My journey with Meditation

“I meditate so that my mind cannot complicate my life” – Sri Chinmoy

In this millennial era where the life is ever so busy, meditation is sought after for calming and relaxing one’s mind. The idea of meditation has been advocated by so many people over the past years and is currently practiced by roughly 3 – 5 million people globally.

Although meditation was introduced to the west recently, it originated around 5000 – 3000 BC in India. It was a practice for religious people to connect with the universal forces and was spread all over Asia by Buddha.

There are so many benefits attributed to meditation. It improves empathy, cognition, reduces stress and anxiety, promotes health and well-being and cures chronic pains.

I was introduced to meditation during my elementary school days by my teachers. All students were asked to close the eyes and sit still for 5 minutes. To be honest, half of the students wouldn’t do it, and the other half were made fun of by them. It is natural, since young minds are restless!

Several years later, I was introduced to meditation again during an integral education camp. This time around, I liked it. I was in my early teens and hence was able to understand and observe the effect it had on me. It was calming and made me feel at peace. Since then, I practice meditation whenever I can and most importantly, whenever I need it. Yes, once you do it regularly for some time, you will be able to tell the difference when you don’t do and will realize the point where you need to start doing it again for some time.

Meditation has made forgiving easy for me. I forgave my father, whom I used to hate during my childhood. He passed away when I was 12. However, I really forgive him when I was 20 and was meditating. It helped me drew some empathy for the life decisions he made and helped me realize that I should not follow the same path. It helped me say, “Papa, I don’t hate you or love you, but wherever you are, I just hope you are at peace.”

Meditation also helped me a lot while I was in immense grief when I lost my grandmother who was responsible for my upbringing. She was everything to me. When I lost her, I thought this is it; the pain will never go away. I did not think I would be able to come over the pain for a very long time. However, with meditation, I was at peace around two weeks after she passed away. I was able to recall all the memories I had with her and was able to learn a lot from her life. I realized that the pain is inevitable, but so is the capacity of the mind to overcome it.

Another thing that meditation has made me realize is that thoughts come and go. While I am meditating, there are so many thoughts that occur in my mind. Thoughts about finances, my career, family, love, and so on. Initially, I used to think that they are distracting me from concentrating. However, I later realized that they occur because they are natural for the mind to think about. As I ignored getting distracted by them, they started to enter and leave the mind on their own. I realized that once you don’t pay attention to your negative thoughts, they get replaced by another one. Eventually, they get replaced by constructive positive thoughts to which you want to think about and pay attention to.

This was my journey with meditation so far. If you have any other ideas to share, please do. I would love to hear them out. Also, if possible, close your eyes and just take deep breaths for five minutes. You will be refreshed!

References:

The History of Meditation (A 5,000 Years Timeline) - Live and Dare

7 types of meditation: What type is best for you? (medicalnewstoday.com)

5 Health Benefits of Daily Meditation According to Science (positivepsychology.com)