Meditation

It is a fact that those who meditate regularly are many times happier than those who don’t. They tend to be healthier and live longer, make more pleasurable brain chemicals and lower their blood pressure the natural way. This has been scientifically correlated by many worldwide studies. It was Eleanor Roosevelt who said; “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams”. Dreams can be better visualised and developed through meditation.

Ancient cultures and great civilisations across the world used meditation from ancient Egypt to India and China whilst western culture seemed to leave it to the clerics to use as prayer. Although for me prayer translates as “asking” and meditation as “listening”. I became involved with group Meditation as the result of requests from participants at the Angels, Energies and Auras workshops that I found myself running throughout Europe. I find that guided meditations have helped people to rediscover a place of peaceful contemplation on a daily basis. The very fact that I say “found myself running” such workshops is testimony to guidance that came from within my mind, once I learned how to connect to the silence and energies that surround us in this wonderful world. It certainly was not in my conscious thoughts as an ambition to do such things. I see meditation as a way of becoming a conduit between heaven and earth, thus creating a safe personal space within ourselves to absorb and process our dreams.

Many say to me “but I can’t switch off my head, my mind is full of thoughts all the time!” The ability to tame the “thought monkeys” twittering in your mind helps you to focus more clearly in everyday life. To me this means learning to acknowledge, accept and ignore all peripheral stimulation from your outside world and going inside yourself. It is important when thinking about how to meditate for the first time that you remember that THERE IS NO RIGHT WAY – ONLY WHAT WORKS FOR YOU, that is what matters. You are what matters. Patience and a better understanding of yourself really do reap rewards. What is more the process is free and self generated.

No one said it is easy to switch off those monkeys but with practise you can find the method that suits you best. There is no doubt that perseverance will help you to switch off those everyday niggling worries and find an inner peace. This does not mean wandering around in a comatose state, wearing kaftans, hippy headbands and holding your hands in the air or sitting with crossed legs a lot. Although, of course, you could do all of those if you really felt it necessary.

I think that my own generation, the baby boomers, who were the sixties’ teenagers, gave a slightly comic air to the meditating, free loving, pot smoking gurus of the day.

What started as the flower power, love to the world group ended as a drop out culture that could hardly be seen through the fog of dope! Such a pity as the inherent message of make love not war was no bad thing. I was busy being scornful of all such things in those days, of course, being intent on saving the world in a different way as a military nurse. In hindsight (always great stuff mostly many years too late) it would have been so useful to my life, then, had I learned to harness the power of my mind in meditation.

Forty years later I think we need to state an important fact and clarify a misunderstanding about meditation right now. Meditation is not “switching off” to real life but more like “switching on” to ourselves, leading to a greater ability to cope with real life.

Paramahansa Yogananda said “The value of silence cannot be understood except through experience……What joy awaits discovery in the silence behind the portals of your mind no human tongue can tell.”

What joy awaits each individual as you discover the real inner you. It costs nothing but some time. It uses nothing but energy that is free within and around us all. Of course if you need a little help to get started, there are groups, books, CDs and specialists to help with initial focus. You can sit or lie on a beach. hillside, garden, terrace or your sitting room floor. I personally prefer a bed or comfy chair but it is your choice, because this is a power that you have and personal responsibility cannot be removed from you. Taking back your own power in such a simple way is an important step in many people’s development.

In our world of modern technology blaring at all times, it is easy to lose ourselves in almost permanent and unnatural noise from traffic, piped music, walkmans/ipods, mindless chat and day time television. When was the last time you just sat in silence and listened to the atmosphere? When did you last listen to birdsong , the waves in the ocean or just the wind through the trees? I mean listen and not just hear, because there is a big difference between listening and hearing. This acknowledgement of our natural environment can be taken even further if we differentiate between looking and seeing.

Meditation helps us to focus on our life’s true meaning by really filtering such seemingly simple semantics as I have mentioned. Do you really want to see and listen to what matters to your personal happiness or are you content to just amble through each day without appreciating the value of such simple and yet important phenomena? Even more to the point do you try to eliminate those mind monkeys with alcohol, overeating or trips to the doctors for tranquilising drugs? Yes most of us have done one or all of that but the time to move on is now.

So are you ready for this new life of freedom and discovery that costs so little? I can help you initially but the rest is up to you!

Susan is a Doctor of Psychology who works holistically. Susan is the author of Out of the Shadows, a Journey form Grief and Phoenix, Policing the Shadows.(best seller 1996). Her popular meditation CD was produced on the Costa del Sol in 2008 and is available at Clinicamedicare, Elviria, by internet for download and local book shops.

www.phoenixplanes.com