in my body – in fact the total opposite on some occasions. And whatsmore, this Gentle Breath method is so simple and accessible to everyone and can only be of benefit.
I was pondering on why I never liked the idea of attending meditation classes and have never been to one because of how I felt about them. I felt it was heavy, difficult and didn’t feel right for me. I remember my thoughts were telling me that I should try meditation classes because they sound great but the feeling in my body was one of heaviness whenever I contemplated going to a class. I am glad I listened to my body and honour what I felt. The feeling I got from The Gentle Breath Meditation is completely opposite. It feels simple, easy to practice and every particle in my body feels light and joyful when I practice it. What I love about it is that I can include people around me while I am doing the Gentle Breath Meditation, it leaves me feeling more connected to myself and to people.
The difference I am hearing when reading your blog is between checking out and checking in. The ability to take a moment to re-connect with the body, with stillness and move from there. It is a tool that can be applied anywhere, noisy or quiet in my experience!
Exactly Lucy. There is a difference between trying to escape life and it’s intensity and learning to observe life in full, engage with it but not get overwhelmed by it.
The word ‘meditation’ as other words like yoga, mindfulness, the here and now etc seem to have this flavour of sanctity as if they are a good thing by definition. That can lead to a lack of discernment in the assumption that methods like these will always be of benefit for the practitioner. But this is not necessarily true and even great harm can come from it. We should always discern the purpose, method, aim etc of any practise and for that we need some criteria we can rely upon. The Gentle Breath Meditation is completely transparent in that regard and everyone can come to their own validation within a few minutes.
Yes, all these words are commonly accepted as the new thing we’ve discovered or rediscovered (and been ‘humble’ enough to concede old techniques having merit) that are key to our well-being; when actually there is as little discernment as there is in following the next research findings of what is good for the body to eat. The Gentle Breath Medication is completely transparent which is unlike most that is on offer.
Very true Alex, these assumptions can be very misleading of what is actually delivered. What is key is the simplicity of the Gentle Breath Meditation, the fact that it only takes a few minutes to bring one self to feeling the delicious surrender into the body that Lieke is describing.
Alex what you share is very true and it is because things like meditation and yoga hold such a sanctimonious position within our society that it means that the people who practice such pursuits (and I was one who was completely embroiled in the yoga consciousness) are completely unable to open to the possibility that there is great harm in yoga and meditation when they don’t originate from truth.
I agree Lieke . . . .”It is the most beautiful feeling I know – to be one with my body and mind together.” . . . and also to breath one’s own breath rather than breathing in the intensity of the world.
Meditation as a simple tool to reconnect to ourselves. With this being the only (ONLY) purpose! No travelling, no attracting a better job, a partner, more money etc. But simply to reconnect when we’ve lost ourselves in the dynamics of everyday life. I love the gentle breath meditation. To me a clear and very precious gift for us to learn who we truly are, fiery love!
What is often deceiving about most types of meditation on offer is that it can leave people in a state of bliss, which is no different to a type of drug, but is even more sinister because it is natural, costs nothing and appears to look ‘so good’.
This is very true Vicky. I realise why I never liked that feeling of bliss because I know the consequences of this short lived moment of bliss can be a downward spiral of darkness and addiction. This is why I stayed clear of drugs and meditation classes because I felt they would not be supportive to my body or life.
I am still fascinated by the energy of bliss as it can be quite deceptive. I am observing how it can be used at any time by anyone who doesn’t want to feel their current state of being, and instead give out or project that they are in a difference place, ie ‘bliss’. The dictionary describes it as, “reached a state of perfect happiness, oblivious to everything else.” Maybe another word for this is ‘dishonesty’.
It is beautiful how the Gentle Breath Meditation returns us to connecting with our body and stillness within, and then we take that connection into our daily living.
The gentle breath meditation is literally life transforming. Such an easy tool to use at anytime and anywhere that makes an instant change to how my body feels in just 3 breaths.
For about a year I persevered with attending a meditation and philosophical discussion group – I appeared to be the only person who was unable to keep my mind focused on an image in my head!
The Gentle Breath Meditation has changed this completely and I love the sense of having a deeper relationship with my body through having more awareness and conscious presence with it.
We can be so desperate to escape from life – understandably so, given the intensity and strain – that we’ll go into all sorts of meditation activities – sitting on our bum for hours, our legs going numb, shaking like a loony-bin (yep, that’s a meditation people seek to, to escape and find nirvana) not talk for weeks on end while sitting on one’s bum, etc. As you point out Lieke – after the stint, however long it is, you’ve got to go back in the world again. But you go in as the recluse that’s withdrawn from life – and this eats away at you and your life-force.
I have been there – deeply sensitive, life was too harsh and there were all sorts of tantalising meditation activities to seek out and run away into.
Underlyingly, the anxiousness of running on empty would never leave me – it would just come back often even stronger.
The gentle breath meditation is as different as night is to day. For one, there is no escaping – the whole point is that we have this tool to breathe gently consistently, while we’re in the midst of doing things, and thus consistently bringing ourselves back. And it connects you to the one thing that brings you back to you to be steady in the crazy world we are in – your body. Two feet solidly on the ground, as you breathe your breath – that is, God’s breath, in and out of your lungs.
With traditional meditation practices I wanted to run away from the world. With the Gentle Breath Meditation I wanted, and still do, to fully dive in to the world and be me in it, in full.
It is essential to discern what happens to your body when mediating including if you go off somewhere else or go into bliss as ‘nice’ as they may feel they do not support the body to be in alignment with our innate divinity.
The gentle breath meditation is the opposite to all other forms of meditation and I agree” It is the most beautiful feeling I know – to be one with my body and mind together.” and has changed my life also so much in connecting to my self inside deeply and then the intensity of life becomes something that just is and the support from inside allows in the natural universal flow of life.
I just assumed that meditation is good for me. But isn’t this another example of me giving my power away to the experts? It makes so much sense to use meditation to connect to myself and then from there I can make a better decision about what I need.
Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine presents a simple meditation that allows me to feel a deeper connection with myself. A place that I have always had and no one can take from me. It has supported me to live in a way, so I can truly make a positive difference in the world.
Its interesting how there is an idea that one has to meditate for hours, but actually, with the Gentle Breath Meditation, it clearly demonstrates that it takes no more than 5-10min to stop, reconnect and feel your body… this complete stop and feeling of connection and surrender actually feels like you are with yourself in stillness for more than 10min … a true arrest of a busy momentum.
Once I tried to meditate outside on an early morning, I lit incense, sat on a hard ground and tried to close my eyes, I couldn’t fee any calmer – Im not sure I make my mind still for more than 5 seconds I was more wanting to smell the incense haha. But my point is we have to be discerning about how and why we do something such as meditation – we are taught and take on a complete false way of moving our bodies and using our intelligence that when we sit we call it relax time, where as before all of this change and when I was a child I used to play and play for hours and had more energy than I could image – so its got to do with how we use our energy not being clever.
It is totally a different intention to meditate to re-connect to our innermost rather than to create a state of calm or to empty our minds. Rather than seeking to avoid the intensity of life, we can engage in life and feel the tension. but from a place of stillness.
‘In that moment I feel the whole of my body like it is a big space and from there it is very clear what I need to do, how I need to do it and when’. This is confirmation that being with our body and in absolute commitment all else will flow. Very simply living absolute trust.
The gentle breath meditation is different from others forms of meditation I have practised – there was always this irritation, and feeling annoyed with other meditations that I do not feel with the gentle breath. I get to feel my body more and also you do not have to sit there for hours on end, with body parts going numb, which often felt like an endurance test.
Although I never did those kind of meditations where you wonder off into your thoughts or try and focus on a mental image or goal, I can remember in school once being asked to meditate and everyone lay down and pretty much just fell asleep – there wasn’t a reconnection, more a moment of relief and escape from the day. What I love about the gentle breath meditation is that it actually sets you up for living in life fully, not sitting around all day but being active and taking your connection in the meditation out into life.
I have tried so many different meditation styles in the past but none of them settled me from within, and those guided ones, don’t change anything in the body, they may feel good at the time, but probably because you think you have shifted or moved something but your really just taking the focus away for a time.
For a long time I didn’t understand what meditation was. When I started try experimenting different kinds of techniques and methods. I always had this feeling of not doing it right, and the meditation itself was the goal, the climax, those fleeting moments of bliss were what I sought. What I have learnt from Universal Medicine is that it is only just a beginning, it is a preparation for me to be in the world, and the moment I open my eyes and thereafter – that’s what matters.
Beautifully expressed Lieke and you make many valuable points.I meditated quite a lot before coming to the work of Universal Medicine and can now see clearly that my meditation involved me sort of putting myself on hold, a kind of separation of me from me, whilst all the while I believed that I was connecting to myself.
It makes so much sense that meditation is not about going somewhere in our mind (we do that already all the time) but actually connect to our bodies more deeply. So it is not an escape into a better world but about staying present and feeling ourselves and staying aware of all what is going on.
‘When I go out of my body into my mind, I feel I lose my innate intelligence.’ Going out of the body disconnects us from the wisdom and beauty within and so we start replacing that with information and attempts to find love from something or someone outside ourselves, when all along what we most long for is within us and is awakened once we reconnect deeply with the body.
I love the Gentle Breath Meditation because it is a ‘check in’ rather than a ‘check out’ of the body. It bring me back to my body and the natural rythmn of my breath, very simple in and out, and with that I feel myself in my body. It brings an honesty to me of where I am at.
Lovely Lieke, how meditation becomes easier and easier in life the more we do it and checking in to the body becomes no effort at all, but such a natural feeling to return to connection to ourselves. The stillness we hold with true meditation then becomes a movement we can move with to become a part of everyday life.
I used to think of and use meditation as a way to sit out the world but now see it as a way to simply reconnect and then take this quality out with me into the world. Slowly then everything becomes like a meditation because it confirms and deepens my connection.
People can use meditation in the same way people drink alcohol, eat sugar, do excess sport or go into their heads and overthink and comments locate things – to escape life.
I saw a TV clip of a famous personality talking about why they meditated the other day, it was along the lines of being able to forget about everything – this is what meditation was sold to as me before I was presented with the gentle breath meditation. The very first time I did the Gentle Breath Meditation I was blown away I had never experienced anything like it. There was no lightening bolts or epiphanies – simple feeling myself it was so simple and profound, and has always stuck with me.
What do we do when we find life intense, mostly we seek some sort of relief (and escape) and many people turn to mediation. I did too, I attended yoga classes with a free meditation after the class finished. I always felt so empty afterwards with no real feeling in my body, plus my legs were numb. What a difference when I tried the Gentle Breath Meditation, no numb legs and not left feeling blank but much feeling in my body. The difference was like day and night.
I agree it is super important to be very clear about what our purpose is behind any meditation for that is the quality we are magnifying in us and will be left with afterwards.
So true and this is rarely discussed. I often wonder why and then realise that meditation is like everything else, it can be used to check out or check in. Checking out just exacerbates a momentum or pattern of behaviour that we are not coping with, checking in gives it an opportunity to stop so we can re-connect and embrace life more connected to our heart.
Beautiful description here Lieke of the purpose of meditation. I too tried many different forms of meditation previously and could not carry on with them as I also found them to not really support me. When I came across the Gentle Breath Meditation as presented by Serge Benhayon, it felt completely different and I have continued with it for nearly 10 years now and it has been very supportive for me.
All my experiences of meditation (and there were many) up until the point of discovering the Gentle Breath Meditation took me out of my body and into my head.
I know I have done several different meditations and have come to realise that they didn’t feel great and they weren’t sustainable because of this. Now over 13 years with practicing The Gentle Breath Meditation as presented by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine I have a tool that connects me to my Soul and this allows me to feel the Power in the quality that this brings.
People are desperate for something that brings them back to themselves and supports them through the overwhelm of life. But faced with a proliferation of meditation techniques and programs marketed as a business rather than offering a true service makes it difficult for them to find one that will truly support. The Gentle Breath Meditation offers this, and is freely available on-line on Unimedliving.
We have a funny story in our family as someone meditates and absolutely swears by their mediation how it has calmed them down nothing that happens in the world touches them they are so deeply calm within their bodies. And we were all very impressed with this new way of being for them and they did indeed seem very calm. However apparently while driving around the busy streets of London it seems they lost the plot completely became extremely upset and angry as the passenger in the car. The outburst intrigued me, just what was happening when they were meditating was it just a way to bury their feelings more deeply into the body and if so is that a healthy way to live? The mediation clearly hadn’t helped with the anger issues as they were still residing in the body, just needing a situation to trigger the anger. Which shows to me that unless the anger issues are addressed as to why the person is angry in the first place and resolve that, meditation is only going to mask what is really going on, which is what indeed happened.
It is very humbling and sobering when we find issues that we thought were sorted by our use of meditation, medication or treatment modalities have not disappeared at all and at times come up in a more aggressive manner. It shows that many techniques are designed to just offer relief, without the actual understanding and honouring of the whole of the human being and the energetic dynamics at play, so all they can do at best is to bury the issue until it resurfaces after ages of percolating in our body and shocks us with its intensity.
I am so appreciative of the Gentle Breath Meditation as well as the many modalities introduced by Serge Benhayon that is not about relief or burying, but completely honours humanity at the deepest level.
Lieke, I had a similar experience with meditation in the past; ‘I tried but found it hard and to be honest, not very enriching and even a bit boring’ I remember on a yoga ashram that we were told to meditate for half an hour in the morning and evening, sitting cross legged, holding a picture in our mind and chanting some words over and over, i found this physically painful and I could never sit there for half an hour, I didn’t really understand what we were trying to achieve and I certainly didn’t feel well and connected afterwards, just in pain and that I wasn’t very good at mediating. This is completely different to the Gentle Breath Mediation, where there are no rules on how to sit, simply that it’s supportive if we are comfortable, there is no time limit and it feels simple and easy and very lovely.
Lieke, I can relate to what you share. I have experienced many different types of practices called meditations: guided and creative visualisations, yoga breath meditations, counting, and focusing on a single object or flame, all very mental in orientation and didn’t take me anywhere. The beauty of The Gentle Breath Meditation is its simplicity, by breathing gently, we focus on the whole body and as you say, is a surrendering to the Divine. Over time it becomes part of us and all of life becomes a meditation.
We seek relief from the outside world in what ever form works for us I know that I have used TV as a form of meditation as I focused on the programme and switched off from life. But like you say we are not really able to escape life it is there waiting for us as soon as we step outside the door.
Leike my first introduction to meditation was similar to yours, my friend would be sitting in the middle of the living room and if I came in whilst he was meditating I was to creep around quietly and ignore him. I found it quite mystical and I was always curious with what he got from it. What I love about the Gentle Breath Meditation is that even in a room full of people, noise and activity it is still possible to connect to our breath and feel gentleness return to our bodies.
I remember trying to meditate, sitting cross legged on my floor focusing on the point between my eyebrows and getting incredibly uncomfortable. Nothing really changed, I was waiting for this eureka moment – which never came. All that did come was a numb bottom an empty mind and a feeling that I had ticked off my meditation for the day in the hope that something was changing. It was dull and a bind to do, so I didn’t stick at long. The Gentle Breath Meditation is completely different as I feel a connection to me as my body lets go of the hardness it has accumulated during the day.
I’ve read and heard about many kinds of meditation. Usually done at the end of a yoga session to ‘unwind’. The Gentle Breath Meditation is the only meditation I’ve ever done where it actually can be done in movement. That says a lot. And it is about being totally present not resting.
Meditation for escape or meditation to connect? They are worlds apart, so its vital that we are discerning about the type of meditation we are doing. They are not all the same.
As with anything, what we do can have extremely different effects (e.g. in this case meditation can either reconnect us or help us to check out away from life) depending whether we have a purpose and what that purpose is.
You raise an important question here Lieke that highlights the fact that there are a wide variety of meditation techniques that have different focuses and purposes. We must be discerning in our choice of meditation and not assume that all meditation is what we want it to be. For me, this innermost connection is truly vital and meditation must be about re-establishing, supporting or deepening this connection further.
What a stark difference between the two types of meditation. One feels cold, the other feels warm. One feels separative, the other feels welcoming and inclusive. One feels empty, the other feels full and rich and lovely. I know which I choose.
The Gentle Breath Meditation enables one to fully connect with one’s body, mind and spirit as one as no other meditation does and to then maintain that connection in everyday life.
The Gentle Breath Meditation has been the only meditation I have actually been able to do. It very quickly restores a connection to a tenderness and stillness within my whole body that I have never felt inside my very busy head. Undoubtedly the best way to get out of my head and back into my body.
Thank you Lieke, you make a really great point, does the meditation style we choose bring relief (and escape) from the intensities of life or does it reconnect us to ourselves in a way that supports us to engage with life more fully and steadily? If it’s actually a relief or escape then it’s really not much different to alcohol in the sense that you get to check out for a while but nothing much else changes.
I used to meditate to have out of body experiences, not that I ever really achieved that but the Gentle Breath Meditation is all about being with your body and I find doing this while I am working is such a beautiful thing as well.
Awesome Lieke, I appreciate how easy it is to meditate now, and how enhancing it is to health when this is the gentle breath meditation, how it is just about being less driven by the mind and more in tune with the body. It seems silly to think of disciplining the mind to not be distracted, surely it is better to bring the focus to the body and feel, feel, feel.
Thats a great point Stephen, at first I really struggled with meditation and the Gentle Breath Meditation was so simple yet my mind would fight it. Today after a bit of practice and allowing myself to accept that simplicity of mediation to re-connect and not escape I find its an amazing tool that I can goto.
Yes it does make sense if we want to still the out of control thinking about everything at once mind by making it focus on something like what we are doing, how our hands move, how our chest moves and so there are thousands of things!
Many people are looking for relief from the intensity of the world and meditation seems to be growing in popularity as a way to cope. Looking at how we live our lives each day and the quality of our choices, what is supporting us or not, is what will truly redress overwhelm.
This is beautiful, Lieke. Like you, I have tried other types of meditation, mainly guided visualisation and breath counting exercises, none of which made any true difference to my life. The Gentle Breath Meditation is something I can return to at any time of day – it doesn’t require me to sit for hours on end. Unfortunately whenever I do it sitting or lying down, I tend to fall asleep, but that’s showing me a level of exhaustion and a willingness to check out with sleep, so it is teaching me something about the way I am living. What it has done is to make me more aware of how I am breathing as I go about my day to day activities, and to keep my breath gentle.
So often meditation is almost advertised as a tool to take you somewhere, to achieve some form of enlightenment… and rarely is it to surrender in a connection that allows you to be empowered and embraced by the exquisite divinity within. From the latter, in connection to who we are, it is truly beautiful to allow ourselves to be moved through our day with this true body intelligence as our foundation and our guide.
Often meditation can be done with a focus to get somewhere else other than here, or improve ones self or relieve certain symptoms. I have experienced it can actually disconnect one from the body, which is where our true connection lies.
On meditation Lieke [pre being introduced to Gentle Breath Meditation], your line here — “I did not feel my body and I sort of felt isolated in my mind and cold – not the most pleasant feeling” – yes i’ve experienced the same, and found it hard to focus too on my own becoming quite self-militant in a bid to try and get it right, or perfect it…even guided meditations left me feeling spacey, disconnected or discombobulated and remember having to lay down and sleep the feeling off. The Gentle Breath Meditation couldn’t be further from being the opposite of all this, because there is no trying, it leaves you alone without feeling you have to get anywhere or accomplish anything, to be with yourself, your breath quality, and nothing else. As a result afterwards I feel refreshed and restored, connected.
The gentle breath meditation is indeed very enriching in my life, it has brought me an awareness of my body that I forgot I could have. It is a true body experience, to reconnect and know that we are much more than just a brain.
I heard on the radio this morning that a number of schools are introducing daily mindfulness meditations, the point of the news article however was that such a practice was being introduced without any understanding of the long term effects of this practice. I’ve never done mindfulness so I can’t personally comment, however I have used often the Gentle Breath Meditation and know the quality I bring to my body when I choose to connect to myself and surrender to the natural, steady and delicate quality within, and then take this quality into the day, or the next moment. Life felt very different after I had become familiar with this way of connection.
I have had an experience of mindfulness mediation as someone brought it into my school. However it didn’t allow me to connect in full to my body, but was more of a distraction from it. Whilst those who use it may say the ‘right’ things about its effects, it didn’t really resonate with me. I have however practiced and taught many children the Gentle Breath Meditation and the difference in the class can be extraordinarily palpable, even if only done for a couple of minutes. I have learned that if used as a tool for body connection mediation in this way can support hugely with how we feel and how we get on with our day – impacting on all our interactions and relationships along the way.
I can so relate Lieke with your past experiences of meditation. I started meditating at age 14. I refused to go to bible study group so was told I had to attend a meditation group my parents had been attending for years! I was given a word to repeat over and over and over in my mind, sitting in a chair for half an hour twice a day. It felt just as numbing as the bible study! I didn’t feel any different during or afterwards, and didn’t see any change or improvement in my parents lives over the years either. Sometimes it felt like a justifiable escape. However The Gentle Breath Meditation is something else altogether… it does bring us back to that innate quality within each and every one of us, and bringing that quality into all that we do, has a profound effect on our lives and everyone we meet.
I can feel the deep appreciation for the Gentle Breath Meditation you have Lieke. I have just returned to it after a period of time without meditating and I am also appreciating the difference I can feel in the way my day plays out when I have meditated in the morning.
I meditated for years a very long time ago, even in ashrams in India. I meditated for hours upon hours and even did silent retreats for weeks, so i could say i am an expert on my experiences of meditation, and it is all that you described Lieke. When i returned to the West, I felt it difficult to readjust back to my daily life, i did not feel solid or connected to the body. I carried an air of arrogance that i was heading to enlightenment and the ‘mundane’ life was insignificant. Which in fact I isolated myself from life and only wanted to return to India to go into retreat and withdraw from life. When i was introduced to the Gentle Breath Meditation by Serge Benhayon, although it is called ‘meditation’ it is so much more. It is reconnecting to the body and to life. It holds the key of how we can live in full in our body. We live in our body permanently, while we’re alive at least, and living in this body and in life is actually enriching, there is a confidence and there is a commitment to life and all it offers. It is by living life in full all the joys and challenges. Within I am deepening and feeling a sense of truly returning to God. Enlightenment was always a chase to go somewhere beyond reach. Living in the body is returning to the essence, which is within, and expressed out through life. There is no chase for the unattainable, it is right here where within where I stand and live, this body and the quality of the essence that comes through.
I totally love the Gentle Breath Meditation too. I feel much more calm and connected when I do it and it supports me to feel what is going on for me so that I can deal with things as they arise, rather than trying to escape them.
I stayed clear of meditation for the same reasons Lieke. It never really appealed to me because I didn’t feel the need to mediate in that way and it felt like it shuts people out and I didn’t like that feeling even though I had never been to a meditation class. When friends described it to me I just knew this kind of mediation was not for me. When I first experienced the Gentle Breath Meditation I was blown away by how easy it was to apply to my day and what I love about it is I don’t need to sit in a room and be quiet because I do practice it anywhere. It connects me to my body and the stillness within.
The way meditation is taught in the mainstream practices has never worked for me either. It feels like a lot of pressure to empty the mind, but emptying the mind is like asking your heart to stop, impossible. Bringing focus back to our body, now that’s difficult in itself if we have a very busy head, but it’s certainly a lot more supportive and actually reminds us that we have a body and that the head is not the ruler.
I did many hours of meditation – starring at a wall as part of being a Zen Buddhist. It was a very difficult time and the meditation brought nothing to me, my levels of despair were unbearable! There was no body intelligence or recognition of this. It was all about emptying the mind and people had some very weird experiences as well as passing out and head butting the wall! Today I find that if I am having any issue coming back to my body reconnects me to the divine wisdom and all else that isn’t love dissolves.
Meditation was given to me as the answer to all my woes. If you are having trouble with life, stressed, angry, lonely etc then you meditate which then gives you this peaceful state. If it didn’t work then you didn’t do it properly or do the right one or you needed to do it for longer. I could never get my head around meditation and it was something I didn’t have the time or the patience for. I assumed this made me a bad person or an outcast in a way because I couldn’t meditate like other people spoke of. When ever something came up I would think that meditation was the answer but then I would say to myself that I couldn’t do it and so you would beat yourself up in a way. Then along came the Gentle Breath Meditation and it was so so simple and easy and what’s more it actually worked. This changed the way I viewed meditation and gave me a point that I had always felt, a meditation that was for living and supported you to be where you are and didn’t try and take you away. I need support to live, not to be taken to a place for a break to then return to the same spot.
Beautiful blog Lieke and I agree the feeling of the gentle breath as you focus on your breathing is quite lovely and tender but the other remarkable thing is it is not a meditation which asks for hours of sitting. It is a way to re-connect feel your body and then get on with living your day.
The power of the Gentle Breath Meditation allows us to connect to a certain quality within that we can take into our movements and be in constant connection with God and all that is.
In a society today, where we currently live with a significant disconnection to our bodies which is considered to be ‘normal’, I found it an extremely enriching and inspiring experience to feel the union of mind, body and Soul through every breath, when introduced to The Gentle Breath Meditation. For me this was life changing as I finally had a marker of what it is to live in connection to who I am, the real and all of me. I instantly could feel how living in connection to this quality was possible, and how it was this connection that I was missing and searching for in my life. I could also feel how beautiful and empowering it was, and still is, that this marker comes from within me, as such is with me wherever I am.
My experience was very similar after experiencing the Gentle Breath Meditation. Having learned numerous other meditation techniques over the years and finding them challenging and also not feeling inspired to do them on a regular basis, I found the Gentle Breath Meditation particularly simple, taking only minutes on occasion and a great way to return to my body rather than being caught up in my mind.
I did a 4-day meditation retreat where we meditated from about 7am to 7pm with breaks in between. Oh my, I hated it. I called it Buddha Boot Camp. It was done in half hour slots and I could not wait for the man to ring the bell to say it was over. Only for it to begin again, and again, and again! It was a battle of the wills – the mind and the body were so at odds. And that is just one type of meditation I tried, there were many others.
But I was like you, only until I tried the Gentle Breath Meditation that things really started to change. I still did struggle at first because it was challenging to connect with gentleness when I have been living with hardness for so long, but it was so different to others and I could feel myself connecting more and more to my body and in turn to myself, that I kept it up. And it is so simple – gently bringing the mind and the body as one, no more fighting. Even reading this today, connected me back to my breath. It is a game-changer for sure.
What are we meditating on? Such a great question and the corresponding awareness is “do we feel our mind and body are connected during and after the meditation’? To me this is the quality and essence of The Gentle Breath Meditation – that I feel fully connected back to all of myself, with the mind and body moving as one as impulse to from the body and not the body pushed by the mind.
I can recall I was a bit skeptical of all types of meditations and when I first heard Serge Benhayon present a meditation I didn’t participate and just sat back and watched. There was definitely a stillness that came into the room and everyone settled. After that I trusted it and when I participated in the next meditation I could feel the irritations in my body arise but underneath that a deep settlement and acceptance. I find this is a great tool to bring me back when I have lost my rhythm.
I meditated following the teachings of a guru for 2 1/2 years. If I acknowledged how I feel about my body today, I wouldn’t have lasted 2 minutes back then. Sitting cross legged is uncomfortable and before long, painful. The meditation itself was very ordered with only a brief period of sitting and breathing at the end. I rarely felt great afterwards but would either hold out for those times when it felt cool, or only do it as I’m stubborn! Anyway, I can attest that the Gentle Breath Meditation does what it says on the tin – no uncomfortable positions, just a chance to check in with your breath and body.
I agree – meditate to connect not to escape has been the most amazing experiance – getting up from the chair more connected than before is an amazing feeling.
Applying the Gentle Breath Meditation, as presented by Serge Benhayon, literally changed my life. I used to do it religiously twice a day and slowly I found that I wanted to be more and more in my body and to have my mind and my body working together as one. I also found that I was much less reactive to life when I meditated regularly. As time went on the way that I lived became a meditation so I do not have to stop and meditate in the same way any more. The Gentle Breath meditation is a hugely powerful tool to re-connect us back to ourselves.
For years I did the Gentle Breath Meditation as the first thing every morning. It reconnected me with a warmth that I couldn’t remember for a long time. A breath full of acceptance and appreciation of whatever presented itself in my body. This way I’ve discovered how powerful, delicate and vitally important our breath is. Through our breath we’re connecting to a certain quality of energy. The richness of my true breath, fiery love, is the most special feeling there is to feel.
Thank you for sharing Lieke. What is profound about the Gentle Breath Meditation is that it is something you can do in every movement. That it is not about checking out but rather about being present.
I did a lot of different meditations and most of the time it left me frustrated as I was not able to empty my mind or to see images that others seem to get so easily. The Gentle Breath Meditation was completely the opposite it felt very natural and it left me feeling gentle and with myself and my body. I agree Lieke ‘It is the most beautiful feeling I know – to be one with my body and mind together.’
I have had some crazy meditation experiences like sitting naked in sweat lodges, sitting under pyramids, listening to drummings the list goes on, ultimately they were grand things and they connected me to something but ultimately they distracted me physically and from connecting with myself. When I came across the gentle breath meditation I was blown away by the simplicity, and the reflection that it gave me about the quality of my connection with myself.
Reading your words describing the Gentle Breath Meditation actually assisted me to reconnect and drop deeper into my body… Such a vital tool to have in a society thats become 24/7.
Thank you, that is very beautiful and simple, as meditation before I met Universal Medicine’s Gentle Breath Meditation , did not work for me, same it was boring and it did not truly help me to be more connected at all.. actually the opposite! Since I got introduced to the Gentle Breath Meditation I was for the first time introduced to a modality that helped me to surrender in my body and feel my breath through my whole body – a flow that is rich of a full love, warmth and truth (purpose). Hence, I knew this was a very true modality for me that truly supports me in every way, to whenever I am off track (disconnected to myself) easily come back to my breath and body.
There are many different types of meditation. Some being designed to take you out of your body and into your mind and some to bring you back into your body.
Meditation is much more mainstream nowadays. In a world where we seem to be getting busier and busier, even just giving yourself a moment to stop. Like REALLY stop, is a great way to start bringing back a deeper connection with yourself throughout your day.
The difference you have highlighted is important Lieke as it does directly affect our body, the connection to our body and the truth it communicates to us everyday. The Gentle Breath Meditation is so simple yet the effect flows on into all areas of our lives and is life changing.
I learned a lot of different meditation practices throughout my life, from active meditations to dancing meditations, sitting still, breathing techniques, different postures, laughing, crying – you name it I did it. But once I came across Universal Medicine and the Gentle Breath Meditation I came to the same conclusion you did Lieke, that none of those techniques had supported me to truly connect with my body, even though some required quite a level of physical fitness. But the connection that I learned to have with my body through the techniques that Universal Medicine teaches, feels very very different and changed my life profoundly as it supports me greatly in the intensity of everyday life.
Absolutely gorgeous sharing LIeke… “It is the most beautiful feeling I know – to be one with my body and mind together.”
There is a depth of wisdom we can connect to through the body, where the body and mind is in unison…we embody the truth of yoga.
Well said – for meditation is everything about true connection which is contrary to the relief and checking out, peace, numbness and more that it is commonly sold to us as.
“True meditation for me is about connecting to a quality of gentleness or tenderness that is innate in our body and surrendering to this quality that is already there.” Beautifully expressed Lieke. It is the surrender to our stillness and a easily accessible healing modality we all can embrace. To simply connect and be with the amazing intelligence and connection of our divine bodies, is absolutely heavenly.
Love that kellyzarb: “It is the surrender to our stillness and a easily accessible healing modality we all can embrace.” True healing happens also in life when we are living it and not only on the healing table as many people think.
Yes Lieke, healing is accessible to all when we surrender to our bodies natural rhythm and move from here. The body just releases and re-calibrates itself as needed when we honour our bodies daily conversations.
The gentle breath meditation is a very simple tool, but an extremely powerful and empowering one. It is awesome for re-connecting you back to your truth and giving you a base from which to move from.
This is true – something that we can all do very simply in any moment – nothing arduous, inaccessible or mysterious involved and the gentle breath meditation delivers us to our true core..
It just makes sense for meditation to be something that develops our relationship with ourselves so that we can bring more of us to life.
Universal Medicine’s Gentle Breath Meditation revolutionised my perception of meditation in the fact that it is not something to be done in isolation from life, but to hold through every move made in day-to-day life.
So true Michael… breathing our own breath, the gentleness of breath, in all that we do, totally transforms our lives.
Yeah, it’s so cool – you can do it just about anywhere. A lovely way to get back to yourself without having to isolate yourself.
Yes very well said Michael. That is what is the difference from many other meditations which have to be done without interference of the world which makes you feel disconnected instead of connected.
This was why I avoided other forms of meditation in the past because it felt restrictive to me and like you’ve shared Michael it was done in isolation to life which was not something I would like to do. This is why I love The Gentle Breath Meditation, I can practice this while I am alone or in a busy shopping centre. The beauty of this is I don’t have to shut out the world to reconnect to the stillness and love within. It is about being in stillness, connected to myself and still deeply connect to people at the same time.
The Gentle Breath Meditation is a power-full tool. Being responsible about our thoughts and returning our mind to conscious presence after a Gentle Breath Meditation is important, so use it to return. In returning, the mind is re-connected to the inner-most, and this returns us to our natural divinity. Connection never leaves us but is shut down because our true divine connection gets misplaced as our mind has been tricked into believing it has the answers.
Hi Lieke, I could feel my body surrendering and could appreciate the quality of tenderness I hold within from just reading your blog … amazing and thank you. Really cool point about meditation which I feel is important to talk about. I tried meditation before knowing Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine even going on a 10 day silent meditation retreat … which did absolutely nothing! And previously as you have shared it was with meditation that the mind and body were seen as very separate .. that meditation was about being in the mind totally forgetting the body!!! The beautifull thing with the Gentle Breath Meditation brought through and held by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine is that it is about the whole body; it is completely holistic and can be felt. In an instant no matter how racy etc we are it is a tool where we can come back to our true innate quality of gentleness very quickly.
‘True meditation for me is about connecting to a quality of gentleness or tenderness that is innate in our body and surrendering to this quality that is already there. ‘ – beautifully said, Lieke.
I can’t imagine myself sitting for hours meditating, it’s not something that has ever interested me. However, the first time I did the Gentle Breath Meditation what I remember most was a magnificent feeling of light and warmth deep inside, like an inner glow that filled me with joy. It is very grounding, it brings me back into my body where I feel the power of who I truly am, and as you share, from this place I feel I can handle anything that is presented to me, with love.
On experiencing the Gentle Breath Meditation for the first time all the other – and there were many – forms of meditation I had tried over the years were exposed as not being the healing modalities that they were made out to be. I had never before felt such an immediate and strong connection to myself and that felt so amazing. This simple but hugely profound meditation is one of the tools I use daily to reconnect to my body; a body that I have come to know is way more intelligent than my mind.
Meditation for me is a moment with myself, my body and equally with God. I find that it is so easy to skip over and avoid making time for such moments but they are so very important as it gives time to reflect, appreciate, check in, see where one is at with themselves and their body and offers greater quality to then take to the next moments of our day.
I too had tried meditation albeit very briefly. I didn’t feel any benefit what so ever so very quickly gave it a wide berth. Then I heard Serge Benhayon introduce the gentle breath meditation as an introduction to one of his workshops. The result was very lovely. I felt the shift in my body immediately and felt an inner calm and connection I had only felt as a child. The process was so simple… only 5minutes, but that 5 minuets gave me a marker of how I could be in life just by simply focusing on the quality of my breath.
Surrendering the mind into the body is I agree an absolutely exquisite feeling, and so much more. By simply bringing the mind back into the fold and bringing a completeness to ourselves, we are able to then get up from our meditation and walk in life full and whole.
I love the clarity of understanding you bring here Lieke. This feeling of true body intelligence, bringing mind and body together, unites all the elements of the body as a whole, to live in a true harmony with ourselves.
Great question Lieke, far from meditation being an assigned escape from life’s intenseness only to be thrown back in, the Gentle Breath Meditation, as presented by Serge Benhayon consolidates a simple & steady union between mind & body that can be connected to in any moment throughout our day.
Meditation for me can be the act of walking – and I don’t mean zoned out walking in a trance or really slowly, I mean walking feeling the joy in my body and my amazing connection to nature.
“True meditation for me is about connecting to a quality of gentleness or tenderness that is innate in our body and surrendering to this quality that is already there.” Beautifully expressed Lieke. I love the Gentle Breath Meditation too – and love it when done in a group too. It takes a few minutes to reconnect – if feeling unconnected – and then I can take that quality out into my day.
Previous meditations have promised to deliver me something that I have sat for hours trying to achieve. I love the simplicity and practicality of The Gentle Breath Meditation. 5 to 10 minutes max and I’m good to go. It is about giving myself a moment to stop, breathe gently and connect to my body and check in with how it’s feeling. When I’ve finished I take that quality with me as I go about my day. I don’t always hold it, but it gives me a marker that I can always come back to and continue to deepen.
A great distinction you describe Lieke, I can certainly relate. I never considered myself someone who could meditate as I had similar experiences to your childhood days too. The Gentle Breath Meditation was the first that I ever found ‘worked’ in that I could use it to restore a sense of myself that I loved having, so looked forward to doing it. The interesting thing was that once I connected to that loveliness inside me, I had no need to keep doing it, but would feel like there were things I wanted to be doing. Now l’ve learnt how to breath gently most of the time, so life is like a meditation and I rarely even sit to try and restore something. A simple but VERY powerful technique that becomes a livingness.
I spent years doing a particular type of meditation which was definitely about checking out and escaping from my body and my life. I agree that the contrast with the Gentle Breath Mediation is that it allowed me to still my racy mind and re-connect with my body and from there feel what it is needed next.
I didn’t really know much about meditation until my middle to late 40’s, it was very spiritual and heady and about going somewhere which I tried very hard to do, and used to sit there comparing myself to others that seemed to be off elsewhere in their mind, never was the connection to the body mentioned, and looking back I can relate tot the coldness that you mention Lieke. Because of my spiritual mediation experiences it took me a while to understand the difference between what being in my head and staying with my body meant, as I was coming from my head not my body. Now when I meditate focusing on the body it feels warm and expansive, and really joyful, compared to meditating with my mind and the coldness from being disconnected to the rest of my body.
There seems to be an exponential growth of various meditation courses, mindfulness classes and similar at the moment. Have others seen the same? Is this the ultimate illustration of the arrogance of man? Do we really feel that our minds our evolving us to any kind of truth? Just take a look at the world and how we are living…perhaps our minds aren’t the answer? Perhaps the real answer lies in empowering the wisdom that lies somewhere else in our bodies?
One of the things that I was often told to do in the many forms of meditation that I have tried along the way was to ‘silence the mind’ … to….’empty the mind’. I could never do this and it seemed to me that the more I tried the busier and more loud the mind became!! Serge Benhayon has shown me a totally different sort of meditation – one that is entirely to do with connecting to the body – where our true intelligence lies. It’s a brilliant tool, brilliantly simple. Not to say that I still don’t, at times, find it hard because my mind is so busy but it now seems madness to me that meditation should in anyway be focussing on the mind. Body, body, body – that’s where the gold resides.
I have had not tired lots of different meditation, but I have tired a few, somethings that people have shown me or I have found along the way, they often tell you to imagine something or focus on something in your head, one I did told me to keep my eyes open, so my head was always engaged. All of these brought I kind of brain training, stimulation with a befuddlement or bliss state but not a true regenerative stillness. And then the Gentle Breath Meditation (GBM) was introduced, it is divinely simple in its application and purpose, it physiologically makes sense and once practiced sitting or lying with eyes closed can be used in every day life with eyes open, when I am in the supermarket I breath the GBM, in the car, on the way to work, in work etc my body has become physiologically altered through making the choice to breath in through my nose and out through my nose gently and it feels amazing and is so supportive. It brings a sense of calm, stillness ad support that a is like noting I have felt before. The in breath feels like the breath of connection and stillness and the out breath feels like living that connection and stillness.
Gorgeous Lieke, you’ve really highlighted the difference between meditating to escape, check out or have a mental ‘time out’ moment from life, and how we can do it to surrender and bring our body back to the highest quality.
Great point – what are we meditating on when we meditate? Having been exposed to a variety of techniques, it has always felt like an invitation to escape from reality and I found that this does not serve long-term. Sooner or later, life represents itself right under our nose and nothing has changed. There might be a certain degree of equanimity in the beginning but the longer ago the meditation, the more engulfing and overwhelming life can seem. Only the Gentle Breath Meditation teaches connection and commitment and does not advocate checking out or withdrawing from life.The Gentle Breath Meditation is very practical and has purpose and can never be a self-perpetuating foray into some kind of nebulous goodness.
Lieke like you I had experiences of meditation being used to escape life and “go somewhere better”, it was a check out. Whereas when I started the Gentle Breath Meditation I found this is was all about checking in, reconnecting and from that short 5min I would walk away more with myself and more part of life. the complete opposite of how I had meditated in the past.
The Gentle Breath Meditation has helped me hugely become more aware of my body and feel more whole in myself. By that I mean that my thoughts and mind and my body are all in the same place at the same time. It’s a fantastic tool, plus, who knew that being aware of your breath was so delicious.
Oh yes I agree! Being aware of our breath is delicious, the simple joys of life redefined 🙂
Totally – could it be that one of the most simple joys of life is totally free and available every single second of the day…
Having had many years of different types of meditation in the past and sitting there for hours, I never felt as I do when I do the gentle breath meditation, which only takes 10 to 15 minutes.
When I read blogs like this it feels beautiful to pause and appreciate that connection we can and I have developed with my body. To have the body and mind together is exquisite.
Love that Leigh. Appreciation is so important in our lives, without it we sometimes don’t realise what gold we have actually got and how amazing we are.
The Gentle Breath Meditation has completely transformed how I live, as I have been able to connect to my body and build a very nurturing relationship within myself as a consequence. It is a very tangible tool that can be practiced and expressed throughout the day. The more we build the connection with the gentle flow of breath within us, the more our movements reflect this quality, creating a tender flow and harmony to all we do and practiced on a regular basis builds a completely new and very strong foundation to life.
I love how you share that true meditation is not about checking out, but by connecting deeper to ones own body through the gentleness of ones own breath. Like you I was made to believe when I was growing up, that mediation was difficult and that you had to sit quietly for hours emptying the mind. This was uncomfortable and very challenging.
I too have found the gentle breath meditation unlike any meditation I had previously tried. It has been the only one that has brought me a deeper awareness of my surroundings and simultaneously a deeper connection to my body – the very opposite to the brief escape from both others would deliver.
In my first introduction to the Gentle Breath Meditation I experienced within five minutes a greater connection with myself than I had ever done in years of Buddhist meditation practice.
Before learning the Gentle Breath Meditation about 6 years ago, I practiced another form of meditation. The major difference between the two is that the other form seemed to create the awareness of a kind of stillness within the room or place I was sitting whereas the Gentle Breath supports my connection to stillness within me and then to my whole body. Connecting to the stillness that is innate allows me to live from this space within in everything I do. It may seem like quite a subtle difference but in fact it is very profound and powerful. My experience is that this connection to the stillness within then affects the quality in which I walk through life and the quality of the energy I leave in my ‘wake’. This is very important because these more loving energetic imprints mean I have a more loving impact on life. It is in a very real sense, life-changing.
Meditation is so super simple and can be done anywhere or any place.. you don’t need any special tools or techniques to do it because it’s as simple as bringing your awareness to your breathing and making sure you’re breathing gently. This was a revelation to me -that something so easy and simple could be so powerful. I tried to make it complicated, but quickly realised it wasn’t it. Focusing on my breathing and my body has a powerful stilling effect – much deeper than calm, which feels very temporary. It connects me to an inner stillness that is always there, but that I’m not always choosing to be consciously aware of.
Lieke, this feels so true; ‘meditation is not about checking out of our body for a moment of calm and to basically escape from the intensity of the world’, as you say we have to come back to the intensity of the world afterwards so the meditation is purely a moment of escape, of checking out, this really helps me make sense of true and untrue mediation.
Ditto Lieke. I had tried many meditations before coming to the Gentle Breath Meditation and they did nothing for me. I used to either fall asleep or my mind would go off taking me out and away from my body. At times it felt blissful but now i see there is no point in feeling this bliss in my mind, only to return to reality with a thud. I’d actually given up on meditation and was reluctant to try the Gentle Breath meditation but am so glad I did, it was the first step for me to truly connect to my body and to start to change how I was with myself.
Thank you for sharing Lieke – like you have said meditation is about establishing a quality and a connection, one which we can then take with us into our day. It is not somewhere or something we go to to escape and have rest bite from the world.
If I ever imagine focussing in an object with all my will, I can feel very clearly too, the level of disconnection to my own body would be of gigantic proportions. Would that be meditation? This world comes from the Latin meditationem (nominative meditatio) “a thinking over, meditation,” noun of action from past participle stem of meditari “to meditate, think over, reflect, consider.” To me, the last word brings us closer: consider. Consider the possibility of being differently in/with your own body. Consider the possibility of allowing your body to show you the way. The Gentle Breath Meditation offers this possibility. It offers the possibility of true meditation.
Lieke I too have been practising this Gentle Breath Meditation that Serge presents and it has been life changing. I started out very diligent every morning sitting and taking ten minutes to practise and down line I started to feel a deepening and how there were layers to my surrendering. Now it has become something that I can connect to whilst living and moving in life. Being able to continue this state of being while going about life is a level of mediation where it becomes our livingness.
Lieke this is simply stunning, the warmth that you bring to your writing about the Gentle Breath Meditation.
Love that Leike ‘true body intelligence’, my experience of meditation prior to the gentle breath was also to do with the mind and often visualisations, which I enjoyed but as you share did not involve my body, I never tried to focus on anything apart from looking at a flame but again didn’t feel anything major. Then the first time I did the the Gentle Breath Meditation I was blown away by how much I felt and how amazing I felt in my body. I will never forget it. I love that I found this true support and love sharing it.
Lieke you show how the interpretation of a word can mean different things to different people. Meditation for many is an escape but the Gentle Breath Meditation is a beautiful reconnection to the stillness within.
In my search for the meaning of life, I had rambled around different modalities that all had some form of mediation. There was one that the result, only after months of practice, was going to the place that was devoid of everything the void where nothing existed. There was a warning that when you were there things could attack you! And I had paid money for this! The gentle breath meditation is all about coming back to everything we are and not checking out into some blissful space!
My experience echoes yours Lieke. Having attempted meditation numerous times in the past and in a variety of contexts I can firmly say none of it benefited me in any way – it was either long, uncomfortable and arduous or a brief, trippy escape. The Gentle Breath Meditation is a short, simple and entirely effective means of connecting one back to one’s body, and essence, and is the gateway to development of the most beneficial kind – for self, others and all.
I spent many years and experimented with many techniques involving meditation, use of Sanskrit mantras and the rest, in the attempt to ‘connect’. It took the simplicity of the Gentle Breath Meditation to show me that I’d not just been seeking ‘connection’, but had actually and primarily been seeking relief from life, if not escape from the intensity I felt all around me, pretty much 24/7.
How deeply empowering it is, and continues to be, to appreciate and understand that it is our embodiment and choice to be deeply connected and present with our own bodies, that actually enables the consistency of connection with the essence – the being – of who we are to be known.
And then, what need of relief? It all dissolves when we say yes to our own soulful light, our own love, flooding through this body, this vehicle… To deny the body is to deny and reject life – and no-one is served when we embark upon such a course.
“And then, what need of relief? It all dissolves when we say yes to our own soulful light, our own love, flooding through this body, this vehicle… ” ah beautiful words Victoria. Who needs meditations to escape life when we reconnect to ourselves, our soul, be it through support of the Gentle Breath Meditation or not. Because the disconnection is what creates the emptiness we try to escape later on.
Exactly Lieke. ‘Escape techniques’ thus only further imbed the separation from the Love of God, from the Love of our Soul, that pains us in the first place. I have no qualms admitting today that it was my utter discontent with the world (on very deep levels) that had me seeking such ‘refuge’ in the past. Yet there was in truth, no actual ‘refuge’, but rather an allowance of my body and being to be poisoned energetically (through my withdrawal into such practices), all in order not to feel or deal with the pain of separation in the first place.
Granted, there were no role models I knew of in those times to present another way – a way of returning to deep embodiment and presence with all that we are, as Serge Benhayon has done since his work began. The proof is in the pudding that this is all very real, possible and being lived today by many…
To put it simply… There ain’t no purpose in sitting on the mountaintop in isolation from humanity and our world, when our Love is deeply needed here, and now.
Confirming that we can indeed live the love of the soul in this body is the confirmation that all of humanity needs – not a withdrawal, isolation and retreat that is founded in the pain of separation and only demonstrates to others that one cannot BE soul-full and live in this world as it is.
Hear here, well said Victoria.
Powerfully said in absolute simplicity Lieke: “…meditation is not about checking out of our body for a moment of calm and to basically escape from the intensity of the world.”
Meditation, as I’ve also experienced with the tremendous and simple support of the Gentle Breath Meditation, is rightly about deepening our presence and connection with the essence of who we are, in and with this body. When we are truly with ourselves in this way, our life can become a living and lived meditation – with no seriousness nor ‘exiting from life’ in sight, but rather the consistent joy of knowing who we are and fostering this connection through our lived way, every single day.
I was a person that sat for hours working out what was wrong with me and then thinking I have solved all of my problems. However, there was one big reality that was glaring me right in the face, I don’t need fixing, giving the grandness that is inside of me permission to be lived in my body allows everything else from there to be completely taken care of and the Gentle Breath meditation has been a great support in feeling this as a truth.
It is quite amazing what a difference it can take to just stop for a moment and connect to our breath and body. That is all that is needed a moment or a few minutes max.
Absolutely Nicola, just stopping and breathing and connecting can make such a difference. When I feel a bit tensed, breathing gently supports greatly to let go of this tension. It is the gentle movements of my ribcage, tummy and belly muscles that restore the harmony in my body.
What I have discovered is that meditation is there for us to develop a connection and way of living that we live each moment and therefore it is all about life and never is it about checking out.
Isn’t it odd how a tool that is designed to help us reconnect more fully to ourselves by way of re-syncing the body and mind so that the perform in synergy with each other, has become a tool by which we escape into the mind and leave the body behind. The tragedy of this is that our bodies are finely tuned instruments capable of receiving vast amounts of information from the Universal Intelligence we belong to, but when we cut ourselves off from them, so to speak, we do not allow ourselves access to this and instead use a highly bastardised form of meditation that has little to do with connection and much more to do with amputation!
So very true Liane – well said!
I have often heard the phrase of cutting off one’s nose to spite their face, but is this not what meditation has been doing? We are taking our brain on holiday and leaving our body at home!
Lieke thank you for the simplicity you have expressed here as you remind me my own experiences about ‘meditation’ growing up as I felt like I was a total failure here. The Gentle Breath meditation re-awakened what was the most natural thing to just be and appreciate feeling the connection from the body, from within.
When I am disconnected to my body many unwise things can happen in my expression. Like when I feel cold I would say awful things, as when I do not feel loving with myself, my expression reflects a lack of care to others.
This I can relate to Adele, coldness does have a huge effect on my expression too yesterday in the cold supermarket in my summer dress I totally got frustrated and doubting about what to buy which was not there before. How we treat ourselves and care for ourselves does have a huge effect on how we are with others.
I have experienced people I lived with meditating in the past, it was always a very mysterious and seemingly difficult discipline, I never saw any positive change in the people doing it. When I learnt the “gentle breath meditation” I found a meditation so simple and practical, it can be done in 2-3minutes, building a greater awareness, and then from there we are more open to being with others and less bothered by stress.
Fabulous blog Lieke. As a child I was taught to meditate by doctors as part of a research project on treating recurrent abdominal pain in children. I listened to ‘relaxing ‘music and did breathing exercises but they left me feeling cold and did nothing to address the extreme distress that my body was alerting me to. The Gentle Breath Meditation as presented by Serge Benhayon is completely different. Through this meditation I was able to connect to my natural loveliness. This meditation is something I can do anywhere, anytime when I have disconnected from myself.
‘ ..what we are doing or trying to achieve when we are meditating? A great question to pose Lieke – and to follow it up with… ‘meditation is not about checking out of our body for a moment of calm and to basically escape from the intensity of the world. ‘ This is super important to consider. When we ‘check out’ and leave our body behind we are not only escaping, we are actually stopping ourselves from going to that place of true stillness that sustains and nurtures.
“Thus, when I come out of the meditation I am more surrendered in my body and feel equipped to deal with life and its intensities that we cannot stop from being there. For me this is true body intelligence. In that moment I feel the whole of my body like it is a big space and from there it is very clear what I need to do, how I need to do it and when” – Lieke I feel the same too after The Gentle Breath Meditation – it’s such a simple practical technique that you can do anywhere, anytime, nothing special required or needed – just the focus on the quality of breath ensuring its flow is gentle. It’s great for dealing with anxiousness or at times of under confidence too.
Meditation is the most powerful method to keep the mind fit.