Keeping a daily meditation practice non-robotic

[Max_V]

Any tips for how to have a consistent meditation habit but at the same time keep it conscious and deliberate?

Throughout my 4 year meditation journey I have noticed that it's very difficult to have both

Consinstency gives you constant practice but also has the characteristic of after some time making you go through the motions instead of consciously choosing to meditate.

On and off meditation, on moments of inspiration, gives me real conscious and good sessions, but at the same time makes the habit inconsistent and leaves me with days where I feel overwhelmed because of a lack of processing that I get through meditation. 

Interested to hear your thoughts.

Edited July 14, 2020 by Max_V

[electroBeam]

Intention is your key. 

The robotic nature of meditation usually comes from having an egoic, state based, or results/achievement oriented intention, rather than the intention to know the truth for truth's sake, or to get in touch with God, etc. 

Ask yourself "What's a Loving/Compassionate/Curious/Honest intent for meditating today?" before the meditation session. 

[Shiva99]

It's actually very simple. If you feel the drive to meditate, you meditate. If you don't feel the drive to meditate, you don't. It's only difficult because you have certain expectations of yourself on how much, how consistent or whatever you have to be with meditation, and when reality doesn't meet up with that, you have an inner conflict. Stop.

Edited July 14, 2020 by Shiva99

[Max_V]

@electroBeam Intention is real good advice. I have tried it a little before, but never actually committed to it. Thank you  

@Shiva99 I do feel like meditating whenever I have the drive to has something special. But, a plethora of different people keep advocating for consistent meditation. I'd like to understand why. Leo talked about it a while back, and have felt some sort of obsession to do it ever since. Mind you I was 16 at the time, so I didn't think much for myself back then.

Edited July 14, 2020 by Max_V

[LovingYou]

Two people can take medicine. One needs motivation to take it because he doesn’t like the taste and doesn’t make the connection between the medicine and the benefits. The other happily takes it because he knows the bad taste is a small price to pay for the amazing benefits. 

I’m not saying that you should believe that meditation has amazing benefits and therefore you’re being a faulty human for not doing it. I’m saying that you should answer that question for yourself. If you realize that meditation is worth doing, you won’t need motivation. 

Again, I’m not saying that meditation is definitely worth doing. I’m just suggesting that perhaps you haven’t answered that question for yourself adequately? 
 

I’ll ask the question: is meditation worth doing? If you have any doubts then I recommend you explore those doubts. I’m telling you to experiment with yourself. I don’t think you’ve given enough attention to whether meditation is actually worth doing. My guess is that you’ve just been doing it because enough people told you it’s worth doing. You haven’t answered the question for yourself :))

Some people can simply do something just because someone (Like a guru) told them. Some people are skeptics (which is totally fine), and need to be proven something’s worth before they commit. I invite you to find out for yourself whether meditation is useful. Maybe you realize it isn’t and you stop doing it! I’m not saying any of this anticipating an outcome for you :))

Edited July 14, 2020 by LovingYou

[Max_V]

@LovingYou that’s a fair assumption to make from my first post. 

I do feel that meditation is really important and one of the ‘realest’ moments of my day. It’s one of the things that I want to dedicate my life to. 

The inconsistency more so comes from the tugging of my ego. I get real, real strong ego backlashes

[Shiva99]

13 minutes ago, Max_V said:

I do feel like meditating whenever I have the drive to has something special. But, a plethora of different people keep advocating for consistent meditation. I'd like to understand why. Leo talked about it a while back, and have felt some sort of obsession to do it ever since. Mind you I was 16 at the time, so I didn't think much for myself back then.

I'm getting scarcity vibes. I think you are meditating to get somewhere. Do you think meditation will happen if you totally let it go?

[nistake]

Intention is really important, but in my opinion, try to view meditation as a lifestyle, not just a practise that you do everyday.

If you think about it, there's no difference between your meditation sessions and your everyday life.

Edited July 14, 2020 by nistake

[WelcometoReality]

@Shiva99 well put.

[LovingYou]

15 minutes ago, Max_V said:

@LovingYou that’s a fair assumption to make from my first post. 

I do feel that meditation is really important and one of the ‘realest’ moments of my day. It’s one of the things that I want to dedicate my life to. 

The inconsistency more so comes from the tugging of my ego. I get real, real strong ego backlashes

Can you describe that feeling in more detail? I’m not sure what you’re referring to. 

[Toby]

What kind of technique are you using?

[Shiva99]

50 minutes ago, WelcometoReality said:

@Shiva99 well put.

??.

 

[Ry4n]

alternating between 3-4 different techniques kept things interesting for me, although sometimes all you can do is take a break. The benefit of stopping for a while is that you'll see what it does to your mind and you'll want nothing of it; all the neuroses and monkey mind start creeping back in like crazy. Also not being too hard on yourself helps.

[Nak Khid]

17 hours ago, Max_V said:

Any tips for how to have a consistent meditation habit but at the same time keep it conscious and deliberate?

Throughout my 4 year meditation journey I have noticed that it's very difficult to have both

 

 4 years, every day ? 

[LfcCharlie4]

How about doing it because you love it every single day at the same time? 
 

you could still do that in a spontaneous matter & out of the life for doing it even if you did it say everyday at the same time, like Electro said, it’s all about your intention! 

[CVKBT]

What helps me is to have a constant practice + experimenting with other techniques. For example, my Kriya Yoga practice is daily and I often find myself unmotivated to do it. But I still do it. Sometimes in the end, it was worth it, sometimes I was still left unsatisfied. Yet I still wanted to experiment with "my" Consciousness. So what I did was just curiously trying stuff out. Be it with or without technique. Sometimes I just sat for half an hour and kinda treated it like a psychedelic trip (e.g. let come what comes; basically did nothing, but not as a technique). Other times I put on binaural beats. Sometimes I stumbled upon different styles of meditation, from zen to woo-woo New Age type of stuff. The point I want to make is, to just stay curious about your own Being and not be afraid to dabble with other stuff. 

What I found was, that the experimenting with other stuff always grew my appreciation for my main practice even more. Gotta admit that it can sometimes be reaaaally boring, but in the end, I'm infinitely grateful that I was sticking to my guns and just kept doing Kriya Yoga daily. It really brought me places, and I'm just in the beginning phase. 

So experimenting really helped me getting out of going through the same motions over and over again, since it gave me new perspectives, experiences and insights. 

The only "danger" I see with experimenting a lot with other practices is, that you may half ass everything without really getting deep. And experience chasing is also a great trap I fell into often times.

Of course, reading and listening to spiritual material can reignite the fire in you. But also psychedelics, if you dare, will give you mindfucks that can only make one curious. After my ego got erased to a great degree by mushrooms, my respect for Kriya Yoga and especially Consciousness just blew the roof off. 

A final note, which is probably not for you, but for others: burning through your karma (e.g. chasing material pleasures until that desire is depleated) helps a great deal. This will make your curiousity for higher things come back naturally and more focused than ever. I still have a lot of karma to burn through, so I do both: going for awakening + chasing material pleasures until I'm fed up, to keep me on the path. But that's just me. Hope you could get something out of the long post.