What is mediation?
My teacher Kia Miller gave me the best definition I have heard for meditation: Meditation is whatever technique you can use to put you into a meditative state. As Deepak Chopra, another of my teachers, says, we are in one of three states of consciousness in our everyday lives: waking, dreaming, or deep sleep. The meditative state of consciousness is a fourth state, transcendental consciousness. We turn inward and transcend into a deep state of rest and silence. It has its own physiological and psychological characteristics which make it clearly distinct from waking, dreaming or deep sleep.
Benefits of Meditation
One of the most toxic aspects of the modern industrialized world is the chronic stress we all experience. Stress which was useful in real fight or flight situations (think confronting a tiger) has become chronic and ever present as we get cut off in traffic, wait in long lines to conduct our business and experience work related insecurity. Stress creates physiological and psychological effects. Stress increases heart rates, blood pressure, respiration, perspiration, stress hormones and platelet stickiness…all of which are very useful when confronting a tiger but create diseases when experienced chronically during our daily lives. Studies have shown that meditation has just the opposite effects as stress. Meditation reduces heart rates, blood pressure, respiration, perspiration, stress hormones and platelet stickiness. Meditation is therefore an antidote to the chronic stress of our modern lives and has significant health benefits.
Meditation can be a significant tool for people in recovery from alcohol and drugs. In addition to the health benefits of meditation, it connects you directly to your higher power which is critical for full recovery according to 12 Step Programs and other recovery systems.
Meditation helps you to become a calmer and more thoughtful individual thus allowing you to live a more conscious and rewarding life. Overtime, you worry less and enjoy more.
Finally, meditation, is a spiritual practice that has been used in every major religion for centuries to allow us to directly experience the Divine.
What meditation technique do I teach?
There are various meditation techniques that will facilitate you transcending into another state of consciousness. I have tried many of them but for me, the most powerful and effective technique is mantra based meditation such as Transcendental Meditation or Primordial Sound Meditation. The word mantra is Sanskrit for “vehicle of the mind.” In Primordial Sound Meditation, we use a simple mantra to use the mind to help us transcend the mind. By silently repeating the mantra (or more accurately listening to the mantra), our mind’s attention is drawn to more subtle levels of thought or mental impulses until we transcend to a state of silence and deep rest. Primordial Sound Meditation uses elemental or primordial sounds as the core or seed part of the mantra. We use the primordial sound the Universe was making at the time and place of your birth. Primordial Sound Meditation is easy and effortless. When you learn PSM from me, I coach you for the first several months of your practice to make sure you are meditating correctly.