True Meditation – Part 1
By Lisa K
What is Meditation?
When a group of students were asked “What is meditation?”, they came back with some really good answers, such as focusing your mind on your breath and coming back to it, or not thinking any thoughts, or sitting still and just being. All those answers are correct, but trying to use those concepts seems difficult for anyone trying to put them into a meditation practice. Over 30 years after studying meditation and what all its pieces mean, here is a simpler way of how to make it all work.
First, meditation is about stilling the mind and becoming the witness. So what does that mean?
We all actually go through a mental state of meditation every time we go to sleep. We also can be in a meditative state when we are doing a simple task that requires some attention and is somewhat repetitive, like driving, or doing the dishes or folding our laundry. We are in a state of focused attention, that, to some extent, stills our minds.
Anna Wise, the author of The High-Performance Mind and an authority on measuring brain waves during meditation, has discovered what the brain wave state of meditators is like. Her research has shown that as we meditate, our minds go through the same states of consciousness as falling asleep. The only difference is that in meditation, we remain aware of what is going on in our minds as we pass through those different states.
The four states of consciousness and their associated brain waves we go through as we fall asleep are;
Beta – which is being awake, thinking and consciously aware,
Alpha – where we are daydreaming, and have relaxed detached awareness,
Theta – which is when we are fully asleep and dreaming, our subconscious is active and where our psychic and inner self is sending us messages.
The last is Delta – when we are unconscious or in deep sleep. This state is believed to be connected to the Universal consciousness.
We can have all four brain waves present when we are awake as well, it’s just that they are mixed in different proportions. When you are awake you have more Beta waves, and almost no Delta waves, when you are in deep sleep you have lots of Delta and no Beta. The High Performance Mind of experienced meditators, spiritual teachers, high-performing businessmen and other highly creative and productive individuals have a brain-wave pattern of the “Awakened Mind,” where all four brain wave patterns are more strongly present. Interestingly, energy healers naturally have a lot of Delta waves present when they are healing even though they’re not sleeping!
Through meditation we are training the mind to be in a state of awareness while accessing other states of consciousness that are associated with these different brain waves. We need some of our beta awareness as we move in mediation through alpha, theta and even the delta states. This all happens naturally when we meditate, so don’t TRY to be awake while you are sleeping, it won’t work. If you do that all you’ll get is lots of Beta waves.
Benefits of Meditation
Many of the benefits of meditation have now been proven in both science and medicine.
Researchers at Harvard, Yale and MIT have found that meditation can increase the gray matter of the brain, the part of your brain you use for higher thinking. The increase was more pronounced in older people than younger people, which suggests that meditation can slow down the deterioration of the brain as we get older and actually improve brain function. That’s a big benefit for everyone!
Some of the most exciting research has been done by Dr. Richard Davidson, who was a college professor of mine when I was majoring in PsychoBiology. Dr. Davidson is a prominent scientist in brain research at the University of Wisconsin, who was named one of the top 100 most influential people by Time Magazine because of his work in Neuroplasticity, which is the ability for the brain to change throughout life. Dr. Davidson’s research shows that with mental training, such as meditation, we can consciously and deliberately change the way our brain physically functions for the better. In cooperation and encouragement by the Dalai Lama, Dr. Davidson did research with dozens of the Dalai Lama’s most experienced Tibetan monks who had between 10 and 50,000 hours of meditation practice.
The monks were asked to meditate on “unconditional loving-kindness and compassion” while their brain waves were measured. The most interesting part of his research found that during meditation, the monks had high levels of activity in the area of their brains that is associated with happiness. In addition, these monks had high levels of gamma brain waves when they are meditating. Gamma brain waves are associated with optimal and efficient brain functioning, increased mental focus, and even transcendental experiences. Lower levels of these gamma brain waves continued to be present even when the monks were not meditating. The studies also found that people who were beginning to learn how to meditate, after just a few months of practice, had similar measurable changes in the same area of their brains during meditation.
The conclusion of this research is that mental training, such as meditation, can create physical changes in our brains that are permanent. The results of meditation can produce more happiness, better brain functioning, better mental focus and possibly help you have epiphanies or transcendental experiences. Even practicing meditation for a short while has a positive effects on your brain. So for those of you who just started meditating or have only meditated for 10 minutes a day, you are gaining benefits, even though you may not feel like it.
Another study showed that both experienced and novice meditators increased their ability to notice subtle and fleeting stimuli, one after another. Meditation decreases, what they call, attentional blink, meaning that the mind normally has difficulty noticing a stream of things that come one after the other, where the mind ‘blinks’ and misses things. Meditation helps train the mind to be able to process more information, more quickly.
This may explain why meditation helps people pick up their psychic messages more easily. Our intuition gives us messages that are fleeting and subtle, that sometimes get lost in the jumble of thoughts we have during our day. Meditation allows us to notice the brief, fleeting messages of our intuition.
So the conclusion of this research shows that meditation has physical and mental benefits that can be measured by science and also that we can change the way our brains function by systematically training our minds.
There are dozens of articles that list over 100 benefits of meditation. Here are the ones that have the most scientific and experiential support.
Meditation as been shown to:
Reduce anxiety, depression and stress.
Reduce heart disease.
Help weight loss.
Help reduce addictions.
Help reduce asthma.
Improve immunity.
Improve focus and concentration.
Build self-confidence.
Enhance energy and strength.
AND Develop your intuition and psychic abilities.
So meditation is not only good for you, it’s easy to do. You just have to be the “witness.” Just sit back and watch your thoughts go by, don’t hang on to them, but keep coming back to being aware. Our next article on True Meditation will share with you different kinds of simple meditations you can do to gain the wonderful benefits that change your brain permanently for the better!
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Lisa K. has been practicing meditation for over 35 years. Her meditation groups are charged with high vibration that have people asking for more. As a speaker, teacher and author, Lisa guides people in following their inner divine guidance. She has helped thousands of people through one on one coaching, online and in person workshops and her popular radio show, “Between Heaven and Earth” which presents a variety of topics on Every Day Spirituality.
Learn more about Lisa K., visit her official site at http://www.LMK88.com
