Meditation

Meditation. A simple process where you sit quietly and think of nothing else except to be aware of your breathing. Done correctly and on a regular basis you will have good health. You could be Enlightened in the process. You might even have a glimpse of another dimension. 

Now who does not want that? And how difficult can it be right? – to sit down quietly and do nothing but be aware of your breath? Well, try it and see, and you will know why meditation is not as popular as it should be.

Personally, I have tried meditation and I must confess that I wasn’t very successful.

Some have said that meditation can be dangerous at the advanced level because we do not know what we might encounter in the meditative state. 

However, not many people will progress beyond the beginning stage, let alone the advanced stage. So it is perfectly all right for you to go ahead and try meditation on your own. And if you find that meditation is for you and you want to advance further, then look for a reputable teacher.

Someone likened practising meditation to swimming in a river against the current.

The following are some comments from people who practice meditation. If this interest you, stay tuned for more articles on Meditation.

Everyone should take some time off to meditate. We may never achieve the state of ‘awareness’ that monks and mystics reached but still, meditation clears our mind, giving us inner peace and inner calm. Through meditation, we will have a clearer view of the whole picture, of life. This will help us deal better with the realities of/in life.

Although one can meditate in a group, meditation is still a very individual and private activity. When you close your eyes to meditate, you are on your own. In fact, it might be better to meditate on your own, as there would be less distractions. 

What does meditation involve? Simply put, you just sit silently and witness your mind-process, while keeping your attention on the breath.

Nothing needs to be done. Just be a witness, an observer, a watcher, looking at the traffic of the mind - thoughts passing by, desires, memories, dreams, fantasies. Simply stand aloof, cool, with no condemnation, no evaluations. Once you get the knack of it, it is the most simple thing in the world.

However, there are a few essential things to be remembered: The first is a relaxed state - no fight, no control, no concentration. The second is watchfulness - witness whatever is going on inside of you. And the third is, don't have any judgment or evaluation about it. Just be a watcher.

We meditate to find, to recover, to come back to something of ourselves we once dimly and unknowingly had and have lost without knowing what it was or when we lost it. We may call it access to more of our human potential or being closer to ourselves and to reality, or to more of our capacity for love and zest and enthusiasm, or our knowledge that we are a part of the universe and can never be alienated or separate from it, or our ability to see and function in reality more effectively.

As we work – in meditation – we find ourselves more at home in the universe, more at ease with ourselves, more able to work effectively at our tasks and toward our goal, closer to our fellow man, less anxious and less hostile. 

A person who has trained his body and is confident of it feels far less vulnerable and therefore behaves differently in many situations than a person with an untrained and uncoordinated body.