—Why Meditation? Why Meditate? Ten Reasons—
1. Relaxation
2. Relieve Stress
3. Relieve Anxiety
4. Healing, Well Being
5. Personal Growth
6. Self-Discovery
7. Empowerment
8. Develop Mindfulness
9. Revelation of Truth
10. Enlightenment
Meditation can help one to achieve all of the above. Although I have listed them as the top ten, there are in fact, as far as I am concerned, really only three. The first four are all really focused on well-being. The next three are really all to do with recovering one’s inherent and natural truth, and the last three are to do with awakening to what is beyond personal reality. Here is my revised list:
1. Healing Naturally
2. Greater Self Awareness
3. Universal Awareness (Wholeness)
The key to all meditation (in my opinion) is to more deeply connect to what is going on personally and bodily, and then finally to what is going on in the natural world. Our first step is to recover natural patterns. Our second step is to notice how these patterns express diversity. The third and final step involves noticing those deeper truths active beyond personal reality. In every step, quality of life improves—beginning with the physical, then moving on to emotional and mental, and finally the spiritual. Meditation has but one essential goal and that is well-being (quality of life).
Of course the whole idea of steps is one that I have imposed. Each of us develop differently, and though this graduation of steps may make a certain sense, growth follows its own natural logic. Life is what it is, and ever reflects source— the divine eternal formless one. Mother Nature carries out patterns that reflect the inherent wisdom and intelligence of the divine. All organic patterns in nature are expressed without deliberation or effort. The world is one, whole and complete, expressing itself in everything around us (and within). This is the life we know. This is the natural world.
Step One: Meditation as Healing
Recovering natural health requires of us only that we let life be as it is. Meditation allows the energy patterns of the body to recover their natural integrity—an integrity undermined by our habits of forcing this and that in our lifestyles that are in conflict with harmony and balance. Our goal may be to relax, alleviate stress, relieve anxiety and recover our health. Where healing is needed, meditation will begin to allow for and promote the recovery of nature’s essential balance for mind, body and spirit.
Step Two: Meditation for Personal Growth
A developing of greater self-awareness begins to kick in once nature has been allowed to operate with its basic integrity. We are diverse creatures, and when nature is allowed to have its way, we begin to get in touch with who we are individually and diversely. We notice more fully what we have to offer that is distinct and special. Meditation deepens the process of individualization and promotes personal growth, self-discovery and empowerment. We begin to feel more in touch with who we really are.
Step Three: Meditation and Enlightenment
As one’s practice of meditation deepens, the personal begins to give way to the universal. The ego we were so attached to starts to drop and we begin to witness the deeper realities that are present and active in all that is. An experience of wholeness and completeness sets in, and our goal inverts. We now long for the deepest and most transcendent of realities—a blissful union with our formless, timeless origin. This process cultivates mindfulness and the revealing of deeper truths at work, and finally enlightenment. Surrender to source is complete and one experiences life itself as meditative.
Why Meditation? Why Do We Meditate?
Why do we meditate? There are as many answers to this question as there are people who meditate. This is how meditation begins. And yet once we have been mediating for some time, it becomes clear to us that we are all in this together and that the draw towards meditation is natural and universal. What form meditation takes is another subject, but the urge to connect is true in all cases. Meditation is how we all struggle to answer questions like—“Why are we here?” and “Who are we?”
Do you recognize other reasons for meditation? Please share your ideas and comments.