For some people, the practice of Meditation helps them find some relaxation from the highly demanding and hectic lifestyle in which most modern people find themselves. The mere practice of emptying the mind enables a person to free the mind from the anxious thoughts which clutter the mind throughout the day. Once one engages in the step-by-step process of Peaceful Mind Meditation, which entails the muscle conditioning and moderation of breathing at the start, and the tempering of thoughts later on, one finds oneself slowly in the alpha-relaxed state of the mind which enables a person to free oneself of the stress which has built up all throughout the day. By achieving a relaxed state, one can de-stress the body and consequently achieve healing of some ailing body parts. This may be a secondary effect of the practice of Meditation which,in some way, is very beneficial to the practitioners. This is the main reason too why a lot of people engage in the practice of Meditation.
The Proximate Goals of the Meditation
The constant practice of Meditation is beneficial to the holistic development of oneself. When I say holistic, I mean it has benefits which bring about development in the different aspects and spheres of the life of a person. The five areas of life improved by the regular practice of Meditation are: the Physiological Aspect, the Social Aspect which involves the way we relate with other people, the Intellectual Aspect, Emotional and, the Spiritual aspect. The continuous practice of Peaceful Mind Meditation enhances and improves these five interactive dimensions of a person’s life. In this chapter, the benefits to the four aspects of human person’s life—physiological, intellectual, emotional, social—will be given emphasis. Later on in the succeeding chapter specifically in chapter four, the spiritual dimension will be elaborated upon in a more cohesive manner to highlight the spiritual benefits which could be had from the practice of Meditation.
The Physiological Benefit of Meditation
It is believed in the oriental religions that the world is made up of the universal energy and sicknesses are just blockages in the natural paths (meridians) of energy inside the body. In fact, in the oriental alternative healings such as Acupuncture, Shiatsu, Reiki and many more, the unblocking of energy paths brings about immediate healing to the body. The practice of Peaceful MindMeditation helps in the unblocking of these blocked energy paths. The start of this meditation is the moderation of breathing. Then enhancement of Chakra energy could be done by replenishing the different chakras with universal energy. Most of our bodily sicknesses are rooted in some persistent thoughts in the mind. Emptying the mind of these thoughts frees the mind from the cause of anxiety and, at the same time, frees the person of the symptom-causing anxious thought. In this way, the Peaceful Mind Meditation helps a person recover from the symptoms of the sickness by freeing the mind from the symptom-producing anxious thought. Likewise, the unblocking of energy could be done during the meditation process when one opens up the chakras and the energy pathways, unblocking in the process the source of energy blockages.
The Intellectual Benefit of the Meditation
The undisciplined mind is usually a source of physical as well as mental malady. The negative thoughts which have lodged into our subconscious mind work as a gnawing hindrance to our self realization. The Peaceful Mind Method can enable a practitioner to get in touch with these gnawing negative thoughts and eliminate them from the subconscious mind by altering them with positive thoughts. In the meditation process, you will be aware of these negative thoughts cropping up into the conscious mind as one wants to still one’s consciousness. This keen awareness of these negative thoughts would enable us to understand why we think in this way and act in this way. Being aware of them puts us in better position to alter these thoughts with positive thoughts. Awareness is the first step to freeing ourselves from these negative thoughts.
The Emotional Benefits that could be derived from Meditation
Our emotions are also situated in the subconscious part of our mind. For this reason, we don’t have direct access to our damaged emotions once they have lodged into our subconscious mind. Yet the gnawing effects of these emotions persist in our daily lives. The pessimism and negativism we exhibit are often traceable to damaged emotions of which we are barely aware. In the practice of Meditation, we endeavor to empty the mind of all thoughts. Yet, as we engage in the process of emptying our minds of these thoughts, past thoughts rooted in damaged emotions usually crop up making us aware of them. This is a good time to be conscious of these persistent damaged emotions in the form of negative thoughts which readily crop up to the conscious level.
Once we are made aware of them, we can rule them out of our subconscious mind by reprogramming our subconscious mind and replacing them with positive and optimistic thoughts. Thoughts and emotions are always related to each other. Emotions engender thoughts and thoughts engender emotion. Thus it is necessary to be aware of these cropping thoughts to heal ourselves of damaged emotions.
The Benefits of the practice of Meditation on the Social Aspect of Person’s life
The social aspect of a person’s life deals with how a person relates with other people and his environment. This aspect also deals with how we relate with our significant others. Our manner of relating with other people is a mirror of how we are at peace with our inner self. Most of the problems in our relationships start from our own selfish inclinations. Yet we are not aware of these inclinations. In the practice of the Meditation, we temper our selfish inclination and develop a strong inclination to see the needs of other people.
Constant practice of Peaceful Mind Meditation enables us to discipline our mind and body. In the process, we acquire a new set of habits through discipline and persistence in the practice of meditation. These newly acquired habits will facilitate our dealings with other people and help us understand ourselves more thoroughly.