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It's all about feeling worthy enough to take care of myself.

~ Oprah Winfrey

 
 
“Spiritual growth requires becoming aware of everything that you are feeling, and learning about yourself from what you feel.” Gary Zukav in ‘Soul to Soul Meditations’

 

“Meditation helps you to grow your own intuitive faculty. It becomes very clear what is going to fulfill you, what is going to help you flower.”
~ OSHO

 
Meditation for Health or a Pathway of Enlightenment

Meditation: What it is for SOUL LIGHT INSTITUTE OF MASSAGE AND HOLISTIC HEALING!

An ordinary person may consider meditation as a worship or prayer. But it is not so. Meditation means awareness. Whatever you do with awareness is meditation. "Watching your breath" is meditation; listening to the birds is meditation. As long as these activities are free from any other distraction to the mind, it is effective meditation.

Meditation is a technique of calming down the mind, de-stress and at least a way of leading a spiritual life. It describes a state of consciousness, when the mind is free of scattered thoughts and various patterns.

The word meditation, is derived from two Latin words: meditari (to think, to dwell upon, to exercise the mind) and mederi (to heal). Its Sanskrit derivation 'medha' means wisdom.

 "If there is something you truly want to know, then you truly want to listen to your own wisdom.
You know, meditation is learning how to listen with your own wisdom, so that you can see.
I think why meditation is amazingly important,
is that somehow our unconscious world is much bigger.
It is huge, universal, and we don't understand that one.
Meditation allows this world to be light and knowable, understandable.
That is why it is important.
Normally we are totally robbed by the egotistic, conventional mind,
not allowing the fundamental mind to be functioning.
That is why one should have confidence, truly... through experience,
one has confidence in one's spiritual journey."
By Lama Thubten Yeshe

Petra’s personal aim in meditation is evolving relaxation, personal & spiritual development, finding her true self & connect with my soul, expand intuition & psychic development, find out more about her mission in life and fulfill it.

What Meditation is not?

Meditation is not contemplation.

Contemplation involves thinking about a concept, engaging your mind in enquiring about a certain idea. But when you meditate, you don't ask the mind to think about a concept, but go beyond thought.

Meditation is not hypnosis or autosuggestion.

In hypnosis, a suggestion is made to the mind, there is an attempt to program or control the content of the mind. But when you meditate, you simply observe the mind and let it become quite and calm, exploring and experiencing the deeper levels of your being.

Meditation identifies with religion.

Meditation does not belong to any culture or religion. It is a simple method of exploring the inner dimensions of life. Some religions employ meditative practices as part of their rituals, meditation itself is far removed from any set of beliefs or the distinctions of class or creed.

Meditation does not mean instant peace.

" The whole purpose of meditation is to make you aware of your kingdom, to make you aware of your highest potential. " OSHO

SOUL LIGHT INSTITUTE OF MASSAGE AND HOLISTIC HEALING shows different ways of meditation and includes NLP. In NLP the senses through which we experience the world are referred to as representational systems. Hence, we have several different systems working for us: visual (for things we see), auditory (for things we hear), kinaesthetic (things we feel or tactile sensations), AD or self talk (also called labeling system), olfactory (things we smell), and gustatory (things we taste).

Benefits and effects on body, mind, emotions and soul

Regularly practise in meditation can lead to......

Spiritual effect

The natural outcome is supreme bliss or enlightenment.

Physiological effect

Improvement of the general body and health. When your mind focuses on a particular part of the body, the blood flow to that part increases and cells receive more oxygen and other nutrients in abundance.

Though meditation is usually recognized as a largely spiritual practice, it also has many health benefits. The meditation techniques are being implemented in management of life threatening diseases, in transformation of molecular and genetic structure. Some benefits of meditation are:

  • Good for people with high blood pressure as it brings the B.P. to normal. Less cholsterol.
  • Decreases muscle tension (any pain due to tension) and headaches.
  • It increases serotonin production which influences mood and behaviour. Low levels of serotonin are associated with depression, obesity, insomnia and headaches.
  • Increases exercise tolerance in heart patients.
  • It lowers oxygen consumption.
  • Enhances the immune system. Research has revealed that meditation increases activity of 'natural-killer cells', which kill bacteria and cancer cells.
  • Helps in chronic diseases like allergies , arthritis etc.
  • Pain relief and stronger immune response.

Psychological Effects:

Reversal of mental illnesses, in accelerated learning programs, in perceptions and communications beyond the physical, in solving problems and atomic and nuclear physics; in gaining better ecological understanding; in management of lifestyle and future world problems. Some benefits of meditation are:

  • Resolve Phobias - Meditation can help to resolve the deepest of neu-roses, fears and conflict which play their part in causing stress and ill health
  • Also reduces emotional distress
  • Builds self-confidence
  • Faster healing

Dr. Adam Burkehas been studying brain wave patterns and states of mind during meditation states. He says: "Meditation is the study of attention. Attention is a cognitive phenomenon. Meditation is the capacity of the brain to attend to something over a period of time. "

All things are preceded by the mind, led by the mind, created by the mind.

Different ways to practice meditation
Types of Meditative Techniques

There are many different ways to meditate. Here some basic categories of meditation techniques to show how they differ from one another and to give you some ideas.

  • Basic Meditation Techniques: This involves sitting in a comfortable position and just trying to quiet your mind by thinking of nothing. It’s not always easy to do this if you don’t have practice with it. It’s a good way to begin to think of ourselves and observe our thoughts, just noticing what the narrative voice in our head says, but not engaging it. As thoughts materialise in our mind, we just let them go. That’s the basic idea.
  • Focusing: With this technique, you focus on something intently, but don’t engage your thoughts about it. You can gaze steady on something visual, like a statue or a candle light; something auditory, like a metronome or tape of ocean waves; something constant, like your own breathing. Some people find it easier to do this than to focus on nothing, but the idea is the same - staying in the present moment and circumventing the constant stream of commentary from your conscious mind, and allowing yourself to slip into an altered state of consciousness .
  • Activity-Oriented Meditation: With this type of meditation, you engage in a repetitive activity, or one where you can experience ‘flow’. Again, this quiets the mind, and allows our brain to shift. Activities like gardening, creating artwork, or practicing yoga can all be effective forms of meditation. My personal favourite is a dancing meditation (Osho – Kundalini).
  • Mindfulness Techniques: Mindfulness can be a form of meditation that, like activity-oriented meditation, doesn’t really look like meditation. It simply involved staying in the present moment rather than thinking about the future or the past. Focusing on sensations you feel in your body is one way to stay ‘in the now’; focusing on emotions and where you feel them in your body is another. My personal favourite is the OSHO Chakra-Breathing.
  • Spiritual Meditating: Meditation can also be a spiritual practice. Many people experience meditation as a form of prayer - the form where God speaks, rather than just listening. That’s right, many people experience ‘guidance’ or inner wisdom once the mind is quiet, and meditate for this purpose. We can meditate on a singular question until an answer comes or meditate to clear the mind and accept whatever comes that day.

Whichever meditative techniques we use, the potential benefits are clear and numerous, making it one of the more commonly recommended stress management practices.

There are many, many ways to practice meditation, but the methods of practice are frequently confused with the larger goals of meditation. Some ways of meditation……

Chakra-Meditation: Chakra means "wheel" and represents the major nerve which branch off the spinal cord to serve the major organs of the body. Chakras represent a different level of energy manifestation and consciousness development. There are 7 main chakras which can appear in colors during a meditation.

Guided-Visualization: This meditation is guided by a teacher (or CD) who is leading the group (single) with different stories to experience calmness, stress reduce and/or higher wisdom through connection with the subconscious. Ideally the submodality words of the NLP are used within.

Mantra-Meditation: Mantra, literally meaning 'revealed sound', means a sound or combination of sounds which develop spontaneously. In mantra meditation, specific sounds are repeated to achieve a meditative state. This can just be vocals or for example my favorite mantra sentence ‘OM NAMA SHIVAYA’, also known as chanting.

Mandala-Meditation: Mandalas are symbolic pictures used in meditations for growing peace and awareness in meditation. The often traditional pictures take the meditator on a wordless journey of the mind.

Meditation with Brain-wave-music: like Hemi-Sync, by using headphones the music takes you into a very deep level of consciousness as it works on the whole brain integration.

Crystal-Meditation: I personally work a lot with crystals and have found minerals to be especially helpful in focusing one's concentration. Minerals and crystals are natural focusing various energies and forces at large in the universe. For example, they are used as tuners for electronics which can pick up seemingly invisible transmissions. Human perception can also be trained to function with minerals in similar ways.

Working with minerals by holding them in one's hands or even placing them in one's immediate area can help to focus the attention. Besides conveying other information or experiences, minerals can convey their own qualities to the meditator. Crystals are themselves worthy beautiful subjects for discovery.

Finally, the very act of holding onto something can give the meditator a tactile focus to anchor themselves in either selecting or in releasing various meditative experiences. Thoughtful experimentation (depending on the quality of crystal you choose) and practice are the keys.

Book in now for a Meditation workshop or contact Petra for information about regular meditation classes on 0448 530 338 or view or Calendar. A modality that is guaranteed to lift you out of the stress of daily life!

Soul Light Institute offers several products to help support you in your Meditation Practice. Click here to see our Meditation Products.
 
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