What is Meditation?

Introduction

People have used medication for thousands of years in their quest for inner harmony.  All the major religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity, use it in their teachings to help attain spiritual enlightenment.  Meditation improves concentration, increases self-awareness, and enables us to combat stress by helping us to relax and cope.  It even helps us to get on better with others.  Many people who meditate improve their physical and mental well-being, and some have been able to conquer depression or addictions to drugs, caffeine or alcohol.

Mind Control

There is no doubt that the mind’s ability to analyse, discriminate, plan and communicate has helped us reach where we are today.  Yet it can be a double-edged sword.  Although the brains may help us to reason, to think creatively and to relate to others, if we do not learn to switch it off it can overwhelm us.  It can persecute us with fears about failure, our appearance or the opinions others may have of us.  Meditation can bring relief from these anxieties by helping us to silence inner chatter, to recognize and dismiss negative thoughts, and to create a feeling of peace and serenity.

“All you need is deep within you waiting to unfold and reveal itself.  All you have to do is be still and take time to seek for what is within, and you will surely find it.”                                                                                           – EILEEN CADDY   The Buddha reached enlightenment through meditation and devoted the rest of his life to teaching others what he had learned.

Health and work benefits

Clinical studies into the effects of meditation are encouraging: they have shown a reduction in migraines, insomnia, irritable bowel syndrome, premenstrual syndrome, anxiety and panic attacks, as well as lower levels of stress hormones, lower blood pressure, and improved circulation.  They have also shown that meditation can help control pulse and respiratory rates, and increase job satisfaction and work performance.  As a result, doctors are now beginning to recognize the therapeutic benefits of meditation and some are already recommending meditation exercises and relaxation techniques to their patients to help treat stress-related ailments. Meditation is for everyone, whatever their lifestyle.

Meditation for everyone

Nowadays, meditation is no longer the preserve of mystics, yogis and philosophers.  Its value has been recognised by many well-known individuals and groups, celebrities including International celebrities such as Shilpa Shetty, Akshay Kumar, Sachin Tendular, The Beatles, Tina Turner and Richard Gere.  You don’t have to be religious or have huge amounts of time to meditate – you can do it no matter how old or busy you are.  If you want to learn how to beat stress, understand more about yourself or increase your sense of well-being meditation is the way. We owe our advances to the power of the mind, but we need to learn how to control it. Meditation is much more than simply relaxation: during relaxation the mind wanders uncontrollably, whereas during meditation the mind stays alert and focused.  By using meditation to restrain the wanderings of the mind, we can bring ourselves back to full awareness and experience things as they really are.

Practicing Meditation

Meditation is a time-honored method of controlling the mind and there are many different ways to do it.  In fact, there are literally thousands of different meditation exercises.  Many of them have one thing in common – they start with a period of relaxation, then the mind is given one point of focus and concentrates on this and nothing else.  Every time the mind tries to stray onto something else, it is gently but firmly brought back to the point of focus. Many people find this difficult to do at first, especially if they have been used to letting their minds wander without restraint, but most people can get over this with a little practice.  Even if you can only manage a couple of minutes at a time, you will soon see results if you do it regularly.  It doesn’t need to be hard work: meditation should be enjoyable, and if you allow yourself, say, at least five minutes a day at first, you will soon find that you look forward to these periods and enjoy them as special times for yourself. There are many different ways to meditate.  Some call for exercises that focus on a particular object, such as a leaf or a sound. There are all kinds of ways you can meditate and even a few minutes can make a difference to the way you feel. Some use chanting, or withdrawal or expansion of the senses in some way.  Others involve contemplation on a concept such as love, anger or growing old.  You can also mix different methods and approaches.  For example, you may start off by focusing on your breath, and then move on to contemplate the nature of friendship.

Restoring Balance

Meditation helps us to restore balance between the left and right sides of the brain.  The left side of the brain deals with thinking, speaking, and writing.  When we are awake and in a busy, thinking state of mind, the brain emits faster electrical patterns called “beta” waves.  In this state we are able to rationalise and think about the past and future. The right side of the brain deals with intuition, imagination and feeling.  When we are sensing something – such as listening to music – and we are in a receptive rather than an active state, the brain emits slower electrical patterns called ‘alpha’ waves.  In the alpha state we are more passive and open to our feelings.  The alpha state is most likely to happen when we let ourselves live in the present rather than in the future or the past.  It often happens just before or after sleep (but not during sleep – when we are sleeping the brain emits other waves, called theta and delta). When we are awake we are usually in beta most of the time, and spend only about an hour in the alpha state.  Meditation helps to restore the balance by increasing our time spent in alpha: it helps us to recover feeling and to experience the world directly, in the present, before the sensations becomes ‘interpreted’ by the left side of the brain.

 Meditation can create a better balance between the thinking and emotional sides of the brain.