In this article we will discuss meditation. Cosmic Core continually stresses the importance of learning how to examine and understand your own mind. Meditation is one of the most common ways to learn how to do this.
We will discuss various methods in how to make meditation as efficacious as possible. Then we will look at some of the scientific validation for the benefits of meditation, not only in learning your own minds, but for overall health and well-being.
The Mind: Meditation
“The most important thing that any of you can do is to learn to know yourself.
Know thyself, O man! Try to understand yourself.
In understanding yourself, you can more easily overcome the weaknesses which you have.
Meditation is always an aid to knowing the self.”1
Meditation
“Meditation is the undistracted, calm, one-pointed attention on and immersion into the underlying, energetic, infinite, creative Source of all our thought.
Meditation is the graceful mindfulness of the mind itself.
The practice of meditation opens a space within us into which foundational Love can swell of its own spontaneous, expansive nature.
Through meditation we commune inwardly with the benevolent power that creates, sustains and fulfills all things in the entire universe.”2
“The practice of meditation is a systematic exercise in concentration, which will finally become a permanent, spontaneous state.
It is a great aid to meditation if you practice being one-pointed during your day.
Give your complete attentions to whatever you are doing; particularly in a conversation, give your complete attention to the person with whom you are talking.
After much practice, you should be able to make your mind one-pointed; concentrating on whatever task is at hand.
When we do only one thing at a time, we are healing the divisions in our consciousness, and when we can give our complete attention to another person, they cannot help but respond by giving their complete attention to us.
If we practice meditation sincerely, systematically, and with sustained enthusiasm, our physical and emotional problems find their solution, all of our artistic and creative capacities come to full maturity, and we are able to contribute to the welfare of our family and community.”3
The Importance of Meditation
“Proper meditation is of uppermost importance.
Meditation is the time to withdraw from the normal functions of whatever plane of life you may be in at the time, and to attune yourself with the cosmos.
You can learn to go within and contact your higher self, your higher intelligence.
There you will find the answers to many things, in fact, to all things.
Sincere seeking is all that is needed.
In your seeking, seek also the wisdom that is needed to bring forth and use these powers that you have.
To use the energies, to gain wisdom and understanding – to take in so to speak, that you might come out, go forth and give in service to your fellow humans.
As you move forward in this practice becoming ever more conscious of the “Inner Things” you find you are becoming conscious of the “Universal Mind”.
You are tuning in with Intelligence, and Wisdom and Knowledge begin to flow to you in ever increasing amounts.
It is possible my friends through this technique of Meditation to attune yourself to anything or any Being.
There are those who through long periods of devotion are able to attune themselves and communicate with plant life, with animal life, or most anything you could name, for consciousness – beloved friends is everywhere, and you are attuning yourself to this consciousness.
Wisdom, discipline, emotional control, elimination of ego – all these things are necessary; and above all learn to love and understand one another.
If you can meet in love and light seeking these things, remembering always that each of you are individuals and that I must learn to understand my brother if I expect him to understand me.”4
Helpful Meditation Techniques
“Begin by devoting half an hour every morning as early as convenient to the practice of meditation. Do not increase this half-hour period, but if you want to meditate more, have half an hour in the evening also.
Have a room in your home for meditation, or a special corner, and keep it austere as possible. A quiet, cool, well-ventilated room is best.
Have pictures of the great spiritual teachers if this appeals to you.
If you want to sit in a straight-back chair, one with arms is best; or sit cross-legged on the carpet.
Sit with spinal column erect, and eyes gently closed.
Often having an inspirational passage memorized can help focus the attention. Go through the words of the passage in your mind as slowly as you can, letting each word drop singly into your consciousness.
Do not follow any association of ideas, but keep to the words of the inspirational passage.
When distractions come, do not resist them, but try to give more and more attention to the words of the prayer.
If you find that your mind has wandered away completely, go back to the first word of the prayer and begin again.
Keep adding to your repertoire of inspirational passages from the scriptures of all religions to prevent dryness in meditation.
The secret of meditation is that you become what you meditate on.”5
More Helpful Meditation Techniques
“In the first place, it is necessary to discipline one’s self, to some extent, and set aside a certain time each day for this practice.
You will never become proficient at the art of meditation unless you practice consistently.
It is not enough to practice this art once a week or once a month, or even every few days, but this should become a daily ritual.
For unless you do this, your progress shall be slow in mastering the art.
When you’re ready, place yourself in a position that is proper for meditation.
The best meditation can be had in a sitting position.
Sit the body comfortably but erect and straight. Place the hands open and upward in the lap.
Allow those racing thoughts to race. Do not try to force them to stop, but bring yourself into a relaxed feeling.
Let your mind relax; do not try to control it, and you shall find these racing thoughts in time will slow, will become slower and slower until they eventually stop.
And with practice, my friends, this time shall become shorter and shorter, and in due time you shall reach that state of stillness quickly, and in this state of stillness you become one with Creation and life begins to speak to you.
In this stillness you can bring yourself in attunement with whatsoever you wish. In this still, very still quietness, all things can flow to you, for your mind is open and receptive to the higher knowledge.
In this great stillness within, you become one with your Creator, and you will receive many things that will enlarge your understanding.”6
Proper Posture in Meditation
“As you meditate – keep the spine straight and erect, for the energies that flow through to you will flow more freely.
The spine is the physical structure of the center of your Being and all the cosmic energies that come to you must flow though these centers.
By keeping it straight and erect you allow for free flow of energy to your Being and the results shall be greater.
Many have the difficulty of wanting to sleep in meditation. Perhaps not wanting to sleep, but they find that the physical gives way or the mental rather gives way to the physical and you find yourself going into slumber.
This can be avoided by using the concentration method and by keeping yourself in good posture for meditation.
For only through good posture can the cosmic energies reach you in proper proportions.
Now to some of you it may seem that it is impossible for you to relax in this position, but I say to you, my friends, that is the only true relaxation.
For when the body is in positions for which it was not intended, true relaxation does not come, you cannot be receptive.
Much of the Universal Energies comes to you through the spine when you are in the physical and unless the spine is erect, they do not flow.” 7
Bringing Your Life into Order & More Meditation Techniques
“You have wondered how to go within and reach your inner-self, or the Creator within.
It takes patience and meditation. Patience is something your peoples have very little of, and meditation is something they have done very little of.
The secret of meditation is to clear your mind of all thoughts. Then think or concentrate on a subject or question you wish to be helped with.
After a short period of concentration or thinking, let the thought go, and let your mind ramble where it may.
This is a basic method of meditation. You will find other variations as you go along.
Do this in all sincerity.
You would be amazed when this art is mastered, at what you can do; how quickly you can attune yourself in this state to anything that you desire.
It is possible to attune yourself in this state to anything in Nature and to draw from that the information that you seek.
Once you have become proficient in the art, you can spend much less time for you reach the state of contact with the Infinite Mind much more quickly.
As man starts to practice the art of mediation, he should also attempt or perhaps I should say that he should immediately begin to bring his own life into order. For unless you bring your own house into order, you will find great difficulty in mastering this art.
For to withdraw from that which is uppermost in your intellect, your mind, you will find that it is necessary to have there the higher thoughts – for it is much easier to drift away from thoughts of love, peace and joy into the silence than it is to release thoughts of anxiety and fear.
Thus as man brings his house to order, he finds he is more quickly able to quiet himself and to drift into the silence, immerse himself in the light of creation and merge with the One Great Mind.
In the early stages of going into the silence, you will find it helpful if you will concentrate upon some particular thing.
Many techniques are used – your Yogis concentrate upon what they call the “third eye”, others concentrate upon a light of one type or color.
This is not of great importance, but only an aid in helping you to release yourself and draw yourself away from the racing conscious mind.
But on the other hand do not attempt to force the thoughts of your conscious mind to cease for in doing this you only build a tension.
Relaxation and letting go of all conscious or perhaps intellectual things would be a better term, and as these things are released you find your inner consciousness taking on an awareness – an awareness of many things.
An awareness of your physical body as you have never been aware of it before. You become conscious in certain stages of every cell of the physical body and each cell seems to take on an awareness of its own.
In other words you become aware from head to foot, yet it is not an awareness as you know it through the intellectual mind.
It is only through your desire to serve that you will reach those higher states of awareness and consciousness.
This can be accomplished by working together in Love and Light, and continually turning within and seeking that guidance thru prayer and meditation.
Learn the art of meditation – of going within and through your higher self, contacting that universal awareness or consciousness where you can draw forth the answer to all your problems.”8
Two Basic Types of Meditation from The Law of One
Each of the two types of meditation is useful for a particular reason.
Passive meditation: “involves the clearing of the mind, the emptying of the mental jumble which is characteristic of mind complex activity among your peoples.
It is efficacious for those whose goal is to achieve an inner silence as a base from which to listen to the Creator.
This is a useful and helpful tool and is by far the most generally useful type of meditation as opposed to contemplation or prayer.”9
Visualization: has as its goal not that which is contained in the meditation itself.
“Visualization is the tool of the adept.
Those who learn to hold visual images in mind are developing an inner concentrative power that can transcend boredom and discomfort.
When this ability has become crystallized in an adept the adept may then do polarizing in consciousness without external action which can affect the planetary consciousness.
Only those wishing to pursue the conscious raising of planetary vibration will find visualization to be a particularly satisfying type of meditation.
The means of this working lie within.
The key is first, silence, and secondly, singleness of thought.
Thusly a visualization which can be held steady to the inward eye for several of your minutes will signal the adept’s increase in singleness of thought.
This singleness of thought then can be used by the positive adept to work in group ritual visualizations for the raising of positive energy.
When the positive adept touches intelligent infinity from within, this is the most powerful of connections for it is the connection of the whole mind/body/spirit complex microcosm with the macrocosm.
The adept then become living channels for love and light and are able to channel this radiance directly into the planetary web of energy nexi.
The ritual will always end by the grounding of this energy in praise and thanksgiving and the release of this energy into the planetary whole.”10
Recognize that “It is impossible to meditate without a goal, for that intent is itself a purpose. Meditation must be followed by action — and true meditation is action.”11
Contemplation & Prayer
“Contemplation, or the consideration in a meditative state of an inspiring image or text, is extremely useful among your peoples.
The faculty of will called praying is also of a potentially helpful nature. Whether it is indeed a helpful activity depends quite totally upon the intentions and objects of the one who prays.” 12
The Science of Meditation
Dr. Sara Lazar is the author of the MGH Psychiatric Neuroimaging Research Program and Harvard Medical School instructor in psychology.
She says, “We study the impact of yoga and meditation on various cognitive and behavioral functions. Our results suggest that meditation can produce experience-based structural alterations in the brain. We also found evidence that meditation may slow down the age related atrophy of certain areas of the brain.”13
Watch the TED talk by Sara Lazar for information on the following studies.14
First study
Her first study looked at long term meditators vs. a control group.
She found that long term meditators had an increased amount of gray matter in the insula and sensory regions – the auditory and sensory cortex.
Meditators were also found to have more gray matter in the frontal cortex, associated with working memory and executive decision making.
Dr. Lazar says, “It’s well-documented that our cortex shrinks as we get older – it’s harder to figure things out and remember things. But in this one region of the prefrontal cortex, 50-year-old meditators had the same amount of gray matter as 25-year-olds.”
Second Study
The second study looked at 16 participants before and after the meditation study which included an eight week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program.
After the program they observed a thickening of the cerebral cortex in areas associated with attention and emotional integration in those who meditated.
They also found increased gray-matter density in the left hippocampus, important for learning, cognition, memory and emotional regulation in the meditators.
They also found increased matter in the temporal parietal junction, or TPJ – structures associated with perspective taking, empathy and compassion.
Furthermore, they found increased gray matter in the posterior cingulate – involved in mind wandering and self-relevance and they also found increased gray matter in the Pons, an area of the brain stem where a lot of regulatory neurotransmitters are produced.
Lastly, they found decreased gray-matter in the amygdala, the fight-or-flight structure that plays an important role in stress and anxiety.
It was clearly found that meditation increased the brain’s plasticity, increased a sense of well-being and enhanced quality of life.
Further Claimed Benefits of Meditation
The evidence presented by Dr. Lazar and others not discussed here clearly associates meditation with decreased stress, decreased depression, anxiety, pain and insomnia.
Meditation can improve physical and mental health, decrease stress, decrease blood pressure and improve moods.
Meditation rewires the neural circuits, pruning away the least used connections and strengthening the ones we exercise the most.
Meditation unifies the brain by strengthening connections between various parts of the brain.
Meditation seems to create more wrinkles in the cerebral cortex – which has to do with abstract thoughts and introspection.
Meditation can increase attention span and visual memory.
Conclusion
In this article we have taken a brief look at the scientific validation of meditation as offering an overall improvement of human life in many ways.
There is a vast number of meditation studies that have been carried out that one can research into if not convinced, or if seeking more information. We focus only on the work of Dr. Lazar for brevity’s sake.
Meditation is one of the most helpful tools in learning how to know and understand your own mind and to improve your health and well-being. This has been known for thousands of years in the Hindu and yogic traditions, among others. This is one example of how ancient wisdom merges with modern understanding to help improve our lives.
We have given many techniques here in this article and some suggestions on how to begin or improve your meditation practice.
Anyone can do it. It only takes patience and practice. The results will be your reward.
- Rogers, Walt, The Brown Notebook, 1958-1960
- Mahoney, William, Exquisite Love: Reflections on the spiritual life based on Narada’s Bhakti Sutra, Sarvabhava Press, 2nd edition, 2014
- Easwaran, Eknath, The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living, Volume 1: The End of Sorrow, Nilgiri Press, 1975
- Rogers, Walt, The Brown Notebook, 1958-1960
- Easwaran, Eknath, The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living, Volume 1: The End of Sorrow, Nilgiri Press, 1975
- Rogers, Walt, The Brown Notebook, 1958-1960
- ibid.
- ibid.
- Elkins, Rueckert, McCarty, The Law of One, Session 49.8, http://www.lawofone.info/results.php?s=49
- ibid.
- Roberts, Jane, The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events, Amber-Allen Publishing, 1981
- Elkins, Rueckert, McCarty, The Law of One, Session 49.8, http://www.lawofone.info/results.php?s=49
- https://scholar.harvard.edu/sara_lazar/home
- Lazar, Sara, How Meditation Can Reshape our Brains: Sara Lazar at TEDx Cambridge 2011, https://ed.ted.com/on/7NuhDf6A
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