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A Whole New Way of Thinking about Meditation
How learning the difference between meditating and living from a state of meditation can change your life
When I first heard about the benefits of meditation in my 20’s, it sounded like the solution to many of my problems. According to the Mayo Clinic, “meditation can give you a sense of calm, peace, and balance that can benefit both your emotional well-being and your overall health.” Other sources pointed to additional benefits ranging from greater emotional intelligence to experiencing states of higher consciousness and even spiritual awakening.
The only problem was, it only worked when you actually did it. And while I would periodically go weeks at a time meditating twice a day, I would often go months at a time without ever quite seeming to get around to my practice.
Then a few years back, I watched a video called “The Ultimate Answer” featuring the Scottish mystic Syd Banks. Early on in the program, he said something to the effect that if you took a room full of meditators and a room full of people getting insight into the nature of thought, the room full of people learning about thought would “go higher”.
I remember thinking that that was a fairly odd thing to say and wondering why it might be true. While I know it’s…
