Benefits of Meditation
The Many Benefits of Meditation
Dr Rishi Vivekananda Saraswati
What is meditation? Webster’s Dictionary defines meditation as:
- To focus one’s thoughts on, reflect on or ponder over;
- To plan or project in the mind: intend, purpose.
This is exactly what meditation is not! In fact, it is only when we take our awareness away from those everyday thinking processes that we are able to move into true meditation.
In the Yoga Sutras, Patanjali tells us that the first stage is pratyahara. This is the
‘going in’ stage of meditation.
Put simply, pratyahara is the closing off to external perceptions by ignoring them,
and opening up to internal experiences by letting them come into our awareness.
Pratyahara gives many of the benefits of meditation just by itself, because it brings
us into a peaceful relaxed state, free from the activities of the world.
Benefits of meditation
According to Yoga, a human being is comprised of five levels or ‘koshas’
- Annamaya kosha (the physical body)
- Pranamaya kosha (energy, vitality)
- Manomaya kosha (mind and emotions)
- Vijnanamaya kosha (wisdom and psychic qualities)
- Anandamaya kosha (bliss, enlightenment dimension)
The benefits of meditation are experienced throughout every level of our being.
Annamaya kosha – the body
Muscles and joints relax:
Although one usually thinks of the physical practices of yoga as being the ones that
help to relax the muscles and joints of the body, the meditation practices help to do
this as well.
Many people have come into a Satyananda yoga nidra class physically tense and
agitated, and found that at the end of only half an hour the physical tensions have
disappeared.
Stress relief – the autonomic–endocrine axis:
Meditation practices relieve stress.
They have been scientifically proven to move the functioning of the body from the
stress response of the sympathetic nervous system and endocrine glands (‘fight or
flight’ mechanism), to the relaxed parasympathetic nervous system (‘rest and digest’
mechanism).
In this way we become much more relaxed physically and mentally, thereby opening
the horizons of our life and preventing so many of the illnesses that are caused by
stress.
Body armour:
Conflicts in the unconscious mind can cause tightening of certain related muscle
groups in the body, affecting our posture and facial expression.
It’s almost as if the body is symbolically protecting itself against possible threats
from the cause of the mental conflict.
Perceptive people can actually ‘read’ a person’s mental pain by the posture and
facial expression. Wilhelm Reich called these tight areas ‘body armour’ and noted
that when the cause in the unconscious mind is allowed to surface and is resolved,
the tightening goes away.
The meditation practices can do just this, as we shall see.
Physical illness:
Much scientific research over the years has proved the benefits of meditation in
helping relieve physical illness, and returning the person to health. This includes
cancer, cardiovascular disease and respiratory diseases.
Of course, meditation is designed to help us evolve to our highest potentials, and is
really about wellness rather than illness. However, the same factors that are
stopping us from realizing our full potentials are also causing stress and imbalances
in our lives, and as a result cause most illness and disability.
Pranamaya kosha – vitality
Energy released from physical tensions – vitality:
The tensions of muscles and joints themselves accumulate a lot of the person’s
energy, and people are amazed at how much more energetic they feel after even just
one class of simple stretching as in the introductory classes of Satyananda Yoga, or
from a meditation class.
Energy released from mental repressions – vitality:
Yogis have claimed for thousands of years, and many psychiatrists and
psychologists have agreed during the last century, that much of our natural vitality
can be ‘tied up’ in keeping repressed mental material down in the unconscious
mind. Just keeping it ‘down there’ requires energy.
They have also noted the increased general vitality people experience when they can
bring the emotionally-loaded unconscious material up into their conscious
awareness and discharge it, as happens in psychotherapy and meditation.
Manomaya kosha – the mind and emotions
Memory
Clearing of repressed memories:
Here is where the meditation practices start to come into their own.
It has been clearly demonstrated over the years that meditation clears out repressed
mental conflicts and neutralizes the emotions that are attached to them. The old
memories lose their power to hold us back and we are freed from their ‘weight’
forever.
Gives more positive view of our memories:
People usually don’t realize it, but the way they remember their past is dependent
on their emotional state when they are trying to remember.
If the person is in a positive frame of mind, their memories will be the positive ones;
if in a negative frame of mind, they will be the negative ones.
Meditation, by fostering a positive frame of mind, gives us ongoing access to the
positive aspects of our past.
Perception
Pratyahara:
The different meditation disciplines have their ways of attaining this ‘going in’ stage
of meditation, some easy, some more difficult.
Satyananda yoga nidra is an easy way of inducing this state because it comprises a
formalized, step-by-step technique of dissociating our awareness from the different
outside stimuli.
At the same time it interrupts the thought monologue that usually goes on in our
mind the whole day (see below).
When we accomplish these two steps, meditation can go ahead; if we don’t, it is
impossible.
Awareness of and deconditioning from habitual ways we perceive our world:
Perception is the process by which the brain interprets the input of our sense organs
into internal experiences that are meaningful for each of us.
Two people walking together along a path take in much the same sights, sounds
etc., but each perceives different aspects of the scene. For instance, one might ‘take
in’ the beauty of the scenery, while the other ‘takes in’ any possible dangers that
lurk about.
Each one of us essentially lives in a ‘different world’ from the other because what we
perceive in any situation depends on our mental programming.
Meditation allows us to become aware of the processes of our perceiving so that
they cease to become automatic, and we can choose what we perceive, whether with
eyes closed or open.
Witness begins:
As an extension of being aware of our perceiving, we start to go on to the next
stage, which is being the witness – the observer – of our situation, and this develops
into witnessing our thought processes, our emotions and our tendencies to behave
in certain ways.
Mind
Attention – taming the monkey:
The thinking of most people is ‘all over the place’, jumping from one idea to another
– the reason the yogis refer to the average mind as a ‘monkey’.
The process of meditation gives us practice at keeping the attention focused on one
thing, be it a mantra, an image, a candle flame, or some other.
Stopping the mind chatter:
The mind chatter is an ‘internal monologue’, the continuous flow of thoughts that
goes on in the ordinary person’s mind all day long. It doesn’t stop from the moment
they wake up till they fall asleep.
It is changed from time to time by sensations coming in, but it flows on, dominating
our mind, emotions, attitudes and behaviour for the whole of our waking life.
People are so identified with this thought flow that they may believe it is actually
themselves. Often they are surprised at how easy it is to break the flow, and how it
immediately calms the mind when it happens.
Then they realize that the thought patterns with which they identified are just a
process, not the person.
The meditation practices contain techniques that first cut the internal monologue
about the outside events, and then they cut the part of it that continues on the basis
of memory when the person is ‘inside’.
Awareness of thinking habits:
We have developed habits of thinking about our life and our world. We often believe
that other people have the same thought patterns, and then we are surprised when
they reach entirely different conclusions about the same situations.
These thinking patterns have become habits, based on our experiences of life; they
may be rational, sensible and helpful, or they may be irrational, ridiculous and even
destructive, but we repeat them over and over again due to habit.
Because these thought patterns are so important in forming the emotions we
experience and the decisions we make about how we will behave, it is important
that we develop the ability to ‘stand off’ and observe them.
Meditation gives us just this ability; we become the witness of our own thinking
patterns, and then we have the choice as to whether we want them or not.
Awareness of our ego roles, attitudes and motivations:
Most people are so strongly identified with their roles in life, “I’m a managing
director” or “I’m a mother”, that when the role finishes, such as when the managing
director has to retire or the mother’s children leave home, they feel annihilated.
The same goes for our habitual attitudes about ourselves, other people, the world
around us, the reason for life etc.
These attitudes are so much part of us that we take it for granted that they are true,
completely oblivious to the fact that other people hold their different attitudes and
identification with roles, with the same unshakeable reverence.
Because these are so powerful in motivating our ongoing behaviour in life, it is
essential that we develop the ability to observe them. Meditation gives us the ability
to do this, and allows us to put them into perspective.
Emotions
Calming:
The processes leading to pratyahara calm negative emotions.
They do this in a number of ways. Firstly they allow us to dissociate our awareness
from the external inputs that are causing the emotions in the first place. Then they
cut the internal monologue that keeps the emotions going.
They also lead to physical relaxation, a state that is not compatible with negative
emotions. Many people find, even in their first experience of a pratyahara practice
such as Satyananda yoga nidra, that uncomfortable emotions just ‘melt away’.
Coping with the unconscious emotions:
Clearing repressed memories is an important aspect of the purifying power of
meditation.
The memories have been repressed because the emotions they are covering are
painful, but if we are to clear them, we will have to experience the painful emotions
too.
Meditation makes this easier for us by allowing us to be in a neutral emotional state
(witness position) to face the unconscious.
Then when the emotionally loaded memories come up and meet the neutral emotional state, the negative emotions areneutralized and the memories lose their power over us.
Remember also that Satyananda Yoga teaches physical practices such as asanas and
pranayamas to be done before the meditation, one of their benefits being that they
put us in an emotionally neutral and balanced state even before the meditation
starts.
De-conditioning from habitual automatic patterns of emotion:
In the same way that we have habitual thought patterns, attitudes etc., we tend to
respond to life’s inputs with the same set of emotions, over and over again.
Some people respond with anger, some with hurt feelings, some with guilt, some
with humour . . . all to the same situation!
Meditation develops within us the ability to witness our situation and choose our
responses. It also expands our awareness, so that we are able to see the ‘bigger
picture’ of our life, and respond accordingly.
Behaviour
Awareness of and de-conditioning from habits of behaviour:
In the same way that we have our own individual thinking patterns and emotional
responses, we have habitual behaviour patterns too.
They have become so ingrained in us through habit that we just take them for
granted. Some can be of benefit to us and some can be quite destructive.
Meditation also gives us the objectivity to view and assess these. Do we want to
continue with them? Or do we want to replace them? The choice is ours.
Vijnanamaya kosha – psychic-wisdom body
Clearance of the body-energy-mind:
The more we clear the body-energy-mind, the more we experience the qualities of
vijnanamaya kosha.
These more and more become the basis of our life experience with eyes open or
shut. Our whole life becomes meditation. We become physically relaxed, balanced,
graceful and ‘flowing’, and our vitality also becomes balanced and free-flowing.
Perception:
(i) We perceive people, objects and situations as they really are, not corrupted by
unconscious blockages or wishes about how we want them to be.
(ii) We become more and more the witness and, as we do, we become less and less
entangled in the situations of life. In this way we are more able to contribute in a
balanced and wise way to helping them.
(iii) ESP: As we tune into higher sources of information we develop greater ability to
reach conclusions and make decisions based on truth.
Reasoning and decision-making:
Our reasoning and decision-making are more logical, uncorrupted by repressed
mental material, and aided by intuition and precognition.
Unconditional love:
Instead of trying to love, we become the love that was already inside us. It just flows
out of us in the same unconditional way as perfume wafts from a flower.
Compassion:
Because of the release of our love, we relate to others, and to Planet Earth, in a kind,
non-harming way.
We become more ethical in the way we deal with our world.
Communication:
We relate to other people with free communication, social adeptness and harmony.
Inner security:
Because we have essentially eliminated the sources of our old irrational insecurities
we become secure within ourselves.
This allows us to appreciate the beauty of life. We also become less acquisitive and
less possessive of material things and less and less attached to and entangled in the
things and people around us.
Spontaneous joy:
We experience joy in life, and relate to other people and situations with humour,
optimism and a positive attitude.
Ability to accomplish good work:
Our life becomes a flow of action and the ability to accomplish good work in a
selfless way, unimpeded by blockages of the lower mind; these result in good selfesteem
and motivation.
Anandamaya kosha – bliss-enlightenment dimension
The vast majority of our human race are still slowly progressing in the lower koshas,
and don’t even have a glimmer of the exalted fate in store at the level of
anandamaya kosha.
Ultimately, however, according to yoga, it is the destiny of us all.
To quote Swami Satyananda in Meditations from the Tantras:
“The culmination of meditation is Self-realization. This occurs when the higher mind
is transcended. The consciousness leaves the exploration of the mind and identifies
with the central core of one’s existence, the Self. At this point it becomes pure
consciousness. When a person achieves Self-realization, it means he has contacted
his central being and now identifies his existence, his life, from the viewpoint of the
Self, not from the standpoint of the ego. When he acts from the centre of his being,
the body and mind operate almost as separate entities. They are merely
manifestations of the Self, his true identity. So it can be seen that the aim of
meditation is to explore the different regions of the mind and eventually transcend
the mind completely.”
- by Dr Rishsi Vivekananda Saraswati
- Taken from an article in Yogamag
- To see more articles visit : http://www.yogamag.net
