Sunday, March 13, 2016

What is meditation?






Why is it important?

For some medication sounds like a magic word, related to Buddhist monks or Yogis. It is true that meditation practices arose in the East, around 6-5 B.C. We can read about it in Hindu Vedas, later in Buddhism, Islamic, Christian practices. Meditation spread into science in the 20th century and reached the peak in 1970’s when Yoga teachers from the East brought Yoga to the West.

So what is meditation?

In daily terms, it is an ability to "empty your mind" or just not to think with your intellectual mind. In scientific terms during the meditation the brain activity is in the shallow alpha or theta states where the body is not entirely awake though isn’t sleeping either.


Meditation is already scientifically proven and helps not only to cope with the stress of daily life, bring the inner peace and harmony but also treats the anxiety, depression, ADHD in adults and children, and manages the chronic pain.

Below you can find more evidence-based information on positive meditation effects.




http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26840029

How to practice meditation?
I practice meditation for more than ten years. At the beginning of my practices and later on, I could reach higher states of consciousness and stay thoughtless. However, I wasn’t able to integrate the meditation into my daily life. And it is not the goal to live in the duality. Oneness with life and self is the central idea of living consciously.
Many great things I learned from my spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle. I highly recommend his CD “What is Meditation”.
 I want to share the simple concepts that I use for my meditation practice.
1.    Grounding. When you are sitting comfortably in the silent room alone, close your eyes and concentrate only on your breath. Imagine a light entering your body through your skull and going into the center of the Earth. Every breath brings you a source of light and helps you keep your body stable on the ground.
2.    Centering. Later try just to concentrate on your breathing. Every breath in is an amount of light that comes into your body, fills every cell of it and every breath out brings the unused energy out of your body. I usually visualize myself as a tube through which the wind blows uncontrollably.
3.    Connecting. Start feeling your fingers, toes and imagine the light that you received fulfilling every organ of your body as you were immersed in the big vessel of water. Eventually, the physical feeling of the body disappears the breathing slows down and here you are fully connected to the source.
4.    Protecting. Before you feel like coming back into your body, start breathing normal and imagine the white shield covering you. Start slowly moving your fingers, toes, blinking, smiling and opening your eyes.
These are the steps I recommend for those who want to meditate. It is not easy to find that 15-20 min a day in a fast pace life, but once you practice for a few times, you will feel a very positive difference in your everyday lives.
After you learn and feel comfortable with meditation, it is important to integrate it into your daily life. Meaning,that the peace and calm mind you find in meditation should not leave you during the day. How to do that? I will talk more about it in the other posts.
Good luck with your practice!
I am always open to the discussion, do not hesitate to ask or comment.
Brigita



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