Meditation in Islam

The concept of meditation is expressed in Arabic the word tafakkur, which is distinct from dhikr, better translated as "invocation" or "memory". One can say that the word dhikr is the memory of an earlier time, a way to emerge something that, fortunately, has not lost completely. 

However the two terms are unified in the mystical practice of Islam, because it is thanks to dhikr Allah, the invocation of the name of God, that state is reached, proper meditation. Dhikr as a method of spiritual concentration was developed by Sufis. 

This practice, which was built soon in Islam and already developed in the ninth and tenth centuries, provides for the repetition of one of the ninety-nine names of God or sacred formulas under the direction of a spiritual master. This teacher, called in Arabic sheikh or Murshid (guide), while in Iran and India have said pir, makes the method feasible for the participants in the rite. 

Of the various types of Sheikh, the most similar to the Hindu Pandits and Sheikh at-ta'lim, who knows the doctrine. 

The invocation of God's name reaches levels very obsessive and can be dangerous for anyone who is not guided properly and must be accompanied by the observance of a series of rituals. If practiced without true adherence to Islam, is so ineffective and dangerous.

When and how to meditate

When you meditate: 

Every day, several times during the day. Surely the awakening and before addormaentarsi meditation helps to start and conclude peacefully our waking hours. 
The morning is a great way to organize consciously devoted our energies and at night the transition between one day and ending hours of our vacation. 

How to meditate: 

Will choose a quiet place, and the yearning we found mostly in silence us, and to persevere if some noise around is invited! 
We will take care to sit down cross-legged with the spine erect, the positions are appropriate yogic Sukasana, Siddhasana and Padmasana, the mythical location of the lotus. If these postures are difficult to hold, we can fall back on a chair to sit in the back straight, and we will take care to rest well grounded both soles. 

Through the breath we're going to stretch any corntratture the body. 

The eyes may remain open or closed as you prefer. It is not essential lighting incense and candles, nor the background music, though nice and a sure help to raise the energy. 

By listening to our continuous breath or reciting a mantra of our mind detach its thorns to enter the sizes of the peace, this is meditation.

Meditation : Awareness of breath

How do you reach the awareness? How is it possible to look with detachment, being aware of the various emotions, urges, thoughts without their being able to disturb the quiet inside? 

For me turn your attention to the flow of spontaneous breathing. After a bit 'of time is individual, but let's say weeks or months, you will see that the awareness of your breathing will be passed spontaneously to a state of consciousness more widespread, generalized. Begin to feed more confidence in yourself. You mention a rudiment that are able to assimilate until then. Never search results during the period. 

My answer is based on subjective experience. No pretense of teaching, but only the desire to communicate. 

The eyes can be kept open or closed or half closed. It does not matter. Do as you like, as you seem more useful. Personally, I close them. 

When you become aware of being distracted resume viewing. 

You do not have to sacrifice at all. In the most absolute way! Assume a comfortable position, anatomically correct. If it is impossible or difficult uses a stool with backrest. 

Do not exaggerate either the duration for the simple reason that once you're tuned into the exercise, and thus with yourself, you will easily find the right concentration and how much time be reserved. In addition, a crop during the course of the day there is almost always. You can meditate perfectly well before the PC (off). 

For the moment I can only reiterate this suggestion: note that efforts will do nothing but patience. 

And if breathing became more and more faint until they seem almost imperceptible? 

Can happen. And not just observing the breath clearly, but also by praying in silence, contemplating, or religious subjects, ... The possibilities are many. I personally am not attracted to mysticism, the way that the other party would inevitably mean that treatment, care and circumstances very different from a simple and lonely sitting meditation. In this society should favor the presence of mind as efficiency. When I found myself very contemplative moods, my teacher called me back to reality urging them to respond by walking and working consciously. There is also the possibility to continue to observe the breath going down to the smallest detail to the impulse of the mind that determines the physical movement. At these levels of practice becomes aware that attention is reflected in the clarity of perception by re-establishing good relationships between things, ourselves and the world around us, recreating balance, equidistance, a substantial relaxation due to the presence of mind and therefore not the continuing exercise.

Meditation spontaneous

Without attempting 

Meditation, however it is understood, always require a stop. The camp will be mostly short interior. Research subsides, his fervor fade. Of course, being without seeking to happen spontaneously. Siddhartha Gautama Buddha "awakening" when he came to the conclusion that every effort had been made there since the ascetic relatively useless. Indeed, the very effort became the main obstacle. This is undertaken and privileges the "Middle Way". The "Way of Balance" in which the mind, which tends to be extremist, he reassures himself. 
Terms 

A good teacher not you ever put limits of theoretical research, specific conditions to be satisfied, except the attempt to raise the awareness in you that then guides you in the decisions of an ethical nature. In fact what is true for you is not guaranteed to work or be meaningful to others. The rules are flexible. There is a deterministic mechanism, but a good relativism. Your body, mind, what we call spirit, they are independent or the same? There are a number of reports, but even more important is the point of view. If you look at projected to the outside world is almost everything you see on. Instead, if you look at different perspective, not the reflection of the outside world on the mirror of your consciousness, but what is, for what it is, beyond the different, almost inevitable, cultural conditioning, not to label anything, without using the discursive thought except when absolutely necessary, I said, if you change your perspective you can see - at first only happens sometimes - you can see the spiritual nature inherent in any object. 
Spontaneous Meditation 

The achievement of a certain state of inner relaxation is the key to overcome the dichotomy and the alternating action / non-action. This may be achieved through meditation. 

Yeah! ... Just the key ... 

This key is found in the true state of meditative, spontaneous and natural as expressed in everyday life, actions and choices of ordinary and exceptional. This key becomes preordained choice without awareness, drive carefully to the situation, accurate and sensitive expression of the moment, freedom from unconscious programming or unconscious egoic reactions, masking a passing desire for action or purpose. 

This key is the "purpose without purpose." 

No need to meditate. Formal techniques of meditation are not essential but you must remain alert, loose, relaxed and yet attentive. Reserve for themselves the periods of healthy relax listening to music, watching the sea, blue sky, nature in general trying to grasp and accommodate the pace. The nice thing is that all this is already, in itself, meditation. But each seeks the phenomenal, prodigious business, excellence, perfectionism. Everyone is forgetting that harmony arises mainly from pursuing its own balance. Even those who observe the natural and spontaneous flow of the breath must not forget that along with him or grab him, but only practice (if any) to remain attentive. 

The spontaneity with which we are arguing is, almost always, the natural consequence of an initial effort of awareness. The silence is its climax, the joy unmotivated completion. Meditation is spontaneous life lived consciously, presence of mind that allows the emergence of a current of serene, peaceful, yet effervescent energy. It is not, therefore, to devote time solely to themselves, to be able to carve out just the short breakers introspective, but to arrive at expanding the quiet relaxation in the routine, in rut, in the everyday.

Meditation: Effortlessness

On the other hand, the lack of effort on the availability, there are behaviors to be observed, but with powers to conquer some sacrifice, with its application, attention, understanding, etc.. 

An example a little 'more concrete. Even a solid body that travels into space requires an initial thrust acceleration. Only then will continue to inertia, but at first the application of a certain force, a push of a planning or motivation are essential. 

How can we not have jobs does not mean to abstain from any activity, but to find ways to relax, both physically and mentally. This could happen spontaneously, but usually occurs mainly as a result of a particular employment or engagement. Do not do. But how secure the non-meditation, meditation that is as non-doing? It 'almost always essential for beginners to experiment and active involvement. Then follow, in a relatively spontaneous, a period of quiescence vigilant - rest, calm, inactivity, stillness, inertia, quiet, waiting, tranquility, surrender, acceptance, passivity - and pleasant relaxation. 

Enterprising and experienced meditators, accustomed to the merger, and the application of attention, do not be discouraged by reading the above, it is a good method, it is meant to stress the commitment to overcome the impasse that the initial, sometimes principle prevents you to meditate. But once you overcome your own shyness, the Great Seal (Maha-mudra) of Tilopa, spontaneity, since the absence of effort, may prove crucial. It depends on your natural inclinations ... 

In summary, inner peace, stress, challenges and desires are not polar opposites. To achieve the peace we need to relax, to "let go". But this kind of "surrender" the interior can only take place after a strain and its coronation - yet carefully, because the satisfaction of its desire is a temporary event which reiterates the game forever - or from having truly understood, ie not only intellectually, but existentially particular, that there is no entity that can or must surrender.

Meditation: Effortlessness

On the other hand, the lack of effort on the availability, there are behaviors to be observed, but with powers to conquer some sacrifice, with its application, attention, understanding, etc.. 

An example a little 'more concrete. Even a solid body that travels into space requires an initial thrust acceleration. Only then will continue to inertia, but at first the application of a certain force, a push of a planning or motivation are essential. 

How can we not have jobs does not mean to abstain from any activity, but to find ways to relax, both physically and mentally. This could happen spontaneously, but usually occurs mainly as a result of a particular employment or engagement. Do not do. But how secure the non-meditation, meditation that is as non-doing? It 'almost always essential for beginners to experiment and active involvement. Then follow, in a relatively spontaneous, a period of quiescence vigilant - rest, calm, inactivity, stillness, inertia, quiet, waiting, tranquility, surrender, acceptance, passivity - and pleasant relaxation. 

Enterprising and experienced meditators, accustomed to the merger, and the application of attention, do not be discouraged by reading the above, it is a good method, it is meant to stress the commitment to overcome the impasse that the initial, sometimes principle prevents you to meditate. But once you overcome your own shyness, the Great Seal (Maha-mudra) of Tilopa, spontaneity, since the absence of effort, may prove crucial. It depends on your natural inclinations ... 

In summary, inner peace, stress, challenges and desires are not polar opposites. To achieve the peace we need to relax, to "let go". But this kind of "surrender" the interior can only take place after a strain and its coronation - yet carefully, because the satisfaction of its desire is a temporary event which reiterates the game forever - or from having truly understood, ie not only intellectually, but existentially particular, that there is no entity that can or must surrender.

Work on Anapanasati

Anapana-sati This technique directs the mind greedy and ambitious, the mind that seeks and lusts, from the past or the future to the present. And the truth is in the present. Being here and now is the truth. Anapana-sati is a technique to get used to being alone with themselves. 

Meditation is not something that you can "do", but encouraged. You can only create the conditions for it "happen." In fact, when it, meditation is present, there is no longer anyone to confirm this: the subject, that is the one who meditates, has become one with his experience. Has transcended its limits. He no longer needs to observe in detail the details of an event. It receives a summary? We say that it understands the essence. Its existence is no longer separate, and not contiguous, but in harmony with all that which dwells. Beyond form, color, sound, detail, becomes the conscience itself. 

Since our main objective is to bring clarity, here are some notes on the techniques immediately taking advantage of the financial year as an example Anapana-sati, that is the focus on breathing. An exercise of vigilant attention and relaxed observed behavior. 

Usually the attention is not a neutral act, and participation and focuses on one element at a time. During the early stages of implementation, attention is constantly focused on a specific direction, the spontaneous flow of breath. It is not, of course, the concentration, but an observation impartial and unbiased. Undulations and oscillations of the attention are always able to distract us, but in this case it is suggested to observe the very cause of distraction. It could be a minor annoyance, or a trifling thought that even without being consciously formulated interferes with the original intent, which must still go back as soon become aware of oncoming inattention. 

Alfine to better coordinate the care, some teachers advised not to follow exactly the flow of breath throughout its path in your body, but to simply observe the point of contact in a specific area, such as the nostrils. Or to see expansion and contraction of the abdomen. 

Later, with time and the continuation of the practice, it will happen more and more to overcome the mere perception of mechanical air flow, ie the muscles which contract and relax, to become aware of the breath itself, its intrinsic qualities. 

The most significant effects of observation of the breath is in order, calm progress of its rhythm, followed by a slowdown in mind, a mastery of the mind that enables a versatile presence of mind.