Free meditation classes in New Zealand

About our courses

Each of our introductory course options normally feature between 4-6 sessions and cover a carefully structured and progressive series of guided meditations. Our focus here is on teaching the essential steps to establishing a successful home practise.

Options include an 'early bird' one week intensive offering five consecutive 7:00 am – 8:15 am morning workshops; a 5:45 – 7:00 pm early evening course series; and our more popular 7:30 – 9:00 pm evening programme.

A typical course

Each complete course introduces a broad range of techniques, enabling each person to become acquainted with several different approaches to meditation and to explore their preferred method of practise.

Session I:

• Topic: What is meditation? - How does it work? An introductory overview of the benefits and principles of meditation.
• Exercise: 'Still mind – still breath'. Breathing techniques to focus and calm the mind.
• Topic: The ABC's of meditation at home – when/where/how long/ how often? Introducing the first steps in developing your daily practise.
• Exercise: The heart chakra – a guided meditation in the spiritual heart centre to bypass the restless mind!

Session II:

• Exercise: Breath visualisation and opening the heart centre through meditation – developing our concentration on the power of breath.
• Topic: An introduction to mantra meditation.
• Exercise: Putting theory into practise – a guided exercise in mantras. Our Centre musicians often join us for this session and perform a number of live mantric song–chants during our meditation.

Session III:

• Topic: An introduction to the principle branches of Yoga.
• Exercise: Bhakti yoga – a guided meditation.
• Topic: Physical excellence and well-being as a foundation for spiritual growth.
• Exercise: 'Light of the soul' – a guided meditation.

Session IV:

• Topic: The principle of holistics – the mind/body/spirit connection and how to harmonise these to deepen your meditation experience.
• Exercise: Music and meditation.
• Topic: Using meditation as a life-skill in problem solving/decision making/eliminating stress.
• Exercise: Japa meditation – purifying the mind.

Session V:

• Topic: An overview of the spiritual paths and masters.
• Exercise: A meditation visualisation on the crown, third eye and heart chakras.
• Topic: 'Enhancing creative potential through meditation' – how to use the silence, stillness and inspiration of meditation to tap into the source of creativity and discover new capacities in art, writing, music.

What's Next?

Once you have completed an introductory course you are most welcome to join our free continuation programme. This normally offers two evenings per week of guided meditations and discussion points and focuses more specifically on deepening your meditation practise. We will also introduce in more depth the teachings of Sri Chinmoy which are filled with much practical advice on how to develop and maintain a strong and blossoming spiritual life while living in our busy modern world.

Meditation is a divine gift. Meditation simplifies our outer life and energises our inner life. Meditation gives us a natural and spontaneous life, a life that becomes so natural and spontaneous that we cannot breathe without being conscious of our own divinity.

Sri Chinmoy

Weekend Workshops

Regular one and two day workshops are offered through the Sri Chinmoy Centre Meditation Course programme. One of the most popular of these is our Seven Secrets of Meditation course which introduces what we believe are the seven key principles in any successful personal practise.

Articles on meditation

Inspired by the teachings of Sri Chinmoy and their personal experiences of meditation, some of our members have written articles on the subject - offerings of their inspiration.

Meditation - Touching The Infinite

"What is meditation? Most of us have had meditative moments at some time in our lives often without realising what they are – moments when all the usual preoccupations and thoughts of the mind fall away, leaving us with an experience of calm, clarity, delight."

Read more: Meditation - Touching The Infinite - by Jogyata Dallas.

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Meditation

"Learning meditation has been the most rewarding and beneficial persuit in my life. In such a short time and with very little personal effort, I have been so suprised at the effects I have experienced in my practice of meditation. Now it has become a part of my life that feeds my soul, opens my heart and charges me with inner energy and enthusiasm for life."

Read more: Meditation - by Preetidutta Thorpe.

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Fast Track To God

"One of the fruits of meditation is self-knowledge – and one of the gains of self-knowledge is a growing understanding of our soul’s promise and purpose on earth. This rarely comes as a sudden revelation but emerges instead over a handful of years, a precious fruit ripening on our life-tree or a slow and gradual dawn."

Read more: Fast Track To God - by Jogyata Dallas.

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A Swimming Pool Meditation

"To be living on this earth when a great master lives, breathes, moves amongst us – what an incalculable blessing. We read about the highest of these, the Avatars, but usually their physical absence numbers long centuries, even longer millennia, though their legacy is eternal."

Read more: A Swimming Pool Meditation - by Jogyata Dallas.

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Music and Meditation

"Meditation is a wonderful lifeskill for musicians to master, and offers many positive benefits especially in the area of composition and creativity because so much of our artistic, creative talents have their origin in a deeper part of our being, the 'nest of silence' which Sri Chinmoy speaks of so lucidly."

Read more: Music and Meditation - by Jogyata Dallas.

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Meditation Nights at the Sri Chinmoy Centre

"Centre meditation nights are a highlight in my week, when I always have my best meditations and my aspiration seems to multiply. My spiritual family – seventy other members of the Sri Chinmoy Centre in Auckland also join me in our meditation room, which is abundantly decorated with flowers, spiritual books, photos and Sri Chinmoy’s beautiful bird paintings. The incense is wafting through and the room is pin-drop silent. A few of us are reading on cushions while we wait for more to arrive. The singing starts in the next room led by melodies on the harmonium."

Read more: Meditation Nights at the Sri Chinmoy Centre - by Preetidutta Thorpe.

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On Meditation

"I was attracted to meditation because I needed to alleviate the stress that I found inside me as I dealt with my lifestyle, being a PhD science student (with a scholarship from MAF) and an odd-job professional musician."

Read More: On Meditation - by Toshala Elliott.

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How Meditation Can Transform Your Life

"The easiest way to achieve this experience in our own lives is through the regular practise of meditation. Meditation, in essence, is the experience of calming and quietening the mind to discover the vastness, peace and tranquility that we all have within."

Read More: How Meditation Can Transform Your Life - by Harita Davies.