People start smoking in different ways. For most smokers it is at first an enthusiasm, to experience something different. Almost all start with the idea that they will not get addicted and that they will be able to control this.
At first smoking is not a good experience for many. But how they get hooked is a simple process. When something happy or sad happens or when under stress, they will add some smoking to it, just for fun they say. Since good and bad happens in life at a frequent rate, smoking happens at the same phase. Chain smokers are born when people prefer smoking at good, bad and at times when they have nothing to think of!. Slowly smoking grows as a habit.The fact is that most smokers know the harmful effects of smoking and the seriousness of the grave danger they are in. But they try to ignore the same in responds to the temptation.
Now coming to the point, I was also a smoker, a chain smoker, as my friends said when I was at college. (I still has doubt over that. May be they had mistaken me for keeping packets of cigarettes in my trouser pockets and frequently buying new packets.)
My funds from home was limited and I suspected the cigarette buds to have a big share. In my mind I knew that I must quit smoking immediately or else it would affect my life a horrible way. All my friends kept saying "You just stop smoking". But none came with a practical way. Some suggested me to seek professional help. I was too shy for that.
At that time I came upon this book of 'osho, rajaneesh'. It suggested many different kinds of meditation. I knew that these were not practical in my life, which was highly messed up and lacked any discipline at all. But one idea caught my attention. It was titled 'smoking meditation'. It said that smoking is done unattended and practicing this method help to quit smoking. After reading the idea I laughed for a long time. What a way to meditate. If that is the way I am a big yogi, I joked at the idea. If I practice this way it would kill me at a faster rate.
The method goes like this,
1. Take out the cigarette from packet giving full attention to it. Bring it under your nose and smell fondly over its body. Tap with its tip on the packet. Listen to the small sound produced.
2.Take the cigarette in between the forefinger and middle finger.Put it carefully on your lips. Bite lightly at the end. Let you feel the presence on your lip and mouth.
3.Light it gently. Take a small puff to assist the same.
4.Take a long puff. Take in as much smoke as you can and feel the presence inside your mouth and lungs. Do the process slowly. Listen carefully to the process of inhaling smoke.
5.Take the cigarette off the mouth. Exhale the smoke through the mouth slowly allowing it to get out of the lungs. Feel the smoke going out, smell it and see it forming different shapes or remaining shapeless.
6.Attention: Keep each step as slow as possible and enjoy every step.
Though I took the idea as silly, I planned to give it a try. The experience left me surprised. I had never felt smoking like this before. It was always an automated process and the only thing I was aware of was the need to throw down the bud and take new cigarette in. The new style required some effort from me in the form of attention. This stopped me from taking out new cigarette after smoking one, because I was now aware that, I just smoked one. Smoking was no more a mystery thing or something done in hurry. I don't know how I gradually stopped smoking. But whenever I smoked it was this way and I guess the new style put cigarettes away from my life the same way it intruded into my life, that is without my knowledge.
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