VACATION

ON VACATION UNTIL JULY 9

Top 10 Benefits of Meditation

By Lisa Hepner

Now that you are on your way to incorporating meditation into your daily life, you’re probably wondering what benefits you will experience?

According to an international survey of 400 people from 44 different countries, here are the top 10 benefits of meditation:

#1 Inner Peace, Peace of Mind

#2 Calmness

#3 Stress Reduction

#4 Increased Focus/ Clarity #5 Relaxation #6 Health #7 Connection with Source/ Others

#8 Balance

#9 Wisdom

10# Increased Energy

Peace of Mind

With meditation you realize that you are NOT your mind (or your thoughts)! You are the peace beyond the thoughts! Meditation helps you not get so wrapped up in the drama that often arises from most of your thoughts.

You become the observer of thought, instead of the reactor! You become that witnessing Presence.�

This is complete freedom!

Gandhi said that Peace to be real: must not be dependent on outside circumstances. �Meditation helps you realize the peace beyond any circumstance that Gandhi spoke of.

Regardless of what is going on externally, you can experience peace. And meditation is that portal to peace!

Calmness

Again, by becoming the observer of thought, the drama is lost. Underneath is a stillness, calmness.

Meditation teaches you to become responsive instead of reactive. This is a calm place of Being in the world.

You’ll notice with regular meditation practice, that you respond to situations more calmly, rather than react from a place of anger or stress.

Stress Reduction:

Meditation helps you live in the moment, which alleviates stress.

Most of us spend our lives trying to get somewhere. We need to finish this project by such and such deadline. We need to accomplish a specific result by a specific time. And while that is necessary in the real world, taking action while being fully in the moment reduces stress tremendously.

We get stressed out because we are living in a future that doesn’t even exist, except in our minds.

For example, let’s say I’m working on a writing assignment and I have a deadline of four weeks to complete the project. I can spend that four weeks stressing about that deadline, (which is counterproductive) or I can live in the moment and do the necessary tasks to move me in the direction of the goal.

When we live in the moment, our whole way of working is different. Our whole way of living is different!

I know, for me, once I incorporated meditation into my daily life, I don’t think as much about the future and I work on my projects in the moment.

From this place of living in the moment, I experience increased joy and creativity and my projects are completed on time, or even early.

Whereas, before if I had a deadline on a project, I would worry about what would happen if I didn’t finish the project, I would think about how my life was going to be - over the next few weeks while working on such a project, I’d think about the things I was giving up - working on such a project. These are all useless thoughts that don’t help me get any project done! And not only are the thoughts useless, but they take away the joy and creativity of working on any project!

If you’re stressed, it’s most likely because you’re thinking about future events (or worrying about the past).

When you live in the moment, you are better equipped to handle the tasks in life!

Meditation helps you to be grounded in the present moment.

Increased focus/clarity:

Meditation is an excellent tool for clarity. Often, if I’m unsure what direction to take, I will meditate and the answer becomes clear to me.

And I can say that since I’ve started meditating regularly, I’ve been more focused and more clear on the things I’m doing in my life. But I approach them from a place of Being.

Relaxation:

Meditation is a peaceful process. If you’re feeling stressed, meditation can be used to help you relax.

Health:

The benefits of meditation on overall health have been widely publicized, so I’m not going to go over them in detail here, all you have to do is Google the health benefits of meditation and you will find numerous studies and reports.

Meditation has been shown to lower blood pressure, decrease stress, increase immunity, decrease the risk of cardiovascular disease, promote healing and increase energy.

Meditation is one of the greatest things you can do for your health.

And when you live from that meditative place, you naturally make choices that are also conducive to your overall health and well-being.

So the practice of meditation also helps us make other choices that are beneficial to a healthy lifestyle!

Connection with Source/ Connection with Others:

Meditation helps you experience your connection with Source. (And I’m not sure the word connection entirely describes it because you are always connected with Source, but most of the time unaware).

Meditation helps you be aware of the truth of who you are! Beyond your body, your mind and your thoughts you are pure Spirit.

It’s the energy that remains even after our physical bodies have disintegrated.

Some call it Source, Soul, Essence, Energy, God, Consciousness, Presence or Being. It does not matter what name you give It. It is you and you are It.

You are Consciousness expressing as the form, Jane Smith (Insert your name here).

However, most of the time you are not aware of the truth of who you are. Meditation helps you live from that awareness.

And when you are aware of the truth of who you are, you also know the truth of everyone else. You realize that connection with others. You understand that we are all one!

Meditation helps you experience deeper connections with others. You realize that people aren’t their clothes, their status or even their actions.

You are able to listen to people with this awareness of the truth of who they are! What a gift to give others!

So meditation helps you live from the awareness of the truth of who you are, and recognize the truth of others and know that there is no separation.

Balance:

Meditation helps us maintain balance in our lives. We realize the truth of who we are and yet understand that we live in a world of form. It helps us balance the two.

Wisdom:

Your inherent wisdom is revealed through meditation. Most of us go seeking outside ourselves for answers, when the answers are within.

Meditation helps you to go within. From this place of Presence, answers are revealed to you.

Increased Energy:

A 15-20 minute meditation can have the same effect on your body as a good night’s sleep. If I feel tired in the afternoon or evening and I do a short meditation, my body is rejuvenated.

While all of the benefits above are true, there are a few more that weren’t mentioned in the survey that I, and others, have experienced. They are:

Increased Joy

The greatest benefit that I have experienced personally from meditation is more joy in my life!

Meditation is a blissful, joyous process!

There is more laughter in my life! I even find myself laughing at my thoughts. Situations that would have bothered me before become laughable.

Increased Creativity

From a place of centeredness that meditation provides, you become more creative. I’ve had some of my most creative ideas stem after meditation sessions.

Ever since I started meditating, I’ve had surges of creativity.

And if you think about it, it makes sense. All creations come from a place of stillness, nothingness. When we are in this place through meditation, ideas and opportunities present themselves.

Positive effect on the world:

The effects of meditation on our environment have been documented, and this book isn’t going to cover this topic in detail. A great book to read about the positive affects of meditation on the world is Permanent Peace by Dr. Robert Oates.

While Dr. Oates’ book scientifically documents the positive effects of meditation in our world, we don’t even have to read the studies to know this to be true, we can see this in our daily lives.

Have you ever been around someone who is very stressed out and then when you left his/her presence, you found yourself feeling wound up?

And have you ever been around someone so peaceful that when you left, you felt inspired, peaceful and noticed the beauty around you?

Our energy affects everything around us. When we live from a place of Presence, we have a profound affect on others, and ultimately the world!

As you can see, the benefits of meditation are vast. It truly is the greatest gift you can give yourself and the world!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lisa Hepner is an author, speaker and meditation facilitator. She is the creator of the international Don't Wait-Meditate (R) campaign and the founder of Project Meditate. Get your free report and free video meditation library on the benefits of meditation and more at: http://www.projectmeditate.com

END

Please visit my Spiritual Transformation Store for books, music, and DVD's: MY STORE
(for music click on DVD's.)

Thank for your time and have a wonderful day!! –Larry

“The Earth is but one country and mankind its citizens.” --Baha’u’llah

Memories: A call to reconnect.

By Stan Goldberg

Did you ever have a memory that rode into your consciousness on the back of a passing odor, object, or random word? Something you desperately tried to forget? But despite your best efforts, it still seeped through your emotional protective wall as if the wall was made of cheesecloth.

I knew I would have one of those experiences if I attended the rededication of the Zen Hospice Project's Guest House in San Francisco, the site of my initial hospice training and service as a bedside volunteer. For seven years it remained closed, a victim of insurance over-caution following 911. There would be memories, both joyful and painful. As with so many other things now in my life, I resisted the emotionally safe thing to do, and decided to attend.



I entered the beautifully refurbished Victorian and roamed through the rooms where my life was transformed. The renovations, as amazing as they were, were crowded out by the memories of friends who had welcomed me into their lives and graciously showed me how to live, and yes, how to die.

As I returned to the main meeting area someone said to me, "Isn't the remodeling beautiful?" I smiled, nodded, and said "Yes," although I was unable to remember even the color of the newly painted walls.



For me, the beauty was in the memories that followed me from room to room: The hostile heterophobic who reluctantly accepted my "straightness" and welcomed me into his life. The very proper university professor who thanked me every week for three months for emptying an overflowing urinal, and a multitude of other people who invited me into their lives at its most vulnerable time.

As I left the dedication service, the memories lingered, almost as if they received a shot of adrenalin.

What I'm beginning to understand is that our memories serve as wake up calls when our hearts try to disengage from the world. Memories don't just bring the past into the present, they say "Hay, why aren't you feeling me anymore? What are you afraid of?" 

It may have been the love lost when a partner of forty years is gone; the joy experienced by completing sub-four-hour marathons now replaced by slow walks around the block; the social connectiveness that evaporated when a job was outsourced; or the friendship you mourn whenever you drive past the house of someone who rejected you.

Unfortunately, we live in a world populated by disquieting events and people. Our usual method of minimizing their effect is to isolate the memories and hope they will remain incarcerated in a hidden, rarely visited part of our subconscious. But, with the persistence of a telemarketer they return, bubbling up at the most inappropriate times. And when they do, we try to push them back-repeatedly. It might be time to try a different approach.



There is an old Tibetan saying, "bring closer to you those things that are the most frightening in order to render them harmless." As painful as this idea might be, the act of allowing the memories to resurface can smooth down its edges, and sometimes even change the painful memory into self-knowledge that's transformative. It's good to have you back Guest House, my heart missed you.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stan Goldberg is author the LESSONS FOR THE LIVING: STORIES OF FORGIVENESS, GRATITUDE, AND COURAGE AT THE END OF LIFE. It was awarded the 2009 Grand Prize for best international book at the London Book Festival. It will be included in Melvin McClead's Best Buddhist Writings of 2010.

END

Please visit my Spiritual Transformation Store for books, music, and DVD's: MY STORE
(for music click on DVD's.)

Thank for your time and have a wonderful day!! –Larry

“The Earth is but one country and mankind its citizens.” --Baha’u’llah

Meditation And The Tyranny Of Thoughts

By R.E. Darby

The Insight

The popularity of meditation rises and falls according to the levels of fear, insecurity and uncertainty experienced by any given Human population. But meditation is not like many other disciplines that are less difficult to master, and what makes it so difficult is found in the very nature of meditation itself. So many people are unable to overcome the challenges of this uniquely powerful tool and therefore are unable to take advantage of its powerful benefits, that I thought a little insight into the basics of all meditation techniques might help.

Many different meditation techniques have been developed over time, and many of those target different goals, but the basic strategy or method for reaching those goals is fundamentally the same in that they require the development of a certain level of concentration. This is necessary because all meditation techniques work with the concepts of attention and focus, and these, by their very nature demand the organization and deployment of conscious energy in the form of awareness.

The Subtle Shift

This awareness is a very different kind of awareness, or perhaps more precisely, a different level of awareness. It is the illusive nature of this awareness that has resulted in so many people giving up on meditation before they begin to realize any benefits. They are simply not prepared for the alien reality that is native to meditation. And this is the irony of the world according to meditation. That alien reality that we are not prepared for, is actually the real world, reality as it truly is. The question is; if that is the real world, what world are we living in? Which is the question and the need that we turn to meditation to solve in the first place; the need to see the world as it truly is, rather than our conceptualized versions of reality.

This brings us to what I call the subtle shift. And this is where most people succeed or fail at meditation. The subtle shift is the shift of our attention from one reality to another, one level of awareness to another, one state of consciousness to another. Most meditation techniques require that we sit motionless and try to focus our attention on some object or condition. Let's take the vipassana technique which focuses on the breath. There I sit focused on the experience of breathing, I feel the air passing across the entrance of my nose as it comes in and goes out. But then something happens, I'm thinking about focusing on my breath, I'm seeing the idea of breath, and suddenly I realize that I am no longer experiencing my breath directly but only paying attention to my thoughts about breath. One awareness is the actual experience of what is going on right here and right now, the other is the conceptual experience of a collection of words in my mind that form an idea of what is going on. The act of realizing that my awareness has shifted from direct experience to an intellectual construct is called mindfulness and is the all important recognition of the subtle shift of attention.

What, Where and When Am I?

The reason I call it the subtle shift is, well, it's so subtle that a beginning meditator doesn't notice that their attention has shifted away from the here and now. This changes in time, as we begin to develop our mindfulness, that unattached observer that does not respond to the random thoughts of the mind but only notices them arise and fall from awareness. Not all thoughts are meaningless, some of the thoughts that bubble up from our unconscious mind are about issues that we needed to become aware of in order to deal with them once and for all. But still, we don't get involved emotionally or intellectually, we don't let the tyranny of our random thoughts take us to the past or future or some abstract imaginary reality.

Eventually, with practice, we develop the mental discipline and mindfulness necessary to allow us to be aware of the activity of our mind and what our thoughts are about, where our thoughts are about, when our thoughts are about, as they are about. When this occurs, we begin to see what is real and what is not, we begin to see reality as it truly is, when it truly is, where it truly is. More than any other discipline, meditation requires the investment of patience, commitment and perseverance, but the return on these investments can be huge in both the spiritual and material worlds.

You can get a deeper understanding of these and other personal development tool and techniques in the e-book Success Failure and the secrets of Unlimited Power.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Robert Darby is a self change and personal development specialist who writes for many organizations including The Agenda Of Life Foundation He focuses on developing personal power since that is usually the cause of all Human problems. Robert takes a practical approach that looks at the various tools and techniques out there that are designed to help us achieve our mental, spiritual and emotional goals.

END

Please visit my Spiritual Transformation Store for books, music, and DVD's: MY STORE
(for music click on DVD's.)

Thank for your time and have a wonderful day!! –Larry

“The Earth is but one country and mankind its citizens.” --Baha’u’llah