While there are many different types of meditation, there are two general classifications: concentrative and mindfulness.  In concentrative meditation, you focus on clearing your mind to provide you with greater concentration, awareness and clarity. In mindfulness meditation, you open your mind to become more aware of the things around you, such as scents, sounds and thoughts.

The easiest way to engage in concentrative meditation is to sit quietly and focus on your breathing.  Relax and count your breaths as you breathe through your nose. Take deep breaths, hold them and let them out slowly. This helps you to get oxygen into the lowest portions of your lungs.

There are times when you mind may wander, but you refocus on your breathing to get rid of your thoughts. You can also focus on an object when meditating or you may want to repeat a phrase or a word. This is called mantra meditation in which you can choose to repeat the word or phrase aloud or silently in your head.
If you are agitated or worried about something, your breathing will be short and fast when you first start this type of meditation. As you start to relax, your breathing will slow down and become regulated.  As you focus on your breathing or on an object, your mind will become absorbed with the regulation of your breathing and all other thoughts will vanish from your mind.

Zen meditation is one type of concentrative meditation in which you concentrate on the functioning of the heart.  There are three main aims in this form:

• to develop the power of concentration
• to awaken your inner sense of wisdom
• to recognize the action of the Supreme Being on your inner self

The idea is that once you are able to rid yourself of the thoughts of everyday life, you can reach that inner sense of peace that exists in everyone. It helps to calm the mind and body to give you insight into the nature of your existence. You must be patient and persistent in meditating in order for your mind to become clear.

Raja Yoga Meditation is another type of concentrative meditation.  This form of meditation helps you to gain control of your mind to enable to you to develop a sense of peace. The life force of your body moves through the spine so that awareness is able to move into the “Third Eye” which is a point between your eyebrows.

Your mind is not passive and there can be many thoughts racing through it. You try to free yourself of these mindless thoughts and focus on the real meaning of meditating to achieve a pleasant feeling throughout the body.

Mindfulness meditation involves a passing parade of thoughts, emotions and images through your mind. You sit in a meditating position and instead of trying to banish the thoughts from your mind, you allow them to enter. You do acknowledge that they are present but you don’t concentrate on them. This allows you to develop a calm approach to your problems so that you don’t react quickly.

Instead of focusing on one individual thought or scene, you allow each though to become part of the bigger picture. It trains your mind to meditate on things in your life over which you have no control so that you have a heightened sense of inner peace that will enable you to go on with your life in spite or extreme difficulties.

Yoga has its existence from ancient times and its importance has been seen over a period of time. Yoga exercises vary a lot, the simple gentle ones to the relaxing ones. Therefore, it is important that a decision needs to be made about the kind of exercise you would like to go for. For example, if you had an injury and want to try yoga to reduce the pain then the gentle one suits the best.

There are a lot of DVD’s and CD’s available in the market, if you are interested in doing it sitting at home. The best one till date is the oldest method of learning, where an instructor teaches under his guidance, where he will make you understand the meaning and reasoning for all the different postures he will be teaching you. Take a look around, ask people who are already learning or practicing the same in order to select the best instructor. The instructor will not only teach you to reduce the pain but will also help you keeping your body in shape. It is always better to take a class or two and take a decision if you are really comfortable with the instructor or else you can try a new instructor.

The most important thing while starting yoga is to understand the fact that you don’t have to accomplish or challenge anyone around you with your performance. It’s just an art of achieving a good and healthy body for yourself. Also it is very important that the outfit you wear while practicing should give you enough space to breath and should keep your body dry. The best is to take a yoga mat for exercise and drink a lot of water as yoga will extract a lot of liquid fluid from your body. Always make sure that yoga benefits the most, if you are empty stomach. Therefore, always avoid eating before you start with the yoga exercise.

Most of the people have experienced that their mind and body attain the mental peace while practicing yoga. This is what everyone has been looking for.

Yoga is the most important art of living that helps you to maintain your heart and body in the best possible condition. Yoga cannot be regarded as a religion but is a science that has been proven a lot many times and is world renowned. The ultimate goal you can achieve is the union, which means uniting the universal source. This will in turn make you understand that you and the universal sources are inseparable in almost all the ways.

Yoga is versatile and has got many branches but the main can be divided into:

• Bhakti Yoga: emphasises on love, for liberalisation and union.
• Jnana yoga: helps with the philosophical and intellectual approach towards dualistic reality.
• Karma yoga: talks about the selfless service toward liberalisation (moksha).
• Kundalani yoga: is the Kundalani Shakti for enlightenment.
• Raja yoga: talks about the eight steps of self realisation.

The choice of the kind of yoga depends on the reason why you want to do yoga and once that suits your needs; you can achieve your goal without much of a difficulty. Raja yoga is the most common one with the 8 step procedure:

1. Yamas: means abstentions i.e. truth, non-violence, no stealing, control on your sexual energies and non covetousness.

2. Niyams: which are the observations.

3. Asanas: postures and posses involved in the excises.

4. Pranayama: control of vital energies and breathing exercises.

5. Pratyahara: Withdrawal of your Senses.

6. Dharana: talks about increasing the concentrating power.

7. Dhayana: meditation as a part of yoga.

8. Samadhi: the last step is the union with the universal sources.

A regular practice of these will help you attain the mental and physical peace that you want as it not only teaches you to control your body but also your mind. To practice yoga, all you need is dedication and conviction.