THE ADVANTAGES OF MEDITATION

       Meditation consists of great exercises to make our mind and body fit and healthy. It is the exercise that can be done by any age group and even by the most out of shape people. It is also the most comprehensive of all exercises, since it benefits each part of the mind and the body with no backbreaking body movements or complicated footwork.

Meditation is one of the ways to attain inner peace, contentment and stability of mind. You need to cut short your sleeping hours and limit them to nearly eight hours. Half an hour practice of meditation usually provides you with sufficient relief and relaxation. In addition to it, meditation makes you efficient for whole day while you do not find yourself fully relaxed even after long hours of sleep. Meditation supplements the sleep. In turn, efficiency and effectiveness, thus, gained through meditation saves your time in official and domestic tasks. You become able to finish your work earlier than ever before and, in this way, you save your precious time.

With a regular and proper practice of meditation, unprecedented improvements in the working of lungs take place. The lungs start functioning to their maximum capacity. Consequently, blood is purified with sufficient supply of oxygen from lungs and expulsion of carbon dioxide and other unwanted gases. It helps in formation of healthy plasma and haemoglobin. All parts of the body and the mind get a proper and sufficient supply of pure blood and they become healthy and stronger. As a result, it enhances vigour and stamina in the body.

Meditation has been related to a number of health benefits. Meditation may generate physiological benefits by changing neurological processes. The practice of meditation has also been correlated with effective functioning including academic performance, concentration, perceptual sensitivity, reaction time, memory, self control, empathy, and self esteem. Relaxation, concentration, an altered state of awareness, a suspension of logical thought and the maintenance of a self-observing attitude act as the behavioural mechanism of meditation. It is accompanied by a host of biochemical and physical changes in the body that modify metabolism, heart rate, respiration, blood pressure and brain activation. Meditation has been used in clinical settings as a method of stress and pain reduction. Meditation has also been studied specifically for its effects on stress. Meditation has stress reducing effects. Meditation enhances overall psychological health and preserves a positive attitude towards stress. In spite of the large number of scientific publications on meditation, its assessable effect on brain activity is still not well understood. Using different focus objects during meditation may produce different brainwave patterns. Meditation may add to attention spans. Practising meditation leads to doing better on a task related to persistent attention.

Meditation opens your mind to new ideas. When mind is full of thoughts and there is no room for new ideas, Meditation is a very effective technique for improving your resourcefulness and problem solving capacity. People, who practise meditation on the regular basis, look and feel five or even ten years younger than other people at their age on average. Giving the mind a usual break and allowing our nature to perform self-repairs everyday makes all the difference. Self-healing seems to be within reach of everyone who is ready to learn meditation and meditate regularly every day.

Modern life is full of tension and stress. Every person has a sense of fear and insecurity. Under such circumstances, meditation becomes a basic need of man. Thus, meditation is dedicated to the service of whole humanity.

 

THE PRINCIPLES OF MEDITATION

 

A few rules of meditation that should be followed to make whole exercise a routine beneficial are attention, readiness, practice, satisfaction and maturation.

1. Attention increases the amount and rate of meditation. It also increases the efficiency of task. Meditation is possible only if a person focuses his attention on the point to be observed. Attention is motivated actions in which the person makes several efforts for achieving the goal.

2. Readiness is preparation to action. It is very essential for meditation. Without a will to meditate, there cannot be true meditation. The will to meditate is, in fact, the preparedness or readiness of mind. It is also termed as motivation. If a person is ready to learn meditation, he learns more quickly, effectively and with greater satisfaction than he is not ready to learn. You can take a horse to water but you cannot make him drink. Similarly, good results cannot be expected from a person who is forced to meditate when he is not ready to do it.

3. Practice makes a man perfect. In meditation, if a certain stage is reached, a regular practice is needed to maintain and stabilise it. The things learnt are repeated time and again to gain permanence. Practice always brings good results in the achievement of meditation. 

4. When a flexible connection between a situation and response is made and is accompanied or followed by a satisfying state of affairs, the strength of link with that situation is increased. If a person is made to learn meditation after putting a ceiling on his natural movements and interests, his learning is belated and held back. The satisfying situation provides pleasure and thus rewards. The greater the reward, the more it facilitates meditation. It indicates to the fact that the more the reward, the stronger is the motivation; the stronger the motivation, the faster and surer is the meditation.

5. Maturation brings reasonably everlasting changes in a person’s conduct, the outcome of which cannot be undone. Maturation is a usual process and its sequence is predestined in nature. No meditation can take place unless an individual is mature enough to meditate. A person, who wishes to undertake it, should have reached a certain level of maturity. He should not be fickle minded and lacking sense of devotion. The level of maturity cannot be ascertained ordinarily. Usually it can be assumed from the behaviour of the concerned person because it differs from person to person. Some person can meditate better at an earlier age while others take more time to do so.

 

THE NATURE OF MEDITATION

 

Meditation is the course of action of deep, consistent and controlled breathing, focussing on a point with full devotion without the mind becoming distracted by extraneous factors, with an intention of acquiring peace and relaxation in order to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of both the mind and the body. Proper breathing forms an integral part of meditation. Breathing has to be slow, consistent and controlled, while you breathe in deeply through the nose. The practice of breath control and posture were specifically designed to teach a person how to concentrate without the mind influenced by external distractions. The benefits of excluding all external distractions including a wandering and fickle mind is that you learn how to leave all your tension, worries and preoccupation aside for that brief while. This gives you a more relaxed, focused and concentrated work-out. In this way, tranquillity is established in life.                   

Meditation is occasionally described as "listening to the silence between thoughts". Our attempt in meditation is directed towards consciously mounting the periods of such silence. It is normally an inwardly oriented personal exercise, which individuals do by themselves. It refers to self-regulation practices that focus on training, attention and awareness in order to bring mental processes under greater voluntary control and in that way promotes general mental health and development and/or definite capacities such as calm, clarity and concentration. A practitioner can focus intensively on one particular point (so-called concentrative meditation), on all mental events that enter the field of knowledge (so-called mindfulness meditation), or both specific focal points and the field of knowledge. A fundamental element of meditation involves logic relaxation: not 'to intend' to analyse the possible psychophysical effects, not 'to intend' to judge the possible results, not 'to intend' to create any type of expectation regarding the process.

Meditation is commonly confused with different types of concentration. The aim of concentration exercises is to focus our full undivided attention on a particular aspect of functioning of our mind and/or the body in order to carry out a certain goal or develop a positive skill. Exercises such as yoga, tai-chi, breathing exercises, visualization are all types of concentration. On the contrary, meditation is an exercise, aiming to avert thoughts in a natural way, by intensely relaxing the physical body and then trying to keep the mind totally "blank" with no thoughts at all. This position may be sustained for a few seconds or a few hours, depending on your skill. Purity of the mind realized during meditation is indispensable to gain access to higher self. It appears that our higher self does not allow any impurity. When we get satisfactorily close to our higher self, the inner illumination becomes much brighter than the sun and the bliss cannot be explained in any human language. We have to achieve an absolute purity of the mind during meditation to get that far. We should have pure purposes and then intensively concentrate for some time on the "inner sound" and "inner light".

The posture during meditation is also significant. The easiest posture is a comfortable sitting position, with your spine straight and erect. If you lay down, you will most likely fall asleep. Joining your hands and crossing your legs is sought-after, because you make the bio-energy field around you denser and therefore more thorough. Sitting cross legged is another good pose, but requires some fitness and training. Yet another good position, although rarely used today is a squatting pose with your arms crossed over your knees, similar to position of a foetus in a womb. Various postures are taken up in meditation. Sitting, supine and standing postures are used. Popular are the full-lotus, half-lotus, Burmese and kneeling positions. Meditation is sometimes done while walking, known as Kinhin, or while doing a simple task mindfully, known as Samu.

The doors of meditation are open for all irrespective of caste, creed, class, sex, age, race, culture or community etc. Every person can practise meditation without any discrimination. There is no barrier of language, race, religion or faith etc. Meditation is an art as well as science. It is a universal phenomenon. It is not limited to any particular section of people. Any person belonging to any part of the world can avail from it without any hindrance and prejudice.  If we look back into the past, we will find that saints, monks or yogis, who had got a taste to practise meditation, belonged to different parts of the world. There was nothing common among them except the interest in meditation. Apart from it, a woman can also obtain equal benefits from the practice of meditation. In fact, physical appearance and differences do not matter. Our souls are alike. Meditation is the worship of God and a woman can also participate in the worship.

 

MEDITATION (Dhayana)

 

When the mind is trained to concentrate on a particular object inside or outside the body, that state is called Dhayana. During its practice, you detach yourself from your physical body and you can see your real self. The term Dhayana is widely used to refer to the contemplative process that prepares the ground for the ecstatic state Samadhi, though occasionally the term is also employed to signify that superlative state of consciousness. Dhayana means worship, or profound and abstract religious meditation. It is perfect contemplation. It involves concentration upon a point of focus with the intention of knowing the truth about it. The concept holds that when one focuses their mind in concentration on an object, the mind is transformed into the shape of the object. Hence, when one focuses on the divine, one becomes more reflective of it and knows one’s true nature. During Dhayana, the consciousness is further unified by combining clear insights into distinctions between objects and between the subtle layers of perception. Meditation becomes our tool to see things clearly and perceive reality beyond the illusions that cloud our mind.

In some form or the other, meditation has been practised since ancient times. It is believed to bring in tranquillity besides making one spiritual and enriching one’s life. Meditation has also been used to make someone ready for the physical work or otherwise exhausting activity. The goal of meditation is to empty the mind in an unforced way i.e. to empty out numerous thoughts from the mind, the practice of meditation is meant for speedier evolution of the human soul. It is only through meditation that you can undertake to discover your true nature and so find the stability and confidence.

Meditation is the road to enlightenment. By progressively concentrating on more abstract concept, the practitioner achieves a higher meditative states culminating in countless trances which is said to constitute liberation. The meditation expert becomes eternally free from external phenomenon by focussing his gaze at a point and neutralising the uneven current of Prana and Apana flowing within the nostrils, such a yogi transforms the sensory mind, the intellect and thus becomes free from fear, anger and desire.

Meditation is the practice of uniting soul with the Supreme Spirit (God). The meditation that is properly practised is also called the “Raja Yoga” which is based on the system of Maharishi Patanjali (AD300). It teaches an eight fold path, beginning with the knowledge of how to acquire moral attitudes. The word “RajaYoga” is made from the union of Raj+Yoga. ‘Raj’ means secrecy and ‘Yoga’ means addition. Thus Raja Yoga means addition of the soul to God secretly. The practitioner in more advanced stages of meditation are said to be endowed with remarkable spiritual powers or Sidhis i.e. Anhima: to be invisible, Laghima: to become able to fly, Mahima: to become heavier, Prapti: to get anything from anywhere, Prakamiya: to liberate will-power from all obligations, Vashitawa (Mesmerism or Hypnosis): to establish control over mind or hypnotise anybody, Ishitawa: to possess everything, and Yathakamavasaita: to fulfil all desires.

Meditation is the exercise of mind and it heals most of the physical and psychological health problems. If you have never tried any meditation, try to find a peaceful place. Take a comfortable meditation poses generally Vajrasana or Padmasana. Shut your eyes and relax all muscles in your body, including the face. A few alternate nostril yoga breaths are very useful at the beginning of this stage — breathing in through one nostril and breathing out through another, closing nostrils with fingers and altering closed nostril with each breath. Ignore any thought as it comes. Do not continue a kaleidoscope of thoughts. Continue this for 20 minutes or so, maintaining your mind blank. Every time you have a thought, you may keep counting thoughts, neglecting each one as it comes, without analysing it. When you go down to 2 or 3 thoughts in 5 minutes, you meditate effectively.

Whole philosophy of meditation has a basic motive “to trace out the unconscious mind”. It already exists with us and is devoid of thoughts and ideas. It may be called a universal mind. We have surrounded it with many folds of thoughts and ideas. It has been lost behind those folds completely. The unconscious mind suddenly appears by itself when all these folds vanish and then it crosses all limits. Sometimes, we are in sound sleep when dreams almost stop happening. The unconscious mind awakens, we feel more relaxed and refreshed in the morning when we get up. A sound sleep is, in fact, a way to reach the unconscious mind.

Meditation works just like a sound sleep. Everything that we have got emerges out of the depth of unconscious mind. But our internal environment is impure. Any idea coming out of the core of unconscious mind becomes filthy while crossing our internal environment. Our mind can never stay in the passing moments. Meditation means to get out of the past, not to create future in advance and stick to the reality that is available in the present. While living in the present moments, we suddenly come to know that there exists nothing between reality and us. This is the way that leads to the unconscious mind. We can reach unconscious mind through meditation only not otherwise. When there is no dirt of ideas and our mind is free and devoid of all feelings and experiences, it is the unconscious mind as clear as a crystal.

TRATKA

 

Hatha Yoga Pradipika contains six tasks in it i.e. Vasti, Dhauti, Nauli, Neti, Kapalbhati and tratka to purify the body for success and perfection in life in a unique way. Tratka is the important task of all to attain Dharana (concentration).

Tratka, chanting of mantra or reciting Bani or prayer etc. are some ways of boosting up concentration. Some people take to the practice of playing on rosary beads to attain the state of concentration. However, Tratka is by far the best practice at the preliminary stage for the purpose of acquiring concentration.

Tratka is an exercise of focusing your vision on a point at a stretch without any distraction in order to augment concentration. It makes the mind peaceful, devoid of any idea and free of tension. It is practised either outside the physical body at a thing located in the environment or inside the body at any chakra. It has mainly three forms i.e. Nikat Tratka, Door Tratka and Antar Tratka.

Near Focus (Nikat Tratka) is the process of focusing the vision on a thing located in the environment near the physical body of the practitioner. Nikat Tratka is very important to develop concentration. It produces mesmerizing qualities in the practitioner.

Remote Focus (Door Tratka) is the process of focusing the vision on a thing located in the surroundings at some distance from the physical body of the practitioner. It is fundamental in the practice of telepathy.

Inner Focus (Antar Tratka) is the process of fixing the eyes on a chakra usually brow chakra located inside the physical body of the practitioner in order to enhance the peace of mind through meditation. Antar Tratka is highly important in awakening the Kundalini.

Tratka means gazing or not allowing your consciousness to move. The technique of gazing is actually not connected with the object. It is connected with gazing itself for the reason that when you look attentively without blinking your eyes, you become focused. The disposition of the mind is to be persistently moving from one object to another and when you are not allowing the mind to move, it struggles hard in the beginning. But the mind loses struggling after a while if you go on practising gazing. The mind stops for moments. And when it happens, there is no mind, because mind can exist only in movement. In simple words, thinking can exist only in movement. Thinking disappears, when there is no movement. The movement of the mind discontinues if you are gazing in reality. Since if the mind continues moving, your gaze will be absent; you miss the object. You will forget what you were looking at when the mind has moved somewhere else. The object will be present bodily, but it will have gone for you because you have moved in thought. Gazing means your eyes as well as your entire mind are focused through the eyes. You are just looking at, doing nothing. That deep looking will revolutionize you from top to bottom. It will turn out to be a meditation. Both your eyes and your consciousness should get together in the focusing. You must be really looking through the eyes; you must not be absent from there. However, your presence is needed.  Initially, the difficulty will be that you will be looking at, but you will not be present.  Your eyes will be fixed, your mind will be moving. There will be no meeting of the eyes and the mind. If you win over it, the second difficulty will be that gazing with no movement, you will fall asleep. You may become unconscious, you may fall asleep. Even with open eyes, it is possible that you may fall asleep. You will be hypnotized by yourself. That is natural, because our mind knows only two states: either the constant movement or falling into sleep and meditation is a third state. The third state of meditation means your mind is as silent as a deep sleep, and as alert and aware as in thinking. Both silence and alertness must be present. You must be fully alert but silent as if deep in sleep.

One of the benefits of the Tratka is that it improves eye-sight and heals ordinary eye problems. Moreover, it does away with laziness and makes the mind peaceful. In fact, it is the base of meditation. In course of regular practice of Tratka, hypnotic and telepathic qualities are automatically acquired by the practitioner on account of concentration.

 Tratka should be practised in the normal health conditions. Time devoted to Tratka should be enhanced slowly and steadily. Do not wink during the practice. Stop the practice when eyes start watering and then wash the eyes with cold water. Restart the practice after getting normal and refreshing the eyes. Keep in mind, all kind of emotions should be in control at the time of the practice of Tratka. Therefore, try to make the mind free of all the ideas. There should be optimum light and fresh air in the room where the Tratka is to be practised. The environment should be peaceful. There should be no disturbance like noise, foul smell, insects, smoke and dust etc.

CONCENTRATION (Dharana)

 

Dharana means holding the mind to certain points and cultivating inner perceptual awareness. In other words, Dharana means concentration. To control tendencies of the mind at a particular point is called Dharana. It implies "immovable concentration of the mind". The essential idea is to hold the concentration or focus of attention in one direction. When the mind-stuff is confined or limited to a certain place it is Dharana. In Dharana, we form the conditions for the mind to focus its attention in one direction instead of going out in many different directions. Deep contemplation and manifestation can make the right state of affairs and the focus on this one point, that we have chosen, becomes more intense. We encourage one particular activity of the mind. The more intense it becomes, the more the other activities of the mind fall away.

The objective in Dharana is to stabilise the mind by focusing its attention upon some stable entity. The particular object selected has nothing to do with the common intention, which is to stop the mind from wandering through memories, dreams or reflective thoughts by deliberately holding it persistently upon some apparently static object.

When the mind has become purified by yoga practices, it becomes able to focus efficiently on one subject or one point of experience. Now we can set the great potential free for inner healing. As the organs get finer, the perceptions get higher. There is the danger of wasting your energies by taking up an idea only for its novelty and then giving it up for another that is newer. Take one thing up and do it and see the end of it and do not give it up before you have seen the end. He who can become mad with an idea, alone sees light.

 Conscious mind is always alert. It takes decision with the help of intellect. When conscious mind rests, the unconscious mind awakens and begins to guard the physical body. The role of unconscious mind is very important in life because the effect of whatsoever it experiences is immediate and long-lasting. The unconscious mind accepts what it notices whereas the conscious mind makes use of logic before accepting anything at its face-value. The unconscious mind reaches anywhere without any hindrance of time and space. Let the unconscious mind be trained to be in control of conscious mind. But it is very difficult because its movement is very fast and stable. We can watch as well as interfere into the remotest events with the help of unconscious mind. It is possible with the help of concentration only. The concentration signifies the one-pointed mind. It is very difficult process to do so because coordination needs to be established among unconscious mind, conscious mind and intellect.

Our conscious mind is fickle. It is the outcome of many folds over our unconscious mind. Sometimes we become unable to meet our goals because of this ever-changing mind. Concentration is must to stabilise this fickle mind. Do not try to test yourself as it will cause disturbance in the mind. Carry on the practice with self-confidence because soon concentration replaces the fickleness of mind. Similarly, the one-pointed state of mind replaces the scattered state. The practitioner undergoes a strange experience of the bliss of spiritual world which cannot be explained in human language. This is the beginning of the journey to the world of spirituality and meditation occurs at the advanced stage of concentration.

PRATYAHARA

 

Pratyahara is withdrawal of the mind from sense objects. The attachment and detachment of the mind with the sense organs according to your requirement is Pratyahara. In other words, the abstinence of the sense organs from their normal pleasure or objects is called pratyahara. Pratyahara is the fifth element among the eight stages of Patanjali's Ashtanga Yoga. It is also the first stage of the six-branch yoga of the Buddhist Kālacakra Tantra, where it refers to the withdrawal of the five senses from external objects to be replaced by the mentally created senses of an enlightened deity. Pratyahara means drawing back or retreat. The word ‘Ahara’ means nourishment; Pratyahara translates as "to withdraw oneself from that which nourishes the senses". In yoga, the term Pratyahara implies withdrawal of the senses from attachment to external objects.

At the stage of Pratyahara, the consciousness of the human being is internalized in order that the feelings from the senses of taste, touch, sight, hearing and smell don't reach their particular centres in the brain and Pratyahara takes the practitioner to next stages of yoga, namely concentration (Dharana), meditation (Dhayana) and mystical absorption (Samadhi), being the aim of all yogic practices. The bringing of the mind back from its improper course is Pratyahara and the directing of the mind in a proper course is Dharana or concentration.

Pratyahara occurs almost involuntarily when we meditate as we are deeply engaged in the act of meditation. Precisely the mind is so focused, the senses follow it; it is not happening the other way around.

Pratyahara involves withdrawal of senses, or sensory inputs into our physical being coming from our five senses namely organs creating a sensory overload and hence holds back collection of the mind, as in Dharana, the next stage of yoga.

Control of our senses wants mastery over the flow of prana as that is what drives the senses. To stop the dispersal of precious vital energy of the body, we need to seek control over its flow and tone it. This is done through various exercises plus bringing the entire focus to a single point in the body. These two lead to the consequent two types of Pratyahara, the control of action or 'Karma Pratyahara', which involves not just control of motor organs, but also right action or work and Karma Yoga, surrender of every action to the divine and performing it as an act of service. This leads to the final form of Pratyahara — the withdrawal of mind or 'Mano Pratyahara', which is practised by consciously withdrawing attention from anything that is unpleasant and distracting for the mind by withdrawing attention from the senses and directing it inwards.

One of the most general exercises for Pratyahara is Pranayama, in which we involuntarily withdraw from the external and bring our focus inwards towards our breath, as link with the external senses and stimuli are all cut off progressively. Apart from Pranayama, another method that is used to aid in the development of Pratyahara is to concentrate on the point between the eyebrows. This spot is known as Aaggya Chakra or the third eye. Another common practice for inducing Pratyahara is to first reduce physical stimuli, then focus on one sense, such as hearing. The mind has a natural tendency to wander between the sensory inputs. In this state of affairs, as there are no longer any other noteworthy sensory inputs, when the mind gets tired of hearing, it is forced to turn inward. At the advanced levels, the currents which beat through the nerves and even the involuntary muscles are turned off by the practitioner.

Under normal conditions, the senses become our masters rather than being our servants. The senses entice us to develop desires for all kinds of things. In Pratyahara the opposite happens. We try to put the senses in their proper place, but not cut them out of our actions fully.

A person who is influenced by external events and sensations can never reach the inner peace and tranquillity. This is because he or she will waste much mental and physical energy in trying to suppress unwanted sensations and to intensify other sensations. This will ultimately result in a physical or mental imbalance, and will, in most instances, results in illness. For this reason, much of our emotional imbalance is our own creation.

Our senses seem to drag us around in the external world. They allow the world around us to come into our minds. Inputs from infinite objects in our external world are constantly occupying our sense organs, yet our attention remains restricted to a mere few at a time.

Withdrawing the senses does not imply just regulating the physical sense organs. Sense withdrawal is a mental function and whenever that mental function is drawn to the objects of the mind field, there is active engagement of the senses. It doesn't actually matter whether that mental object is coming from the outside or arising from the memory. It is this inner withdrawal of sensory attention to the mental objects that is the practice of Pratyahara.

The senses that are withdrawn in Pratyahara are called Indriyas, and involve both cognition and expression. There are five means of cognition and five means of expression and these are each aligned with the lower five chakras. It is exceptionally significant point to understand that senses or Indriyas signifies cognition and expression. There is an indwelling witness and an external world and we want to temporarily suspend all interaction (sensory and expression) with the external, so as to experience the depths of meditation. In addition to suspend external contact for the time being, we also want to temporarily suspend sensory contact with the images and impressions that arise in the mental field.

Sense withdrawal means that the senses cease to be engaged or connected to the objects happening in the mind. It does not mean the suppression, repression or stopping of those thoughts. They may naturally slow down or decrease to some degree, but the method itself is to break the contact, to finish linking with the thought patterns. This means allowing thoughts to flow without disturbance, while the senses are just not diverted into those thoughts.

The willingness or unwillingness to be open to this withdrawal is a major separating line between those who experience the depths of true meditation and those who merely achieve some degree of mere mental relaxation. The willingness or unwillingness to withdraw attention from sensory experience is a significant dividing point between those who submit themselves to true meditation and those who undergo no more than physical relaxation. If the mental habit is broken, the physical action part of the habit comes unsurprisingly as a consequence of the mental control. For meditation, provisionally breaking the link between the senses and their objects allows the attention to be able to focus and go inward. As the tendency of the senses towards the mental objects is mastered, there comes regulation in relation to the physical objects of the humankind as well.

The frequent practice of pratyahara at meditation time brings a comprehensive reduction of the tendency of the senses being drawn towards and into the objects of the mind field. As the tendency towards the mental objects decreases with practice, the degree of mastery increases to its highest level. The very principle of Pratyahara lies upon the fact that we do have the ability to control our ‘sensory input’.

In Pratyahara, the withdrawal of the senses is deliberate, while at the same time the mind has no purpose of attraction in the external world.