Meditation: Going Inside of Ourselves

What is Meditation

Is meditation worship? Is it a prayer? Is meditation related with any religion? No. All of these questions should be answered in one word: No. In the simplest words, the meditation is a process that settles down the clouds of thoughts roaming in our head. Thereafter we can perceive the clear sky; the sky we can name it as our consciousness or soul or whatever name we prefer to give.

Human mind is like a flowing river, full of water, full of thoughts; and full of disturbing dust, too. The progression of meditation would make the flowing water at standstill; and allow the dust to settle down at the bottom of the river. In such a state of mind, we are at the best of our abilities experiencing ourselves. We skip near to experiencing our consciousness. In simple words, by doing meditation we come nearer to our inner-self.

Why to Meditate : It is our experience that whenever we do not feel to have a smile, we do so in front of others. When we feel some anger, we show false compassion. We are not behaving; we are just acting out of our falsehood. This prevents us from having the real experiences in our life. We are just becoming victims of the suppressed emotions. If we sit silently and meditate, we would start knowing about the suppressed emotions. Everything would start coming out and out mind and consciousness would be cleaned.

Our mind is the most wealthy mine. We hardly dig out the inner wealth our mind can deliver to us. There are eight ways for getting salvation of the soul, as per Ashtanga Yoga system; and the ‘dhyan (meditation)’ is one of the eight paths. Until the worries dance within our cerebral dome and the discomfort rests embedded in our psyche, we would not be at ease. To feel at ease is our natural state, but our speedy life distorts everything that is peaceful. As the doctors also advised to practice it, the meditation is now the most modern health management tool.

Every human mind is so unsteady. Our desires make us so wandering. If we can understand the science of the desiring mind, we can build up a nice road to real happiness. And meditation is the process to build up such a way; it is like cultivation of calm.

Benefits of Doing Meditation : Once the flow of energy is focussed on one activity, naturally the power to concentrate our mind tends to be going on higher side. While doing meditation we feel quite relaxed. A practitioner of meditation would experience the consumption of oxygen, resulting in lesser flow of blood. It would result in reduction of the rate of heartbeats. In long run this would help in strengthening of our heart and decreasing the possibility of any sudden damage to it.

Those who suffer from the problems regarding heart, their heart remain less tolerance to the exercises they require to do. A spell of meditation for 20 minutes a day would show positive results for such heart patients, as meditation is supposed to give rest to the heart.

The most useful benefit of doing meditation is that the regular habit of meditation would increase general strength of human body resulting in the considerable improvement in the immune system.

How to Meditate : Meditation is an act while doing it we remain in a mode that would lead us to experience the presence of our consciousness. ‘How to do it’ is not a major question. One can sit in any posture he or she feels comfortable. Generally a devotee would prefer a sitting posture. Some might prefer the sleeping pose, too, but it may result in sleep. In that case, too, it is better to have such a meditative sleep. Meditation is the best option to let the mind act naturally.

Postures in Meditation : Generally the devotee would sit on yoga mat while doing meditation. The are certain sitting postures devised by various schools of yoga. Some gestures of hand and fingers are also recommended for getting maximum advantage from dong meditation.

We generally fail to restraint the flow of thoughts. But if we do not pay attention to the flow, it would be slowing down and eventually disappear. Meditation is the device that makes our mind clear like the cloudless sky. [Images courtesy: Vivekanada By неизвестен.Amritachaitanya at ru.wikipedia [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons, Lotus Pose By Marcocarvalho (Own work) [CC-BY-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons]