Beginners find it difficult to bring their thoughts under control and also in maintain their focus. There are many techniques and tricks that can help them achieve this. Listed below are the most important of the steps for Meditation for beginners Posture: Posture is extremely important to bring the mind under control. There is a direct relation between the posture adopted by the people and their thought process. For example, a person who is slouching on a couch is bound to be thinking about idle thoughts and a person who is erect is definite to be concentrating on something. This mind – posture relationship is an automatic process in the normal world but for meditation, it has to be controlled. When a person tries to concentrate on something, he/she automatically sits erect. The reverse must be done with meditation. The body needs to be erect; the spine needs to be straight and this sends a signal to the brain that something important is going to happen and that it needs to focus. Many practitioners neglect this aspect and face difficulties. The instructors and guides also do not pay much attention to this aspect. But in reality, this is a very important aspect, which can speed up the thought control process. Focus: Bringing the thoughts under control is easier said than done, especially in Meditation for beginners. The mind wanders on its own accord and random thoughts pass through, that too at great speed. The first step in gaining focus is to let the mind run its own course. People will need to try ad understand each though as it occurs. The next step is to pick one of the thoughts out of the random assortment and continue thinking about this one thought for as long as possible. The third step is the increase the duration of the though process on each individual thought. By now, the mind would have gained reasonable control on the thoughts and will be able to focus on a single thought for a longer duration. The fourth step is to try and eliminate all the random thoughts – BY NOT SELECTING ANY THOUGHT OUT OF THE ASORTMENT. This can be a difficult step and can take a few days to gain control. By now the knows that you are not going to select any thought and so tries to automatically blank out the thoughts. The entire process can take anywhere between 5 to 10 days to gain some control. If people complete this successfully, they are well on their course to reap the benefits of meditation.