The Power of Meditation
My daughter recently gave me a t-shirt with an image of the Buddha and a caption that read “Heavily Meditated!”
Meditation here in the West is more popular; being taught in grade schools, corporate settings, sport and more. It is the practice of drawing one’s attention inward, letting go of the thoughts, accessing deeper levels of awareness.
Meditation is a tool. Like any other tool, when you’re done building the house, the tools are no longer needed. In Paramahansa Yogananda’s book Autobiography of a Yogi, when speaking of his main mentor Sri Yukteswar, he said that when the fruit is ripe the petals of the flower are no longer needed. There is no need to meditate when you are self-realized. The premise is that we are spiritual beings beyond the grasp of space and time, so there is nowhere to go because you are already there!
Yogananda also said (I paraphrase) “One cannot be any closer to God than you already are. But you can reveal that closeness.”
Initially quieting the mind, as stated by a Yogi in The Yogis of Tibet is like trying to tame a raging elephant. It is best done gradually and practiced over time. It can be very difficult today, as the bloom of the information age has brought us smart phones, social media and Artificial Intelligence (AI) and many other potentially distracting and some very beneficial ways to increase awareness of our inner connection.
Some Buddhists say that a level of inner peace and “contentment’ is achieved through regular meditation practices, where the mind is made tame and governable.
Scientific research has shown the benefits of meditation, including physical issues and diseases, mental conditions including depression and anxiety and PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) and many more. National Library of Medicine article states while there are several different meditative techniques it is proposed that all share “a central process that supports their common goal, that is, inducing relaxation, regulating attention, and developing an attitude of detachment from one's own thoughts.”
Meditation can be 1 minute, 30 minutes, a walk in the park, holding your child – almost anything can be a meditation. All help you access much deeper states of your being.
There are an ocean of methods of meditation including breathing techniques, yoga philosophy and practice, mindfulness, brainwave entrainment, sound chambers and much more. The most powerful is your own breath. Pranayama Yoga literally means “breath retention,” that you are the space in between your breaths and there are several forms that I use, including the Circulation of Light that I published in the BLOG “Human Potential.”
In my book Eye of the Lotus: Psychology of the Chakras, there are many exercises in the Appendix that help balance the chakras and achieve meditative states.
One of my colleagues, Dr. Jeffrey Thompson, is in my opinion the world’s leading expert on psychoacoustics and neuroacoustics, implementing the science of sound frequencies and binaural beats to entrain brainwaves to meditative states. I have known Dr. Thompson for over 30 years and have most of his recordings!
Sound baths are also very popular today, mostly using crystal bowls but also metal bowls and gongs to facilitate meditative states of beings. Crystal bowls, however, have a unique property in that they create the purest sound that can exist, called a sine wave. That purity, we feel deeply in our being. When two or more bowls are toned together, they can create binaural beats to access deep states of consciousness. My CD Crystal Bowls of Tibet was created for just that purpose.
There are also Solfeggio Frequencies, rediscovered in the 1970’s by Dr. Joseph Puleo, believed to profoundly affect the conscious and subconscious, mental, emotional and physical effects. Further research by biochemist Dr. Glen Rein in the 1980’s led to music therapy as a health profession. It is believed that specific frequencies (528 Hz [Hertz = cycles per second], 396Hz, 639Hz and more) helps from removing subconscious fears, to balance emotions, problem-solving, etc.
This is just scratching the surface. As the Buddha said: Some take the steep and arduous path right up the side of the mountain. Some take the long and winding road. But all make it to the top of the mountain!
Simple Exercise
Sogyal Rinpoche in his book The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying spoke of new meditators bothered by their thoughts. Here is a simple exercise to let go of thinking that is based on his response.
For this exercise, you will divide the breath into four parts:
Inbreath
Hold
Outbreath
Hold
Place yourself in a setting that is comfortable and quiet. You can sit or lay down.
Close your eyes and breathe gently, quietly as though your lungs extend down to your beltline.
Concentrate on your breath.
Imagine you are floating on a gentle, undulating sea of consciousness. As you breathe gently look up towards the canopy of your mind, the sky above and notice the soft clouds that are floating by.
These clouds are your thoughts. Notice them drifting. Knowing not where they come from or where they go, observe them from a distance. Feel that as you observe your thoughts from afar, you are not affected by them, but can casually notice their movement.
Continue for a short time as you feel comfortable, breathing gently down to your beltline, only noticing your thoughts and having no interest in them. Realizing that your mind creates the thoughts.
When you feel complete, take some deeper, full breaths, being aware of your body and surroundings, and when you feel the moment is right, open your eyes.
(there are many apps you can download that have a timer for meditation and a very gentle chime or gong for beginning and ending your meditation)
Blessings,
Dr. Richard Jelusich, Ph.D.
