Going for meditation classes seems to be a fad these days. Everybody goes for meditation classes, but how manly people trolley understood the need and the meaning of these meditation sessions? The English dictionary describes ‘meditation’ as “being in deep (religious spiritual) thought” But Dr Prakash Joshi has his own way of defining the term. Says Dr Joshi “Meditation is nothings but our own nature, we are born in a meditative stale and live in a meditative state.
Meditation is inherent in all of us; it is not something that run be inculcated from with-out. But we don’t realize this. Every conscious action that is performed by us, be it cooking or deep study, is meditation. Med-itation is not just about closing your eyes and concentrating on something. It is about discovering yourself and being in oneness with the Self.”
If we live every moment of our life in a state of meditation, why does anybody need to go in for special meditation classes? “Not everybody needs to go for meditation,” points out Joshi. “All of us are born with a meditative mind, but as we grow, we lose contact with our real self. The norms of society breeds hatred and contradiction in our minds, and divides the mind. Meditation is for those of us who find their thoughts and emotions strained by this division; not for those who have found their true self.
For instance, an anise may become so involved in every stroke of his brush that he becomes inseparable from his painting. Like- wise with a sculptor who is one with his sculpture. They don’t need to take an effort to meditate because they have found their Self.
Many people live in a state of meditation. For example, a farmer is in constant contact with nature, he has enough patience and doesn’t need to meditate. Does that mean that alio( us have to take ups profession that bring us together with ourselves? “Of course trot,” says, Dr Joshi, “meditation is the realisation I hat the Being and the Self are one.”
“If you look into a child’s eyes, you will see reality and frankness- But as the child grows up he is subjected to different customs, beliefs and opinions by the people around him and he finds himself a prisoner of thoughts.”
Meditation is the conscious art of knowing. understanding and realising our own
‘Self’. This enables us to understand various inner potentials of our mind. Our mind has two dimensions — the conscious mind and the sub-conscious mind. Meditation is a conscious effort of enlightening the sub-conscious mind.
Our conscious mind is mostly occupied with worldly thoughts and a busy routine. Both the conscious and the subconscious mind have tremendous capacity which is divided into various functions like memory (consists of registration, retention and recalling), thinking (large number of structures and positions that keep changing), feelings consists positive emotions such an pleasure, joy and negative emotions like sorrow anger). behaviour (it is the outcome of thinking and feeling largely governed by the subcoth scions mind), personality (consists of mannerism, behaviour) . biological (in this the secretion of various enzymes, juices and chemical reactions is governed by the sub-conscious mind) and so on.
These functions make us aware of the vitality of the subconscious mind. These functions have a positive effect on our nervous system too. A single thought era specific feeling may undergo many changes/stages. Thus the body gets affected with positive or negative thoughts. “In meditation absolute positive thinking is necessary.” advises Dr Josh[. -The positive way of thinking and becoming optimistic has a tremendous effect on our mind and thought process. That is the mason we need to think positively” Meditation has a spiritual aspect too. In this process the person normally sits in padransom or sukhrsarm. He then tries to total. ly concentrate on a specific goal. This objective may be God, Nature, the sky, stars, trees, sea, the flowing river etc. There are no rules about the objectives. The person is totally free to choose any holy objective on which he has tremendous faith. In this process constant thinking on and about the object has to be there. Just observe that even the smallest cell of the body is now active towards thespirit. We are entirely surrendering our ‘Self’ to the ‘Transcendental Force’. We are also allowing the universal life energy to enter the body and to boost inner energy.
