The last thing you expect from a hip hop artist is that he meditates. But defying this logic is hip hop artist Russell Simmons who believes that meditation is the gateway to achieving great success in life.
In his book ‘Success through stillness’, Russell discusses his own experience with meditation and how it helped him reach peaks of success in the highly competitive music industry.
According to Russell, ideas and inspiration come to you when your mind is completely still and these ideas can completely change your way of life and propel you towards the success and happiness you deserve.
Here’s is a simple meditation technique that Russell proposes:
Step 1: Sit down comfortably, close your eyes and repeat the mantra ‘RUM’ over and over.
How you say the mantra is totally up to you. You can say it out loudly or simply whisper it. You can repeat the mantra (the word RUM) quickly or slowly. So you can go, Rum, Rum, Rum, Rum as a continuous loop without a break, or pause for a few seconds after every utterance of RUM.
Similarly, you can also utter the word ‘RUM’, fast or play with it and extend your utterance as ‘Rummmmm’ or ‘Ruuuuuum’. In other words, you have complete freedom to use this mantra as and how you feel comfortable.
You will notice that as you utter this mantra, your mouth automatically opens at, Ra and closes at, um to produce the sound. Similarly, your tongue touches the roof of your mouth as you say, Ra and goes down as you finish with, um.
Step 2: As you repeat this mantra, divert all your attention to the sound the mantra generates. You can also try to feel the vibrations this mantra creates in and around your throat area.
If thoughts come and grab your attention, simply let go of the thought and gently bring your attention back to the mantra. For example, if your mind says, ‘This is boring, I cannot do this’, do not engage with the thought, simply let the thought be and it will go away.
Do this for about 10 to 20 minutes.
If you have not meditated much before, the first few minutes will be the most challenging, but once you are past that and your mind settles and you will start to feel relaxed and in the zone.
As Russell puts it, “When a monkey in a cage realizes that the cage is not going to move, it stops bouncing around and starts to settle down; the mind is just like that.”
Here’s a video of Russell explaining how to deal with thoughts during meditation:
