Your sense of smell is closely linked to your emotional center. Enjoy these aromatherapy meditation tips to deepen your practice.

The use of aromatherapy to ground, uplift and focus practitioners for spiritual practice is a very ancient tradition.

People have been smudging, anointing, and inhaling scent for centuries. Churches and temples around the world burn incense.

In a most interesting case of scent connecting spiritual practice, William J. Broad, in his book “Oracle”, describes how the ancient oracles of Delphi derived some of their prescience from hallucinogenic vapors from faults in the earth.

While most of us won’t inhale sulphurous gases to prepare for meditation, aromatherapy can still play an important role.

• Essential oils can bring oxygen to the brain which can increase alertness at the same time increasing focus.
• Certain scents have long been recognized to ground practitioners or to remind them of their Divine Purpose.
• Many spiritual masters will use scent to link a memory to them; scent and memory are closely linked in our brains.

The next time you meditate, try inhaling an essential oil before you begin and notice any changes that come to your practice. After you have found an oil that you enjoy, use it regularly until you have the scent firmly associated with meditation. You will find that merely getting a whiff of the smell will quiet your mind and put you in a meditative frame of mind.

Meditation Tips: Seven Great Essential Oils

In the story of Jesus, the wise men brought frankincense, gold and myrrh. Gold obviously is useful to an honored baby to give wealth. Frankincense was known as a powerful cure. At times it was more valuable than gold in the ancient world. It was used for healing many health complaints. And myrrh was used to prevent evil spirits, heal the mother after childbirth and to prevent infection of the umbilical cord. The wise men brought health and wealth in these 3 gifts.

I have had the experience that certain ancient essential oils feel deeply familiar to me–almost encoded in my DNA. Try it yourself. Experiment with the ancient oils and see if you recognize them.

• Frankincense. Frankincense is a very ancient oil and it has been used in spiritual practice for centuries. It is both uplifting and grounding. It plays a major role in Christian religious practices.
• Rose. Rose has the highest frequency of all the oils. Many spiritual teachers from India use rose to lift your vibration and prepare you for meditation. For me, rose has the smell of being completely and totally loved by the Divine Mother.
• Sandalwood. Another ancient scent, and common in many traditions from Christianity to Hindu, sandalwood is often used for meditation. Sometimes people are anointed with sandalwood paste to remind them of their true nature.
• Cedar and Sage. These two scents are used in Native American traditions, although most often one burns the dried herbs and smudges with the smoke. However, in at least one Native American meditation group, the essential oils are used in an effort to address some people’s sensitivities to smoke. I have not found that the essential oils feel “right” the way the smoke does, but it still creates a sacred vibration.
• Rosemary. One of the best meditation tips is to prepare a room for meditation with rosemary. Mix a few drops of rosemary in a spritzer bottle of water and spray a room to raise its vibration, and to prepare it for sacred practice. It is also good just to make a room smell nice.
• Ylang Ylang. This is an interesting oil to experiment with meditation. It balances male and female energies, filters out negativity and attunes one to the Divine. It is very balancing to a meditation practice.

A true meditation practice is about being present and quiet. These meditation tips are not meant to substitute the quietness, yet for centuries, great teachers have recognized that certain tools help people to get to the quiet state.

Try using essential oils and see what effect they have on your thoughts.