01 May What is meditation?
Despite the fact that meditation is becoming rapidly more common and mainstream, the practice is still widely misunderstood. Most people still think of meditation as a form of relaxation.
In truth meditation begins with intense concentration. But while we are in this state of intense concentration we are still not meditating, this is merely the stage before meditation.
If we can maintain this state of intense concentration our minds enter an alternative state of consciousness. While we are in this alternative state of consciousness we are meditating.
A good way of understanding this is to compare it to a more well know state of consciousness called the “zone” by athletes or “flow” by psychologists.
Most of us have had the experience of doing something so absorbing that we completely lose our sense of time, either time appears to accelerate rapidly or sometimes it seems like it briefly stops altogether. We are so absorbed in the activity everything else just seems to melt away and cease to exist and experience a blissful state of being completely immersed in what we are doing. These conditions are often indications that we are in flow or in the zone.
Meditation is very much like this but even more intense. Whereas sports, games, artistic endeavours etc require tools, equipment, people and other things external to us, meditation does not. Meditation allows to be happy and content without needed anyone or anything external to us. Our happiness comes from within and is not subject to anyone else’s whims nor that of fortune.
Meditation has been shown to actually rewire our brains in ways that make us happier and more functional and less prone to depression and defeatism.
In the words of Swami Sivanander “Practice meditation regularly. Meditation leads to eternal bliss. Therefore meditate, meditate!”
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