When learning how to meditate or following any kind of meditation instruction, it's important to remember the steps it takes and the pitfalls you may encounter.
   But for those who are just starting out in practicing meditation, you are probably wondering what the purpose of following meditation instructions are or why they exist in the first place.
  When you follow meditation instructions, you're not really learning how to meditate but practicing and how to apply a specific set of rules to your meditation practice.
 At the beginning, it's good to follow the rules so that you can give yourself some kind of structure and form to the practice in and of itself, however, once you become more comfortable with your practice and reach higher levels of awareness, its OK to break the rules a bit and find what works for you and what doesn't.
 But sometimes that's not always the case with some practitioners.
 Thus, if you're one of those who are a bit of an anarchist, then perhaps you can pick a meditation you like or are attracted to and create your own rules for awareness and enlightenment.
   Rules in mediation are just guidelines for practice and essentially there is no right or wrong way to follow these rules, only that you use them for structure and to reach your ultimate goal of achievements as a result of the practice itself.
  Whether you are a teacher or a student of meditation practice, the one thing you will come to realize is that while meditating and following instructions, the experience as well as concepts of instruction in the moment are really the things you need to worry about.
 For example, when you are instructed to become aware of your breath coming in and out of your body, you don't do it in a mechanical robotic way.
 Instead, you begin to experience the breathing and become one with it.
 This is also true for instructed visualization.
 If you force the visualization and do not let it come to you naturally, you will never see the intended or instructed image.
 Instead, you just might see a blank fuzzy screen or a kaleidoscope of colors flashing through your mind.
 And if that happens, that's ok, because it takes time for your mind to acclimate and in time the visual will come to you.
  That leads us to something that's very important when following meditation instruction: let go of your expectations.
 It seems that when we learn to meditate, we automatically expect this transcendental experience to occur like the stories we heard about George Harrison or Allen Ginsberg during the Hippie Era of the late 1960s.
 That's just a legend and idea that was put into our heads with visual images of happiness, harmony, and creativity.
   While that happiness, harmony, and creativity can and sometimes will be achieved depending on the person, in reality, what we saw of the transcendentalists will more than likely not be the same for us.
 The ideal or the image is essentially an attachment that we need to let go of because if we strive for that ideal, and we never make it each time, we will constantly be disappointed.