Know yourself. That is the ultimate goal of meditation. Self-knowledge brings peace and joy to your everyday life, helping you to live comprehensively, focus on mundane tasks and feel a stronger connection to the divinity that is within.
Meditation enables you to discover your inner self and to become aware of your inner reality. Living in a world with so much external input, so many responsibilities and so much going on in your life, it can be hard to still the mind and teach it to focus.
Going within and learning about the self brings a true and deep knowledge of your motivations, emotions, thinking patterns – how and why you do the things you do. You become aware of yourself on all levels – physical, mental and spiritual – and learn to love and accept many things about yourself.
When you are physically self-aware, you know not only your limitations, but your capabilities and your potential as well. The same is true for your mental and spiritual self. And once you know yourself, you can come to like and accept yourself. Being able to realize and accept your past mistakes enables you to let them go and move forward in your evolution.
Different Types of Meditation
As with religion, in meditation there are many paths that lead to the same place.
There is intellectual meditation—which focuses on using the mind to transcend itself. It’s a path used in the Jewish traditions of Jnana Yoga and Habad Hasidism and by many mystics. For some, using the thought and will to transcend and create a new perception of reality is appealing. For others, it’s a bit difficult.
Emotional meditation focuses on opening and expanding the emotions to be able to better relate to others and the universe. Its goal is to learn to love God, to love others and to love self and is quite a popular meditation path. It is often used by devotional Bhakti yogis and Christian monastics.
Physical meditation focuses on using the physical body to become acutely aware of it and exclude everything else from the mind. Its purpose is to teach the meditator to do only one thing at a time and is found in Tai Chi, Hatha Yoga and the Dervish dances of the Sufi.
Action and meditation involves incorporating a physical skill into meditation, teaching that concentrating totally on a task or skill helps you grow as a total human being. The bonus – you become really good at the skill you’re focusing on: aikido, chi gung, karate and flower arranging, for example.
Mental meditation—in which you still your body as well as your mind—is broken down into two forms: structured and unstructured. Much like the names imply, structured meditation carefully and precisely defines an inner activity the meditator is working to master—a breathing technique, for example, or sitting in the lotus position. Unstructured meditation has a less rigid structure and allows the meditator to focus on a given subject and follow their thoughts on that subject, wherever they lead.
Benefits of Mediation
No matter the type of meditation, the benefits are the same. The mind expands, the body relaxes and you get to know your true, spiritual self. You may find your outlook on life changing as you drop old perceptions and beliefs and take on ones of higher vibration. You may learn to treat others as you’d like them to treat you. And you may learn to look upwards, move upwards and experience the joy and love of being connected to Infinite Intelligence and to your divine self.
Sources:
Bradley, Dorothy and Dr. Robert, Psychic Phenomena: Revelations and Experiences, West Nyack, New York: Paraker Publishing Company, 1967.
Brunton, Dr. Paul, Discover Yourself, New YorkL E.P. Duttton & Co., 1946.
Crum, Jessie K., The Art of Inner Listening, Illinois: Re-Quest Books, 1978.
Previously published on Suite101.com
LeShan Lawrence, How to Meditate, Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1979.
It’s nearly impossible to fjnd educated people for this topic, but you
sound like you know what you’re talking about! Thanks