Why Meditate?
Different people meditate for different reasons. Here are some of the many remarkable reasons:
To quiet the mind and acquire greater inner peace.
To increase one's spiritual awareness of higher states of consciousness.
To become a nicer, kinder, happier person.
To become more selfless & sensitive to the needs of others.
To increase one's awareness and feeling of the light within ourselves -especially within our heart centers; as well as increasing the brightness of this light.
To increase various divine qualities within ourselves, including loving kindness, compassion, humility, and forgiveness.
To become a more spiritually sensitive person.
To expand a pleasant, peaceful, quiet feeling within the heart area.
To improve our spiritual intuition.
To increase the feeling of blissful, humble, surrender to GOD, (or the Inner Light, one's Higher Divine Self, the Infinite Buddha Nature, etc), as well as a sublime, blissful feeling of "Oneness" with GOD.
To acquire greater "mindfulness" so that we can become more "present" in the "here & now" and better experience the "freshness of the present moment" - the "Now".
To relieve stress; sooth one's emotions; lower one's blood pressure; let go of the hurries & worries of life; & enter a deeper state of relaxation than usual.
To increase one's creative potential. (This is especially helpful for artists, inventors, musicians, scientists, composers, engineers, & writers.)
To increase one's ability to focus, concentrate, or achieve "one-pointed concentration". (This is especially true of Zen Meditation.)
To pursue one form or another of "self-inquiry", and thus move ever further along the gradual path of Self-Realization.
To seek solace from GOD.
Well, that's quite a list!
So Where Do We Start?
Since various spiritual traditions tend to seek slightly different goals, there are a range of meditative techniques. Despite this variety, most kinds of meditation tend to fall into four broad groupings which I (Bill) call:
"Quieting the Mind" Meditations:
As one might guess, these use various techniques to quiet the mind, and are sometimes called "mindfulness", "awareness", "concentration", "contemplative", or "transcendental" type meditations.
The advantage of these forms of meditation is that even if you have not yet felt GOD's love or witnessed any miracles, and thus do not yet believe in GOD or any type of "Higher Power", you can still have many of the transcendent benefits of meditation.
"Light" Meditations:
This technique focuses on visualizing a golden white light within and around us while feeling oneness with GOD.
"Loving Kindness" Meditations:
In a "Loving Kindness" meditation we allow a feeling of loving kindness to flow out through our hearts to all life everywhere as we meditate.
"Devotional" Meditations:
"Devotional" Type Meditations often use some or all of the above meditative techniques, but they also include pouring love and light to GOD, while letting GOD's love and light pour out through ourselves to all life everywhere. We can also pour love to Jesus, the Buddha, Krishna, Angels or some other Divine Being.
Many people discover that over the long run the "devotional type meditations" often result in the deepest inner peace, the deepest bliss, and the greatest possible spiritual benefits. Generally, pouring love and light to GOD is particularly fruitful, spiritually beneficial and joyful.
Fortunately, most of the other types of meditation can easily be modified to also become devotional meditations. This way, we get the best of all worlds - the deep inner peace that comes with quieting the mind, as well as the deep inner bliss and divine inspiration, which GOD can bestow during a devotional meditation.
So What's the Best Type of Meditation For You?
Since people vary according to their natures and spiritual paths, different people are attracted to different types of meditation techniques for different reasons at different times in their lives.
The best way to find out which meditative techniques are best for you at the present time, is to simply start trying out some of the techniques. After trying out a variety of them, you will gradually find yourself attracted to the one's that work the best for you and your spiritual path at this time.
One excellent meditative technique to start with is:
A Blissful "Blended" Meditation
This is a good meditation to start with because:
It usually gives good results "right off the bat";
It is a "guided" meditation, that is easy to follow along with;
And it combines the essence of all other meditation techniques.
So, I recommend starting with this Blissful "Blended" Meditation, and then exploring the others at your leisure. This way you can have some positive results, and then gradually add favorite techniques that you learn from other types of meditations. Basically, you can just mix and match your favorite techniques. They're all good! You may even find that your favorite techniques change or evolve over time as you grow in meditative experience and spiritual depth. For instance, you may start with a contemplative "quieting the mind" type meditation, which will gradually evolve into a devotional type, and the still later into a devotional-light type meditation.
Also, different techniques are helpful at different times. For instance if you only have a few minutes you may use one kind of technique, whereas if you have a 15-20 minutes or more and are in a peaceful environment, you may use a different technique. And if you have had a difficult, stressful day and may not be able to succeed in using your favorite meditative technique, you can still find some inner peace by simply sitting quietly, focusing on your heart area, and repeating to yourself a mantra such as: "I love you GOD, I love you GOD, I love you GOD . . . ".
Other Good Meditations to Start With Are:
Saint Germain's Blissful Light Meditation
Sai Baba’s Blissful Light Meditation
No matter what technique you choose, you will find that your daily meditations will gradually become a soothing, uplifting, valued and spiritually healing part of your spiritual journey.
To go to the next page in our Meditation Section go here:
Frequently Asked Questions about Meditation (Very informative!)
Best wishes on your continuing journey to greater inner peace, happiness, contentment, inspiration, and self-mastery.
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Please checkout the rest of our meditations pages when you get a chance:
Frequently Asked Questions about Meditation (Very informative!)
Saint Germain's Light Meditation
A Blissful "Blended" Meditation (A meditation that takes the best qualities and techniques of the "Devotional", "Light" and "Quieting the Mind" types of meditations and blends them into a nice, easy, effective meditation! Try it! You'll like it!)
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By the way, we will gradually be adding additional meditations to the meditation section as the years go by. It takes a while to create a website like this!
Copyright 2014 Bill Gaum, All Rights Reserved
