Meditation is a group of mental training techniques .You can use
meditation to improve mental health and capacities, and also to help
improve the physical health. Some of these techniques are very simple,
so you can learn them from a book or an article; others require guidance
by a qualified meditation teacher.
WHAT IS MEDITATION
Most techniques called meditation include these components:
1. You sit or lie in a relaxed position.
2.
You breathe regularly. You breathe in deep enough to get enough oxygen.
When you breathe out, you relax your muscles so that your lungs are
well emptied, but without straining.
3. You stop thinking about everyday problems and matters.
4.
You concentrate your thoughts upon some sound, some word you repeat,
some image, some abstract concept or some feeling. Your whole attention
should be pointed at the object you have chosen to concentrate upon.
5. If some foreign thoughts creep in, you just stop this foreign thought, and go back to the object of meditation.
The
different meditation techniques differ according to the degree of
concentration, and how foreign thoughts are handled. By some techniques,
the objective is to concentrate so intensely that no foreign thoughts
occur at all.
In other techniques, the concentration is more
relaxed so that foreign thoughts easily pop up. When these foreign
thoughts are discovered, one stops these and goes back to the pure
meditation in a relaxed manner. Thoughts coming up, will often be about
things you have forgotten or suppressed, and allow you to rediscover
hidden memory material. This rediscovery will have a psychotherapeutic
effect.
THE EFFECTS OF MEDITATION
Meditation has the following effects:
1. Meditation will give you rest and recreation.
2. You learn to relax.
3. You learn to concentrate better on problem solving.
4. Meditation often has a good effect upon the blood pressure.
5. Meditation has beneficial effects upon inner body processes, like circulation, respiration and digestion.
6. Regular meditation will have a psychotherapeutically effect.
7. Regular meditation will facilitate the immune system.
8. Meditation is usually pleacent.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HYPNOSIS AND MEDITATION
Hypnosis
may have some of the same relaxing and psychotherapeutic effects as
meditation. However, when you meditate you are in control yourself; by
hypnosis you let some other person or some mechanical device control
you. Also hypnosis will not have a training effect upon the ability to
concentrate
A SIMPLE FORM OF MEDITATION
Here is a simple form of meditation:
1. Sit in a good chair in a comfortable position.
2. Relax all your muscles as well as you can.
3. Stop thinking about anything, or at least try not to think about anything.
4. Breath out, relaxing all the muscles in your breathing apparatus.
5. Repeat the following in 10 - 20 minutes:
-- Breath in so deep that you feel you get enough oxygen.
-- Breath out, relaxing your chest and diaphragm completely.
--
Every time you breathe out, think the word "one" or another simple word
inside yourself. You should think the word in a prolonged manner, and
so that you hear it inside you, but you should try to avoid using your
mouth or voice.
6. If foreign thoughts come in, just stop these
thoughts in a relaxed manner, and keep on concentrating upon the
breathing and the word you repeat.
As you proceed through this
meditation, you should feel steadily more relaxed in your mind and body,
feel that you breathe steadily more effectively, and that the blood
circulation throughout your body gets more efficient. You may also feel
an increasing mental pleasure throughout the meditation.
THE EFFECTS OF MEDITATION UPON DISEASES
As
any kind of training, meditation may be exaggerated so that you get
tired and worn out. Therefore you should not meditate so long or so
concentrated that you feel tired or mentally emptied.
Meditation
may sometimes give problems for people suffering from mental diseases,
epilepsy, serious heart problems or neurological diseases. On the other
hand, meditation may be of help in the treatment of these and other
conditions.
People suffering from such conditions should check
out what effects the different kinds of meditation have on their own
kind of health problems, before beginning to practise meditation, and be
cautious if they choose to begin to meditate. It may be wise to learn
meditation from an experienced teacher, psychologist or health worker
that use meditation as a treatment module for the actual disease.