General

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graphic for general meditation articlesMeditation... What is it? Who does it? Why do it? Joan Borysenko answers these questions in her article, What, Me Meditate? She explains how meditation is nothing else than a "relaxation response" and we can actually be in a meditative state when we're completely absorbed in the task at hand. When nothing else enters our consciousness except the present moment, that's meditating.

Is Meditation Boring? Why Bother?

Do you get bored or anxious in meditation? Or perhaps you see no benefit or reason to meditate. You'd rather be having fun! Well, Alan Watts tells us that meditation is supposed to be fun! If it's not fun, you're taking it too seriously.

James Robbins gives us tips and tools to use if we get bored or anxious when we meditate, and various authors share the numerous benefits of meditation.

Is Meditation For You?

Still not convinced that meditation is for you? See what Rick Lewis discovered in No Reason to Meditate -- he attained freedom and his life became very simple.

Meditation helps you let go of the stressing out, the worrying, the anxieties, the judgments and condemnations, etc. etc. If that's not reason enough to meditate, just try it and see... once you experience the peace within, you'll like it, and you'll want to keep coming back for more.

Meditation: Your Travel Partner for Life

Meditation: Your Travel Partner for Lifeby Sarah McLean. Meditation is an essential travel partner on your journey of personal transformation. Meditation connects you with your soul, and this connection gives you access to your intuition, your heartfelt desires, your integrity, and the inspiration to...

Read more: Meditation: Your Travel Partner for Life

Nurturing Silence and Finding Moments of Solitude

Nurturing Silence and Finding Moments of Solitudeby Richard Mahler. Although we may feel like we have no real say about how we spend our time, a careful and honest examination reveals this cannot literally be true. We make choices each day that explicitly reflect our personal values and individual priorities. When...

Read more: Nurturing Silence and Finding Moments of Solitude

How To Connect with Your Inner Guide & Essential Self

Connecting with Your Inner Guide & Essential Selfby Barbara Marx Hubbard. I strongly advocate cultivating an inner receptivity, an inner listening and attunement to the signals of the Essential Self. These intuitions are the way the deeper self informs us and guides us. If you ask your Essential Self to come into your con­sciousness, it will...

Read more: How To Connect with Your Inner Guide &...

How to Be Active & Peaceful at the Same Time

How to Be Active & Peaceful at the Same Timeby Frank J. Kinslow. If we could choose one word that would define the lives of modern humans, it would have to be hectic. When, in recorded history, have we been so predisposed to incessant activity? We truly are driving ourselves insane. Our body/minds haven’t been prepared for...

Read more: How to Be Active & Peaceful at the Same Time

How to Stop the World with Meditation

How to Stop the World with Meditationby Von Braschler. Stopping the world to enter a meditation state of blissful peace and out-of-body timelessness is not easy for many of us. Many people find it difficult to tune out external distractions. To do this, you must control your physical senses. We can tell ourselves not to be distracted by...

Read more: How to Stop the World with Meditation

Gaining Clarity by Receiving & Interpreting Guidance

Gaining Clarity by Receiving & Interpreting Guidanceby Sanaya Roman. The mind is one of your most powerful tools when it clearly receives and interprets the guidance coming from your innermost self. If you want clarity, ask your soul to give it to you. Your soul has the answers, as well as a connection to the flows of...

Read more: Gaining Clarity by Receiving & Interpreting...

Mindfulness-Based Stillness Meditation: Developing the Quality of Gratitude

Mindfulness-Based Stillness Meditation: Developing the Quality of Gratitudeby Ian Gawler & Paul Bedson. Mindfulness meditation is a wonderful way of turning our attention toward spirit. Mindfulness pays attention to what exists, here and now. It shifts attention away from memory, imagination, ideas and concepts...

Read more: Mindfulness-Based Stillness Meditation:...

Meditation: Learning to Be Quiet Inside

Meditation: Learning to Be Quiet Insideby Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo. Events are going to happen to us on account of actions committed in the past. But the good news is that through our present responses, we mold our future — constantly, moment to moment to moment. The choice is...

Read more: Meditation: Learning to Be Quiet Inside

Quiet Time Programs in Schools

Article by NormanE. Rosenthal MD: Quiet Time Programs in Schoolsby Norman E Rosenthal M.D.

Quiet Time Programs have clearly succeeded in inner-city schools and “the most noticeable benefits from TM are that the kids are more eager to learn". I suggest that we consider expanding their reach to more affluent communities. These programs would de-stress our school children and....

Read more: Quiet Time Programs in Schools

Chanting: Personal & Planetary Benefits

Imre Vallyon is the author of the article: Chanting: Personal & Planetary Benefits

by Imre Vallyon.

Chanting is one of the easiest ways to turn within. When you are truly chanting you forget about yourself, and in that self-forgetfulness you begin to experience Ecstasy, Joy, Peace, Love and Compassion. For those few moments you suddenly realize the...

Read more: Chanting: Personal & Planetary Benefits

Receiving Higher Guidance

Duane Packer

Sanaya Roman

I take a deep breath in and relax my body. I imagine a golden light surrounding me. Any thoughts I do not want are leaving. My mind is filled with peace. I am going within and experiencing my thoughts, imagination, and the serene inner core of my true Self...

Read more: Receiving Higher Guidance

Facial Tension Can Be Relieved!

Facial Tension Can Be Relieved

Every night before you go to sleep, sit in your bed and start making faces -- just as small children enjoy doing, make all kinds of faces, good, bad, ugly, beautiful, so the whole face and the musculature start moving...

Read more: Facial Tension Can Be Relieved!

Enter the Silence

Deep within you is a place of infinite calm, an oasis of peace, love, wisdom, power, healing. All you need lies within you, surrounds you and enfolds you. Fulfillment far beyond your human desire is there, awaiting your recognition and acceptance. Transcendence over your past, transformation of your being, and unlimited possibilities for new expressions of life all exist inside you. There within your reach — moments away — lay freedom and paradise...

Read more: Enter the Silence

Encouraging Our Meditation

Tulku Thondup

by Tulku Thondup.

People often ask me how long and often to meditate. No one way suits everyone. Spending more time is better, but it depends on the individual's needs and potential. If you have demands on your time and energy, then the effort to meditate could just create more of a burden...

Read more: Encouraging Our Meditation

Meditation-Freeway to Discovery

Betty Bethardsby Betty Bethards. Our energy level and mental programs are the major contributing factors to how we interpret what's going on in our lives. That's why the most important tool I have to offer to increase self awareness is daily meditation. Meditation keeps our energy up high enough so that we have the clarity... Otherwise, our energy is so low that we just get caught in reacting to others...

Read more: Meditation-Freeway to Discovery

Can Meditation Be Fun

by Alan Watts.

Alan WattsWhat we call meditation or contemplation -- for want of a better word -- is really supposed to be fun. I have some difficulty in conveying this idea because most people take anything to do with religion seriously -- and you must understand that I am not a serious person. I may be sincere, but never serious...

Read more: Can Meditation Be Fun

Exploring Meditation

by Robert Landau. Exhaustive research has shown that meditation is an excellent antidote against stress, hyperactivity, and fear related themes. It has been found to increase your energy, as well as lower blood pressure and heart rate. Meditation can also be used as a successful tool to accompany many medical, psychological and alternative healing therapies...

Read more: Exploring Meditation

Does God Care If We Meditate?

Does God Care If We Meditate?by Ron Scolastico, Ph.D.

You do not come into earth to meditate. You come into earth to think, feel, act, and do. Thus, the primary impulse from your soul is not to meditate, but to love, to create harmony and goodness, and to heal. Now, the forces of God will love you no matter what you do, whether you meditate or not, whether you...

Read more: Does God Care If We Meditate?

Better Health Through Meditation

by Eric Harrison.

Don't be surprised if your doctor says to you, "Have you considered meditation?" He's not some alternative quack. The doctors are on firm ground when they recommend meditation. They are backed up by hundreds, perhaps thousands, of scientific studies going back decades.

Read more: Better Health Through Meditation

What, Me Meditate?

bJoan Borysenko, Ph.D.y Joan Borysenko, Ph.D.

Meditation is like doing mental push-ups that strengthen the muscles of awareness and choice. While it's not a practice that most people are willing to adopt for life, even several weeks of meditation can help train your mind and change your attitudes. If you should decide to keep it up, the benefits for the body are just as positive.

Read more: What, Me Meditate?

Silence: External & Internal

by Tobin Blake.

Tobin BlakeFrom TV sets and radios to sirens, jet aircraft, horns, and the constant yammer of too many people with too much to say, our world is filled with noise. When we are not engaged in listening to something or someone, we are usually yapping away ourselves, either externally or at least in our own heads. As a result very few people have experienced true quiet.

Read more: Silence: External & Internal

Anxious & Bored in Meditation?

anxious

by James Robbins.

Whether you encounter persistent drowsiness or any other obstacle to meditation, if you are not ready to meditate just now, ask yourself, Why not? Is there something you are avoiding in your daily life, some relationship left unresolved? Ironically, as you look into this very question, you are...

Read more: Anxious & Bored in Meditation?

No Reason to Meditate

Rick Lewis

by Rick Lewis.

We all start out as a closet case. We have a secret life with secret pain that we keep under wraps in this closet. We bolt the door and hide the key, keeping our dark side hidden away, and we work very hard to function over the top of that pain, fear and anguish and go on somehow with our lives, perhaps thinking we are the only ones with secret pain.

Read more: No Reason to Meditate

Being Present using Sound

Carlos Warter, M.D., Ph.D.

You can use random sounds (such as sirens, the neighbor's lawn mower, etc.) as reminders to return to the present moment. This technique encourages us to transcend our mood.

Read more: Being Present using Sound

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