Meditation

Meditation is a technique that we can use at any time and place to quieten the mind and restore peace and harmony within ourselves. This subsequently gets manifested in our outward life as well. Meditation is intended not to stop us thinking but to help us to produce order in the midst of our confusion. By relaxing our mind through meditation, we can clear the chatter for a time and experience a renewed sense of energy. This enables us to bring identity, clarity and freedom to take control over our lives to become healthier and happier.

Accumulated stress is the root cause of a high proportion of illnesses, including many common and serious conditions. By 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. This leads to good health and longevity.

The manifold benefits of meditation can be categorized as under:

• improved hearing and mental performance
• improved memory
• improvements in psychosomatic and stress related disorders
• benefits for mother and child during pregnancy and childbirth
• improvement in heart disease
• reversal of tumours
• disorders of the nervous system can be improved
• nose, throat and lung problems can be minimised
• increased muscular tone and flexibility
• Posture gets corrected, allowing deep breathing
• Resetting of the navel point to strengthen the lower triangle
• Strengthening of the nervous system
• Bringing normalcy to the glandular secretions of the endocrine system
• Improving resistance to stress and disease
• Opening of the chakras, rendering you more loving and open to others
• Deep relaxation and spontaneous healing

Meditation can also be termed as an energizing practice that strengthens the body and improves concentration abilities.

Pranayama and meditation correct basic faults within the body system, remove energy blockages and stress, improve blood circulation and enable higher level of oxygen intake. Pranayama helps us in removing symptoms of irritation, anger, listlessness, and lack of energy through retention of breath, both inward and outward (kumbhak and rechak). Meditating twice a day helps in prevention, regression and reversal of ageing. Meditation is the perfect medicine. It is thousand times superior to medication. It helps in coping with negative stress which accelerates ageing whereas positive stress helps in reversal of ageing. Meditation can help us in changing our physiology, biochemistry and improve our immunity to combat diseases.

Meditation enables us to remain in the present and removes regret for the past and anxiety for the future.

It is said that the deeper the meditation, the deeper would be the healing. The mind and body are intimately connected, and the relationship of the mind to the body in meditation is very interesting. The mind creates a situation in which we see the body as peaceful and beautiful. By creating peaceful feelings in the body, the mind is absorbed in those feelings. So although the body is the object to be healed, it also becomes the means of healing the mind – which is the ultimate goal of meditation.

A Little about Buddhism

What is Buddhism?

Buddhism is a religion to about 300 million people around the world. The word comes from 'budhi', 'to awaken'. It has its origins about 2,500 years ago when Siddhartha Gotama, known as the Buddha, was himself awakened (enlightened) at the age of 35.

Is Buddhism a Religion?

To many, Buddhism goes beyond religion and is more of a philosophy or 'way of life'. It is a philosophy because philosophy 'means love of wisdom' and the Buddhist path can be summed up as:

(1) to lead a moral life,

(2) to be mindful and aware of thoughts and actions, and

(3) to develop wisdom and understanding.


How Can Buddhism Help Me?

Buddhism explains a purpose to life, it explains apparent injustice and inequality around the world, and it provides a code of practice or way of life that leads to true happiness.

Why is Buddhism Becoming Popular?

Buddhism is becoming popular in western countries for a number of reasons, The first good reason is Buddhism has answers to many of the problems in modern materialistic societies. It also includes (for those who are interested) a deep understanding of the human mind (and natural therapies) which prominent psychologists around the world are now discovering to be both very advanced and effective.

What is the First Noble Truth?

The first truth is that life is suffering i.e., life includes pain, getting old, disease, and ultimately death. We also endure psychological suffering like loneliness frustration, fear, embarrassment, disappointment and anger. This is an irrefutable fact that cannot be denied. It is realistic rather than pessimistic because pessimism is expecting things to be bad. lnstead, Buddhism explains how suffering can be avoided and how we can be truly happy.

What is the Second Noble Truth?

The second truth is that suffering is caused by craving and aversion. We will suffer if we expect other people to conform to our expectation, if we want others to like us, if we do not get something we want,etc. In other words, getting what you want does not guarantee happiness. Rather than constantly struggling to get what you want, try to modify your wanting. Wanting deprives us of contentment and happiness. A lifetime of wanting and craving and especially the craving to continue to exist, creates a powerful energy which causes the individual to be born. So craving leads to physical suffering because it causes us to be reborn.

What is the Third Noble Truth?

The third truth is that suffering can be overcome and happiness can be attained; that true happiness and contentment are possible. lf we give up useless craving and learn to live each day at a time (not dwelling in the past or the imagined future) then we can become happy and free. We then have more time and energy to help others. This is Nirvana.

What is the Fourth Noble Truth?

The fourth truth is that the Noble 8-fold Path is the path which leads to the end of suffering.

What is the Noble 8-Fold Path?

In summary, the Noble 8-fold Path is being moral (through what we say, do and our livelihood), focussing the mind on being fully aware of our thoughts and actions, and developing wisdom by understanding the Four Noble Truths and by developing compassion for others.

What are the 5 Precepts?

The moral code within Buddhism is the precepts, of which the main five are: not to take the life of anything living, not to take anything not freely given, to abstain from sexual misconduct and sensual overindulgence, to refrain from untrue speech, and to avoid intoxication, that is, losing mindfulness.

Prepared by Brian White 1993, with thanks to Ven S. Dhammika

Balance and the Flow

The flow of energy and health through our 4 "bodies".

What affects one body effects the others. This is due to the existence of the human aura, which is widely accepted today even in many circles in the West. Kirlian photography has helped greatly in this process, indicating the changing state of the subtle energy field around us as we change our thoughts and feelings. Some even claim it can be used to identify disease in these bodies before it manifests in the physical.

If so, it is because the energy of which our bodies are made cycles from the spiritual to the mental, to the emotional and eventually into the physical. Whatever "dis-ease" we allow to become a habit in our thoughts and feelings will eventually manifest as some form of disease or disorder in our physical health. If we choose anger, hatred, fear etc., that pure energy that flows into our auras continually from our Real Self is negatively qualified and out of harmony with God, which lowers our vibration level. It causes blockages in the flow of energy around our energy field or aura, and slows down the rate of spin of our chakras. These are energy centres that distribute energy to our four lower bodies.

The result is a stagnation of flow of energy within us, which causes things like mental density and emotional problems. It also blocks the flow along the energy meridians that take vital life force (or "chi" or "prana") to our organs and cells, eventually causing sickness and disease. Even if you do not believe in the aura, there is abundant evidence from research by people like Dr. Bernard Jensen that hatred and other negative thoughts and feelings actually create acids and toxins that burden the physical body. There is also the subject called “imperil” (1), which involves the poisons and toxins in the body caused by fear, anxiety and irritability. Studies also show that having a positive attitude helps your immune system.(2)

Likewise, if we abuse our physical body by poor diet and exercise, it becomes much easier to give in to old patterns of undesirable thoughts and feelings. So it is important to realise that our 4 "bodies" operate as a complex and intricate holistic system as a vehicle for our soul's experience, and we need to treat them as such. It is very difficult for most people to see their body as merely a vehicle for their soul/Spirit, as a house in which they live or as clothes they wear, but separate from who they really are.

http://wholesomebalance.com/Balancing_Our_4_Bodies.html

Spirituality......

What is the definition of spirituality? I like this definition:

Predominantly spiritual character is shown in thoughts,actions,spiritual tendency or tone. I would say that it is a similiar attitude that a religious person would have about being religious, that is, by "spiritual character" views thier high power as themselves. Spirit is someone's soul, so spirituality would be focused on the self, but focused on the self in a manner in which they can understand it more deeply than just standard cognitive thinking about it, so religion might help you understand yourself in that "higher" manner. The relationship between faith/religion and spirituality then is that both are "higher" methods of understanding the world. Spirituality is focused on your soul, while religion is focused on god. There is an inner peace that spirituality brings, becasue you are more connected to your core and connected to the universe. The spirit part of spirituality has nothing to do with materalism. When you imagine someone as being a spirit or a ghost you take away their physical form and focus more on the core of their being or soul. Use of the word spirit, is like your core energy from your soul, appeals more to your higher morals and values which you would consider to be more consistent with who you are at the core, your being, your connection to the universe.

awesome.......