Hobbies

Do you want to learn how to meditate?
Have you tried to meditate but you keep falling asleep?
Or you’re not sure you are doing it right?
Do you keep thinking about other things while you are trying to “clear your mind”?

First you need to decide what type of meditation you want to do. There are basically two types of meditation - active and passive. Passive meditation is clearing the mind of all thoughts. You can then allow your “inner voice” or “minds eye” to speak to you. Passive meditation is good for reducing stress, increasing creativity, or just getting in some quiet time.

Active meditation is when you keep your mind active by working on a particular problem in your life or focusing on accomplishing certain goals you have set. Using affirmations while meditating are particularly helpful in this area.

There are many simple techniques to help you meditate. You may have read about them already. They include breathing techniques, repeating mantras, sitting up so you don’t fall asleep and visualizing certain objects. These are all good techniques and will help you accomplish reaching that alpha brain wave level necessary for meditation.

The behavior of pain was enigmatic. Its responses were strange. It was only a pin prick, but the surrounding skin reddened and the child cried out in pain. Yet, the caress of a gentle finger around the injury subdued that pain. A person suffering from the agony of chronic pain reported no pain at all, while focused on painting a canvas. Again, hypnosis caused a patient to report that his pain did not hurt. How could just a touch, or a change in the focus of attention reduce or remove pain? How could there be a pain, which did not hurt? Could such phenomena be explained as clear algorithmic behaviors of the brain? Could such knowledge be used to subdue the distress of pain?

An algorithm was a repetitive procedure, which yielded a trusted result. Recently, a new view of the mind suggested that it was an algorithm, which enabled the mind to race, like a lightning streak, through neural regions. It saw, recognized, interpreted and acted. In the blink of eye. From input to output, it took just 20 milliseconds. Myriad processes converted light, sound, touch and smell instantly into your nerve impulses. A special region recognized those impulses as objects and events. Another region, the limbic system, interpreted those events to generate emotions. A fourth region responded to those emotions with actions. The mind perceived, identified, evaluated and acted. So, the scream followed the injury, as swiftly as a flash of lightning. All of this was powered by intuition, a pattern recognition algorithm.

Are you stuck eating lunch at your desk again?

Lucky you.

You see, staying put can be surprisingly soothing compared to making a mad dash to the cafe for a sandwich and running back to your office, all the while worried that you’ll miss an important call.

If you feel chained to your desk, try viewing it instead as a powerful anchor that keeps you from drifting mindlessly.

Desk dining can be the epitome of mindlessness-or a remarkable opportunity to slow down, reconnect, and enjoy a delicious moment or two. You can choose a chug-and-chew cubicle lunch or settle in for a session of mindful mastication.

Mom always told us to slow down and chew our food properly. She was more worried about choking, indigestion and bad manners than she was about the possibility that we would grow up to be disconnected from our experience of dining.

As usual, Mom made good sense. New research indicates that becoming more mindful of every mouthful is a powerful way to reduce our food intake, increase our meal satisfaction, and savor more than just the taste of our veggie on rye.

The Brain Scrub is designed to help you overcome the "monkey mind" which leaps and bounces around from subject to subject in an uncontrolled manner. After mastering this exercise you’ll be able to instantly clear and calm your mind in any situation, allowing you to focus completely on any subject.

Sit on the floor “Indian style”. Don’t worry about trying to sit in any particular position. If you wish you can sit upright in a chair, just sit towards the front and let your feet rest flat on the floor. Keep your spine straight, shoulders back and just let your hands rest in your lap. Take a moment to relax and let your breathing soften.

Now, as you inhale focus on the number 1. Hold your focus and exhale. On the next inhale focus on the number 2 and so on until you get to 10. The purpose here is to focus entirely on the numbers and not allow any other thoughts to intrude. Remember to breathe as I outlined in the article on Breathing.

DO NOT beat yourself up with this exercise! Our minds are constantly at work and the untrained mind will bounce from thought to thought continually (monkey mind) and even during this exercise you’ll have other thoughts arise.

It’s pretty obvious that the ancient Druids used several forms of meditation. That the Druids were able to still and control their minds is unquestioned, but the techniques they used have apparently been lost to the ravages of time and the lack of written records.

As with much of the re-creation of the Druid paths, we find ourselves turning to other cultures and methodologies to fill in the gaps. Before the cries of "Untraditional" become too loud I think I should point out that meditation and mind control/self awareness are universal to the human being. Everyone who’s ever lived on this planet has had the ability to access their inner energies and power to varying degrees. Today we find ourselves without the social framework of the ancient Druids. Rather than a single unified entity we find that our Tribe is scattered to the winds without a common language or concept of what it means to be a Druid. It’s a period of creation and re-creation and thanks to the easy availability of printed sources and the internet we find that once again we can begin to study and put together systems for training Druids.

There are many methods of meditation that can lead to channeling, mediumship, or simply a greater spiritual awareness. Here is the method I use:

I often meet people who say things like, “I’ve been working on mindfulness for over twenty years.”

My response is always this: “Oh, you poor thing! Have you tried *playing* with mindfulness? It’s very effective, and much more fun!”

They tend to look at me like I’m some kind of kook, and then ask the million-dollar question: “How can you play with mindfulness?” Glad you asked….

We tend to think of mindfulness as something that develops only after years of dedicated meditation. We must sit for hours, contemplate in silence for days, go on retreats for weeks, practice daily for years. Okay, that can work.

The unfortunate thing is that it IS work, and consequently, it’s about as appealing to most folks as lying on a bed of nails. Sure, they want to develop a clearer perspective on life. Yes, they want to become calm and contemplative. Of course they want to live more meaningfully and with greater joy. But does it have to be so hard?

Scientific research has shown that the most beneficial meditation technique is Transcendental Meditation ™. The striking reduction of stress and anxiety caused by TM are 3 times greater than the effect caused by most meditation and relaxation techniques.

Transcendental Meditation has been taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi since 1958. The first articles about the beneficial effects of TM were published around 1970 on important magazines and scientific journals such as

- Science (167, 1970),

- American Journal of Physiology (221, 1971) and

- Scientific American (226, 1972).

The basic research was conducted by two medical doctors from Harvard University, Herbert Benson and Robert Wallace. This research was made on dozens of American people who used to practice this technique regularly. These people were of any race, sex, age, job, and with different personal political or religious belief.

Later, a lot of research was made about this technique by several doctors and scientists, who wrote several articles on important scientific journals such as

- International Journal of Neuroscience,

- Psychosomatic Medicine,

- Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology,

- Journal of Clinical Psychiatry,

- Journal of Clinical Psychology,

and many more.

What are you likely to gain from meditating?

Simple:

? It improves the power of your concentration.

? Calms you down.

? And enables you to know what you want out of life and how to achieve it.

In our experience, we each have two sides of us, two YOUS if you prefer.

ONE YOU: wants to be successful and has the ability of giving you all the help and encouragement you need.

THE OTHER YOU: wants you to be an all so ran. Mediocre and that one will also give you all the help and encouragement you need to be mediocre.

The question is: Which of these have you chosen to work with? Which of these have you activated. Which of these have you given credence and credibility to.

Ask yourself:

When did you last say you would do something but never did?

When did you say that you volunteer for a task only to find that whilst you were procrastinating another person took the opportunity and made it?

When was the last time you broke a promise to your colleague, your partner or your children?

It is an unfortunate reality that society has inadvertently categorized the natural abilities associated with bio-etheric energy as a form of entertainment.

Classifying skills such as precognitive event recognition alongside amusement attractions such as stage illusion have undermined the acknowledgement of etheric energy itself, impeding the acceptance of a wide spectrum of very natural, very real capabilities.

Why, then, are etheric-related abilities seemingly so rare? The answer is multidimensional.

Identifying Your Etheric Energy

All human beings have the ability to recognize, embrace, and utilize their bio-etheric energy, or the energy produced and emitted by all living organisms. Once harnessed, bio-etheric energy can allow a being to:

* Gain a broader, deeper perception of physical and/or emotional surroundings

* Achieve greater use of the brain’s traditional and extra-sensory functions

* Increase knowledge absorption by participating in conscious bio-etheric energy exchange

* Attain a working knowledge of etheric-related capabilities such as precognitive event recognition

The easiest analogy to recognizing etheric energy is that of electricity. Had mankind never harnessed the natural phenomena of electrical current, entire civilizations would have evolved in the absence of telephones, computers, televisions, and an array of other technologies that now seem second nature in our daily lives.