29 April 2015 - QA 5

I practice yoga about three times a week and we do a little meditation in the class. What I find most difficult, is dealing with my mind when lots of thoughts keep coming up. How should one deal with this?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

The biggest problem is that we try to eliminate thoughts, and we think that we should have no thoughts in the mind. Meditation is not concentration. Unfortunately many people give you this idea that meditation means that you need to focus your mind, and get rid of other thoughts, and keep only positive thoughts,. No, meditation is an art. It is a way to make the mind relax, and for that there is no effort involved. You can talk to one of our teachers.