Our current education system gives us nothing but a tool for survival, which looses its edge in course of time. It gives us fish, not the art of fishing. One fish can help us for one day but art of fishing will help us for lifetime. In our school we learn about history, science, business but there is no school that can teach us right way of living. I will explain how meditation can solve general problems of life.
What is meditation?
One pointed mind at a single object of concentration is called meditation. Meditation has many types and objective. Our mind always keeps processing thoughts which is natural. Thoughts may consist of knowledge, fantasy or some memory. Objective of any type of meditation is to stop bubbling thoughts in mind and concentrate at one place.
Work of any type is meditation. Watching our breathing pattern is meditation. Looking at something or listening to something without thinking anything else is meditation. Even thinking about something without thinking anything else is meditation.
Objective can be good health, better concentration power, detachment, reaching higher reams of conscience etc. I will discuss about these things in detail.
Stress
What is stress? Stress means, pressure more than one can tolerate. If we try to do or made to do something which is beyond our capability, willingness or control then we will be under stress. Filling of stress and fear go hand in hand.
Stress is a psychological feeling but it affects our physical and mental health directly. Since the mind gets disturbed the stress can manifest it self in various diseases. First of all stress disturbs our mind and we loose sound sleep because of anxiety and fear, then it kills our heart because of rapid heart beats. When Heart becomes weak, extra pressure is transferred to Lever after some time Lever start becoming weak then Kidney comes next. Stress simply kills these three most vital organs.
Now let me explain how meditation helps here. As I have mentioned earlier that meditation is concentration of mind at single point. While we meditate then we concentrate on something else hence we tend to forget the thing which has given us stress. It produces detachment which stops the inertia of thoughts those had produced anxiety feeling. Hence one gets a peaceful mind and person restores this sleep and consequently health. Fifteen minutes of meditation can give relaxation of hours of sleep. Once we get peace of mind we tend to foster a rational attitude towards things. The very origin of stress is irrational targets sets by us or others. Once we acquire a rational mind we start believing that we can not control certain circumstances but we can control how we react and feel about circumstances. I do not have to mention that unlike any drug, meditation does not have any side effects. It is purely natural to body.
Increased brain power:
How do we define a powerful brain? A brain having better reasoning, cognition, ability to memorize facts, recall facts is a powerful brain.
A better memory or reasoning only comes from concentration. Every one has some natural capability for reasoning and memory retention, but with the help of meditation one can increase brain power in most natural way. Any type of drug will have its side effects but meditation is very natural to mind and body.
Let us explore meditation more in context of brain power. Every creation in this world is because of concentration of the brain. In order to create something we need to concentrate or imagine something. Better concentration results in better creation. Every manifestation that we see is result of thoughts directed toward a direction, towards a result. Before anything takes a physical format, it is already created in mind. Any work like programming, memorizing, arts, reading, painting, sports, architecture design they all require concentration. More we can concentrate better we will do. Meditation helps stopping bubbling thoughts inside our minds. Once we get control over bubbling thought we can direct them in desired direction.
Now few justifications for meditation in context of sports and physical activities. Let it be any sport like tennis, cricket, gymnastics, body building etc. Every sport requires concentration of mind. Better you concentrate better you perform in sports. In bodybuilding one has to focus only on muscles while doing exercise. In tennis, player has to concentrate on ball, anticipate opponent's moves and formulate strategy while playing. In cricket batsman has to focus on ball and preserve inner peace. All great sports person Pet Sampras, Rodger Fedrer, Sachin Tendulkar, Kapil Dev, Vishwanathan Anand they all have one thing common, that is a peaceful, humble and calm demeanor.
Better health:
Let us try to understand how meditation helps in getting better health.
I will try to harmonize meditation theories with modern biology. Let us understand how our body functions. All our body parts are connected to brain through nervous system, which is made of network of neuron cells. All the perception of outside word is sent to brain by neurons cells and brain gives commands to parts of body through nerves. We have natural capability to heal ourselves. Say for example we get a scratch and little wound is created. In course of time the wound will be healed even though we don’t use any medicine. Broken bones also get connected again. How do these things happen? It happens because we have natural capability to heal our selves. Even thought we have most chronic health problems like blood pressure, diabetes, liver dysfunction our brain is continuously trying to heal these problems. Our busy lifestyle does not give brain time to heal our organs.
In meditation process when we are in deep mental trance, the brain gets ample of time for healing the body. Fifteen minutes of meditation can compensate hours of sleep. This is the only secret why person who meditates enjoys better health than others.
Let me show you philosophical paradigm of meditation in context of health. Most of the health related problem arises because we have some kind of emotion that is against our true self. Persistent emotions which are against our true nature lead to diseases. Our lifestyle also plays a vital role when it comes to health but our emotions have a lot to do with our health.
For example feeling of fear and anxiety leads to heart related diseases. Guilt feeling weakens our immune system. Meditation helps us reaching our true self, understating what kind of emotions drain us out of energy. Once we enter the stage of mental trance and inner peace, self healing process gets triggered. If we carry emotions which are aligned with our true nature we will have more energy then ever before.
Attainment of a rational mind :
Attaining a rational mind is the most challenging thing for a human. We make decisions, judge something, analyze something, reach logical deduction based on what we have learned so far in our life and what our conscience allows us to think. Our teachers, parents, elders, bosses, peers all affect us. Apart from people's influence we are all affected by our experiences, leanings in life and we are prejudiced by greed/jealousy/anger/vengeance/vanity. We make decisions based on these factors. Meditation helps us breaking these shackles. Everything in the universe is relative. Appearance of the things depends on person to person. Meditation takes the mind at a level of conscience where we reach absolute. Then we can see the things the way they are in most pure format. Once we attain a rational mind, we start discovering ground realities of life, become mentally and physically stronger, take unbiased decisions, become more ethical. Our actions become more aligned with our true self. It results in feeling of bliss.
Happiness :
What exactly constitutes happiness?
Everybody has some understanding of things which are right or wrong. We imagine that our lives should run in a certain way. Television, news paper and other media are defining happiness for us. Who are these people who make movies, advertisements, serials, sell magazines, write book? Are they telling truth?
Who has validated them? What is authenticity of information that they expose? What we may perceive as happiness can tern out to be great misery and what we think is misery can be source of grand joy.
We hardly know what exactly we like or dislike. Happiness is different for different people. We just don't know who we are, what we like, what are we meant for, what is our true nature. Meditation helps us attain inner peace which results in realization of our true self. Only after self realization true bliss is achieved and life terns into celebration.
Better relationships:
Meditation helps us becoming aware of ourselves. We become more aware what we like, what we don't like. In some way or other each individual is same. Everybody has emotions like love, fear, anxiety, hatred etc.
Once we understand ourselves we can understand other people. If we get ability to step into somebody else's shoes we will have better interpersonal skills and relationships. Meditation also induces feeling of love which is like glue for any relationship.
Self control:
Most of the people know what they should do or what they should not. We all know nice things that we can implement in our lives. We make many Birthday and New Year resolutions but we are hardly able to finish them. We want to quit bad habits but we can not. We want to be disciplined but we can not. Book-stores are filled with self-help and personal-growth books. People read them and throw them in trash. Just reading a self help book doesn’t helps much. We have to change overall approach toward life and overall way of leaving.
Human action is driven by the thoughts those appears in mind. We are just slaves of the random thoughts those appears in our mind. Meditation helps us control our thought processing. Through continuous practice of meditation we master the art of controlling thought. As soon as we master the art of controlling thoughts we start controlling modification of mind hence our emotions or actions.
Philosophical and religious significance of meditation:
What is life? How to find purpose of our lives? What are we born for?
Where we are heading? What will become of us?
We have our Master and PhD degrees but we are simply illiterate when it comes to knowledge of philosophy, spirituality and way of living.
Philosophy means love for wisdom. The philosophy has a different name in Indian scriptures that is called “Gyana Yoga”. The freedom from bondage or ignorance through knowledge is called Gyana Yoga. Detachment can happen through meditation also and through knowledge also. But when the mind of individual is not prepared to receive very high-end wisdom, any type of philosophical discourse will be useless for such person. Meditation helps brain prepare for receiving and understanding philosophy. Meditation has another name called “Raja yoga”. Raja Yoga and Gyana Yoga both culminate at same place that is freedom/ bliss/ enlightenment/ Kaivalya / Moksha etc.
Now let us try to understand religion. Yoga philosophy knows religion by another name called “Bhakti Yoga”. Devotion of life and every action to God having form or formless is called Bhakti Yoga. Once we surrender ourselves totally to God a new dimension of life begins. Bhakti Yoga (religion ) means living every moment of life for God, doing every action for God, total surrender to God, having complete faith in God. Raja Yoga (meditation ) if done with utmost care and seeker of God reaches a very high level ( Seedless Samadhi) then full realization of God will take place. But normal concentration exercises can’t take an individual to full realization. It takes guidance of teacher and years of practice.
I would summarize that "Raja Yoga / Meditation' or "Bhakti Yoga/ Religion” or "Gyana Yoga/ Philosophy" all culminates at same point none of them are better than other. The way of reaching absolute truth is different.
What do I sell?
*Meditation for reducing stress.
*Meditation for increasing brain power.
*Meditation for self healing.
*Meditation for tuning with cosmic energy.
*Meditation for enlightenment.
*Yoga postures.
*Philosophic solutions to general problems of life.
*Lifestyle consulting.
*Help people quit bad habits.
*Help people loosing weight.
*Ways to be happy.
Example meditation technique:
Sit at a silent place. Breathe in and out in most natural way. Feel the friction of air in nose while inhaling and exhaling. Don’t think any thing else but focus on breathe. Very soon breathe will become calmer and deeper. This will make you forget everything else. If this exercise is done carefully it will take the individual to Samadhi (ultimate stage of
Few misconceptions about yoga.
1. One has to go to Himalaya in order to become Yogi.
We can be Yogi and at the same time lead a common life.
2. One has to leave all worldly pleasures like tasty food, family, become monk and go to Ashram in order to be Yogi.
Yoga doesn’t means complete renunciation of pleasure. Instead yogi enjoys the pleasure more than anyone, because he can control it.
3. A household can not be yogi.
All greatest sages of ancient India were households.
4. Yoga belongs to only Hindu religion.
Yoga is a scientific study of understanding body, mind and soul. Science and reasoning can not possibly belong to any particular religion they belong to everyone.
