Almost every beginner starts their meditative journey with guided meditation. And this is indeed, the perfect way to start – with proper guidance. But when is the right time to move on to more silent self-guided meditations?
Use guided meditations if you are a beginner, still learning a new technique or as a temporary crutch if you are experiencing difficult emotions or feelings. Otherwise, try slowly adding more quiet periods to your practice so you become more comfortable sitting with yourself in silence.
Let’s explore both the benefits and drawbacks of both guided and silent meditation, and help you gain some wisdom on which to practice and when.
Guided vs Unguided Meditation
In guided meditation, a qualified meditation teacher or experienced practitioner leads a student to practically apply the fundamental principles of a certain technique to their own mind. In unguided or silent meditation, a student learns to remind oneself and apply these principles on their own.
A good guided meditation will guide the student in a general direction while allowing them space to experience the reality of their own experience, and figure out how to apply the principles of the practice to their own unique mind-body complex. It will leave students with enough silence to explore this space, while giving occasional gentle reminders about what to do if one gets lost.
Is Guided Meditation Better?
Guided meditation is a must for beginners. When you start, you’ll need to either take an effective meditation course or use guided meditations in order to learn the basics. It is really important that you understand your technique properly from the start – that is, how to practice and why you are practicing it.
It is also essential to read the right books, to keep you on track and motivated. Getting the basics right, you will ensure that you build on them to develop the right mental habits.
This is the same principle as in any sport. If you want to start playing golf, it is fundamental that you begin with lessons that will get your technique right from the start. If you don’t do this, you will develop bad swing habits that will carry over for years and be extremely hard to unlearn later on. Get it right in the first place, and you’ll have a solid foundation to build on.
Soothing and calming
Guided meditations will be an important part of your practice in the first few years. Before you develop the strength and resilience to go off on your own, they provide a great way to soothe and calm yourself when you are feeling stressed. They are a great way to comfort yourself, as you relax into the hands of a recorded professional who knows how to soothe the inner workings of the mind.
Even when you start dabbling in silent meditation, you will keep coming back to the safety of a soothing voice directing you to peace and calm every now and then. This is normal and there’s nothing wrong with it.
As you proceed further along your journey, start adding in more and more silent periods to your meditations. Try to rely less and less on guided meditations as you keep solidifying a strong foundation for your practice. This is important because, in the long run, we don’t want to become dependent on having an electronic recording handy to relax us. We want to be able to do this on our own. We want to be able to find peace in any situation.
Signposts and reminders
Over time however, guided meditations will still continue to play an important role on your self-exploration journey. They will act as reminders for the key principles of your practice. If we have been doing our own silent meditations for a while, sometimes we can start struggling. Maybe we get annoyed with our progress or start struggling with difficult emotions that come up. It is in these situations that we need reminders for the fundamentals again.
Our teachers, whether personal or pre-recorded, will provide us with signposts so we can continue on the right path. So even if you are experienced meditator, there is nothing wrong with listening to a guided meditation every once in a while to remind yourself of the fundamentals again.
Is Guided Meditation As Good As Silent Meditation?
Guided meditations can be as good as silent meditations if your goal is to simply relax and calm the mind and body. However, if you want to go deeper in your practice and free yourself from the underlying causes of suffering, you must eventually learn to sit comfortably with yourself in complete silence.
The benefits of silent meditation
Self-Realisation
Being able to meditate with yourself in silence is important, especially if you want to make some real and lasting shifts in your life. Meditation is a process of self-awareness, self-exploration and self-realisation. You may start to realise that this might be best achieved when you are stuck on your own, face to face with only yourself. Knowing yourself is true wisdom, and ultimately, this is the goal in meditation. Full, complete liberating self-knowledge. And when you know yourself in this way, there is no one that can stop you.
When we meditate in complete silence, we really start to heighten our state of awareness of what’s going on inside. Initially, we calm the surface level of the mind and the dust of relentless thought settles. We open up space between thoughts and presumptions about the world. We start objectively observing rather than reacting to everything that happens to us.
This allows space for something else to rise to the surface – thoughts and feelings that we have continually repressed through distraction naturally tend to come into our awareness. Most of the time, we don’t like what we see. That’s why meditation often gets uncomfortable, especially when we sit on our own without guidance. And yes, sometimes we tend to even use that soothing, comforting voice to have a distraction to get us away from that uncomfortable feeling.
Building resilience and self-reliance
The original instructions for meditation are to go to into the wilderness, under the ‘shade of a tree’ or an empty building, sit with yourself in silence, and direct your attention the way your technique wants you to. Given you know your technique well, this generally shouldn’t be a problem. Until it is.
We’ve seen that unguided meditation can bring some sticky things to the surface. You might quickly realise that sitting in silence on your own, without anyone to depend on, can be difficult and scary at first. The first few times you try, you might get surprised by the amount of thoughts that arise in your head.
In this situation, you are all on your own to remind yourself of what you are supposed to be doing and to direct your attention back to where it is supposed to be – whether it is the breath, the body, a mantra or something else. You don’t have anyone else to rely on to remind you. This is where the real practice starts – the practice of self-reliance. Becoming an island onto yourself.
“Be islands unto yourselves, be your own refuge, having no other”
The Buddha
It is important to be aware that this does take practice. It requires diligence and resilience. It will be hard and scary at first but the more you keep trying the more you will be training yourself in exactly these skills. And the more you do, you will notice that these skills start to translate even off the cushion. You will find yourself more resilient in everyday life – able to take on the responsibilities of life and bounce back more easily when you are hit with setbacks.
As you can see, despite its difficulties, practicing silent unguided meditation comes with its perks.
When you need guidance
The more we meditate in complete silence, the more our suppressed feelings and emotions will emerge from our subconscious in their entirety. Sometimes these feelings can be very raw and overwhelming, especially when we are sitting with our eyes closed on our cushion with nowhere to run. Sometimes we start to panic and react to everything we are experiencing. We forget all about what we’re supposed to be doing. When this happens we need to know when we’ve lost our way and when to go back for guidance.
When we feel overwhelmed, sometimes we just need the right guidance to get back on track. Just a simple reminder of what it’s all about and why we are practicing in the first place. This is best done by either:
- Following the guidance of a qualified meditation instructor or a well-constructed meditation course;
- Using a guided meditation that contains and reminds you of the fundamental principles of your meditation technique; or
- Through careful study and research of your meditation technique and/or issues (like you are doing now!).
Of course, a qualified meditation teacher will almost always be the best way forward if you can manage to find one. But sometimes, this is just not possible.
A good guided meditation can be very helpful. While a recording may not be specific advice tailored to your particular situation, it might help remind you of why you are practicing and the basic principles you should follow – something you may have forgotten.
Otherwise, it is always a good idea to do plenty of research and study about your particular technique. Read great meditation books in addition to your daily practice. At minimum, this will act as motivation to keep you going. You might also have to do some online research about your specific problem and see what others say. Trust me, when it comes to meditation issues, you are never alone. There will always be someone out there with a similar issue. When you do feel comfortable enough though, strive to go back to silent meditation whenever you can.
Build your island, bit by bit
However, it is also important to remember that we shouldn’t always go back to guided meditations whenever things get tough. We can sometimes develop a habit of using the friend in our ear as a crutch. And sometimes, you just have to face this situation instead of avoiding confrontation.
In the end, you are your own master, and you decide what is best for you. Only you will know this. The most important thing is that you just don’t give up.
Remember that your end goal is to be an island onto yourself. By not giving up, you will be building your island bit by bit each day. Throughout your life, you won’t always have a gentle soothing voice whispering in your ear, especially when tough situations come out of the blue. You want to be able to use the skills you are developing in meditation, in the real world.
And besides, your technology might not always work, or your internet may be unavailable. So don’t become too dependent on guided recordings. They do not compare to something as amazing and dependable as the breath – something that is with us from the moment we are born to the moment we die.
Conclusion
We progress deeper and deeper into our practice by observing the underlying workings of our mind and body ourselves – how and why we react to the things we do. Knowing yourself is true wisdom. The most effective way to do this is with silent meditation. Through this, we come to important realisations about ourselves, which can sometimes be hard to achieve if someone is talking in your ear in the moment when you actually all you need is some silence.
However, it still is important that you occasionally have proper guidance to point you in the right direction. Know when you need this. Know when it is enough. In the end, just remember to take it easy and be patient with yourself. Dabble in silence more and more. Go back to the training wheels when you have to. And whatever you do, just don’t stop!
Key points to remember
- Slowly increase the time you meditate in silence as you gain experience.
- Go back to guided meditations when you feel like you need to – especially when things get tough. But don’t become too dependent.
- Even if you are experienced, it is completely ok to go back for guidance every now and then to make sure you’re still on the right path.
- If you are serious about your practice, seek the guidance of a competent teacher. Or read a lot along with your practice.
Stay aware, equanimous and don’t worry – everything is fine, be happy!