It amazes me that sometimes my experience with NSR is so effortless, so rewarding, and then other days it is like I am starting all over again. I write a post that sounds so positive only to write back a few days latter full of doubts and questions. I have practiced other forms of meditation, Kriya, Easwaran's Passage Meditation, Benson's Relaxation Response, etc., but nothing has had so profound effect upon me in such a short amount of time. I am changing for the better and not really doing anything to create this change except for sitting for a half hour a day. But still doubts creep in. Today was not rewarding at all. In fact I have had a headache since my morning meditation. I get so caught up in whether or not I am doing it right. It seems like you just know what to do and I never will. When you say think the mantra do you really mean mental repitition, just without exertion? It just doesn't make sense that I should be willing to let the mantra go. But is it that once I start the mantra, even if I "lose" it, it is still going on, just in a part of my mind that I can't "hear" it?
I don't know why I make something so simple such a problem. It's like, the session only lasts fifteen minutes, so I had better get it right! Then I go at it with force and anxiety. Because if I don't do it right I won't have another chance until evening. See what I mean? I'm crazy. Its just that the CD says to repeat the mantra, the manual says to think the mantra, we are to come back to it effortlessly when we forget it, other places say to just let it go. I am not a good student. Anything you could say to clear this up and encourage me would be appreciated.