MEDITATION FOR SOUL AND BODY

We live in a material world. Upon leaving the womb, we begin to explore all the wonders of this new life. An infant commences this journey with highly focused awareness of those aspects of the physical realm that impact it most strongly. Novel cognitive adventures thrill, stimulate, fashion, and guide the developing child’s mind. Brain maturity and neural connectivity proceed. 

This maturation process clouds the perception of our spiritual nature, which becomes hidden during the excitement of sensory discovery. Our extracorporeal selves dwell in the quiet, adding calm whenever possible. The soul, a parallel component of the human essence, is intrinsically comparable to the spectacular and awe-inspiring wonders that gratify the senses. The physical and the ethereal coexist as a symbiotically mutual envelopment, complementing and enhancing one another.  

The tangible earthly forces and the transcendental heavenly energies can blend to actualize the ultimate potential inherent in our existence. Amalgamating these powers completes our world. Pursuing this task is foundational to the purpose of our species.

The uniquely human effort that can bridge these two worlds is meditation. Engaging in this activity heals all aspects of life. It broadens and eternalizes the material realm while giving meaning and purpose to the spiritual realm.

Any successful endeavor requires mindfulness and focus. Mental or other distractions facilitate wandering from the chosen path. Multitasking lessens the intensity of concentration, interfering with the mission and compromising the reward. Thus, a life fully lived is a meditative experience.

The conscious act of meditating is an effort of exclusion. The goal is to silence the intellect and divorce from sensory input and emotional thunder. Intruding thoughts and afferent neural distractions are constantly pushed away. This skill must be learned, practiced, and perfected. We naturally and unconsciously meditate whenever we focus our thoughts and emotions. We do this all the time when addressing the challenges in our lives. Simultaneously, a door to the spiritual realm cracks open, appending heavenly energy to our efforts, adorning the experience. An intentionally active approach to meditation opens the portal further.    

Adeptness in meditation enhances many aspects of life. Proficiency demands a regular schedule of commitment. Just as the gains from weight training or aerobic exercise programs persist after the shower, meditative calisthenics create a pattern that continues far beyond the 30 minutes often assigned.

This process of removing extraneous thoughts, overcoming desires and passions, and disregarding distractions must be performed mindfully and consciously. 

Meditation is a medical tool applicable to many of the maladies we face. It successfully lessens pain, slows the spread of some cancers, reduces the severity and frequency of headaches, helps control anger, counters depression and anxiety, lowers blood pressure, prevents heart attacks, improves bowel function, and enhances sleep. Most human skills, from reading to playing a musical instrument to hitting a home run to building a business, benefit from time spent meditating. It also expands the horizons of appreciation and perspective. 

Meditation is a bridge to the spiritual world. By suppressing concentration on physical stimuli and the busy brain, the material world is deemphasized. This activity turns attention away from emotion, desire, and judgment.  It puts one into a non-thinking state of mind. From there, one can access celestial powers. 

The earthly existence is defined by the continuous assessment of right and wrong, good and evil. Moral attachments are momentous endeavors that give meaning to our lives and add agreeable and accommodating structure to societies.   

As important as value judgments are to a healthy material life, they interfere with connecting to an ethereal existence. Tuning out the distractions of the material world allows entrance into the spiritual. Meditation opens the heart and the mind to the expansiveness of the soul.

Entering the celestial realm accesses and internalizes a perspective of harmony and consistency that is incomprehensible to the material mind. In this heavenly world, everything looks and sounds the same, but it all appears without being appraised. What seemed to be a syndrome of constant evaluation and rating is appreciated as – truth.

Rid yourself of the din of the world and the dialogue of your brain a few minutes every day. Take control of your senses and input. Find the place within yourself where all is quiet.

Help your soul and your body. Spend some time each day with eyes closed. Be aware of thoughts coming into the mind and push them away. There are classes, books, tapes, and videos available to help you along this path. Your reward will be the richness derived from transcendence and expansiveness as the fullness of life becomes manifest.