Quiet the Mind: Guided Group Meditation

In the previous Quiet the Mind articles, we covered misconceptions about meditation, and started our visualizations with the rainbow and the stairway. More complete active meditations will follow. I did feel compelled to devote one article in the series to the practice of Guided Group Meditation. I felt it would be important to discuss why some people prefer a group meditation, while others avoid them. If you are new to visualization and meditation, you may feel you need more guidance than written articles to help you, and believe me, I can understand that sentiment. I will gladly share with you my own experience with group meditation and should you feel you would like to try it, by all means, do so. Only you can determine if it is a good venue for you to learn and develop.

When I first wanted to learn how to meditate with active purpose, though meditation had been around for centuries, it was far from mainstream where I lived. I spent weeks learning what I could from books, for though dinosaurs were long since gone, the internet was fairly new. I read how to do visualizations, and practiced with great devotion. Progress was slow at first and in some ways challenging to notice.

A family member who knew I was trying to learn to meditate mentioned to me that there was a New Age type center fairly close to where we lived. She informed me she had seen an ad about an open house for new members and one of the demonstrations offered was Guided Group Meditation. (Follow this path of spirituality for a little while, and you notice all sorts of things that seem to drop in your lap when you need them.) I of course urged the family member to join me, and decided to check out the place and what they offered. It was an enjoyable experience and I found myself driving back that very night for a full-length group meditation.

Well, I found for seven dollars one could have quite a relaxing and informative evening. Several times a week the center brought in guest speakers to talk about the topic of the night. After these devoted practitioners or professionals spoke, there was a guided meditation followed immediately by an open forum discussion. My first few times attending the events I must admit, I felt lost and a bit out of place. When I learned to be relaxed and let happen what would, I did find it soothing and helpful.

I attended a couple of seminars offered, took a couple of classes, and began to learn how I could continue my path of discovery on my own. I then had to decide if I would continue coming to the center. One evening after what I felt was quite a lovely guided meditation there was, shall we say, a rather disruptive conversation that immediately followed in the open forum. A woman who had experienced the exact same meditation I had just enjoyed became very critical with our moderator (the nice woman who guided the meditation) and began nearly ranting. She complained there were stairs leading down in the meditation and she felt that was wrong because meditation should be an uplifting experience. She felt the moderator gave too many details about each scene we were supposed to be witnessing, thus taking away from her enjoyment of what she might be able to see on her own. She even complained that many times the choice of words the moderator used gave her negative feelings that disrupted the flow for her.

I will give credit where it is due. The moderator for that evening was very calm and patient with the obviously agitated woman. Our moderator gave the woman ample time to voice her complaints, validated a few of her feelings, and then explained when she leads a meditation she is actually meditating herself and simply shares aloud all she is seeing.

I must say it was a very strained experience for me. All the relaxation I had gained from the meditation was quickly spent as I felt myself becoming aggravated with the critical opinions being shared. Instead of the peaceful loving feelings I usually had for other members of the group after the meditation, I sort of wanted to go out in the parking lot and key this woman's car. Pretty far from the goal I had in mind when I wanted to learn to start meditation. Thank goodness our moderator, after addressing the woman's long list of complaints, reminded all of us it was important to feel comfortable after the group meditation and to feel it is all right to share anything that comes to mind. I came quite close to sharing what had just been going through my mind. Instead, I took a deep breath and realized if I could entertain thoughts that were a tad malicious that soon after meditation, I obviously still had a few things to learn.

The reason I told you that story? In a nutshell, it does explain how the Guided Group Meditation experience can be for us. One person can come away feeling relaxed and uplifted, while another can come away feeling cheated and distraught. As with many endeavors in life, one could check off columns of pros and cons for the experience.

It is important to remember, a Guided Group Meditation is exactly what it portrays itself to be. It is very much like a guided tour and what you get out of it will be determined by your own level of involvement. If you follow along with the guide like a lemming, you will see what the guide directs you to and what many of the others will see as well. If you let your eye or mind wander to what you wish to notice, you will come away with a more personalized experience.

Would I recommend it? I think if you are interested in it, you should certainly try it. As I mentioned, it took several times before I came comfortable with it, and it did help me with my initial obstacle, which was visualizing. Think of it like this. If you go to a museum and avoid the guided tour because you want to see only the exhibits you are interested in, you might be missing some information the tour guide could give you. That tour guide may give a much better explanation about an exhibit than what is written on the description near it. He might also guide you to some exhibits that would put you to sleep, and if in a meditation you drift off to sleep, then that is what you needed more than the meditation itself.

I suppose the best advice I could give on the subject, should you go to try it, keep an open mind and only take away what you need from it. Many groups who meditate together often have certain rituals or a certain setting they enjoy. If you tried sitting in with the group and found the music wonderful and the aroma of the candle egregious, just take what you need. Find out the name of the cd that was playing, and maybe make note of that candle scent to be certain you avoid it when buying one for your own meditation. If you find you enjoy being led on the visualization by someone, ask the moderator if you can record a meditation or find out where you can buy prerecorded material. If you find the experience distracting or unpleasant, it is up to you if you would be willing to give it another try.

One final note to you folks who wish to visualize or meditate as a sleep aid only. Keep in mind if you go to a group meditation and begin snoring, grinding your teeth, and perhaps go for the hat trick and start drooling on yourself, you might endure a bit of ridicule, teasing, or finger pointing. Of course, you will be asleep, so what does it matter? I have been in group meditations in which people fell asleep and did those things. My favorite one was when our moderator got up in the middle of the meditation and put a blanket over the sleepy fellow.

If you are nervous about trying a group meditation, all I can tell you is you will find most folks who engage in it regularly are a pretty accepting group. The meditations I will describe in coming articles were nearly all meditations I did alone at first. I have since used some of them for group meditations I have led. (Yes, I have come a long way since I felt an urge to key someone's car after a meditation.)