Meditation,God, Articles by Brahma Kumaris

The Benefits of Meditation - by Brahma Kumaris


The Benefits of Meditation

The benefits of meditation are enormous. It calms our mind and body. In these fast and frenetic times, it has the most important ability to replenish mental and emotional energy.
Meditation enables you to create new attitudes and responses to life, giving you a clear spiritual understanding of yourself.

Meditation is the process of re-discovering, enjoying and using the positive qualities already latent within you. Like any skill, meditation requires practice to achieve positive and satisfying results. By doing a little every day, it soon becomes a natural and easy habit, which generously rewards you for the little effort it involves.

What Does Meditation Do?

Meditation energizes your awareness bringing both peace and wisdom to a busy mind. It expands your capacity to love and heals broken hearts. Also it dissolves many fears replacing them with lightness and freedom from anxiety.

Meditation is both the journey and the destination, revealing the secrets of consciousness and the treasures of the soul. It develops the power to be more alert and effective in our interaction with each other and with our precious world. But perhaps the greatest gift that comes with meditation is the glow of inner peace that is both gentle and strong.

The practice of Raja Yoga meditation or intellectual communion with God brings into the soul many powers. Of these, eight are very important. Please refer to the adjoining diagram.

Eight Powers of Raja Yoga

The Power To Pack-Up

With the ability to go within, one can learn how to pack up all wasteful thinking in a second, so that there is lightness and freedom from burdens and worries, though there may be many responsibilities. The mind is not scattered over the wide world and so much drawn out to men and matters that he is unable to sleep or to detach himself at his will. With the practice of meditation, one can wind up his thoughts at will.

Power To Tolerate

Just as trees offer the same fruits even to those who pelt stones at them, a yogi tolerates all attacks on him and does good even to those who offer brickbats at him. In the light frame of mind, one will be able to tolerate all types of situations and people to the extent that there is no sense at all of having to tolerate something or someone. With the understanding that each one is simply playing their role in this immense world-drama, impatience, irritation and annoyance disappear like mists before a strong sun.

The Power To Accommodate

Just as the ocean accepts different rivers that flow into it, whether polluted or clean, one will be able to adjust to all that is happening around him, a yogi would be able to accommodate others with him. It makes the man broadminded. One will be able to adjust into all the happenings around him. Even when the atmosphere is weak and impure, they would not affect him.

The Power Of Judgment

One will learn to take correct and quick decision. One will get the ability to accurately assess any situation with clarity and confidence. In a detached, impartial state of mind, one can judge one’s own thoughts, words and actions to see if they are beneficial. One will become a judge of the self and not of others.

The Power Of Discrimination

Just as an expert jeweler can easily distinguish the false from the pure diamonds, one will acquire the power to distinguish between right and wrong or good and bad. One can accurately discriminate between real truth and the apparent truth, between things of temporary value and those of eternal value and between superficial and the subtle. The power helps in recognizing illusions even when they are sweetly decorated and enticing.

The Power To Face

Meditation develops the power to endure hardships. Adversities like death of those on whom one depends may come and high storms may rage strongly, yet his flame of equanimity does not get extinguished. Having confidence in one’s spiritual state brings the courage to face any type of situation.-->MMore



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Getting started for Meditation by brahmakumaris

BrahmaKumaris
Make an appointment with yourself for 10 or 20 minutes each morning or evening. Find a quiet place and relax. Soft music, though not a necessity, can create an appropriate atmosphere. Sit comfortably upright on the floor or in a chair. Keep your eyes open and, without staring, gently rest them on a chosen point somewhere in front of your room.

Gently withdraw your attention from all sights and sounds. Become the observer of your own thoughts.

Don't try to stop thinking, just be the observer, not judging or being carried away by your own thoughts, just watching.

Gradually they will slow down and you will begin to feel more peaceful. Create one thought for yourself, about yourself for example, "I am a peaceful soul."

Hold that thought on the screen of your mind; visualize yourself being peaceful, quit and still. Stay as long as you can in the awareness of that thought. Don't fight with other thoughts or memories that may come to distract you. Just watch them pass by and return to your created thought, "I am a peaceful soul."

Now think of the Supreme Soul, who is the ocean of peace, bliss, love and so on. Soul receives all these virtues from Him.-->More


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Understanding God - by brahmakumaris

Existence of God

In this world, many beliefs exist about God. As a result, people understand God in their own way and often in their own imagination. But what is required is the understanding God as He is, what He is and how He is. The correct understanding about God has to be given by God Himself!

There are some who don't believe in the existence of God, often the reason being His existence cannot be proved like that of human beings. But because we cannot see God with the gross eyes, it doesn't mean that God doesn't exist. Just like wind, which cannot be seen but can be very much felt, it is possible to experience God's presence through Godly knowledge and meditation.

Who is God and what is His form and name?
We shall now try to understand who God or the Supreme Soul is. The term 'Supreme Soul' means He is supreme among all souls. It implies that, He is also 'a soul', though He is the Highest of all. He is above birth and death. God is the Supreme Father-Mother, Supreme teacher and Supreme Preceptor to all the human beings and He himself has no father-mother, teacher and preceptor.

God is a subtle, infinitesimal point of Light. He is not visible to the naked eye but it is very much possible to experience His presence and proximity in meditation. He is incorporeal in the sense that he does not have a body of his own. He is not a human being nor does He have a human form. He is immune to pleasure and pain unlike human beings.

Names are a means of identification of human beings after they are born. They do not speak of qualities and actions of the person; they are simply proper nouns and are not attributive names. But the name of the supreme soul or God is based on His qualities and actions. His self-revealed name is 'Shiva'. 'Shiva' means doer of good or benefactor. God does good to all and therefore He is called Shiva. All souls ask for salvation and beatitude i.e. peace and happiness from Him. People remember Him by many other expressive names.--> More