Article about Meditation & Spirituality
 |
| Meditation and Spirituality |
The research. Due to advances in technology, particularly in the field of brain monitoring devices such as fMRI scanners, the long reported benefits of meditation are now becoming measurable. Now a formerly skeptical audience are curious to experience the benefits of meditation first hand.
It promotes good health. A growing number of doctors and scientists recognise the beneficial physiological effects of meditation, especially in the areas of stress relief and relaxation.
Meditation has received widespread coverage in the media. Sports people and health care professionals openly advocate meditation, and magazine editors and advertisers now portray meditation as a normal part of everyday life.
Meditation is a way for people to explore their own spirituality. At a time when many people are disillusioned with institutionalised religion, meditation offers us a method to enter our own inner world, and experience spirituality directly.
The Roles of Spirituality and Meditation:
 |
| The roles of meditation |
Meditation has traditionally been associated with Eastern mysticism but science is beginning to show that cultivating a “heightened” state of consciousness can have a major impact on our brain, the way our bodies function and our levels of resilience.
Clinicians are increasingly looking for effective, preventative, non-pharmacological options to treat mental illness. And meditation techniques – such as quietening the mind, understanding the self and exercising control – show promise as an alternative tool to regulate emotions, mood and stress.
Body
Meditation influences the body in unexpected ways. Experienced meditators, for instance, can speed or slow their metabolism by more than 60% and raise their body temperature by as much as 8°C.
Even a little training in meditation can make people calmer, less stressed and more relaxed. As little as 20 minutes a day leads to physical changes, such as reduced blood pressure, lower heart rate, deeper and calmer breathing. Improvements in blood pressure as a result of meditation have also been linked to a lower risk of heart attack.
Meditation is also beginning to prove effective as a treatment for chronic and acute pain. One experiment showed that four days of mindfulness meditation substantially reduced the participant’s experience of unpleasantness and the intensity of their pain.
Mind, brain and beyond
Meditation increases left-sided, frontal brain activity, an area of the brain associated with positive mood. Interestingly, this increase in left-brain activity is also linked with improvements in immune system activity. And the more you practise meditation, the greater your immune function is likely to be.
Studies have shown that long-term meditators have increased volumes of grey matter in the right orbitofrontal cortex and hippocampus regions of their brain which are responsible for regulating emotion. Similar changes have also been found in non-meditators who completed an eight-week course in mindfulness training.
So even a limited stint of meditation has the potential to change the structure of the brain.
Ageing
The cortex in the brain usually thins as we age – a type of atrophy related to dementia. Intriguingly, those who have meditated around an hour a day for six years display increased cortical thickness. Older meditators also show decreased age-related decline in cortical thickness compared to non-meditators of the same age.
Meditation may increase longevity by protecting the brain and heart from the damaging effects of stress. One study reported that meditation and yoga help to prevent cellular damage caused by chronic psychological stress. It has even been suggested that meditation may slow cellular aging.
Emotional stability
The causes and effects of emotional experience exist throughout the body and the brain, and as such they are deeply linked to physical and psychological stress.
Meditation enhances positive emotions and mood, and appears to make people less vulnerable to the stresses and upsets of daily life. Research shows that meditators are better at regulating immediate responses to negative stimuli and have reduced activity in the amygdala – a region implicated in response to threat. These findings reflect greater emotional resilience among meditators as well as less psychological distress and anxiety.
Mindfulness, which can be cultivated through meditation, is just one technique that can increase mental health and wellbeing. Several therapeutic techniques have been based on these practices, such as mindfulness-based stress reduction and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. These treatments have had success in treating anxiety and mood disorders.
Related
Can I get spiritual power through meditation?
 |
| Can get spiritual power |
Some people believe erroneously that the point of performing spiritual meditation is to achieve superpowers such as:
- Telepathy
- The power of healing
- Knowledge of people’s past and future lives
- Levitation and defying gravity
- Fulfillment of wishes
- Invincibility
Some people are so fixated with acquiring these “superpowers” that they miss the entire essence of meditation: to achieve spiritual awareness. Spiritual awareness starts with being honest, kind and a commitment to becoming the best human being we can be. This list also proves our obsession to magic and our blindness to the real miracles that occur around us every day: the air we breathe, the sunshine we enjoy, simple acts of kindness and compassion – the true magic around us is accessible in every moment. Gentle appreciation of the present moment and an attitude of compassion to all are the real fruits of spiritual enlightenment.
Keys to a successful spiritual meditation:
The first step is to start focusing on getting to really know yourself. In doing so, you’ll find issues within yourself you’d no doubt like to change. But spiritual meditation begins with acceptance, acknowledging who we are is the first step to truly making friends with yourself. So you can stop worrying about spiritual experiences in meditation, how to get spiritual power or achieve spiritual enlightenment. Here are some tips to help you get real and start working on yourself
Release the grudges you’ve been holding:
The journey to spiritual awareness is often hampered when people refuse to forgive. Admittedly, forgiving someone who’s caused you harm can be extremely difficult. However, holding onto grudges is clinging on to your own pain, and naturally doesn’t help others either. The sooner you forgive, the quicker you can release this pain and move on. You can do this gradually over time by practicing mindfulness and awareness meditation, which trains the mind to let go.
Focus your spiritual aspirations on others:
Along with the physical and mental benefits of mindfulness, spiritual meditation leads to a healthy spiritual life. A key to true spirituality is focusing on benefiting others rather than yourself. But to do this, we have to start with ourselves first. Looking at our own minds, we learn to accept who we are with loving-kindness. It’s important to foster kindness by inculcating love. As you continue your spiritual practice, it is interesting that the more you focus on the benefit of others, you become more patient with the pain that others might try to inflict on you. You begin to see that we are all just trying to be happy and not experience pain. In this way, we are all the same. It may seem contradictory, but if you think about it, the more we think of others, the less we focus on our own problems and dissatisfaction, and the happier we become. Over time, you naturally think of others more than yourself – you see the bigger picture in every situation.
_______________________________________________________________
What exactly is meditation?
Meditation has been described as a kind of concentrated thinking, but this does not mean just any kind of concentrated thinking. Concentrating on a pet rock or an ice cream is not meditation. Meditation is the process of concentrating the mind on the source of consciousness within us. Gradually this leads us to discover that our own consciousness is infinite. This is why the goal of meditation is sometimes described as ‘Self Realisation.’
What is Self Realisation?
The goal of meditation is to realize who we really are at the core of our being. The philosophy of yoga says there are two different levels to our inner self: our mental or emotional self and our spiritual self.
The mental self is sometimes called the individual mind. It is limited because it is strongly associated with our limited physical body and is the cause of the feeling “I am this individual person” – our ego.
But our real sense of self-awareness comes from our connection to a wider, subtler form of consciousness. Yogic philosophy says there is a reflection of an infinite, all knowing form of consciousness within our minds. This Infinite Consciousness is unchanging and eternal, and is at the core of our true spiritual ‘Self’.
When we identify with the small ego-centred self this is called relative reality, because that small self is prone to change and death. But when we realize that there is a subtler, permanent reality behind the relative one and we see that our true nature is pure unlimited Consciousness, this is known as Self Realisation.
What is spirituality?
Spirituality is that which concerns Infinite Consciousness.
First let me make it clear that ‘spirituality’ should not be confused with ‘spiritualism’, which is concerned with mediums, communicating with the dead etc. Spirituality concerns Infinite consciousness – the same ultimate Truth that was released by the great spiritual teachers throughout history such as islam, Buddha, Jesus, and Krishna. According to spirituality, the goal of life is to merge the individual mind into Infinite Consciousness, and the way to attain this is by practising spiritual meditation and similar or associated practices.
If you’re having challenges at first, try out guided spiritual meditation.mindfulness blended with awareness practice that leads to spiritual benefits.
And as the biggest benefit of meditation and spirituality, consider this: as we become more in tune and connected to our spiritual self, we become more attuned to who we are, and what we’re supposed to do in this life. Need purpose? Try meditation for a spiritual purpose
EmoticonEmoticon