Have you remembered - or were you taught - this advice ?
Pranayama
The pranayama practice is a purifying practice. Do it as often as you can. Because it's purifying it helps to rid you of silly thoughts. You can use it when you're nervous for instance, like just before an interview. Also, you can - and should - use it before or after meditation. Prior to meditation it can help relax you. After meditation, it can help to seal the benefit in. It is sometimes said that meditation cleans the window but pranayama afterwards shines smears off the glass.
A Standard?
The standard for meditation? There isn't one. Meditation isn't something to accomplish, or a way of trying to prove something. There is no standard of attainment - of being better than anyone else. The mind wants success in order to support the sense of being a person; an ego.
'Observe'
The best way to clear away the veils (conditioning) is, when a thought crops up in your meditation, to observe the thought without becoming a participant. We don't force the thought. We don't analyse the thought. And, we don't force the mantra either but just allow it to be-vaguely being aware of it. We then start to see the mind is working on his own and is not you. To quote Gururaj, “The subtle level of your mind watches the conscious level of your mind.” In this way the subtle energy is reawakening in you; becoming part of you again. Calmness comes about, which is your nature, your birth right.
Checking
When checking yourself during meditation, don't suddenly stop but vaguely become aware you are checking yourself (sort of in the background). Several times in each meditation can be justified sometimes. What to check? Relaxation of your hands; forehead is loose (no tightness or frowning); jaw is totally dropped.
Settling in
If you can't settle into meditation don't just sit there frustrated. Get up and do something. Then try again later.
Awareness
Awareness means being aware of everything as it is. It's called mindfulness these days, but what we want is mind-emptiness. (The word mindfulness has done some good by attracting people to centring themselves in daily life, which is a great adjunct to regular meditation). Being the Observer is of great assistance here. Observe that which you wouldn't ordinarily notice for instance, just the act of sitting, the neutral feelings of the close touching the skin, the touch of one hand against the other, the upper lip touching the lower lip and all these ordinary things, which don't show up as important. But, by doing it, we begin to understand being; to develop wisdom and breakout of old habits acquired through ignorance and not understanding the truth.
The Gap
The ‘finding the gap’ technique has several uses and can be used as frequently as you like. If you feel in ant way unstable mentally, stop using your mantra technique or breath awareness technique and use the gap instead. Doing the Gap enables you to get through seemingly possible encounters (you imagine are more than you can manage when you’re depressed or the like). For simplicity, breathe normally and try to find the tiny gap between the in breath and the out breath. There's a minuscule break as the breath turns from in to out. Or, the gap between your footsteps …etc. The gap can also be used in normal daily life, if you are perfectly healthy. It helps improve awareness (mindfulness).
Surrender
Surrender is not putting your hands up, as in a cowboy film, simply because you can't find a way out. Surrender is what happens automatically when you reach true acceptance. Acceptance is the key. Read as much as you can about it and try putting it more and more into practice.
Silence
The silence technique is a great builder of fortitude and determination. It improves confidence too. With these three qualities a-blazing, steps towards total happiness come faster. All that’s involved is not speaking to anyone for a pre-set number of hours. You could start with two or three hours, eventually stretching it to all day. During the silent period, it's as well to use as little mind as possible. Contemplating what you are, in a meditative sort of approach, is fine. This practice is not shutting yourself away and being silent; it's being in the normal contact with people. It's as well to inform people you know that you are doing it. If they forget what you're doing you can politely put your finger to your lips.
Feel the Fear
The feel-the-fear technique is possibly one of the greatest spiritual practices. Nature determines that everything appears and then drops away. The way to liberate the mind from subconscious fears and anxieties is to simply allow them to be. If life is just one long effort of denial and repression, trying to control your mind out of fear and ignorance, it's not going to be a nice experience. No matter how frightened you are or how much you think you cannot bear something, actually you can. Welcoming problems, or what your mind thinks is impossible to face, can become almost a hobby. It's something that must be done in order to bring about total calmness. So why not take the attitude, ‘I can do it’. After all, nothing is going to stay the way your mind would want, from where it views things right now.
Mind Mistake
Although your mind thinks it's on a journey, this big picture of life is a mind-mistake. You don't have to go from one place to another to self-improve, thinking that better circumstances would help. Everything you are, and everything you need is here, already developed; complete. Seeing through the smokescreen caused by the mind is all that's required.
[It's as well to remind yourself, in this regard, science has proven that what appears to be solid is not solid. Perception of matter happens because of the senses reacting to light, heat and (imagined) space-time, causing the mind to grasp 'some-thing’ from the greater reality of infinitely finer particles. These particles don’t show up in light. But they are a truer existence than the 'mirage' of apparent matter. There are so many particles they are uncountable, in every cell and in the air and they form what appears to be planets, galaxies and universes too.]
Memo: Meditation is your primary tool but daily life is the greatest teacher.