What is Meditation and Why do we all need it in our Lives?
Do you meditate? On my journey into awareness, when I heard Deepak Chopra say that one should meditate twice a day for 20 to 30 minutes I thought that he was crazy (sorry Deepak - I don't think that any more - please forgive me).
I would say that meditation is not just beneficial, but that it is an essential part of our mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical well-being. It's the road to Self-Mastery, the path to your highest Self, Truth, wisdom, creativity, and is your conscious contact with, or direct line to, the Universal Intelligence that is far greater than our human intelligence alone. It's the way out of the 'catastrophising' negative repetitive thoughts that we are so addicted to, but that ruin our lives by incessantly screaming our Self-limiting beliefs into our minds. We have 60,000 of these negative thoughts per day - no wonder that we are all struggling. Meditation is the ticket out of our ego.
For me, yoga, meditation and coaching are the holy trinity for mental wellbeing.
Meditation has proven benefits in terms of mental wellbeing and longevity. Scans of the human brain show that meditation brings us out of the survival mode that we have resided in since our childhood, which never makes good decisions, and allows us to not only integrate and access all the parts of our brain, but also something more than that.
The fear that you feel is the distance between you and God. Meditation increases our conscious contact with, and brings proximity to, God.
Meditation is our way out of the masks that we wear, and into authenticity and wholeness. Meditation washes and cleanses our minds of yesterday's fears: It brings us into presence. You would not face the day without washing away the dirt from the day before. So, why face the day with yesterday's fears? That is what you are doing if you don't meditate. Meditation is the daily showering off of your negative fear-based thoughts. Meditation drops you into intuition.
In this blog post I will dive into meditation so that you can get an idea of why it's so important, how to do it, and list some guided meditations that you might find useful until you are ready for silent meditation. The silence dials the smartphone to your higher consciousness. Let's dive in...
Meditation is the key that unlocks your wellbeing and your full potential
What is meditation?
Prayer is when you speak to God. Silent meditation is when God replies. It’s when you get intuitive information about who you are BEing. Lao Tzu wrote "The Way to do is to BE." Immanuel Kant, the greatest of the Western philosophers wrote that "To BE is to do."
Prayer and meditation take you out of your incessant, repetitive, fear-based thought (ego), into presence, and into your higher power. This is where you find and stay in your Real Personal Power. Prayer and meditation reveal mountains as molehills and dissolve any imaginary 'monsters'.
The message from the spiritual Masters and philosophical geniuses over the millenia is that the goal of awakening, or Enlightnement, is for awareness to take over from thinking. In other words, for intuition to take over from fear-based thinking. Or the heart to take over from the mind. Or feeling emotions and letting go of negative catastrophising thought. It’s the same as switching from asking 'What would fear do?' to 'What would love do?' Or 'What would my real Self (higher power) do instead of my fake self (ego)?' These are all metaphors for the same internal shift. Never leave the seat of your soul. Just rest in awareness.
When we pay attention to our breath, we are learning how to return to, and remain in, the present moment - to anchor ourselves in the here and now on purpose, without judgement. Romana Maharshi, an Indian Hindu sage and jivanmukta (liberated being), wrote "When there are thoughts, it is distraction: When there are no thoughts, it is meditation." Swami Sivananda wrote "Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in Eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity." Meditation truly helps to calm your dysregulated nervous system. Deepak Chopra wrote "Meditation makes the entire nervous system go into a field of coherence." Dr Wayne Dyer wrote "Meditation is a vital practice to access conscious contact with your highest Self." Mark Twain reminds us of the nature of thought and confabulation "Life does not consist mainly, or even largely, of facts or happenings. It consist mainly of the storm of thoughts that is forever flowing through one's head."
Here are five reasons to meditate:
Deeply understanding your pain and fears and letting go of them
Lowering your stress levels, finding peace, and yet being energised
Connecting better to your Self, Universal Intelligence, and to others
Improving focus and in preparation for any event that may be perceived as stressful
Reducing brain chatter so that you can hear the intuitive still quiet voice inside you that is your guide to your life. This literally transforms your mind. You develop your concentration, clarity, emotional positivity, and a calm seeing of the true nature of things
Thich Nhat Hanh wrote "Meditation can help us embrace our worries, our fear, our anger; and that is very healing. We let our own natural capacity of healing do the work.. The mind can go in a thousand directions, but on this beautiful path, I walk in peace. With each step, the wind blows. With each step, a flower blooms." William Blake famously wrote "If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite." Meditation can help us embrace our worries, our fear, and our anger; and that is very healing. We let our own natural capacity of healing do the work. Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in eternal awareness or pure consciousness. When we meditate, what we actually do is enter into the deeper part of our being. At that time, we are able to bring to the fore the wealth that we have deep within us. It gives us access to our own soul, our true Self, our highest Self and the Universal Consciousness or Intelligence that is available to us. J. Krishnamurti wrote “To understand the immeasurable, the mind must be extraordinarily quiet, still.”
Meditation is a direct phone line to a higher intelligence. There is no charge. The line is always open. Yet we do not use it. Why not?
Marianne Williamson wrote "Just as you wouldn't leave the house without taking a shower, you shouldn't start the day without at least 10 minutes of sacred practice: prayer, meditation, inspirational reading." The Beatle Ringo Starr wrote "At the end of the day, I can end up just totally wacky, because I've made mountains out of molehills. With meditation, I can keep them as molehills."
In his most popular book, 'The Sermon on the Mount', Emmet Fox, the Irish spiritual leader, shows how to understand the true nature of divine wisdom, tap into the power of prayer, develop a completely integrated and fully expressed personality, and transform negative attitudes into life-affirming beliefs. He wrote “As a matter of fact, prayer is the only real action in the full sense of the word, because prayer is the only thing that changes one’s character. A change in character, or a change in soul, is a real change.” He continued “The root of all difficulties is a lack of the sense of the Presence of God.” It is through prayer and meditation that we increase our conscious contact with the presence of the divine - our higher power. Fox wrote “If you have no time for prayer and meditation, you will have lots of time for sickness and trouble... Prayer does change things.” He added “The Universe is run exactly on the lines of a cafeteria. Unless you claim - mentally - what you want, you may sit and wait forever.” You claim it through prayer and meditation. Fox wrote “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you" (Matthew 6:33). The principle that Jesus expressed in these words is the basic law that underlies all answer to prayer. Many people know this in theory but are confused about putting it into practice. They think, “I will ignore this problem and think about God instead.” Here there is a subtle mistake; because they are really thinking of their problem as existing in one place, of God as existing in another, and of themselves as going in thought from the first place to the second place. This, of course, is by implication to reaffirm the existence of the problem in its own place, and such a belief will not heal. What we have to do is to seek the Kingdom in the very place where the trouble seems to be. We have to know that in Truth and reality it is not there, because God is there. When we succeed in doing this, the difficulty disappears.”
Fox referred to the Bible Philippians 4:8 where “What you think upon grows. Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”
Fox wrote “Your Mental Conduct, your hour-by-hour thinking, produces specific conditions, and may be thought of as the weather of your soul. Your fixed convictions concerning the things that really matter are seldom changed and may be called the climate of the soul, and it is these that mould your destiny.”
Your natural state is the seat of your soul: Just stop leaving it. Don't get up from your seat and join the fight and chaos outside. Be an observer, not a suspect in the mêlée. Just rest in awareness. There is nothing to face or fear. You can’t know that until you do it. It does take daily practice. The natural state then becomes normal. It takes very little action and effort. When you are being your authentic Self you literally feel your Self coming alive. This awareness is also the peace that passes all understanding. It's also the basis for success in any aspect of your life. Perceiving the world through a lens of love rather than fear literally creates miracles. Carl Jung the psychiatrist who founded analytical psychology said "I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become." You close the door to your trauma, triggers, fear and conflict and walk through the door to return to your natural state. I know because I have walked this path. When you do this you have come home. Revelations 3:8 states “I know your works and what you are doing. See! I have set before you a door wide open which no one is able to shut." You see, that through Grace, the door to your Self was never closed, and no-one can close it. Being real is one of the greatest services you can give to the world. Once you are being the real you, the doing will follow naturally, like an acorn grows from an oak. This process may be called by many names but they are all the same thing: Recovery; Personal Growth; Awakening; Enlightenment, Presence, Awareness.
Osho wrote “I'm simply saying that there is a way to be sane. I'm saying that you can get rid of all this insanity created by the past in you. Just by being a simple witness of your thought processes. It is simply sitting silently, witnessing the thoughts, passing before you. Just witnessing, not interfering not even judging, because the moment you judge you have lost the pure witness. The moment you say “this is good, this is bad,” you have already jumped onto the thought process. It takes a little time to create a gap between the witness and the mind. Once the gap is there, you are in for a great surprise, that you are not the mind, that you are the witness, a watcher. And this process of watching is the very alchemy of real religion. Because as you become more and more deeply rooted in witnessing, thoughts start disappearing. You are, but the mind is utterly empty. That’s the moment of enlightenment. That is the moment that you become for the first time an unconditioned, sane, really free human being.”
What is the easiest way to do this, apart from just noting that you have chosen fear today? It may not come naturally to you yet. Your ego (your terrified 7-year old self) may need coaxing out of you, especially if it has run rampant for decades, and is starting to realise that you are taking charge of your life and that it will dissolve or become your servant rather than your master. There are many techniques to achieve this. You don't need to travel to the Far East. To quote Barbie from the recent hit film “I just need to clear my mind so I can think.” By dropping out of thought and into your heart, you will hear the still quiet voice of your true self. To show how much this is the real work we have to do in 2023, to quote Barbie again “Maybe all the things that you thought made you you aren’t really you... We were only fighting because we didn’t know who we really were.” Swami Sivananda wrote "Practice meditation regularly. Meditation leads to eternal bliss. Therefore meditate, meditate."
How do you meditate?
Buddhists call the wandering thoughts of the ego the ‘monkey mind’: The constant chatter that dwells in negativity. You know what I mean. The way out of this is through presence. Meditation is the key to unlock this. This can be guided, or is best done in silence. Ideally this is done for 20 minutes, twice per day. It will change your life. Saint Francis de Sales wrote "Half an hour's meditation each day is essential, except when you are busy. Then a full hour is needed." Hugh Jackman, the Hollywood star wrote "Now I meditate twice a day for half an hour. In meditation, I can let go of everything. I'm not Hugh Jackman. I'm not a dad. I'm not a husband. I'm just dipping into that powerful source that creates everything. I take a little bath in it... Meditation is all about the pursuit of nothingness. It's like the ultimate rest. It's better than the best sleep you've ever had. It's a quieting of the mind. It sharpens everything, especially your appreciation of your surroundings. It keeps life fresh." Richard Gere, who is a big fan of meditation, wrote "Meditation is such a more substantial reality than what we normally take to be reality."
Sit or lie down. Close your eyes if it is safe to do so. Stopping thinking automatically is impossible for anyone to do to start with. Give your mind something to do. Turn your attention inwards. Count your breaths or say silently to your self "I am breathing in, I breathing out." The divine is in your breath. Put one hand on your belly and feel it rise and fall. Put the other hand on your chest and feel it do the same. Or have your hands facing upwards alongside you. If your mind fills with thoughts, just return your attention back to your breath. You can use your five senses. Feel the aliveness in your hands - a tingling alert stillness. It gets easier with practice. Wandering and coming back to your breath are part of the process. This is the way to be present and to let go. Feel the air on your face. Be aware of this for a while. Then feel the weight of your body. Now feel the touch of of your hands on the bed or on your lap. Listen in the distance beyond sounds in your immediate vicinity. Let go of any judgments about the sounds. Just note them. If your attention wanders keep bringing it back to the breath.
These exercises have been done for thousands of years in the Far East. The gaps between thoughts are pure consciousness and it's up to you to expand them: Consciousness is the screen, not the images in a cinema. We forget the screen until we switch off the projector, and it is there, unchanged. We are not our thoughts. Yet our feelings follow our thoughts. We identify with our thoughts. This leads to all our relationship or work problems. You are the observer not the thought or feeling. The best way to deal with a feeling is to feel it then let it go. This can be best done through connection with others and open expression. We don’t do this as we are scared of being judged for being authentic, abandoned and that we will die. But in reality we are loved for our authenticity. No-one loves our false self, which is why people are abandoning social media as it has just become a hunting ground for trolls. Being present stops you from making decisions that you will regret. You stop being a victim. Stressful thoughts will die down. You will start to hear your inner intuition: The still inner voice of your true self. Carl Jung wrote "Intuition is perception via the unconscious that brings forth ideas, images, new possibilities and ways out of blocked situations." It also helps us let go of fear - your true Self is fearless. You will stop reacting to other peoples' moods and eagerness for conflict due to their pain projected onto you. When we change, people around us also change. We step out of the Drama Triangle into presence.
This meditative state prepares us for anything. It brings us into the Flow State (aka the In-The-Zone State) and is practiced by elite athletes. They let go of any outcomes. In the Wimbledon final the winner is the one who plays every point from a place of total presence. Be present before any presentation: You will connect better with the audience. Be present before any interview or stressful situation. This is how Robert De Niro got through the game of Russian Roulette in The Deer Hunter. Fear is as pointless as a chocolate teapot. Fear is like a rocking chair - it keeps us busy but gets us nowhere. Presence always creates miracles. Malcom Gladwell wrote a book called "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking." This is also called intuition - and gives access to a far greater intelligence than we have otherwise access to. The source of this is a subject for endless philosophical debate, yet intuition is real, just like consciousness, real love, or the soul. Dr Wayne Dyer wrote "There's no substitute for the practice of meditation."
Meditation twice per day will spill over into your whole life. Practice this during the day too - when walking or doing routine tasks. Return your attention back to the present moment using your breath or your senses: This is also called mindfulness, which is actually a misnomer as it involves emptying your mind of irrelevant intrusive thoughts so that you can have total clarity. Transcendental Meditation uses a mantra. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi wrote "Modern psychology has pointed to the need of educating people to use a much larger portion of the mind. Transcendental meditation fulfils this need. And it can be taught very easily... Great amounts of scientific research is there to show that health is better because transcendental meditation deals with consciousness, and consciousness is the basic value of all the physical expressions. The entire creation is the expression of consciousness." When you become present you feel like you are falling into a deep pool or the sea. The thoughts and mantra stop completely. You feel bliss. You feel oneness and a deeper connection with others afterwards. Ideas and solutions then pour into your mind.
During the day, between meditations, just keep saying to your self "I AM". Or you can say gthe mantra from Psalm 46:10 "Be still, and know that I am God," While you are walking or sitting just keep thinking this thought. Just return to this thought. It’s your mantra for life. This exercise in itself can reach enlightenment. You become continuous pure consciousness. You simply are. "I am what I am," as Popeye used to say in the comics. This is the most radical change in your life. It’s the only solution to lasting peace and joy. This will help you to be present and allow life to unfold naturally including all the things you want to happen to happen. You are getting out of your own way. Let go of any identification apart from I AM. That’s it. It’s very powerful if you persist. It's very simple. The torrent of intrusive thoughts die away (what a joy to say goodbye to those 60,000 repetitive, usually negative thoughts that we have until we find our true Self). You can’t be present and worry about the future at the same time. Let go of the future. Let go of stories and false narratives based on fear. Then take action based on intuition from a place of presence. Where is freedom? Right here in this breath, in the absence of compulsive thinking.
Meditation and yoga are related in that yoga was created to allow for prolonged meditation without feeling uncomfortable in your body. Sadhguru said that "Yoga is a way of getting totally drunk - not on alcohol but on life." Yoga and meditation can take you to higher and higher states of spiritual bliss.
Meditation according to Sam Harris
Sam Harris, the philosopher and neuroscientist, wrote in his book 'Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion': "How to Meditate:
1. Sit comfortably, with your spine erect, either in a chair or cross-legged on a cushion.
2. Close your eyes, take a few deep breaths, and feel the points of contact between your body and the chair or the floor. Notice the sensations associated with sitting - feelings of pressure, warmth, tingling, vibration, etc.
3. Gradually become aware of the process of breathing. Pay attention to wherever you feel the breath most distinctly - either at your nostrils or in the rising and falling of your abdomen.
4. Allow your attention to rest in the mere sensation of breathing. (You don’t have to control your breath. Just let it come and go naturally.)
5. Every time your mind wanders in thought, gently return it to the breath.
6. As you focus on the process of breathing, you will also perceive sounds, bodily sensations, or emotions. Simply observe these phenomena as they appear in consciousness and then return to the breath.
7. The moment you notice that you have been lost in thought, observe the present thought itself as an object of consciousness. Then return your attention to the breath - or to any sounds or sensations arising in the next moment.
8. Continue in this way until you can merely witness all objects of consciousness - sights, sounds, sensations, emotions, even thoughts themselves - as they arise, change, and pass away."
What links do I have to guided meditations?
Here are some of my favourite guided meditations:
Ram Dass, East Forest and Jon Hopkins: 'Sit around the fire"
Ram Dass and 'Opening Reimagined'
Psalm 44:10. "Be still and know that I am God"
Ram Dass, Boreta and Superposition: 'Awareness'
Eckhart Tolle: 'Acceptance and surrender'
Tara Brach: 'Resting in a sea of presence'
Lou Redmond: 'The Prayer of St Francis'
Ram Dass and David Starfire: 'Alchemy of the heart'
Eckhart Tolle: 'Faith is the end of all fear'
Ram Dass, East Forest, featuring Krishna Das: 'I am loving awareness'
David Doughty: 'Activation meditation'
Silent meditation
Albert Einstein, who formulated the theory of relativity, wrote “I think 99 times and find nothing. I stop thinking, swim in silence, and the Truth comes to me.” Isaac Newton, who formulated gravitational theory, wrote "Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom." It's hard to argue with those two scientists. It is in silent meditation that we feel the most powerful shifts. For me deep meditative presence feels like an energised stillness and bliss. There are no more thoughts, just serenity and peace. It is from this place of BEing that we enter again into the world, gently and full of clarity. Fear is the language of the ego. Stillness is the language that God speaks. Everything else is a poor translation. Patanjali wrote "Yoga is the settling of the mind into silence. When the mind has settled, we are established in our essential nature, which is unbounded Consciousness. Our essential nature is usually overshadowed by the activity of the mind."
Ramana Maharshi wrote “Silence is also a conversation.” This conversation is formless, a feeling of Truth. You are aware of your BEing - your presence. There is a conscious presence. You are enlightened. The light is consciousness. This is the real you. There is no story. You become the Universe: The Universe becoming aware of itself. This is your foundation. It underlies everything. This is where you get divine guidance. All the time. There is no longer doubt. Your life becomes a dream. These are the words of eternal life, which express the true way you are to live. They say to you in the stillness of your heart and mind and soul: "Do this and live." It's an exquisite solitude and stillness. That connects you to all things. As a Course in Miracles says "I will be still, and let the Earth be still along with me. And in that stillness we will find the peace of God." Euripides wrote "Silence is true wisdom's best reply." As Eckhart Tolle said "Wisdom comes with the ability to be still. Just look and just listen. No more is needed. Being still, looking, and listening activates the non-conceptual intelligence within you. Let stillness direct your words and actions... All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness... Stillness is where creativity and solutions to problems are found." Claude Debussy wrote "Music is the silence between the notes."
Beth Bridges wrote "You can't hear your soul when the noise of your world is too loud. In stillness you find your own wisdom, which truly, is all you ever need." When we can learn to bear stillness, when we begin to foster presence, we access a miraculous space, a space where we can sit in the eye of the storm. You flow in stillness. As Rumi wrote “Leave thinking to the one who gave intelligence. In silence there is eloquence. Stop weaving and watch how the pattern improves... Listen to silence. It has so much to say.” Listen to the silence; it is volcanic in it's power. Wisdom is beyond the mind. Love is wordless. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross said “Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself, and know that everything in life has purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences, all events are blessings given to us to learn from.” As Einstein wrote "God does not play dice."
Seneca wrote that "The mind must be given relaxation. It will rise improved and sharper after a good break."
Learn to be present and enjoy the moment
Madeleine L'engle wrote "Then through the thunderous silence, we may be able to hear a still small voice, and words will be born anew." And so will worlds. Lao Tzu wrote “To the mind that is still, the whole Universe surrenders.” Herman Hesse, the author of Siddhartha, wrote "Within yourself is a stillness, a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself.” Your choice of going there or not is the difference between experiencing Heaven or 'Hell' in your daily life. Mahatma Gandhi wrote "It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.” Amen.
Sending you love, light, and blessings.
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Olly Alexander Branford MD, MBBS, MA(Cantab), PhD
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I have a Bachelor's degree in Natural Sciences from Trinity College, Cambridge; a Master's Degree in Philosophy from Trinity College, Cambridge; a PhD Doctorate in Scientific Research from University College London (UCL); a Medical Degree (MD/MBBS) from The Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, London and have been a doctor and reconstructive trauma and cancer surgeon in London for 20 years. I have published over 50 peer reviewed scientific journal articles, have been an associate editor and frequent scientific faculty member, and am the author of several scientific books. I have been awarded my Diploma in Transformative Life Coaching in London, which has International Coaching Federation (ICF) Accreditation, as well as the UK Association for Coaching (AC), and the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC). I have been on my own transformative journey full time for four years and I am ready to be your guide to you finding out who you really are and how the world works.