Monday, May 14, 2012

What is Mediation, and how can you benefit from it?

First, let me take a minute to say Thank You for coming this far with me on this little journey toward enlightenment and self-awareness.  This is the last blog entry in this current series.  There will be other to come in the future I am sure.  So take the time to join my blog and follow the entries as they unfold.  I am attempting to build my audience and would love to have you be a part of my community.

In this entry we are going to talk about meditation and it's possible benefits that you can get out of utilizing meditation in your daily life.  So, let's start this off right by first telling you that Mediation is derived from the word meditate.  According to Webster's Pocket Dictionary and Thesaurus defines meditate as: "to be in continuous contemplative thought; to think about doing some thing."  There are many schools of thought on meditation; some believe that meditation opens the mind to a higher form of consciousness, others claim it is just the stilling of ones mind to allow exploration of the subconscious, still others say that it is the key to ultimate knowledge and enlightenment, there are so many different opinions that it would be impossible to list them all in this blog.

It is my own opinion that maybe every single one of them are right in some way shape or fashion.  No matter what your religious beliefs are or what school of thought you identify with, it will not change what meditation is and how it can help you.  Personally I like to think of it as prayer and a form of inner evaluation, a form of self-reflection and a tool to help us divorce ourselves from the physical world and glimpse and sometimes enter the spiritual realm.  I have studied many of the worlds religions, and have practiced some of them from time to time.  Each religion teaches and embrace mediation.  In Christianity it is in the form of prayer, in Hinduism it is in the form of lighting candles and incense and assuming the lotus position, and so on and so forth.  Each time I have tried to learn the religious aspects of meditation I found it confusing , hard to accomplish and at times elusive.  The reason why this happened is because the simple concept of self-realization and inner focus was incorporated into the religious culture and dogma and became wrapped up and cloaked in religious tradition.

The concept of meditation is very simple.  It is the stilling of ones mind and allowing the conscious thought to relax control over the body and surrenders control to the subconscious, it is almost like the rational mind (conscious) falls into a light slumber where you can still think and remember what is happening.  Once you have stilled your mind your body relaxes, your respiration and breathing slows as well as your heartbeat.  As you enter this state the subconscious is able to focus your mind on issues or thought abstracts that your waking or rational mind has not been able to work out or deal with.  Thus allowing you to have deeper thoughts, explore the inner recesses of your mind.  Further, when you reflect inward and review your life, you can see and understand things that have been bothering you and you had no idea why.  As you think these deeper thought you are opened up to a greater understanding and spiritual awareness and awakening is able to enter into your body.  Dreams they say is how the subconscious mind works out problems and issues that your conscious mind is either unaware of or are too complex for total understanding.  It is through mediation that we are able to view these issues and allow the subconscious to work on the issues without the constraint of the rational mind holding you back.

As you meditate and your mind calms, you will be able to focus your will reduce your stress, contemplate and understand complex abstracts.  As your mind stills and your body relaxes your subconscious takes control, now remember that the body's autonomic nervous system is control by the subconscious mind.  So when I talk about how you can benefit from mediation, you receive improved and efficient respiration, breathing is normalized, stress is reduced and blood pressure drops, basically your body's natural health is improved and becomes more efficient. Meditation is definitely a tool you will want to use on your journey of self-discovery and spiritual enlightenment.  Another benefit of letting the rational mind relax your subconscious becomes open and receptive to abstract thoughts and spiritual energy. You are able to glimpse and possibly at times enter into the spiritual realm and gain better insight into yourself and those around you.

I find myself mediating at various different times and because it has become second nature too me I seem to slip in and out of it with out sometimes even realizing that I am doing it.  I also have a dedicated time when I meditate, I like to meditate when I am grounding and centering, I find that it helps me align my bodies energy field and focus my will to a singularity of purpose.  Feel free to mediate whenever you want and as often as you would like. It will become second nature to you as well and you will be amazed at some of the thought you will begin to think and understand.  I also like to mediate when I write, for some examples of this look at my blog entries on vision 20/20 and happiness, and time..I think you will begin to see what I mean by abstract thoughts can be analyzed and your how your knowledge and understanding of them improves.

Take some time just like I described in the last entry on grounding where you can be alone and uninterrupted for a period of time, close your eyes, relax your mind and let your body relax as well.  Just let your mind go and follow where it leads, look into your self, and be honest with yourself and you will see what I mean about becoming open and receptive.  That is all there is too mediation.  Pretty simple right!  Keep in mind that using meditation with ground will help keep your body in balance and strengthen your inner focus and sharpens you will to a point of singular purpose.  Your body will benefit from renewed health, vitality and become more efficient in handling negative energy and help you to live in a positive state of being.

This series has been about that allowing us to have to tools needed to reflect inward, begin a journey of self-awareness and self-discovery and spiritual enlightenment.  It was also about using our unconscious(subconscious) mind to view and pick up on abstract thoughts and take those inner issues that our rational mind cannot handle and working to resolve them.  It allows us to be open and receptive to change and allows us to understand ourselves and those around us.

Learn from mediation, use it and see how great you will feel.  Again you have nothing to loose by trying it and you have so much to gain from it.  It is a win-win situation all the way around.  As always I look forward to hearing from you and I appreciate your feedback and comments. Tell me what you think and how you feel on this or any other subject I have written about.  You can contact me directly through the blog, or write to me on facebook at www.facebook.com/bryan.zepp2 or via email at bryanzepp@gmail.com.

All my hopes and dreams are with you

Uncle B

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