MEDITATION

"The practice of meditation is the great scientific method of knowledge. There is no knowledge without the power of meditation." – Swami Vivekananda

What is Meditation?

"Meditation is the mean by which the soul expresses its love for God." – Saint Rajinder Singh Ji Maharaj

Meditation is the best way by which we feel the presence of love and peace within ourselves. It is the best process of feeling the love of God for us by taking away our attention and mindset from the outside world and focuses it within our inner self.

Meditation allows us to defocus from the entire turmoil situation happening in our surroundings and connect our soul with God. It is the highest form of prayer which helps us to find out the self-love hidden within ourselves.

Why should we Meditate?

Meditation gives us a feeling of calmness, peace, and stability of mind which are beneficial, for both our emotional well-being and health.

The benefits of Meditation are as follows:-

Reduction of Stress –This is the most important reason why people try meditation. In today's life, stress is an irreplaceable thing. Physical stress and mental stress are responsible for the rise in the level of cortisol hormone. This results in many harmful effects of stress like a release of inflammatory chemicals called cytokines, disruption in sleep, promotion of depression and anxiety, rise in blood pressure and fatigue, and cloudy thinking.

Control of Anxiety -Reduction in stress consequences in less anxiety. Thus meditation helps in controlling anxiety. Depression is cured by meditation.

Promotes Emotional Well Being –Meditation helps in promoting emotional well-being. Meditation leads to the improvement of self-image self-confidence and brings out a positive outlook. It builds up self-discipline and a positive mood.

Enhancement of Self Awareness –Meditation also helps in developing a stronger understanding of self and growing into the best self within us.

Attentiveness –A long-time focus and attentive meditation result in increasing the period and strength of attention. It also reverses the patterns of the brain that are responsible for mind-wandering, worrying, and poor attentiveness.

Reduction of Memory Loss –Meditation improves attentiveness and clarity of thinking which helps our mind to keep young. It also helps in the reduction of memory loss related to age issues.

Generation of Kindness –Meditation sometimes increases the positive feelings within ourselves and generates some positive actions towards others. Meditation builds the nature of forgiveness, friendship, kindness, and generosity within ourselves.

Helps in Fighting Addiction -In today's life, stress and other profession-related issues trigger addiction. Two to three generations seriously suffering from different sorts of addictions which are creating hazardous consequences to their health in particular and the society in general. Meditation helps in increasing self-control and awareness within the self by managing the emotions and impulses which are the basic causes behind addiction.

Improvement in Sleep -Nearly half of the world's population is suffering from insomnia. Meditation strongly helps in the improvement of sleep by relaxing our body and living tension and placing us in a peaceful relaxed state which helps us to fall asleep quickly.

Reduction in Blood Pressure and other health issues –Meditation helps in the improvement of several physical health issues. It reduces the strain on the heart which helps in the reduction of blood pressure. Meditation also helps in the reduction in different panes which we go through due to illness.

Types of Meditation

There is not a right or wrong way of meditation but it is important to find a practice method that is needed and complements our personality.

There are 9 popularly know types of meditation:-

Mindfulness meditation - This type of meditation originates from Buddhist teachings and is most popular in the West. In this type of meditation, we pay attention to the thoughts that cross our minds. We do not easily judge the thoughts or show any kind of involvement with them instead we just simply observe and take a note of any pattern. This meditation is a combination of concentration and awareness which helps to focus on an object and your breathing while observing any e sensations thoughts or feelings. This meditation is good for people who do not have proper guidance and it can be practiced alone very easily.

Spiritual meditation –This type of meditation is practiced in eastern religions like Hinduism and Daoism and also in the Christian faith. It shows similarity with the prayer that we reflect on the silence around us and tries to find out a deeper connection with God.

Focused meditation –This type of meditation involves concentration using any of our five senses.

Movement meditation –This type of meditation includes walking in the woods, gardening, Qigong, and any other gentle forms of motion. This is an active type of meditation where our movements guide us.

Mantra meditation -This type of meditation is very prominent in the teachings of Hindu and Buddhists. This type of meditation uses repetitive sound or what or a phrase to clear the mind.

Transcendental meditation - This type of meditation has been the subject of numerous studies in the scientific community. This is a customizable meditation that is practiced by people who are serious about maintaining a meditation practice.

Progressive relaxation - This is also known as body scan meditation which is practiced by aiming at reduction of tension in the body and promotion of relaxation. This meditation involves tightening and relaxing a group of muscles slowly at a time throughout the body. In some cases, it also encourages us to imagine a gentle flowing of a wave through the body that helps in releasing tension.

Loving-kindness meditation - This kind of meditation is used to make a stronger feeling of kindness, compassion, and acceptance. This is ideal for the people who hold feelings of anger and resentment.

Visualization meditation –This kind of meditation is a technique that focuses on enhancing the feelings of relaxation peace and calmness by seeing or visualizing any positive image.

Why many Indians are neglecting meditation while the whole world is accepting it?

There are many reasons why Indians are neglecting meditation or not giving the necessary importance to work meditation.

Unplanned Busy life schedule –In this era of the 21st century, people are running after deadlines and busy schedules but do not pause for a little bit and take some time for themselves. With the growth in multinational companies and offices in India, a great number of populations are getting employed day by day. With the various sorts of timings we Indians are messing up with the routine and as a result, we find it difficult to find out some time for meditation.

It's not that other countries are doing their work slowly; rather they are more occupied than Indians but in a properly planned lifestyle. But in India, we are not planning our schedule according to our job.

One more thing is most of the foreign companies (mainly of USA, UK, and all western countries) schedule is just opposite of IST (Indian Standard Time). Thus the day times of those companies are nights in India. As a result, we Indians became forcefully get into the unhealthy, night work culture.

Results are seen after a long time - Meditation takes a long time to bring out its result. Unlike people of other countries, we the Indians are very much impatient which causes us to neglect meditation and finding out some short time result-giving techniques.

Not compulsory in any curriculum - Meditation is not a compulsory part of the syllabus of schools and colleges in the children are not getting any interest in practicing meditation.

Lethargy –Meditation requires a lot of practice and discipline. The requirement of patience is the most important thing. A handful of people meditate properly and others are neglecting to eat due to lethargy.

Why do doctors recommend meditation?

Doctors are prescribing or recommending meditation over medications as meditation helps in curing many health issues. Researches say that meditation reduces blood pressure, anxiety, postoperative pain, migraine problems, depression, and other serious health issues. Moreover, many medicines have side effects while meditation is free from all those negative things and keeps our body and mind healthy. Meditation also helps in treating eating disorders, impotence, and the tendency of alcoholism and other addictions.

Meditation – A technique that cures the mind. Today more than 90% of the total population is suffering from anxiety, depression, and other mental problems which are related to their professional and social life. In the race of keeping others happy we are failing to love ourselves. Medication cannot always cure the illness of the mind. Meditation is the technique that cures the mind. Meditation results in a healthy lifestyle by developing healthy habits and evolving us as a nice personalities.