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Meditation And Spiritual Growth Article
Meditation and Spiritual Growth
from: Ana Garcia
We belief that meditation requires incredibly difficult techniques and that only advanced gurus can do it. Meditiation can be to spend 15 minutes by yourself in silence. Try it: it will change your life.
Meditation is the single most important tool of self-development and spiritual growth.
Although the majority of people think of meditation as something that only very advance priests or shamans do and that it requires specific attributes, skills and attitudes, anybody can and should meditate.
If we were to describe meditation, we could use the analogy of digestion:
When we eat, certain chemical responses take place in our body in order to break down the food in small particles that can be absorbed by our cells. After all, if there is an interruption of this process and the food does not reach the cells themselves, we may eat, but we will not be nourished.
In the same way, we may read books and obtain knowledge in many other ways and store it in our brain. However, if this knowledge does not reach our heart it will not become part of us. It will not be part of our engine, that is to say, the part of us being made up of emotions, beliefs, feelings, etc, which sets in motion the rest of our organism, providing us with a direction. Therefore meditation is the digestion and processing of knowledge into wisdom.
The fact that certain amount of information is stored in our brains does not mean that we are any wiser. We simply have accumulated a larger database. In order to make this information part of our belief system and our experience (what we feel, what we know to be our truth, our emotions…) we need to process it. And this is done when we meditate.
We all know people who have studied several degrees and have powerful minds, but can not adapt to the environment, can not develop healthy relationships and can not become part of social groups. They seem to lack common sense and empathy: they find it difficult to put themselves in other people’s shoes and do not understand why people react negatively to their good intentions.
Meditation would help enormously in opening the heart and promoting compassion, empathy and the flexibility necessary to listen to other peoples’ opinions without feeling threatened. After all, listening does not mean we need to take in these thoughts, but communication does need to be a two way exercise.
We also may know people who talk as if they were reciting quotes and pieces of information but, ultimately, do not seem to show any emotion. We quickly lose interest and do not feel motivated by this list of figures and sentences that seem to have been learnt by heart and which seem to be set in stone.
Meditation would make all this information part of the person himself and an individual point of view would develop, normally expressed with passion because it would come from the heart, not from the mind.
When we meditate, we develop an inner knowing of our own that does not depend on anybody else’s opinion. We become flexible and open to other points of view because we realise that we all have ideas which we feel passionately about and we don't feel threatened by them. We are all one and the same, simply in different states of evolution and with different backgrounds, hence the different coloured glasses through which we see the world.
The idea is that we all need to share who we are without losing ourselves in the process, gaining from each other’s wisdom without trying to force our ideas on others or allowing others to do so to us.
In order to meditate we do not need to develop elaborate positions or follow a strict number of steps which, were they not done in the correct order, the whole process would be useless.
To meditate, we need to be alone and undisturbed while the meditation lasts. We also need silence, loose and comfortable clothes, some relaxation music would help and a comfortable position sitting down or lying down (even though we may find that we fall sleep if we are lying down and are tired).
We then close our eyes and relax our body through a few deep breaths, noticing which muscles are tense and releasing them. Breath in the light and energy of the Universe and breath out our tensions and worries of the moment.
We then start observing our thoughts as they pass by. We do not get attached to them or judge them. We think of them as clouds in the sky: they are passing by, but not staying. We do not concern ourselves whether these thoughts belong to us or merely pass through us; whether they are born in us or borrowed by us…
As we make room for the silence, the space between thoughts, it will grow bigger each time. We begin hearing our intuition, our little guiding inner voice. Sudden insights, great truths and realisations become part of us. When we finish, we give ourselves some time to return to our reality. We will then notice that we feel much more harmonious and calm and that it is easier to stay in our centre regardless of the external circumstances, the pulling and pushing we are subject to every day in our lives.
As a subject of the meditation, we may concentrate in one subject or problem, or we may make space for whatever needs to come in at the moment.
Call it "your quiet moment" or "your peaceful silence"; whichever way, practice it for fifteen minutes everyday. It will change your life!
About the Author
Ana is a Reiki Master, Spiritual Coach and works with Native American spiritually based Animal Strategy. As a result, Ana helps people untangle themselves from painful emotional turmoil and struggle by attaining inner harmony, detachment and self-reliance. Ana will help you draw out your inner wisdom so that you can tackle life challenges in practical and inspiring ways.