MEDITATION
WHAT IS MEDITATION?
MEDITATION is a technique that we all can use at any time and place. We use it to quieten the mind and restore peace and harmony within ourselves. This has a profound effect on our outward life as well.
Meditation is intended, not to stop us thinking, but to help us to produce order in and around our confusion. Relaxing our minds through meditation, enables us to clear the chattering for a time and experience a renewed sense of energy. This in turn enables us to bring identity, clarity and freedom to take control over our lives and to become healthier and happier.
Maximum stress is the root cause of a high proportion of illnesses, including many common and serious conditions. By relieving and even eliminating stress, meditation offers important benefits for the cure and prevention of a wide range of health problems and allows the mind and body to function with maximum effectiveness, leading to good health and longevity.
BENEFITS are
Meditating twice a day helps in prevention, regression and reversal of ageing. Meditation is the perfect medicine. Meditation enables us to remain in the present and removes regret for the past and anxiety for the future.
Meditation is intended, not to stop us thinking, but to help us to produce order in and around our confusion. Relaxing our minds through meditation, enables us to clear the chattering for a time and experience a renewed sense of energy. This in turn enables us to bring identity, clarity and freedom to take control over our lives and to become healthier and happier.
Maximum stress is the root cause of a high proportion of illnesses, including many common and serious conditions. By relieving and even eliminating stress, meditation offers important benefits for the cure and prevention of a wide range of health problems and allows the mind and body to function with maximum effectiveness, leading to good health and longevity.
BENEFITS are
- improvement in hearing and mental performance
- improvement of memory
- improvements in stress related disorders
- relaxation to both mother and child during pregnancy and childbirth
- improvement in heart disease
- increased muscular tone and flexibility
- posture gets corrected, allowing deep breathing
- improving resistance to stress and disease
- opening of the chakras, rendering you more loving and open to others
- deep relaxation and spontaneous healing
Meditating twice a day helps in prevention, regression and reversal of ageing. Meditation is the perfect medicine. Meditation enables us to remain in the present and removes regret for the past and anxiety for the future.
HOW TO ENJOY MEDITATING - BEGINNER'S GUIDE
Generally, the first thought that would come to mind regarding meditation is the traditional image of someone, such as a Buddha, sitting cross-legged in what is known as the lotus position, eyes are closed, hands turned upwards resting on the knees with thumb and forefinger touching.
Think again, and decide what comes to mind when you look at the above image? Does it inspire you to learn how to meditate? One would probably say that the image is off-putting and not one bit appealing. One associates meditation with relaxing and unwinding and the above image, especially to Westerners, personifies the exact opposite. The pose looks uncomfortable, where the legs are twisted into an unimaginable unnatural position. Hands pointing upwards two fingers touching is significant though. The significance relates to working with our Chakras and energy meridians running through our body. (See Chakras - coming soon!).
To the newcomer, early stages of meditation do not require you to try and adopt the lotus position. You do not even have to sit cross-legged, place your hands upwards or even close your eyes. However, there are specific reasons the position shown is used for certain forms of meditation and can bring about a powerful and beautiful experience. Eastern societies find this form of meditation much easier to implement, where warm climates naturally relax the muscles and as meditation is part of their culture they are nurtured from an early age.
Think again, and decide what comes to mind when you look at the above image? Does it inspire you to learn how to meditate? One would probably say that the image is off-putting and not one bit appealing. One associates meditation with relaxing and unwinding and the above image, especially to Westerners, personifies the exact opposite. The pose looks uncomfortable, where the legs are twisted into an unimaginable unnatural position. Hands pointing upwards two fingers touching is significant though. The significance relates to working with our Chakras and energy meridians running through our body. (See Chakras - coming soon!).
To the newcomer, early stages of meditation do not require you to try and adopt the lotus position. You do not even have to sit cross-legged, place your hands upwards or even close your eyes. However, there are specific reasons the position shown is used for certain forms of meditation and can bring about a powerful and beautiful experience. Eastern societies find this form of meditation much easier to implement, where warm climates naturally relax the muscles and as meditation is part of their culture they are nurtured from an early age.
Silence is golden
We all know the saying "Silence is golden" and in a perfect world this would be true. Meditation gives an opportunity to work on your ability to focus and concentrate. It is possible to shut out everyday distractions through learning to meditate.
Do you find silence unnerving? All of us have become so used to constant noise that shutting it out or eliminating it altogether can be unnerving. When at home do you always have noise around you, a radio/tv on whether you are listening or watching or not? Do you have traffic outside your house? Is your washing machine or dishwasher on regularly each day? Do your neighbours have pets where you constantly hear them being called or them barking or mewing? Notice the sounds that are around you constantly.
Do you listen to nature sounds? Are you aware of birdsong? Garden windchimes? Wind rustling the trees? Do you have a water fountain or something similar in your garden? These are known as natural sounds. Sounds that are pleasant. If you do not have these sounds to enjoy, try taking a trip to the park or to the coast or a riverside to enjoy the peace that these natural sounds afford you.
Experience silence when you can. Turn off the radio or TV. When you have no laundry or dishwashing to do. Experience the silence in your own environment. How does it make you feel? Listen for other sounds around you and quieten them in your mind. Clocks ticking, heating systems turning off and on. These are sounds that are familiar to you so when sitting or lying in a position of comfort let these sounds comfort you and not irritate you.
The joys of meditation are personal to you and you alone. No one can share your experience whilst meditating. If you are pondering what your purpose in life is, why are you on this Earth, meditation is a means through which you may receive answers. Meditation is free and can be practised in your own time and at your own pace. There are no limitations whilst meditating. Some find a few minutes a day is adequate, while others go off on great journeys and find they enter another realm in their meditative state.
Do you find silence unnerving? All of us have become so used to constant noise that shutting it out or eliminating it altogether can be unnerving. When at home do you always have noise around you, a radio/tv on whether you are listening or watching or not? Do you have traffic outside your house? Is your washing machine or dishwasher on regularly each day? Do your neighbours have pets where you constantly hear them being called or them barking or mewing? Notice the sounds that are around you constantly.
Do you listen to nature sounds? Are you aware of birdsong? Garden windchimes? Wind rustling the trees? Do you have a water fountain or something similar in your garden? These are known as natural sounds. Sounds that are pleasant. If you do not have these sounds to enjoy, try taking a trip to the park or to the coast or a riverside to enjoy the peace that these natural sounds afford you.
Experience silence when you can. Turn off the radio or TV. When you have no laundry or dishwashing to do. Experience the silence in your own environment. How does it make you feel? Listen for other sounds around you and quieten them in your mind. Clocks ticking, heating systems turning off and on. These are sounds that are familiar to you so when sitting or lying in a position of comfort let these sounds comfort you and not irritate you.
The joys of meditation are personal to you and you alone. No one can share your experience whilst meditating. If you are pondering what your purpose in life is, why are you on this Earth, meditation is a means through which you may receive answers. Meditation is free and can be practised in your own time and at your own pace. There are no limitations whilst meditating. Some find a few minutes a day is adequate, while others go off on great journeys and find they enter another realm in their meditative state.
Prayer is when you talk to God; meditation is when you listen to God ~ Diana Robinson
How I Meditate
Breathing, very important. No seriously! For meditation, I breathe deep through my nose. This warms the air coming into my lungs. If I were to breathe in through my mouth, cold air would enter my lungs and would not function to aid meditation. I take a deep breathe as though I am breathing into the pit of my stomach. When breathing in I do not raise my shoulders or puff out my chest. I breathe as though trying to push air into my stomach or as low as I can. This type of breathing is exercised by singers, athletes etc. as to do so enables them to fill the whole of the lung and not just part as with normal everyday breathing. This is full deep breathing. Now I obviously need to breathe out, so to do so I breathe out through the mouth in small puffs as though trying to keep a feather in the air or, as a colleague recently likened the puffs, to trying to blow out a candle.
I breathe in and out like this two or three times. Whilst concentrating on my breathing slow deep in and small puffs out. In the past when first starting to breathe this way I have felt lightheaded. I stopped, breathed naturally for a few moments and then started all over again.
This type of breathing brings me to my meditative state.
A lot of people don't go into a meditative state at this point but with practice on a daily basis, the meditative state will come and when it does, enjoy!
I breathe in and out like this two or three times. Whilst concentrating on my breathing slow deep in and small puffs out. In the past when first starting to breathe this way I have felt lightheaded. I stopped, breathed naturally for a few moments and then started all over again.
This type of breathing brings me to my meditative state.
A lot of people don't go into a meditative state at this point but with practice on a daily basis, the meditative state will come and when it does, enjoy!
My Alternative Meditation
Well here goes. Very early on in learning to meditate I came across a meditation process using Binaural Beats.
What are binaural beats?
Binaural beats are the result of two slightly different audio waves being heard separately by the left and right ear via stereo headphones, in a manner that encourages the neurophysiology to generate a specific unified brain wave pattern. (All very technical!)
What are the effects of binaural beats?
Binaural beats are associated with studies in consciousness studies, both clinical and informal.
The theta and delta brain waves have especially been linked to meditation and also out of body experiences.
Meditation, guided visualization, self empowerment, astral projection, positive re-enforcement, remote viewing and lucid dreaming have all been reported and sought after via the use of binaural beat technology.
Are there benefits to using binaural beats?
It has been evidenced that binaural beats positively impact a whole variety of emotional, spiritual and mental states. Each brain wave has a specific area of impact:
Here is the technical bit ~ but worth noting if you wish to use binaural beats for other states as stated above.
Frequency Name: Usually associated with
> 40 Hz Gamma waves: Higher mental activity, including perception, problem solving, breakthroughs and consciousness
13–40 Hz Beta waves: Active, busy or focused thinking and concentration, arousal, cognition, memory
7–13 Hz Alpha waves: Deep relaxation (while awake), pre-sleep and pre-awake drowsiness
4–7 Hz Theta waves: Dreams, deep meditation, REM sleep, astral projection
< 4 Hz Delta waves: Deep dreamless sleep, loss of body awareness
By choosing specific binaural beats you can change your experience and feelings as you wish, even replicating natural cycles in the human brain (like sleep or concentration). Binaural beats are perfect for augmenting any day to-day experience which either enhances alertness and concentration on one end, or increased relaxation and sleep on the other.
Any binaural beats you purchase, be it downloaded or CD will show the type of beats (ie theta, delta, gamma), the frequency or in some cases you might have a range on one CD or download, thereby enabling multi usage.
I use binaural beats to help achieve a much deeper state of meditation. I have used binaural beats several times and actually met my Spirit Guide through such deep meditation. My usage of binaural beats is purely to take me into deeper meditation and using it also gets me there much quicker. I feel totally relaxed once the meditation is over.
I will stress two things when using the binaural beat technology.
Firstly, your first use will seem unfamiliar to you for obvious reasons, as the beats are unnatural to the human ear, although the brain does recognise and utilise the beat appropriately. If the beat feels uncomfortable, do one of two things, either turn down the volume on your headphones ever so slightly until you can listen in comfort, or try another beat relevant to your usage. My beats were downloaded onto my iPod and can have other sounds added to them. For example, the beats are still in the background, doing the work they were chosen for and you can add sounds you are comfortable with i.e., birds, waterfalls, ocean waves, even thunder (whatever floats your boat!!!). I actually chose whales calling, why I don't know, but it was so soothing and I was in my meditative state within a couple of minutes.
The downloads also allow you to set a time for your meditation, which brings me to the second item I wished to stress.
Although there are no adverse effects to using binaural beats I have found to cut short a meditation, using this method, i.e., setting the beats to say, 30 minutes and being brought out of the meditation after 15 minutes because a phone rings, someone at the front door, can slightly disorientate you.
If you can, when disturbed, take off the headphones and sit for a moment, collect your thoughts and get your bearings before rising. This is just a precaution as the feeling is likened to feeling dizzy when getting up too fast, nothing more!
Each person is affected by binaural beats differently; some people quickly notice the effects of binaural beats while with others it takes a little longer to feel the effects. Try it, if you like it, use it for your meditation. If not, you've lost nothing, but experienced something new.
What are binaural beats?
Binaural beats are the result of two slightly different audio waves being heard separately by the left and right ear via stereo headphones, in a manner that encourages the neurophysiology to generate a specific unified brain wave pattern. (All very technical!)
What are the effects of binaural beats?
Binaural beats are associated with studies in consciousness studies, both clinical and informal.
The theta and delta brain waves have especially been linked to meditation and also out of body experiences.
Meditation, guided visualization, self empowerment, astral projection, positive re-enforcement, remote viewing and lucid dreaming have all been reported and sought after via the use of binaural beat technology.
Are there benefits to using binaural beats?
It has been evidenced that binaural beats positively impact a whole variety of emotional, spiritual and mental states. Each brain wave has a specific area of impact:
Here is the technical bit ~ but worth noting if you wish to use binaural beats for other states as stated above.
Frequency Name: Usually associated with
> 40 Hz Gamma waves: Higher mental activity, including perception, problem solving, breakthroughs and consciousness
13–40 Hz Beta waves: Active, busy or focused thinking and concentration, arousal, cognition, memory
7–13 Hz Alpha waves: Deep relaxation (while awake), pre-sleep and pre-awake drowsiness
4–7 Hz Theta waves: Dreams, deep meditation, REM sleep, astral projection
< 4 Hz Delta waves: Deep dreamless sleep, loss of body awareness
By choosing specific binaural beats you can change your experience and feelings as you wish, even replicating natural cycles in the human brain (like sleep or concentration). Binaural beats are perfect for augmenting any day to-day experience which either enhances alertness and concentration on one end, or increased relaxation and sleep on the other.
Any binaural beats you purchase, be it downloaded or CD will show the type of beats (ie theta, delta, gamma), the frequency or in some cases you might have a range on one CD or download, thereby enabling multi usage.
I use binaural beats to help achieve a much deeper state of meditation. I have used binaural beats several times and actually met my Spirit Guide through such deep meditation. My usage of binaural beats is purely to take me into deeper meditation and using it also gets me there much quicker. I feel totally relaxed once the meditation is over.
I will stress two things when using the binaural beat technology.
Firstly, your first use will seem unfamiliar to you for obvious reasons, as the beats are unnatural to the human ear, although the brain does recognise and utilise the beat appropriately. If the beat feels uncomfortable, do one of two things, either turn down the volume on your headphones ever so slightly until you can listen in comfort, or try another beat relevant to your usage. My beats were downloaded onto my iPod and can have other sounds added to them. For example, the beats are still in the background, doing the work they were chosen for and you can add sounds you are comfortable with i.e., birds, waterfalls, ocean waves, even thunder (whatever floats your boat!!!). I actually chose whales calling, why I don't know, but it was so soothing and I was in my meditative state within a couple of minutes.
The downloads also allow you to set a time for your meditation, which brings me to the second item I wished to stress.
Although there are no adverse effects to using binaural beats I have found to cut short a meditation, using this method, i.e., setting the beats to say, 30 minutes and being brought out of the meditation after 15 minutes because a phone rings, someone at the front door, can slightly disorientate you.
If you can, when disturbed, take off the headphones and sit for a moment, collect your thoughts and get your bearings before rising. This is just a precaution as the feeling is likened to feeling dizzy when getting up too fast, nothing more!
Each person is affected by binaural beats differently; some people quickly notice the effects of binaural beats while with others it takes a little longer to feel the effects. Try it, if you like it, use it for your meditation. If not, you've lost nothing, but experienced something new.
Me and Guided Meditation
Much as I try, guided meditation does not work for me. My meditative state is much enhanced by either binaural beats, soft meditative music or total peace and quiet. It all depends on my mood and how long I wish to meditate and what I want from my meditation.
Guided meditation hinders my meditation because I cannot visualise in my meditation. I can hear, feel and sometimes even smell and recently my visuals have come after I've reached the meditative state.
Unfortunately, being guided to a meditative state does not work for me. For instance, the guide will say imagine you are walking on a sun-drenched beach, all alone with only the wind and waves around you. Well, much as I'd like to be on that beach or even visualise it, I cannot. After the guide has finished speaking and I'm left with either peace or music I go anywhere my meditation takes me and of late I visualise family, friends and non-sensical things that can only be analysed once out of meditation and discussed in my Development Circle.
Some people thrive on guided meditation as it is a comfortable way to get them into the meditative state, but for me, I must digress!
Guided meditation hinders my meditation because I cannot visualise in my meditation. I can hear, feel and sometimes even smell and recently my visuals have come after I've reached the meditative state.
Unfortunately, being guided to a meditative state does not work for me. For instance, the guide will say imagine you are walking on a sun-drenched beach, all alone with only the wind and waves around you. Well, much as I'd like to be on that beach or even visualise it, I cannot. After the guide has finished speaking and I'm left with either peace or music I go anywhere my meditation takes me and of late I visualise family, friends and non-sensical things that can only be analysed once out of meditation and discussed in my Development Circle.
Some people thrive on guided meditation as it is a comfortable way to get them into the meditative state, but for me, I must digress!