What Does Meditation Do

Meditation energizes your awareness bringing both peace and wisdom to a busy mind. It expands your capacity to love and heals broken hearts. Also it dissolves many fears replacing them with lightness and brings freedom from anxiety.

Meditation is both the journey and the destination, revealing the secrets of consciousness and the treasures of the soul. It develops the power to be more alert and effective in our interaction with each other and with our precious world. But perhaps the greatest gift that comes with meditation is the glow of inner peace that is both gentle and strong.
The 14 Points of Meditation

• Regularity of time, place and practice are important. Regularity conditions the mind to slow down its activities with a minimum of delay.
• The most effective times are early dawn and dusk, when the atmosphere is charged with special spiritual force. If it is not feasible to sit for meditation at these times, choose an hour when you are not involved with daily activities, and a time when the mind is apt to be calm.
• Try to have a separate room for meditation. As meditation is repeated, the powerful vibrations set up will be lodged in the area; an atmosphere of peace and purity will be felt.
• When sitting, face North or East in order to take advantage of favorable magnetic vibrations. Sit in a steady, comfortable, cross-legged position with spine and neck erect but not tense.
• Before beginning, command the mind to be quiet for a specific length of time. Forget the past, present and future.
• Consciously regulate the breath. Begin with five minutes of deep abdominal breathing to bring oxygen to the brain. Then slow it down to an imperceptible rate.
• Keep the breathing rhythmic, inhale for three seconds and exhale for three seconds. Regulation of breath also regulates the flow of prana, the vital energy.
• Allow the mind to wander at first. It will jump around, but will eventually become concentrated, along with the concentration of prana.
• Don't force the mind to be still, as this will set in motion additional brain waves, hindering meditation.
• Select a focal point on which the mind may rest. For people who are intellectual by nature, this may be the Ajna Chakra., the point between the eyebrows. For more emotional people, use the Anahata or Heart Chakra. Never change this focal point.
• Focus on a neutral or uplifting object, holding the image in the place of concentration. If using a Mantra, repeat it mentally, and co-ordinate repetition with the breath. If you don't have a personalized Manta, use Om. Although mental repetition is stronger, the mantra may be repeated aloud if one becomes drowsy. Never change the Mantra.
• Repetition will lead to pure thought, in which sound vibration merges with thought vibration, without awareness of meaning. Vocal repetition progresses through mental repetition to telepathic language, and from there, to pure thought.
• With practice, duality disappears and Samadhi, or the super conscious state, is reached. Do not become impatient, as this takes a long time.
• In Samadhi one rests in the state of bliss in which the Knower, the Knowledge, and the Known become one. This is the super conscious state reached by mystics of all faiths and persuasions.

If you meditate for half an hour daily, you will be able to face life with peace and spiritual strength. Meditation is the most powerful mental and nerve tonic. Divine energy freely flows to the adept during meditation, and exerts a benign influence on the mind, nerves, sense organs and body. It opens the door to intuitive knowledge and realms of eternal bliss. The mind becomes calm and steady.