Introduction to modern Meditation, Part II

© Copyright 2003 by Thomas Valone, MA, PE, USA
(Explore Issue: Volume 12, Number 1)

Meditation today is proven to be physiologically transforming and recommended by doctors. To review, we touched on the practice of mantra meditation, where it is recommended to stick with one mantra you choose for at least a month or more before trying another one. We also practised a powerful breathing exercise that helps awaken brain cells through oxygen therapy. The discussion of kundalini and the chakras, vital to the advanced yogi, gave a basis for the deeper benefits that can be achieved through regular meditation. Also helpful in transforming the conscious mind is the astounding changes a person can experience through the correct practice of affirmation, implanted in the subconscious or superconscious, without any extraordinary effort. Thus, as you progress in affirmation and meditation practice, you may rightly expect some or all of the following:

• An increasing sense of peacefulness during and after meditation.
• A conscious inner experience of calmness in meditation metamophosing into increasing bliss.
• A deepening of one’s understanding, and finding answers to one’s questions through the calm intuitive state of inner perception.
• An increasing mental and physical efficiency in one’s daily life.
• Love for meditation and the desire to hold onto the peace and joy of the meditative state in preference to attraction to anything in the world.
• An expanding consciousness of compassion with the unconditional love that one feels toward his own dearest loved ones, no matter what religion, race or nationality.
• Actual contact with God, and worshiping Him as ever-new bliss felt in meditation and in His omnipresent manifestations within and beyond all creation. -Yogananda (Self-Realization magazine, Spring, 1992)

You may choose to take meditation lessons locally from a yoga center or through more than one correspondence courses offering meditation instructions. Dr. Carl G. Jung, founder of analytical psychology, said that yoga and meditation promise "undreamed-of possibilities." This is also the title of a free introductory booklet available from Self-Realization Fellowship, (3880 San Rafael Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90065) describing excellent and inexpensive meditation lessons, including the Kriya and Hong Sau techniques. Meditate to improve alertness, mindfulness, general health and well-being, while enhancing one’s spiritual practice, whatever that may be…or as Yogananda says, “Why not unite all your smaller lights, letting them shine forth in one splendid effulgence to illumine the bodily house in which you dwell?”