Meditation: The Power Of Doing Nothing

Meditation is not well understood.

If it were, it would be practiced with the same regularity with which people take care of the other elements of their lives.

In this brief article, I hope to explain the value of this Eastern idea of doing nothing as a way to experience inner depth and wisdom.

The inner person has often been called the soul. This is like a seed. This seed carries the power of life. It also has potentiality that is not known. Sometimes we glimpse this potentiality in those who have been known to do miraculous things, like the saints of certain religions.

The urge for life is the evidence of this seed. Life is not a mere mechanical arrangement like the wiring in a house whose electrical current animates various devices. Life is much deeper and more mysterious. A mystery we label as consciousness.

This seed, like the shoot of a young plant, seeks always to grow. And like the young plant, it is vulnerable to the pressures of the environment and to survive must build its inner strength.

Pausing then to simply be and to notice that experience of individuality, we build our inner strength and fortify it from the depersonalizing pressure of society.

When this mechanism of survival is not conscious, we create a psychological shell and habits that protect. Yet when we become more aware, we awaken to our own process.

Putting it another way, conscious living does not usurp the function of the unfolding seed, but instead awakens it to its own process.

In this way, we do not conduct our lives as if from the outer rim of ourselves.

When we affirm the value of the private person within ourselves, we make life an adventure worth living.

Saleem Rana would love to share his inspiring ideas with you. Hunting everywhere for a life worth living? Discover the life of your dreams. His book Never Ever Give Up tells you how. It is offered at no cost as a way to help YOU succeed. http://www.theempoweredsoul.com/enter.html Copyright 2004 Saleem Rana. Please feel free to pass this article on to your friends, or use it in your ezine or newsletter. It's a shareware article. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Saleem_Rana

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What is meditation?

Meditation usually refers to a state in which the body is consciously relaxed and the mind is allowed to become calm and focused. Several major religions include ritual meditation; however, meditation itself need not be a religious or spiritual activity. Most of the more popular systems of meditation are of Eastern origin, though there exists also various forms of Christian, Jewish and Muslim meditation.
Meditation as a form of alternative medicine brings about mental calmness and physical relaxation by suspending the stream of thoughts that normally occupy the mind. Generally performed once or twice a day for approximately 20 minutes at a time, meditation is used to reduce stress, alter hormone levels, and elevate one's mood.
A discipline in which the mind is focused on a single point of reference. Employed since ancient times in various forms by all religions, the practice gained greater notice in the post war US as interest in Zen Buddhism rose. Meditation is now used by many nonreligious adherents as a method of stress reduction; known to lower levels of cortisol, a hormone released in response to stress. Enhances recuperation and improves the body’s resistance to disease.
Meditation is an easy and simple way to balance a person's physical, emotional, and mental states. It is easily learned and has been used as an aid in treating stress, anxiety, pain management, and as part of an overall treatment for other conditions including hypertension and heart disease. Research shows that meditation decreases the heart rate, respiratory rate, oxygen consumption, and even decreases blood pressure.