Top 10 Reasons to Begin Daily Meditation Practice
Meditation is an art that has been around since the dawn of the age of man. This is not a statement to be brushed over. After all, many many things about mankind have changed over time, but the profound art of meditation is something we have clung on to dearly. This is because there is no substitute for meditation. Nothing else, single handedly, bestows the many wonderful blessings that meditation brings… in fact nothing else even comes close.
In this article I will outline the top 10 benefits that meditation brings and hopefully it will inspire all to learn and practice this timeless art.
1. Enlightenment: This is the one ultimate purpose of meditation. To help you discover the True Non-Dual Nature of Reality. To make you realize that your True Self is Divine and One with God.
2. Peace & Tranquility: The mind of one who meditates is like the easy, leisurely flow of the Ganges River, as compared to the ordinary mind, which is like Niagara Falls. In other words your mind is at peace, deeply silent and so you are at peace.
3. Wisdom: Meditation opens up the channels of communication between all levels of your being. What this means is that you have access now to the guidance that is coming directly from your Divine Self. This link gives rise to the flow of intuition and wisdom.
4. Joy & Happiness: Meditation strips away the layers of false identity that mask your True Self from shinning through. Once you eliminate these false egos and stop catering to their nonsense you can reside in your True Nature. This brings forth joy and happiness as it allows you to be at ease with life, existence and yourself.
5. Love & Compassion: As meditation reveals to you the interconnectedness of all humanity a great sense of compassion and love will spontaneously emerge. Knowing that deep within we are all divine in nature will change the way you view the apparent differences you see in others. This will also dramatically improve your relationships both intimate and casual.
6. Stress Reduction & Good Health: This goes hand in hand. As meditation teaches you the art of living in the present moment, anxiety and worry fade more and more into the background. This state of relaxed awareness is most beneficial, to not only helping the body heal itself, but also for preventing illness and disease by eliminating the poison of stress.
7. Improved Brain Function: All serious meditators know how much their brain function has been enhanced by meditation. Now, empirical studies every day are indicating this link. Meditation will undoubtedly increase your awareness and will significantly increase your intelligence.
8. Discover Your Purpose & Gifts: As you start to drop those aspects of you that are artificial and pretentious you will get a chance to see the real you. The parts that are not put on but are natural. This will give you insight into who you really are and what you really love in life. That is the secret of mastering the art of living and discovering your true talents, gifts and purpose. That which you love, you do for its own sake without the need for reward of accolades. Once this is discovered, life can be lived with passion, zeal and independence.
9. Yogic and Psychic Powers: We currently use only about 10% of our brain capacity. The practice of Yoga and Meditation awakens those regions of the Brain that normally lie dormant. When these areas of the brain are activated the powers they hold are unleashed. Such powers, used wisely, can be of benefit to others and of help to you in making progress on the spiritual path.
10. Magnificence: Charisma, Confidence, Courage, Character and Balance are all brought about by meditation. This leads to an individual who is immensely charming and magnetic. Best word I could think of to describe the collective affects of these personality improvements was Magnificent. Meditation will let your magnificence shine through.
Anmol Mehta is a Yoga & Zen Meditation expert. For Free Online Yoga & Guided Meditation Classes visit http://www.anmolmehta.com/blog/classes-online hosted on http://www.anmolmehta.com. For help & insights on Meditation, Kundalini Yoga, Chakra, Tantra, Zen & more visit http://www.anmolmehta.com/blog.
Biggest Mistake in Your Meditation Practice
I have been practicing meditation now for over 20 years. In these 2 decades plus, I have explored much of the spiritual landscape and discovered many of the profound treasures hidden there. Also, during this time I have made my share of mistakes and seen others make theirs. In this article I want to help you avoid repeating the biggest mistake with regard to establishing a deep and strong daily meditation practice.
It is the mistake of endless procrastination. So let’s understand this detrimental behavior and also, how to change it, so that it can be removed as an obstacle forever.
The Mistake of Procrastination:
Lord Buddha said, “There are only 2 mistakes you can make in life. First mistake is not to take the first step, and the second, is that having taken the first step, to not go all the way.”
I am amazed how few take the first step. Many people who talk and read about religion, spirituality, zen, yoga, meditation, etc. never actually start a personal meditation program. They even come to me and discuss these matters in great detail, but, never get down to doing it. Meditation, in this regard, is just like exercise, you can read every book on fitness, but, until you break a sweat you will have zero benefits.
There are many profound and now medically recognized benefits of meditation. More and more evidence is emerging about how meditation helps reduce stress, cure diseases, increase concentration, enhance brain capacity and improve the quality of your life, but, to enjoy these benefits you need to practice. All the reading and talking in the world will not help, you need to get busy doing it.
Solution to Procrastination:
There are several steps you can take which should help you end the habit of procrastinating your meditation practice and begin. Here are these recommendations for you.
1. Start small: Don’t try to sit in meditation for one hour a day right off the bat. It will simply be too much. Although you initial burst of inspiration may get you to do that much at first, it will be very hard to sustain that intensity over the long term. The benefits of meditation are not instantaneous, they are acquired over time so a consistent practice is a must. Therefore, start with what you can easily manage and then build up from there. This will help you enjoy your practice more and also, procrastinate it less.
2. Create a meditation space: Create a small space in your home which you will use for your meditation practice. Keep everything there ready, so it is easy and inviting for you to start your daily session. Place there whatever inspires you and also keep there your cushions etc., so that when it’s time for your practice there is little you have to do in order to get it started. This will go a long way in preventing thoughts the opportunity to dissuade you from getting your daily spiritual work in.
3. Stop procrastinating in general: Procrastination is really a disease. It will delay and prevent you from living your life completely. So, stop this habit, not just in the context of your meditation practice, but in general. Try your very best to do what needs to be done right away without concern for mood. Just move from one activity that requires your attention to the next, answering the call of the moment and you will find yourself building up terrific momentum.
This momentum then will spill over into all aspects of your life, including the most important, your daily meditation practice. The more you do things as soon as the time is right, the more you will find yourself free of the disease of procrastination. Free of this disease, your life will open up, your meditation practice will blossom and you will certainly fulfill your highest destiny.
Anmol Mehta is a Yoga & Zen expert. For a free guide to meditation read http://anmolmehta.com/blog/2007/06/05/meditation-techniques-types-and-practice-a-comprehensive-guide/, hosted on http://www.anmolmehta.com. Find lively spiritual discussions on http://www.anmolmehta.com/blog.
How to Flow with Hyper Change
Without bothering to ask for our consent, globalization and technological innovation has rapidly created a new world. In today’s demanding work environment, there are few personal skills more valuable than being able to flow with the accelerating and unremitting changes which are driving our workplaces and defining our time.
As we move through the twenty-first century, it’s important to develop better coping skills and to build much needed resilience to the unusual scale of today’s changes. For example, over the next ten years we will likely undergo more change than has occurred in all of previous human history.
Through a process called homeostasis, every body-mind has an in-built tendency to resist change, no matter whether the change is good or bad. It’s an amazingly complex system that wants to stay within narrow limits and return to that state whenever it is forced out of it. Our body-minds evolved over many thousands of millennia knowing that in order to survive, stability was needed.
This need for equilibrium is a natural mechanism that wants to keep things as they are. We experience this automatic resistance to change in ourselves and we see it in our organizations. The resistance is generally proportionate to the size and speed of the change, making the unusual scale of today’s changes especially demanding on every body.
There is a pressing need for people to overcome their natural resistance to change and become more flexible and open towards it. Rosabeth Moss Kanter, the former editor of The Harvard Business Review, described “flexible” as the most important essential skill for organizational survival in the new work world, along with becoming more “focused, fast and friendly”. But just telling people to become more flexible (and focused, friendly, etc.) is like telling them to go fly.
To devise a strategy to enhance flexibility and focus you must first understand that resistance to change expresses itself in the body-mind as an arousal state commonly called stress. Over time, the wear and tear of too much stress plays a significant role in making us sick and impairing our performance. It keeps mentally and physically rigid and inflexible and especially resistant to change.
That’s why one of the most important skills for our time is what Harvard Medical School has labeled the “relaxation response”. The relaxation response is a measurable state of profound rest which, when regularly called upon, permits the body-mind to effectively unwind from the chronic strain that adaptation stress imposes. Within minutes, it achieves a state of rest that would normally be achieved after four or five hours of sleep. All of the complex and interrelated systems of the body respond by letting go of the excess stress and afford a tired and straining body-mind a much-needed chance to properly rest, recuperate, and repair.
It’s a total response of the body-mind. The heart beat becomes slower, as does one’s breathing rate. Blood pressure and blood sugar levels drop. Brain waves slow down. Even skin resistance changes. The entire body-mind system becomes quiet and has an opportunity to rebalance and replenish itself. Measurable self-healing occurs. Every system in the body-mind has an opportunity to regenerate and renew itself. It goes beyond the advertising hype and produces an actual experience worthy of the expression, “the pause that refreshes”.
Decades of medical research has proven that everyone can be more in control of themselves by learning simple ways to properly unwind. By releasing stress on a regular basis, we have a natural safety valve that keeps it from building to harmful levels. Almost everybody who uses the relaxation response discovers that they are much better able to withstand the on-going and inevitable strains of modern life. They can absorb so much more without negative side effects. They are able to flow more easily into the new structures as they emerge, adapt to new ideas, and creatively respond to new challenges.
Those hoping to steer their organizations (or themselves) through the white water that is clearly ahead would be wise to provide their workers (and families) with the “how to” of body-mind self-regulation, the relaxation response. My bet is that the greatest success in the new wireless world will come to those organizations and individuals who have learned best how to effectively let go and flow better with change.
Eli Bay is one of Canada’s most respected stress management authorities. He is a master at delivering the stress-free relaxation state to virtually anyone and has been successfully unwinding individuals and audiences for decades. Visit: http://www.elibay.com.
How to Tame the Age of Anxiety
The poet, W. H. Auden, dubbed our time as “the Age of Anxiety”. It is predictably certain, that in a post 9/11 world that is becoming aware of inconvenient truths like global warming and pandemics, general and pervasive anxiety will continue to grip the hearts and minds of growing numbers of people.
As I do training and speaking in dozens of companies, associations and government organizations every year, and have done so over the past three decades, I can state from experience that clinical levels of anxiety are approaching epidemic levels in the most workplaces. It is a significant but invisible cost to practically every organization.
It is invisible because those who suffer from it don’t tend to talk about it. They are afraid of what’s happening and believe that only they are suffering from this problem. Because they keep it to themselves, they don’t discover that it is a common problem. In just about every workplace group in which I have asked the question “How many people would like to have more control over anxiety or panic attacks?”, roughly 50% of every group will raise their hands!
Just imagine what the effect is upon productivity and performance when people are severely limited in their physical, mental and emotional functioning because of the overriding anxiety that they will “lose it”, “go crazy” or be unable to meet the demands of their job. It creates a tragic downward spiral that serves no one, often destroys careers, and impairs the bottom line.
One of the major causes of this anxiety is the chronic stress that characterizes our time. Constant unremitting low level stress cannot be avoided in today’s workplace. It wears heavily upon the adrenal glands that work overtime pumping out the hormones adrenaline and cortisol to keep us alert and aroused and productive.
In the short term, the flow of adrenaline enhances our performance. Over the long term, the wear and tear caused by the continual adrenaline rush wreaks havoc on the various systems of the body and mind. One of several problems medically linked to chronic stress is anxiety and panic. And, one of the most effective ways to counteract this problem is to learn how to effectively shut down the stress reaction through simple self-regulatory techniques like conscious breathing.
When you begin to deliberately breathe slowly and deeply into the bottom part of the lungs, the reactive anxious state begins to recede. The controlled breathing redirects the flow of hormones through the endocrine system, shifts the acid/alkaline ratios in the body and measurably reduces the anxious state.
Jack is a paramedical ambulance attendant who suffered from anxiety attacks for two and a half years. His prescribed anti-anxiety medication worked well when he would get an anxiety attack but he discovered that the attacks were coming more frequently and the medication was useless in heading them off.
Despairing, he decided to learn the art and science of deeply relaxing his body and mind and to use conscious breathing as the way to release his daily stress. To his astonishment, not only could he stop his anxiety attacks as they began but, within just four weeks, they completely disappeared from his life! His joy was unbounded.
Recently taking a patient with a suspected heart attack to the hospital, Jack began to comfort the patient by guiding him through the simple breathing exercise that had worked so well for him. By the time the ambulance arrived at the emergency ward, the patient was free of all symptoms. The astounded patient turned to Jack and thanked him. Jack said don’t thank me, thank the breathing. In truth, most people who employ conscious breathing are truly thankful for the gift of having it in their lives.
Eli Bay is one of Canada’s most respected stress management authorities. He is a master at delivering the stress-free relaxation state to virtually anyone and has been successfully unwinding individuals and audiences for decades. Visit: http://www.elibay.com.