Be your best Self and you‘ll create your best Life

There is an old Zen saying that goes like this: “You should sit in meditation for 20 minutes a day, unless you are too busy, then you should sit for an hour.” This is a great Wisdom that we should have into consideration if we want to be happier, healthier and peaceful.

Usually when people hear the word meditation they automatically think of solitary living, ascetic life or just sitting in one spot, doing nothing and immensely trying not to think, or they just see the whole practice as total waste of time.

But, when one starts exploring what actually meditation is, one sees very clearly that it is not relaxing, nor pretending to be peaceful in your appearance while inside you are timed bomb.

Meditation is training the mind to help it find strength and skills it needs to solve daily problems! Meaning meditation is done by being fully alert of everything inside and outside of us.

And in the process of meditation you don’t have to take anything from anyone else, you don’t break anyone’s free-will, you just re-gain your own perfect divine characteristics that you forgot you have.

And here are 5 of these beautiful characteristics that you give to your Self as a present while you practice meditation.

1. Brings back your inner peace 

When we practice meditation we clean our body, mind and soul from all its dirt, from all the debris that we have collected inside ourselves. Every single day we do our daily chores, we go to work, hang out with friend, sometimes we laugh, sometimes we are stressed, angry or we cry.

And along doing all this we become magnetized with positive or negative energy that at the end of the day, when our mind begins to switch off we start to feel this heavy daily burden. And as every human we too want to rest our heads upon the pillow and sleep a deep, peaceful sleep.

But this also means that before we go to bed we must de-energize, we must put all our problems away, leave all the stress outside and try to hear the beautiful Silence within.

During the practice of meditation we can clean ourselves up from all the negativity, past, present and future. Meditation is like an inner shower of golden sunshine that purifies us and keeps us in perfect balance and peace.

2. Increases your self-awareness  

We are all creatures of habit, especially in the way we think. And we tend to think a lot, all the time, no pause, no time for any recollection of the thoughts that have gone by. This is why some of us have very much trouble with memory and concentration.

We just think too much and we don’t have time to analyze the thoughts we do think, we don’t even know which thought we have been feeding, and believe me the thoughts you feed, eat you in turn.

Meditation can pause this thought turmoil and put your mind on a hold. And in this time lapse you can finally see which thought is actually yours, are they even good and positive, do they bring peace in your heart or just anger and confusion.

When we are in meditation, our mind becomes a vast ocean of clear consciousness in which we can see what kind of thought are rising within, and in this state of awareness we have time to change our thinking blue-print. Thus being in meditative state of mind we achieve perfect awareness of who we are and what kind of thoughts we let in.

3. It grounds you 

Being in meditative state literally grounds your Self deep into Mother Earth and into your present incarnation. When one is perfectly grounded he is unbreakable, but flexible.

Being grounded means that you have re-connected with you earthly life once again, that you don’t go against the wind anymore, but have learned to trust and follow your own Path. Meditation helps you to attain deep roots and still move freely forward wherever you want.

4. Increases your consciousness 

We all have consciousness, but sadly some of us never explore it or evolve it. With meditation you get to live your life in full awareness of your inner and outer world, and thus becoming more conscious about every little thing around you, your thoughts and most of all about who you are.

This is done because during meditation the sub-consciousness is lifted up and the above-consciousness is lowered down and all the three levels of human consciousness are being rejoined at the level of your present consciousness and by doing this you remember of all that you are and make your Self able to transcend into higher realms of the Universal Wisdom while you are still incarnated.

5. Increase your fulfillment in life 

You should know that meditation has no aim, it is a Way, a Path! The absolute Wisdom and the re-connection with the One Source are achieved while we diligently practice and live fully awake. It is an ongoing process of Becoming of who you really are.

Since meditation is a process, the moment you start walking on this Path you must practice each day, read all those books and scriptures about this way of living with discipline and full attention. So while you are meditating you are transforming your Self.

Every day of the rest of your life becomes filled only with simple and necessary discipline which brings you more and more closer of becoming your Highest Self!

Remember there are much more benefits that you gain from the whole process of meditation, no matter which kind do you practice. But the most important thing is that with meditation you can attain your inner and outer peace, which I think is the most important thing at the end of the day.

Namaste 

….because with Fate we pray, and with Meditation we hear the answer

Because meditation is a state of consciousness and we are conscious beings, thus logically, meditation as state and as a way of living has been inseparable part of human evolution since the beginning of time.

There are many books written on meditation, its history and philosophy, but here we shall make a historical view of the evolution of meditation as an important part of the very core of every Religion.

Which is very interesting to know, because today’s religious people label the whole art of meditation as a doctrine of its own and by not understanding what it is, they judge and reject all the beautiful wisdom gained from meditation in any of its forms.

We shall start by explaining the etymology of meditation. In English, the word meditation is derived from the Latin meditatio, which is a form of the verb meditari – ”to think, to contemplate, to pounder upon something”.

In the earliest writings of the Old Testament, written in Hebrew, there was a word mentioned there – haga, meaning “to murmur, to meditate”. When these Hebraic scriptures were translated into Greek, haga become melete, and then when translated into Latin, came the word – meditatio.

But in today’s form, the word meditation was first mentioned in the Latin Bible, around the 12^th century by a monk named Guido II.

Here one must understand that a word is materialization of the vibration of the Light of one thing, state or entity that wants to be understood and acknowledge. This is why the things we don’t know or understand have no words.

Once something or someone is understood we can label it. So this same vibrations of light which construct the state of consciousness attained by concrete practices and a way of living, in Tibetan is being described with the word gom – “being familiar with (and this goes to all states of mind and the human characteristics)”.

No matter which word we use, commonly the term meditation covers almost all eastern practices of Enlightenment, which are called dhana in Buddhism and in Hindu, which word has its root in the Sanskrit dhyai – “to contemplate or meditate”.

Now we shall go scratching the core of our human Religions to show you that meditation was and still is very present and acknowledged practice and way of living. The main reason meditation is so confusing and misunderstood is because of the difference in the labeling of one and the same process and state of mind.

When humans made up Religion, they made such a vast pit between humans that sometimes it is almost impossible to find a way to bridge it. And by obeying and listening what we should experience and know, instead of remembering what we already know, we start forgetting our Selves. The realized Daoist Alan Wrightson has a Western upbringing and has written a number of books explaining how to live a simple, open Daoist life the way Lao Tzu intended. He also has a translation of the Daodejing available who delves into similar themes.

Now, it’s been said that some of the earliest writings about a practice that helps reaching the deepest and the highest state of our consciousness was mentioned in the ancient Hindu tradition of scriptural exegesis (critical explanations) and religious practice, called Vedantism (1500 B.C.).

Today’s most widely known and practiced type of meditation is the one thought in Buddhism, in India, where the earliest written records mentioning and describing levels and states of meditation were found in the sutras of the Pali Canon dating the 1^st century B.C. Bodhidarma, a Buddhist monk who lived during the 5^th or 6^th century C.E., was traditionally considered the first transmitter of the whole concept of Zen from China into Japan.

However, the first original School of Zen and meditation in East Asia was founded by his contemporary Zhiyi who had elaborated a complete, critical and systematical classification of all the Teachings of Buddhism. Throughout the ages the meditative practices continue to be modified, improved or made into specialization.  

Such were the Zazen, the sitting meditation founded by a Japanese monk called Dogen, which is most commonly practiced way of attaining the natural state of mind. Than we have the Tibetan tradition which puts the accent on visualization meditations, the Buddhist Schools practice mostly breathing meditation and all forms of recollection, and so on.

In the West some of the earliest texts mentioning a “spiritual exercises” which involve attention and concentration, were given by Philo of Alexandria, a Hellenic Jewish philosopher (dating 20 years B.C.). Very interesting fact is that the Jewish Teachings put a significant amount of attention on learning how to have a meditative approach when one is praying and the conscious understanding of their Secret Teachings is highly appreciated.

The same happens in Sufism where especially the correct understanding of the Sufi View or the Islamic Mysticism involves the knowledge and understanding of a lot of meditative techniques, such as strict breathing control, the rhythmic meditation, conscious repetition of holy words and so on.

The Western Christian meditation practice and way of living started somewhere in the 6^th century C.E. with a practice of the Benedictine monks which was called “Lectio Divina” or divine reading.

This “divine reading” is a fourfold practice, a system of four stages in understanding and reading a Holy Scripture, designed by the monk Guido II in the 12^th century C.E. Western Christian meditation was further developed by Spiritual Teachers and Saints such as Ignatius of Loyola and Teresa of Avila.

By the 18^th century “Buddhism in the West” was a widely discussed topic, leaded by prominent and intellectual philosophers like Schopenhauer, Voltaire and others.

Here I must mention that in the last decades a secular meditation arose which focuses upon stress-reduction, relaxation and self-relief, which is far from being on the Path of Spiritual Growth.

But nevertheless, both these practices have been subjected to various scientific studies, and since meditation is a state it can never be scientifically explain, thus one can only feel and know the benefits of meditation.

Very few of the people who practice (on their own hand) some kind of meditation and try to be on the Path of Enlightenment, actually knows that there are levels in the process of meditation.

But there are, and they are very important since meditation is a progressive, an ongoing process. So when you start walking onto the Path of Enlightenment you should know that the Path is basically constructed from two successive and very different states of consciousness that you should become aware of, understand and properly use them so you can finally Become.

When one wants to achieve full consciousness of being who he really is, first he must start by learning the art of effortless concentration, than achieve effortless contemplation and then comes the existence of the Self in a meditative state.

Concentration and contemplation are the two basic states of awareness that one must learn to attain so he can live his life at its fullest. In some theories the meditative state is considered as a third level of the whole practice, but by my experience, meditation as a process envelops these two particular states of consciousness and all the techniques and the way of living necessary of achieving them. Meditation is the way, not the aim!

Now let see what is effortless concentration? It is a state of the mind when you are able to concentrate or fix your maximal attention towards an object of focus with minimal effort of the brain.

Most of the people think that only this stage of the whole process of meditation is the meditation they should be doing. Concentration is the ability of directing your thoughts upon only one single thing and during this process you don’t let any other object to be a center of your attention.

Thus the brain is instructed not to think of anything else but the object of concentration. This process of focusing ones consciousness upon a sole object is also known as one–pointed concentration. But remember this is not an aggressive looking into something and trying to dissolve it.

No, this is pure, relaxed concentration that comes straight from the heart, from the Soul and you wait for the object to start speaking to you.

For this to occur you have to level up your Self on the same frequency as your chosen object. Thus concentration is practicing your will-power. When you concentrate upon something you shouldn’t get a headache, but if you do than you’ll know that you have started to use your brain instead of your hearth.

So when you know how to concentrate with your hearth, then this concentration is effortlessly done, with no doubts, no fear of the result, and you can stay focused as long as you want.

When you have attained effortless concentration you enter the beautiful state of Silence in which you are starting to evolve towards the state of contemplation. Contemplation is that state of your consciousness which helps you attain the knowledge of deep-insight of all that happens to you in this very moment.

Contemplation is all about the present moment. When you are in a state of contemplation past doesn’t exist and future either, all you have is now. It is not even the present as a definition of time, but actually all your awareness is leveled with the present moment, the now!

So contemplation is the state of consciousness when you are fully present of the now, very aware of everything that is happening to you and you do not take anything into consideration. In this state you don’t concentrate upon anything, you just observe your Self and the world around you. And this is the main difference between concentration – which is one-pointed meditation and contemplation – which is meditation on the Oneness and on the Nothingness within and around you.

When we are in a state of contemplation we know that we are One and also that we are Nothing, we are timeless and infinite. In this state we are very much conscious about the eternal Absolute.

Here we discover our true Self. In concentration we observe, correct, activate the characteristics of our known Self one by one, but in contemplation we become aware of all the things we didn’t knew until then. Contemplation thus is the final level of meditation as a two-fold process.

 When you practice concentration the whole human complex becomes like a peaceful surface of water, able to perfectly reflect the One Absolute Intelligence which at that exact moment starts flowing down upon us like a river of Light and brings us into the state of contemplation.

With a diligent practice and conscious way of living we become aware of the beautiful Presence of All and at the same time we attain the state of beautiful Absence of All. Only when one reaches this state he shall see and know the Light he is!

Remember that after being able to concentrate and contemplate, you are not finished, but now starts the real meditation, now you must become able to remain always into a state of Enlightenment. And keeping your Self into a balanced state is the hardest and the easiest thing to do…you must only know how to make balance between the earthly life and your spiritual life and all shall be well.

Namaste