Yoga or Meditation -Cultivating Calm Awareness

• Harmony
• 5 mins
• February 26, 2023
• I-AIM
• Mind care, Silent Retreat

Reviewed By: Dr. Aditi S. Prabhu, BNYS, Integrative Medicine Physician, Naturopathy & Yoga Doctor

If you want to live a more fulfilled life, first you should know your potential, and who you are! Meditation is the route to that knowledge. It is the methodology of the science of awareness. Yoga or Meditation, being one form of Antaranga yoga, is given more importance in today’s world.

We all have so much on our minds with work, school, bills, children, etc. Meditation simply focuses on one thing and pushes all other thoughts out of our minds. It clears our minds and makes our tasks much easier to perform with full concentration.

Meditation (or the meditative state) is the natural outcome of yoga and other spiritual techniques and the ultimate aim of these practices is to reach a state of complete conscious awareness, also known as bliss consciousness. This term is a complex one and even enlightened masters have not attempted to describe that state to us. Nevertheless, meditation, once practiced regularly, will manifest obvious benefits both on a purely physical level and on an intellectual, emotional, and spiritual level.

Yoga or Meditation has long been considered an esoteric practice, far removed from the realities of the world. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is practiced to help ground us in the realities of the world. According to one of modern India’s most renowned yogis Sri Aurobindo, “Spirituality is not the flight of consciousness away from matter, but the flight of consciousness into matter”.

When we release mental bonds to everyday events, we also clear our subconscious. Stress greatly affects our mentality. We constantly have stress at the back of our minds whether we realize it or not. Yoga or Meditation is a way of clearing (and aligning) our conscious and subconscious, and as a result, our concentration improves, we are more focused, and we are relieved from stress making us happier individuals.

Unfortunately, this is only temporary for as long as we contain our ch’i, or energy (qi being another way of spelling it). Environmental stimuli affect our energy and while some people may be able to compose their happy-go-lucky mood for hours, others may only be able to maintain their ch’i until they step out of the room. Fortunately, just like every other ability we possess, we can improve our meditation results through practice. Also, there’s no overdose limit to  yoga or meditation.

Most importantly, yoga or meditation can be used to “dive” into our inner selves. Most people obtain this inner knowledge/consciousness/frequency by meditating on themselves; concentrating on nothing; and just being. This revitalizing oneness, in combination with full concentration (during and after meditating), opens up new windows of abilities and new insights of enlightenment, or instantaneous profound understanding, of self, others, or even the world. This kind of meditation is a good prerequisite for people who are involved in a lot of mental work and philosophers. Different meditations can have different effects.

Meditation is a technique for training your mind to concentrate and refocus. Relaxation and mindfulness can be achieved through meditation.

There are many different ways in which people choose to meditate of which the most popular types are listed below:

• Mindfulness meditation – This practice combines concentration with awareness and can be easily practiced alone.
• Spiritual meditation – Beneficial for those who thrive in silence and seek spiritual growth, this type of meditation can be practiced at home.
• Focused meditation – This type of meditation involves concentration using any of the five senses. It is ideal for anyone who requires additional focus in life.
• Movement meditation – An active form of meditation where movement guides you. It is good for people who find peace in action and prefer to let their minds wander.
• Mantra meditation – This type of meditation is for people who find it easier to focus on a word than on their breath. These people prefer repetition over silence.
• Transcendental meditation – This meditation is more customizable than mantra meditation as here the mantra or series of words is specific to each practitioner.
• Progressive relaxation – It is also known as body scan meditation and is aimed at reducing tension in the body and promoting relaxation. It can be used to relieve stress and unwind before bedtime.
• Loving-kindness meditation – This form of meditation is used to strengthen feelings of compassion, kindness, and acceptance towards self and others. It may be ideal for those holding feelings of anger or resentment.
• Visualization meditation – This technique focuses on enhancing feelings of relaxation, peace, and calmness. It is intended to increase focus and motivation.

The benefits of  Yoga or Meditation

The improved health that one inevitably notices upon sticking to a regular meditation practice is something one cannot ignore. Whether you start as a healthy meditator or come to it for health reasons, you will notice enhanced physical well-being right from the beginning. Lustrous skin and sparkling eyes will be the first to appear, simultaneously embedding other permanent changes within the body.

Meditation makes it possible for cells to receive fresh oxygenated blood consciously and anything done consciously is bound to have profoundly positive effects. The regular and sustained practice of meditation makes one more efficient, proactive, confident, and energetic. It boosts concentration and willpower, making achievements in a chosen field more easily possible. Overall, it makes for success, at whatever level one perceives and desires it.

Some of the obvious benefits of practicing meditation include:

• Decrease in the rate of respiration
• Improved blood circulation and relaxed heart rate
• Lowered blood pressure in cases of hypertension
• Reduced muscular aches and pains
• Increased rate of healing in convalescing patients
• Reduced stress and reduced reactivity when confronted with stressful situations, at the mental, emotional, and physical level.
• It has also become a beacon of hope for the terminally ill and those with diseases that could potentially hinder their normal functioning on a day-to-day basis.

Meditation is a sure-fire way (if done correctly) to increase concentration and decrease stress. We become less bothered by minor problems. Meditation is an exercise; working out your brain is crucial to avoid diseases and promote health (not only for the brain). The scientific community as well has grown to accept it as a valid way (that is scientifically verifiable) to improve health and well-being. Yogis claims that it can go so far deep into the system of the practitioner as to even alter the genetic make-up of the individual.

Changes taking place in the brain while practicing meditation

There is scientific evidence to prove that meditation has physiological implications that originate in the brain and translate into healing, relaxation, and overall wellness. One of the first things that the practice of meditation (Yogis always differentiate between practicing meditation and being in meditation – the latter takes a lot of practice!) does is, that it creates alpha waves in the brain, which means we are inducing a state of dream-like relaxation, consciously.

Meditating increases the frequency of our brain waves. It’s this frequency that is suggested to produce the trance-like state of meditation and the calmness associated after. The concentration during meditation stimulates our frontal and temporal lobes, followed by the amygdala, a region in the brain responsible for triggering the flight or fight response, thus creating a surge of biological reactions in the body, which, according to one study, is more robust in its response to stressful situations in people who meditate regularly. This means there is less reactivity to stressful situations, therefore, leading to better health.

This study also attempted to find neural evidence of how mindfulness meditation, for example, changes the structure of the brain. (read more… ‘The Neuroscience behind Mindfulness’)