Meditation is an essential ingredient in spiritual growth and providing food for the mind. Meditation is a 21st century buzzword found everywhere. So what makes this article different?
First, a few words from the wise Swami Paramananda:
“Even on the little things, the practice of Meditation helps us organise the chaotic elements in our body, emotions and mind.
As the practice becomes a habit, we gradually establish ourselves in physical health and mental alertness, which finds its expression in dynamic exhilarating thoughts, buoyant optimism, and high inspiration.
We also gain the ability to pursue ever-higher thoughts and ideals connecting with the Truth. Thus the practice of Meditation, no matter how small, proves to be the key to accessing true knowledge!”
Level setting the term meditation!
First and foremost, Meditation is simply a process that brings your attention to the present moment, focusing attention on an object.
That object can be anything; the breath, a visual, guided sound, or repeating a word or mantra in your mind’s eye.
Meditation in motion
Can be described as the most practical way to work with Meditation. You can practice it while walking, connecting with the earth and experiencing the elements moment by moment. It can be experienced while sipping a cup of coffee, eating your favourite meal, or at work connecting with a work colleague by giving your full attention to what they are saying in the moment.
Successful Meditation
You can quickly gauge when you are successfully Meditating.
– when you observe that you have released your busy mind, the self-talk that spends time thinking about past events, or worrying about something in the future, and find you are experiencing the present moment fully.
The practical benefits of Meditation include;
- increased calmness and relaxation
- improved psychological balance
- enhanced overall wellness and wellbeing
- establishing alertness and greater creativity.
You will find that you get less caught up in life dramas, maintaining equilibrium, seeing events from a detached perspective.
The spiritual benefit of Meditation
As you suspend the stream of thoughts, allowing yourself to come into a state of stillness… it is from this point that you access higher consciousness.
When you can do this, you can respond to life differently. And as you do, old patterns of behaviour and automatic responses, start to change to new ways of responding.
As you practice, you will notice you create new experiences in life. And from a spiritual standpoint you make incremental changes in how you run your consciousness generally, enabling you to maintain a new level of consciousness. When you do this over time, your awareness expands resulting in how you see the world shifts.
It opens your intuition up more and your ability to receive messages from your spiritual guides become clearer. Spiritual gifts and talents are able to anchor, supporting the power to manifest and ascend with more ease and grace.
So if you like the sound of the benefits but find meditating hard to take up or keep going, it’s important to keep it simple. If all you do is five minutes a day, you will be surprised at the positive effect of just this small amount of time, which spurs you on to build your practice over time.
Most importantly, pick an approach to Meditation that resonates for you, because then you are more likely to keep practising and experience the benefits from doing so.
On a human level, Meditation builds a mind that is more kind.
On a spiritual level, Mediation helps you reconnect to your divinity.
Photo by Eli DeFaria on Unsplash