” Meditation is food for the soul.”

-Dhyanyogi Madhusudandasji

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I love this quote! Not only is it 100% true, but I love the image it creates in my head. Our soul is just as important as our physical body….it needs daily nourishment just like everything else, in order to really bloom!

I have been an on-and-off meditator for the past 15 years of my life. I can definitely tell a big difference when I am meditating more regularly, versuses when my practice is more sporadic. When I meditate regularly, there is just an inexplicable deep calm inside of me…not as many things can shake me up during the day, I have more energy, I sleep much better and I just feel happier. And when I don’t meditate regularly I definitely do not feel as grounded and tend to get pulled into more negative feelings that can sometime spiral and take on a life of it’s own.

My goal for the New Year was to get back into my daily meditation practice. Happy to report, it’s going well. I’m not setting lofty goals of meditating for an hour (like I use to)…at least not yet. For now, I’m doing about 20-30 minutes a day…and it’s really feeling GREAT.

For those of you who have never meditated, I highly suggest trying it. Just start with closing your eyes for five minutes and counting your breath silently in your head. And then after a few day, once you begin to feel a difference add on a few more minutes…until you reach an amount of time that works for you and your schedule. Meditation is not only great way to enhance your spiritual practice, but it can do wonders for you mentally and physically.

Lots of yoga studios also now offer meditation classes, so check out a center near you. And of course, if you want to learn techniques from a master, I would highly recommend checking out Shri Anandi Ma’s 2012 Public Program Schedule to see if she’ll be in a town near you this year. An opportunity to meditate in the midst of a great being like her is not an everyday opportunity… so don’t pass it up if an invitation comes knocking on your door!