Three Impacts Of Meditation Practice

What Meditation Can Do In Your Life

Mindfulness meditation is popular at this time in the Western world. For people who have no experience or knowledge of meditation, it is considered a strange concept that is also considered as being against some religions. These people are folks who are usually fearful of anything new. Obviously they do not have the courage to experiment or explore new concepts.  They are out of touch with the real world.

Meditation comes in various formats and methods. You can meditate with eyes open or with eyes closed. You can meditate with focusing on a point. You can also meditate focusing on nothing. You can meditate with breath. You can meditate while eating or even while walking. You can meditate with chanting and you can meditate with inner silence.

Depending on your personality or your liking, you can choose to practice whatever method of meditation you like.

I have had the privilege to work with hundreds of people having spent thousands of hours to help them change their lives with meditation. I am not a meditation teacher, but the techniques I use for therapy include the process very much like meditation.

Over the years, I have noticed how people’s lives change with meditation.

1. Cleaning of the physical surroundings with internal cleansing.

At a certain stage, within a few weeks of starting meditation, the practitioner will start to clean up their physical environment. With meditation, the inner change happens with cleaning of negative emotions especially anger, guilt, grief and fear. As they reduce, a sense of calmness develops. As the body and the nervous system are cleared of the negative emotions, the meditator becomes uncomfortable with cluttered surroundings where they work or live. So it is natural that the person starts to clean up their immediate work or living space.  A lady once cleaned up the house and the attic and removed more than eight bags of unwanted goods in one go over a weekend. On another occasion, a lady gave away a lot of old clothes in charity in one go. The development was sudden, only a few weeks after she had started to meditate. These experiences are quite common when people start meditation.

• Slowing down physically and mentally.

One of the attributes of long- term practice of meditation is that the person becomes grounded. Their physical activities are reduced. They become not highly active but do not slow  down to the extent to give the impression of becoming lazy. I remember noticing a change in some highly chatty people. They became quieter in their social interactions as they meditated. This physical slowness- or appropriateness- is matched by their mental state. They are no longer moving from one thought to the next in a distracted manner. They are able to quietly focus on the task at hand.

• Physical needs are reduced.

At some stage, when a person has been doing meditation for a long time, a few months at least, their physical needs start to reduce. They eat lesser than before. This can result in a reduction in body weight without consciously meaning to reduce weight. I have noticed some people, who are mad into vigorous exercise, reduce their physical activities after they have taken to meditation. I remember a gentleman who attended me at some stage, who used to run marathon races. He stopped running marathons but he continued to engage in moderate physical exercise. Marathon running requires spending a considerable amount of energy in running. It also wears down the body. Stopping running the marathons, helps their body to reduce daily wear and tear. After many years of meditation, some meditators can find their sleep being reduced. Their need for sleep can be reduced to less than 7 or 8 hours. However, the quality of sleep becomes better. But the duration of sleep reduces. They can still wake up in the morning feeling refreshed. Overall, the body of a meditator needs less energy to survive. So their food intake, amount of physical exercise and sleep reduce to attain an appropriate level that is enough for the body to live by.

It is interesting to note that meditative practice brings about changes in your life, without you making any effort to bring about those changes.  You have nothing else to do except spend a few minutes doing meditation every day, regularly. Amazing things happen when you have the discipline to do meditation. If you have to be critical of meditation, then it would be better if you have the experience of doing it. Then your criticism will carry weight.