THE PETALUMA POST PETALUMAPOST.COM Community Spirit, Mind & Body T The Merits of Meditation by Pam Bell he concept and act of meditation is becoming ever more mainstream and not just in the back alley yoga studios of the 1960s or Buddhist temples either. Meditation is now showing up in Corporate America at an ever increasing pace. Why? The benefits of meditation are both powerful and many. Known for centuries only to a select group of highly trained monks or Hindu Guru's who ventured west either by force (a.k.a. the Chinese invasion of Tibet in the 1950s) or as a spiritual quest to enlighten the Western mind (a.k.a. Paramhansa Yogananda…. author of Autobiography of a Yogi and one of the first to introduce meditation to America in 1920's) meditation has fulfilled it's many promises of personal transformation and enhanced well-being to the pace of becoming "trend." Perhaps in the West we are skeptics, or maybe just slow learners, but once we get a hold of something good we will light a fire under it like no other. This is the current trajectory of meditation in our hemisphere. It is on fire and the topic of daily conversation in colleges, boardrooms and even in scientific journals…..a field that only decades ago would never have given such "hocus pocus" the time of day. All these accolades are for good reason! Meditation has the power to transform. Like water wearing a groove in a granite boulder (our mind) meditation can help move us beyond our grand egoic delusions and connect us with the deeper meaning of life….that for which we have been questing after since the beginning of time, Universal Oneness or God Consciousness, so to speak, that remind us there is more to life than meets the eye…. or the ear, or even the flesh for that matter. It allows us to move beyond this world of materialism into a world of non-dualism. Beyond a world of violence into a world of love. Beyond a place of judgement into a place of compassion. And beyond a world of facevalue philosophy into a world of great imagination. Meditation is also the great equalizer. No matter how rich or poor, educated or not, anyone and everyone is capable of learning how to meditate and enjoying the many benefits inherent in this centuries old practice. The health benefits of meditation that most people The Doll Mercantile COLLECTIBLE & ANTIQUE DOLLS We buy and sell antique and collectible dolls. We dress and repair dolls and doll clothing. COME TO OUR “J” SALE (January, June and July) Save 20% or more on most items! Colleen Richardson 1510 Bodega Avenue in Petaluma 707.765.6935 WED-SUN, 11am-5pm are initially drawn to include: stress reduction, increased oxygen flow, the lowering of blood pressure, better sleep, greater emotional balance, psychological flexibility, a clear and focused mind and increased longevity. These are exceptional qualities to improve upon in ones life and ones that undeniably lead to greater well-being and an overall healthier lifestyle. These reasons alone are worth the price of admission but there are still far greater benefits for those who study meditation as a spiritual practice. Actually, now that I think about it and after 20+ years of meditating myself, I'm not actually convinced one can meditate and have it be exclusive of a spiritual practice. Once you learn to sit in silence, to turn your busy mind off and access that stillness within, it is nearly impossible to not connect with something deeper, larger and more expansive than yourself. This is the very essence of a spiritual (not to be confused with religious) experience! T h e g r ow i n g u s e o f meditation in Corporate America is mainly about, you guessed it, productivity and training the brain. Training the brain to think more inventively, to be more precise, and to operate more efficiently. I know it sounds like I'm talking about a computer here but let's face it, our brains "are" computers and thus, in a corporate setting, they are treated like one. There are those companies that really "do" care about the overall well-being of their employees howe ve r and e ve n of f e r mediation classes as part of the employee benefit package, Google, Target, General Mills and Ford to name a few. Scientific research s u r ro u n d i n g m e d i t a t i o n is finding that profound chemical changes occur in JUNE 2015• 17 Pamela Bell has been writing for the Petaluma Post for over 12 years. She writes the Spirit, Mind & Body Column along with Community Spotlights. She can be reached at [email protected]. our brain during meditation activity. A study recently conducted at Harvard found that meditation significantly alters the regions of the brain associated with stress, overall well-being and fluid intelligence." Many other scientific studies are finding the same results. We can alter our health, well-being and actually our perception of reality, by changing the chemistry of our brain through meditation. This is significant and the researchers are just now scratching the surface, so imagine what we'll know about meditation and the brain 20 years down the road! To me, and most serious meditators I know, this is the juicy part. The part of being able to alter our reality through meditation. This is the deeper more esoteric part that spiritual practitioners (and those societies practicing meditation for thousands of years) have come to know and to rely on. Not just the superficial health benefits….. these actually pale to the real art and skill of manifestation through meditation…..but to the infinite power of the mind! And to understanding and knowing that mind. And to the realization of the infinite potential of that same mind. It is brilliant. It leaves one speechless. It is profound. How does this work? How is it possible to alter ones reality through their perception? How does meditation allow for this? Truth be known, our reality "is" our perception. Our reality is created by our perception. For example, if one perceives the world to be an unfriendly place, these are the experiences they are going to create. They will see the "unfriendly" in everything and invite the same into their experience. If on the other hand one perceives the world to be abundant and limitless, they will live from a place of abundance and create this for themselves. It is kind of a simple equation or thread really but not always so simple to master. And this is where meditation comes in! Me d i t a t i o n h e l p s u s to gain control (I hate this word in this context but, it is what it is) over our mind and our thinking. If we are having unsavory or negative thoughts and we can learn to catch them in time, if we can circumvent them before they manifest and instead turn our thoughts to something more virtuous, we will be all the better because of it. In the long run, a life of virtuous thoughts creates a virtuous life. A life of compassionate thoughts create a compassionate life and a life full of compassion! Which of course becomes your new reality. How cool is that? This is a simplification of t he process but why complicate things when they can be just as easily understood in these terms? Change your thoughts, change your life. Meditation helps us to identify our unproductive thoughts, alter them before we act on them, and choose more productive thoughts instead. The motivation for meditating will vary from individual to individual (from the selfish to the selfless) but regardless of the initial "why", meditation has the unexpected results of taking us to places we never even knew were possible, places that will transform not only our minds but also our hearts. Want to learn to meditate? There are many, many places to learn meditation but if you want to join me, I teach meditation in Healdsburg at Dragonfly Farm on Thursday nights, 6:30PM. Next session begins June 11th. Go to: DesertMoonRising.com for more details or email me: pambell@desertmoonrising. com
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