What You Really Need to Know About Meditation

And It’s Not What You Think

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Whenever the word meditation comes up in anyone’s mind, the sense of tranquillity it carries also brings with it a big bag of myths and some confusion associated with it.

Let’s bust some of the myths first:

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• “Meditation is for old people. You do it when you retire” Meditation is actually a workout for one’s brain. So if exercising benefits anyone at any age so does meditation.!
• “Doing meditation means following a religion” Meditation is a scientifically proven practice to train the mind and has no religious angle to it in today’s world. It has its own science.
• “You have to be given a mantra to meditate” Meditation usually gets associated with mantras because this practice somehow derives its roots from old Buddhism and Hinduism practices which used mantras for it. Using a mantra has its own significance but that does not mean you cannot do the practice without it.
• “Meditation is only for stressed-out people” Meditation is not just for people who have problems in life, it's also for extremely happy, successful people who simply want to know more and experience more in life. Meditation opens you to dimensions that you don’t even know exist.
• “I don’t have time for meditation” Even 10 min of meditation done daily can increase your efficiency and focus to an extent that would make your day longer.
• “You can’t meditate because you think too much” Absolutely incorrect! It's our brain’s job to think and bring ideas. Expecting it not to have thoughts would mean expecting our brain to malfunction. Having thoughts becomes a problem only when we get consumed by the thoughts.
• “You can’t meditate because you don’t know if you’re doing it right.” There is no right or wrong way to meditate as long as you understand the very essence of meditation. And no “gyaan” video, speech, or blog can make you understand every bit of it unless you sit with it and experience it. That is only when the layers of meditation unfold.
• “Meditation takes years to learn” Meditation is a skill and learning it has its initial inertia. Just like it takes some time and discipline to learn guitar or build up that strong core, meditation needs practice, patience, and perseverance but it does not have to be many years. The main purpose here is to understand meditation and its benefits.

So, WHAT IS MEDITATION?

“Meditation is a practice of still awareness & connecting to oneself.”

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Meditation is the art of disconnecting from the external world and reconnecting to your inner soul. It is to go into silence to be able to hear your inner voice.

“I have seen many videos, there that teach to chant mantras and focus on breath for doing Meditation?”

This is a common confusion linked to meditation. Many people start to believe that meditation is to focus on one’s breath, chanting a mantra, or controlling thoughts while sitting still because that is how it is taught. Well, none of these actually mean meditation but we keep hearing such things when meditation is talked about because these are like tools to reach the meditative state of mind.

For e.g., if you want to go to your office from your home, you can take your car, your bike, ride a bicycle, book a cab, take some public transport or maybe take a walk. These are just ways to reach the destination i.e. office and we need these as a means to reach our destination.

Similarly, such tools/ways are definitely needed in meditation to reach the ultimate state of awareness but do not mean meditation in themselves. That’s why most people believe meditation not to be their cup of tea and give up on its beautiful experience as they do not understand what meditation is, what it does, and how it does that.

Now the next big question!

“Why do I want to reach that state of awareness? What does it do? How do I get benefited from meditation?? WHY MEDITATION?”

Meditation actually does wonders for our overall psychology and that in turn affects our overall health and well-being. There have been various studies proving that one’s brain’s consistent ill thoughts have the power to create diseases in one’s body. On the reverse front, consistent healthy thoughts have the power to treat diseases. The book “You Are the Placebo” by Dr. Joe Dispenza does complete justice in explaining this concept. This in turn clarifies why it's said that chemotherapy does no magic to a cancer patient without the strong willpower and belief to fight the disease.

“How meditation would improve my psychology😕?I don’t have any issues..!”

Well, improving something does not necessarily mean treating some issue. It simply means making something better.

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In this era where almost every human being is grinding in the twists and turns of life every day, meditation is just a means of bringing our minds to an equilibrium state to better prepare our minds for the next day.

Just like stress on an elastic band makes it lose its shape and when left on its own it restores its state. That’s the role of meditation. The continuously tussling brain riding the cycle of past memories, future plans, family responsibilities, and office commitments, gets worn out with time and craves for weekends and vacations wanting to revive itself. Meditation does that fix for you. It flushes out the daily stresses and reinforces a calm state in the mind. It's like literally opening up the mind and fixing the machinery inside.

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“How and when will I know that meditation has some effect on me?”

Well if you consider it to be some medicine, consider it to be Homeopathic and not allopathic! It will not be something quick with side effects but rather slow and root out the issues.

“How does meditation affect my mind?”

Consistent practice of meditation is like cleaning that corner of your wardrobe which eventually got messed up with a huge pile of clothes and your favorite clothes got hidden deep beneath this pile. Meditation is like rearranging this wardrobe and finding those lost clothes/dresses aka ideas/ passions from the ocean of your mind. You would not even know when you would surprisingly unleash some unknown dimension of your personality.

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“Is Meditation for me?”

• If you end the day with many items still not stroked out from your to-do list 24 hours are less in a day? Yes
• If you fear silence in your life and keep yourself busy the whole day just to stop your mind from thinking? Yes
• If you wanna keep complaining and think nothing can change? No
• If you want to add colors to some dimensions of your personality? Yes
• If you have a goal to be a better version of yourself? Yes
• If you are a happy soul, but just want to know yourself more? Yes
• If you are happy living a robotic life? No
• If you have no reason...Still want to feel blissful? Yes

Conclusion

Since childhood we begin to race, in school, in college, and then a never-ending race to earn money. We spend years catching the next bait to fill out the “What next” list but still never get satisfied by all the external achievements. Maybe that’s because we keep looking outside but forget to look inside. All these achievements are definitely very important but being able to gather all these without getting entangled inside would be the real achievement.

So try meditation to apply that sorting algorithm to your minds and get detangled.!!

In case someone would like to give meditation a shot now, you can try any mobile app (one such app is Headspace) or learn with any of the organizations like Art of Living, Isha Foundation, Brahma Kumaris, Shivyog, etc.

As a final note:

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