Meditation – The Wisdom of Stillness Part 1

Navel Gazing

The word meditation conjures up a lot of images…some pleasant, some amusing and some just plain wrong. In this article I will attempt to explain the art of meditation; the benefits of doing it and methods for accomplishing mental stillness but first lets talk a little about noise.

We live in a busy world in which our senses are constantly assaulted by activity. Our minds are a reflection of this world…constantly active, moving and circling. Unless you are a shark…this activity is exhausting and prevents you from truly attaining a peaceful state of being. So as much time as we spend in the world of busy and noise…it is beneficial to balance it by intentionally slowing down and creating still and silent spaces in our lives. Making this a priority…a way of life…teaches us a greater lesson.

Slowing Down to Create a New Reality

When we are in a hurry all the time we are stressed, tense, insecure, inefficient and often times ill. Don’t buy into the cultural mindset of hurry…be nice to yourself and start making time. Making time starts you down the path of one-pointed attention. Cultivating one-pointed attention heals a fragmented consciousness. When the mind is one-pointed it is secure, free from tension and capable of immense concentration…these traits are the mark of greatness in any field.

The Energy Side

Now that we have talked about the physical and mental side of meditation I would like to address the energy side. When we meditate, we let go of all the negative energy we have been carrying around inside of us and fill up on positive source energy. This is as vital and healing to our bodies as sleep. It relaxes the mind and the entire body…placing us in a state of rest and renewal. We climb deep into ourselves…connecting with the spark of the divine that is our real nature and the reason that we incarnated. Meditation cleanses our energy…it makes our vibration high enough to connect with our higher selves (our souls) and allows us to put all of the circumstances of our lives (our baggage) aside. You can not enter into a place of communion with the soul, unless you can strip yourself down to the core of what you are…meditation will get you there.

Choose a Place to Meditate

It is important to choose a particular place in your house in which to meditate…somewhere you won’t be disturbed and in which you feel safe. Make sure it is free of clutter and has few distractions…place only items that please you in this area. The energy you produce while meditating will linger in the spot in which you consistently meditate…this energy will make it easier for you to drop into meditation as you go along and in essence will eventually make this area of your home very sacred…a place that can give you peace from the moment you sit down. I try to include three items in the room with me when I meditate; a candle, a basin of water, and a plant. The candle provides a great focal point and the flame is a wonderful visual for energy. The water attracts and purifies any negative energy and the plant being a vibrant and living thing helps support the draw on source energy. (Don’t forget to empty the basin of water into the toilet after every session).

No Thought…is not the Place to Start

I’ll admit when I first started meditating I had a love-hate relationship with it…I hated the beginning of each session but loved how I felt at the end. I experienced a great deal of difficulty shutting down my mind because my focus was on how I couldn’t seem to make it stop. Focusing on experiencing no thought, ensnared me in a resistance pattern in which I spent the majority of my session attempting not to think. I failed to realize that meditation is a process of training your mind to focus and that I was going about it a bit backwards. Fortunately…even the early sessions in which I had so much difficulty, created a less active mental environment, so I left the sessions with a increased energy and a greater sense of peace.

Eventually I learned that a gentle approach is best and that if I judged my wandering mind it became more difficult to stay focused. I just accepted that my mind would wander…that it happens to everyone and was in no way any indication of my future spiritual success I started to separate my sense of self from my mind and began to view my thinking as kind of a nervous habit (like biting your nails) or an automatic function (like digestion). When I stopped taking thinking so seriously I developed a new relationship with it. Out of this relationship came an understanding of its functionality…and the insight that the mind is like a dog with a bone…if you give it something to chew on it will lie down and stay in one place for awhile…occupied.

This led to the practice of picking a thought or an image and allowing my mind to focus on whatever I had chosen. Words or phrases repeated are called mantras and images are called visualizations. I found that I experienced greater success when I gave my mind a few words or images to focus on and then gently brought it back to those words or that image if it strayed.

When I first started meditating my goal was to achieve a place of no thought. I didn’t actually get there until I shifted my goal toward simply staying in one place and enjoying the feeling of focused thought. Once I was proficient enough in that…the place of no thought came on its own with no strain or difficulty and with great surprise because I was no longer even thinking about it.

In my next entry I will go over the three major components of meditation (breathing, visualization & working with energy) with exercises, suggestions and insights.

Until then bright blessings and many happy returns…

PK

Comments

By Paula Kawal on May 21st, 2007 at 10:35 am

I am so honored!

Thank You

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