The place for meditation

It will be most helpful to your practice if you have a special place exclusively for your practice of meditation. Your mind will begin to associate that place with meditation and will more easily enter a quiet and peaceful state when you sit there. If you can set aside an entire room for practicing meditation, or even a large well-ventilated closet, that is good, but just an area in a room is adequate. The important thing is that the area be devoted exclusively to your meditation.

Your meditation place should be as quiet as possible. As a rule earplugs are not recommended for the practice of meditation since you can become distracted by the sensation of pressure in the ears, or the chirping, cricket-like noises that go on all the time in the ears, or the sound of your heartbeat. But if you need them, use them. Your place of meditation should ideally be a place where you can most easily forget outer distractions, but if it is not, you can still manage to practice meditation successfully.

It should be softly or dimly lighted. (Full darkness might tend to make you go to sleep.) It is also good to turn off any electric lights, as their pulsation–even though not perceived by the eyes–affects the brain waves and subtly agitates the mind. (Halogen lights do not pulsate, so they are no problem if they do not glare.) If you like having a candle or wick lamp burning when you meditate, they should be a kind that does not flicker. Even a very dim electric light somewhere in the room out of the range of your sight is better than a flickering candle or lamp in front of you. 

The room should be moderate in temperature and free from drafts, both cold and hot. It is also important that it be well ventilated so you do not get sleepy from lack of oxygen in the air.  Some mediators like to burn incense when they meditate. This is a good practice if the smoke does not irritate their lungs or noses. Unfortunately, most incense, including that from India, contains artificial, toxic ingredients that are unhealthy.

The two best kinds of incenses to use are genuine sandalwood or frankincense. Sandal is considered the highest vibratory fragrance. Frankincense and rose also possess a very high vibration. There are several brands of incense that are genuine, but the Auroshika brand made at the Aurobindo Ashram in India is the most trustworthy.