Meditation

What is Meditation ?

Meditation can be defined as " Technique for refocusing attention that brings bout an altered state of consciousness." from definition of Rober S. Feldman.



When traditional practitioners of the ancient eastern religion of Zen Buddhism ( who do ooom ooom ) want to know about their inner spiritual strength or want to know themselves better than before, they use a method that has been used for centuries to change their state of consciousness. This method is called meditation. Although this sounds very fascinating, some form of meditation is found within every major religion including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism ( India ). Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, practice a form of meditation called transcendental meditation, or simply TM.

The unique meditative technique used in TM involves repeating a mantra which is actually a  sound word like OOOMMM, OOOMMM or any other word repeated over and over again. The basic purpose remains to focus on sound or word and non other thing exists in the world. There are other forms of meditation, the focus is on a picture, fire, light, water or some particular part of the body regardless of the nature of the particular initial stimulus, in most forms of meditation the key to the procedure is concentrating on it so thoroughly that the meditator becomes unaware of any outside stimulation or you can say environment and reaches a different state of consciousness. ( I have seen this in the movie The Last Samurai ).

Following meditation, people report that they start feeling relaxed and calmed. They sometimes relate this to stage that they have gained new insights about themselves and they have found solution to their problems which can be every day problems or the child hood problems. The long term practice of meditation may even improve health. I have found a reference to this and I put it as it is "One study of a group of elderly nursing hoe residents found higher longevity for those who practiced meditation over a three year period and another study found that people who meditated regularly had lower medical expenses ( Alexander et al., 1989; Goldberg, 1995; Herron et al., 1996 )." 


Benefits of Meditation

Meditation brings about several physiological changes. Like

1. Usage of oxygen by body decreases.
2. Your heart rate and blood pressure starts to decline.
3. Patterns of brain way may start to change.

Meditation for Beginners 

So you want to do meditation ? It becomes crystal clear that you too can meditate too without exotic methods  by using a few simple procedures or rules developed by Herbert Benson, who has studied meditation extensively. The basics are similar in several respects to those developed as a part of eastern religions but have no spiritual component like Christianity or Judaism.

The Method

Sit in a quiet room with your eyes closed, breathing deeply and rhythmically, and repeating a word or sound such as the word "A or One" over and over again. Although the procedure is a bit more in depth than this, most people find themselves in a deeply relaxed state after just twenty minutes. This has to be Practiced twice a day, Benson's meditative methods seem to be just as effective in bringing about relaxation as more mystical methods in religion.

Meditation is easy isn't it :) but twenty minutes meditation for me and concentrating is hard work :) Happy meditating


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