MEDITATION.

Meditation is a practice in which an individual trains the mind or induces a mode of consciousness, either to realize some benefit or for the mind to simply acknowledge its content without becoming identified with that content,[1] or as an end in itself.[2] The term meditation refers to a broad variety of practices that includes techniques designed to promote relaxation, build internal energy or life force (qi, ki, prana, etc.) and develop compassion,[3] love, patience, generosity and forgiveness. A particularly ambitious form of meditation aims at effortlessly sustained single-pointed concentration[4] meant to enable its practitioner to enjoy an indestructible sense of well-being while engaging in any life activity. The word meditation carries different meanings in different contexts. Meditation has been practiced since antiquity as a component of numerous religious traditions and beliefs.[5] Meditation often involves an internal effort to self-regulate the mind in some way. Meditation is often used to clear the mind and ease many health concerns, such as high blood pressure,[6] depression, and anxiety. It may be done sitting, or in an active way—for instance, Buddhist monks involve awareness in their day-to-day activities as a form of mind-training. Prayer beads or other ritual objects are commonly used during meditation in order to keep track of or remind the practitioner about some aspect of that training. Meditation may involve generating an emotional state for the purpose of analyzing that state—such as anger, hatred, etc.—or cultivating a particular mental response to various phenomena, such as compassion.[citation needed] The term "meditation" can refer to the state itself, as well as to practices or techniques employed to cultivate the state.[7] Meditation may also involve repeating a mantra and closing the eyes.[8] The mantra is chosen based on its suitability to the individual meditator. Meditation has a calming effect and directs awareness inward until pure awareness is achieved, described as "being awake inside without being aware of anything except awareness itself."[9] In brief, there are dozens of specific styles of meditation practice, and many different types of activity commonly referred to as meditative practices. Advantages and Disadvantages of Meditation I’ll start with the disadvantages of meditation. Basically there aren’t really any. Of course there is a requirement that the person is mentally stable. Another ’maybe’ disadvantage will be that success will not happen overnight. Persistence and patience is needed. However, till you reach tangible results, meditation will immediately start to show its smoothing, relaxing effects. Advantages of meditation Meditation is beneficial basically in all areas of our life. It will have positive effects on our physical body, our health, mental, emotional, psychological and spiritual life. Gradually, bit-by-bit it will bring more and more peace, balance, harmony into our life and light into our mind. The world around us is created by our thoughts and beliefs and is empowered by our emotions. The outer world is a mirror of our inner world. With daily meditation our awareness gradually expands. We become wiser, more patient, our attitude to life improves. As we re-valuate our scale of values, many previous problems will disappear, or they will not be a problem anymore, as they will become tiny parts of everyday life, they become natural. We’ll learn to see through them, accept them, and not give them unnecessary attention, and certainly don’t provide them with creating or manifesting energy. Here we have to be aware of the main quality of focussing. By focussing on an insignificant issue, gives energy to it and it will expand and manifest into a real problem. As previously referred to, our subconscious mind runs our everyday life on auto-pilot, almost all day. If in meditative state we become aware of our subconscious mind’s beliefs regarding a certain situation, with intentional conscious thought we can change or at least modify, the habitual belief of the subconscious mind. This new belief will project new, desired outcomes to the outer world. As previously referred to, our subconscious mind runs our everyday life on auto-pilot, almost all day. If in meditative state we become aware of our subconscious mind’s beliefs regarding a certain situation, with intentional conscious thought we can change or at least modify, the habitual belief of the subconscious mind. This new belief will project new, desired outcomes to the outer world. A typical example could be the ’women’s world’. Since recorded history, women were always expected to be beautiful, pretty, well groomed, perfect, etc. Even though real beauty is within, women are required to be beautiful, especially on the surface. Today’s up-side-down world’s requirements, expect women to look rather like ‘anti-women’, no curves, no figure, no naturalness for example. The ideal women according to today’s catwalk models is minimum 6ft tall, skeleton like, no breasts, no buttocks, no kind and smiley face, emotionless, tough, etc. Further on that it is ridiculous and aesthetically a slap on today’s women’s face, we accept it, believe it, and live our life accordingly. If we’re not nearly a size ‘0’ we’re fat, ugly, worthless, etc. This is quite dangerous because if we look into the mirror and see our self fat, ugly and worthless, we make our self become exactly what we fear. With meditation, we learn to love and to accept our self. We also learn to see our self differently. In example if we have a weight problem, we can release it more easily by seeing our self at the desired weight, during meditation. Of course common sense is required, if somebody has obesity problems, professional medical help is required. However, the overeating, over-snacking that leads to obesity, in most of the cases is an emotional substitute. Meditation is very good method to uncover and explore emotional imbalances, as most of the times the reasons bought to surface are not realistic. These can serve as wake-up calls, which become lifesaving eye openers. Basically if we see our self beautiful, it is just a matter of time and the outside world will also find us beautiful. We should also keep in mind specifically ’beauty’ is a complex issue. Everybody probably knows people who are the first ones to catch the flue, immediately after it is announced as an expected epidemic in the evening news. They will always be ready to catch colds, have sores here and there in their body, one after the other. Why? They are expecting them on both the conscious and subconscious level. With the expectation they are inviting the illness into their life. With worrying and being fearful of getting ill, we are focussing on it, we are providing the energy to achieve it. If unconsciously, without conscious thought, we see and feel our self naturally healthy, in the meditative state we see and project our self as healthy, we are or will be healthy. Our beliefs have the required creating power. It works similar to the ’Placebo-Effect’. With daily meditation our subconscious expectations to illnesses will first fade, then disappear. Feeling good and being healthy will become our natural state of being. We won’t need to visit doctors so frequently, less medication will be needed. I would not like any misunderstanding here, if we are not well, we have certain physical conditions, symptoms that are not normal, we should always request professional medical help. We have to understand that everything originates and is created or attracted by our own mind, through our thoughts and beliefs. Through daily meditation not just the soul, the physical body also receives fulfilment as a result of the positive vibration, generated throughout the meditative state. A positive conscious mind can and will work in harmony with the subconscious mind. Together they can change negative habitual beliefs. As soon as the negative belief patterns are changed the new expectations will be a positive outcome. This process will provide all the requirements for our body to function normally, in this case in good health. We not just have to believe, we have to know that we are healthy with expectation. The average person listens to mainstream media and lets brainwashing, manipulation control their lives. Wrong! We are the boss, the creator of our own reality. With this approach we can help our subconscious mind do its job much better. As previously said, the subconscious mind runs our life and our body on auto-pilot. If our expectations are positive, our blood pressure, circulation, heart, digestion, immune system, breathing, etc., will all be working well. It is all in the mind and we can change our thoughts, beliefs, assumptions with the help of meditation. When we manage to change our beliefs and expectations of life to a more expanded and positive one, we instinctually start to adopt a more secure and peaceful environment. Here I don’t mean that there will be no more problems. The big difference will be on the receiving end, depending on how we handle them or deal with them. We will start to see positive changes in all areas of our life. Doubts, worries, fears will certainly start to fade. They won’t disappear, however we will start to approach them from different, more realistic angles which will also lead to probable new solutions. At the same time altogether we will become more patient and tolerant. Our noisy mind chatter will start to fade, with this decreasing our mental clutter. In the meditative state there are no boundaries as we can rise above our limited three dimensional physical life. We’ll start to have glimpses of the ’big picture’. As we gain more inner peace, wisdom and emotional stability, our relationship with our self, our loved ones, our society/environment and the world, will also gradually change. Metaphorically our heart will open, we will start to care. We will no longer be compelled to buy a new car, just because the Jones did. Pleasing society will no longer be important. We will find charity issues important. We will start to get less ignorant with issues concerning the animal world, the vegetation, forests, our environment and the planet. As we get more accustomed to meditation, more and more of our sight blocking walls will be pulled down, our vision and understanding will expand. We’ll also start to understand how important and essential forgiveness is in life. When we discuss issues, problems with others, their opinion, remarks, approach may affect us in our decision making and or related actions. Same refers to the daily information we receive from the mass media. During meditation it’s only you, the inner self, the true self. Atma Namaste.