Meditations, The One Thing That Connects Us, And We Can All Agree On, Spiritual Meditation?

Spiritual meditation, a way of healing a segmented, troubled world through meditations, is it the one thing that can unite us?

The History of meditations

I want to focus on unity. Meditations have huge benefits, true. But also spiritual meditation can be the one thing that unites all humanity. So I know it is a bold thing to say, but there is truth in it. So stick around and keep reading.

Practicing meditation goes back a long way, probably to prehistoric times. Meditations are old. The first stone representations of meditation goes back almost ten thousand years. Because there is evidence of the practice created around 5,000 BCE in India. The relief shows people seated in meditative postures with half-closed eyes. So were the health benefits of meditation understood back then? Was this an early chakra meditation? Was this showing meditation methods, and meditations techniques? Or was this purely a spiritual meditation practice?

There are more questions than answers, and we will probably never know what ancients thought about meditation.

But we might find some early clues in a few written examples that go back to approximately 1500 BCE. Because early Hinduism has this evidence.

The point of spiritual meditation for early Hindus was almost identical to way we meditate today. It was connected to their religion. And it was a spiritual meditation practice. So in the writings, called the Upanishad, meditation was described as a way to remove ignorance. And to acquire knowledge, and oneness with the Absolute.

In this way, we can see a universal, spiritual truth arise from early meditation methods. This connects with our meditations techniques today. Given the historical evidence, it becomes obvious that meditation is one of the oldest spiritual practices in history. It predates Christianity and Islam, and even Buddhism. It was around the 6th to 5th centuries BCE, when other forms of meditation developed in Taoist China and Buddhist India.

I think the fact that spiritual meditation predates religion, is an important point for us all to consider.

The value of removing ignorance, and becoming one with the whole, seems to be a truth that we have shared throughout the centuries. It is something that most people, can agree on. Even Christianity has a from of spiritual meditation.

Thus, meditation is the catalyst that can unite us all, and go beyond religious and philosophical barriers.

So we are lucky to have this early written evidence too, as traditional learning was done between guru and disciple, by word of mouth, in schools that were found in the forest. It helps to tell the story of human spiritual development, and gives us a foot hold to begin our journey.

The exact origins of Buddhist meditation are subject to debate among scholars.

So early written records of the multiple levels and stages of meditation in Buddhism in India, are found in the Sutras of the Pali Canon. This dates to about the 1st century BCE. For the Buddhist meditation was a moral thing to do. It was a way to salvation through contemplative concentration, knowledge and liberation.

Later, like the internet today, albeit much slower, the Silk Road was a way of sharing and spreading new ideas. The Silk road helped to transmit Buddhism, which introduced meditation across the world.

Evidence of meditation can also be found in Judaism too. In the Torah, Isaac, the patriarch, describes going "launch" in the field - a term understood by most commentators as some type of meditative practice (Genesis 24:63). There are also suggestions in the Hebrew holy scriptures of practices of Jewish Meditation.

By the Middle Ages early meditation practices grew and changed. New meditative approaches developed like the mitzvot prayer, Kabbalistic meditation practices, and Jewish philosophical meditations.

Meditation in the Middle Ages

Meditation methods grew and spread to Japan. The Japanese monk Dosho learned of Zen during his visit to China in 653, and upon his return, opened the first meditation hall in Japan, at Nara.

In Islamic mysticism we also find the Sufi view, which involves meditative practices.

Remembrance of God in Islam, which is known by the concept Dhikr, is interpreted in different meditative techniques in Sufism or Islamic mysticism.

The Eastern Christian Byzantine period also had a from of meditation.

In this way the monk would repeat words, and sit a certain way. Hesychasm was also developed, in Greece, and still to this day, continues. It also uses a repetitious prayer to Jesus.

For Christianity in the West, meditation became more of a reading. The monk would read, ponder, pray, and contemplate the scriptures in the Bible. This was practiced by the Benedictine monks of the 6th century.

Modern Meditations in the West

Eastern meditation came to America, even before the American Revolution. It did not come from Buddhism, but through European occult Christianity. This was the time of the transcendentalists, between the 1840s and the 1880s.

The 1960s saw another surge in Western interest in meditative practices. Thomas Keating, wrote that "the rush to the East is a symptom of what is lacking in the West. There is a deep spiritual hunger that is not being satisfied in the West." And thus to this day there is a thriving community and industry that has risen up around meditation methods, and the health benefits of meditation, spiritual meditation, chakra meditation, meditations techniques, and the science of meditation.

So now we know that the practice of meditation is something that, for some reason, is something humanity naturally gravitates to throughout time, regardless of culture and belief system, right?

We live in a segmented, conflicting world of ideas and beliefs that often lead to terrible tragedy, violence, war, and turmoil, and it has been this way for a long time.

Instead of fighting and competing with one another, to prove who has the highest morals, and the best god, let's focus on the one thing that connects us, and we can all agree on: meditations.

Meditations can connect us all to a universal truth. And that truth is something we can only appreciate when we become quiet, absent of logic, emotionally balanced, and let go of the negative nonsense from our past, or the worries for the future.

So when we all focus on the moment, to connect to god, whoever that may be for you, we are also connecting to each other.

Through spiritual meditation, we become one, absent of conflict, and corrosive beliefs and hatreds.

Science has been part of this adventure too.

The Scientific side, and the health benefits of meditations

First of all I don't need a scientist to tell me how I feel. Secondly, no scientist on Earth knows anything about what consciousness is, and were it comes from, or how it works in detail. Both in the way I feel, and the conscious state I can achieve are not within the realm of any scientific method of researching for random patterns in the brain.

So that being said science has attempted to do qualified studies on meditation, and at best they have proven that it does have some physiological effect on reducing anxiety, depression, and pain, but claim that drugs can do the same thing.

In this case, science is missing the point of meditation entirely.

Drugs just suppress the symptoms. Regular meditation is all about becoming more and more aware of yourself, and the problems that are causing the symptoms, and thus finding a permanent fix to why you have anxiety, depression, and pain in the first place. Again, this is done by getting to know yourself, and expanding your consciousness through mindfulness meditation.

Science has shown many positive results of meditation. The data includes recorded drops in stress, anger, and anxiety levels, fewer episodes of depression, to the point where participants stop taking anti depressives entirely. Gray and white matter growth has been recorded in the areas of the brain, which are activated by regular meditation, which include the frontal lob. They have found that short term and long term memory increases, which supports the IQ, giving people better IQ scores. It has helped people with addictions too; and it helps to slow down the aging process, through stopping the caps on chromosomes from shortening, and more.

Mindfulness meditation studies

Science has made some remarkable discoveries, which lean toward the spiritual aspect of the practice, of connecting to your conscious self.

Some studies suggest that mindfulness meditation contributes to a more coherent and healthy sense of self and identity, when considering aspects such as sense of responsibility, authenticity, compassion, self-acceptance and character; all of which fit into the category of sense of self, or consciousness.

There are some other studies that say mindfulness meditation reduces worry. Excessive worry can lead to mental illness, anxiety and depression being part of this.

Meditation interventions have proven to reduce multiple negative dimensions of psychological stress. Some health benefits include mood enhancement, improving ability to deal with stress, and becoming focused. And it can help to deal with substance use disorders; and eating disorders, and treating psychosis too. So mindfulness meditation is also good for helping the psychological functioning of breast cancer survivors.

The effect on the brain is interesting according to science. Apparently, depending on in the style or method of meditation you choose, it will have a different influence on different regions of the brain. Also, mindfulness meditation appears to bring about favourable structural changes in the brain. A significant cortical thickness increase was found in one study, and this size increase also saw a large reduction of several psychological indices related to worry, anxiety, and depression.

Science is helpful in proving things on a physical and cognitive psychological level, but what about the spiritual?

Both spiritual and secular forms of meditation have been subjects of scientific analyses

The first step toward spiritual enlightenment is to know they self. For the Buddhist, it begins with becoming more mindful, and focused, and paying better attention, not to the world outside, but by looking from the inside out, so to speak, and being part of the whole. Awareness and attention training are key components, in which levels of mindfulness can be cultivated with practice of mindfulness meditation.

Science has seen improvements in three areas of attention

in sustained attention, selective attention, and executive control attention. This has to do with preforming tasks, and for how long tasks can be preformed, for selecting relevant information, and inhibiting the conscious processing of distracting information.

Mindfulness meditation can help you to control your emotions

Research has shown that meditation supports self awareness, in terms of paying attention to what we are thinking at the moment.

The more we are focused on the moment, the more we disconnect with the negative emotions the rise up from negative situations of your past, and worries of the future. This increases self-awareness, and leads to better processing and control over one's responses to surroundings or circumstances.

Science has found the same thing that we, who practice meditation on a regular basis, already know. When our awareness is heightened we enjoy a greater sense of empathy for others. Stress and anxiety become things of the past, because now we have a new pattern of positive thinking. These effects have been researched and found after practicing mindfulness meditation. Researches have seen new emotional well-being in the subject through the development of positive thinking.

There are lots of evidence for mindfulness and emotion regulation outcomes, which you can read about here: outcomes

Health benefits meditation: Stress reduction

Research has also shown significant health benefits in terms of reduction through meditation.

In 2019 researchers studied two groups of workers. One group was told to listen to meditations on their smart phones through an app. The other group did nothing. After four months, and close observation, the meditating group showed significant improvements in psychological well-being, work stress, and blood pressure. And a significant decrease in anxiety and stress levels.

It was also determined that even shorter periods of just three weeks significantly reduced stress. A brief, daily meditation session can alter one's behavioural response to stresses, improving coping mechanisms, and decreasing the adverse impact caused be stress.

I think for all of us who practice daily meditation, none of this is surprising, but it is great to get scientific evidence as an affirmation.

Improve your brain

Science has found out that meditation can improve the health of your brain. It supports the health and integrity of both gray and white matter. It can shut down parts of the brain, and activate others, to create more balance, as mediators tend to focus on loving kindness and conscious awareness.

Meditation often stimulates a large network of cortical regions, which are parts of the brain connected to attention, and the default network of the brain, which is associated to day dreaming.

Spiritual meditation

Most of the time Spiritual healing is based on meditation, for example Reiki is a from of meditation, shamanic journey, yoga, chi gong, and trance healing, are all based on meditation.

These are also spiritual practices. The point of spiritual meditation is to connect to your spiritual-self. Spiritual meditation is about mindfulness, your energy, your aura and chakras, learning more about yourself, to open up your third eye chakra, enhance your intuition, and find your inner-peace.

It also helps you to connect to the spirit world.

For example when you practice reiki, you become very relax like during a meditation, you release blockages and ease pain. This positive effect becomes more apparent when you do reiki on a regular basis, just like through meditation.

Reiki is like a hands on meditation.

If you practice Trance Healing like it is taught in Daniela's course you will be doing a lot of meditations, through which you focus on breathing, and trust and letting go.

A very different from of meditation is shamanic journey. It uses a specific drumming to bring you into a meditative state, so you can visit spiritual realms like the under world, middle world, and upper world, to heal the soul.

Some benefits of meditation list

Meditation is really good for relaxing, true, but it is also good for opening your third eye, or your inner visions. Opening your third eye is important for your spiritual development. When you do this you are going deep inside yourself, to learn more about who your are, and the more you know about yourself, the more you can sympathize with others, and understand them.

You can see beyond what your physical sight can see, and your awareness expands.

Here are some other benefits.

Insomnia and sleep

Getting a good nights sleep is important. The less stress you have the better your immune, metabolic, endocrine, and cardiovascular system will work.

Not being able to sleep will make you very anxious and stressed. Meditation can reduce insomnia, and improve sleep quality.

FOCUS!

Being focused is incredibly important. Meditation can help here in a big way. The more focused you are the more success you will have in life.

Mind wandering can be a big problem, and meditation can help you to decrease mind wandering a lot.

The less distraction you have, the more your brain can take on difficult tasks for longer periods of time. Not only can you focus your attention more productively, but you can also be mindfully aware of your surroundings. It also enhances your ability to deal with conflict.

Perception

Meditation increases you perception of true reality. True, in terms of what we observe is the real thing, not just a concept of that thing stored in our memory. This means reality is observed not as an illusion, but more as directly experienced stimuli. So it can let us see things with more accuracy. Meditation can cut out the noise of reality, sot to speak.

Example: you recall seeing a red car today, but in reality it was blue, you said it was red, because your dad has one that looks just like it in red. In this case you are replacing reality with a preconceived concept, without actually seeing what is right in front of your eyes. Meditation helps you to see what is really there, because you learn how to focus on the moment, instead of relying on your tainted memories.

Memory

Meditation helps us to understand what is happening moment to moment, because while meditating we begin to understand what it is like to live in the moment, meditation thus enhances memory capacity on different levels. Those who meditate regularly have demonstrated the ability to better process and distinguish important information from the working memory, and store it into long-term memory

There are some great side effects to this. It can improve IQ, and it can have a positive effect on those suffering from Alzheimers disease. Your sense of hearing a seeing are enhanced too.

Stay younger longer

The cortical thickness of your brain increase through meditation, slowing down the decline of gray matter in your brain, slowing down the aging process. It stops the chromosome cap from shortening. Also, on a cellular level, meditative practices appear to improve the endocrine balance toward positive arousal (high DHEA, lower cortisol) and decreases oxidative stress.

This means meditation helps your cell longevity. It does this through lessening stress hormones, and increasing hormones that may protect the cell.

Happiness and emotional well-being

If you take naps like I do, in the middle of the day, it is best to meditate instead. The reason is that people who meditate for about 20 minutes have higher levels of happiness and less anxiety, compared to people who just rest during the 20-minute time-span.

Thus, the more we are connected to the whole, the more we live in the moment, the more we enjoy our lives, and the less we live in the past or the future. This leads to inner peace, which leads to a sustainable joy.

The different kinds of meditations, meditation methods and techniques

The simplest from of meditation is to focus on your breadth

Or focus on any one thing like your breadth, or a flower, or a color, an object, an activity like walking. When you focus on one thing you are distracting your logical mind, and connecting the moment, through the reality of that one thing.

The opposite of that is to focus on everything at once. This is not as easy to do. In this case you are not distracting your logical mind, you are leaving it completely behind, because to truly focus on everything at once is to become pure consciousness, of which your mind is only part of.

So when you are focusing on everything at once, you are not emptying your mind, but understanding that your mind in just part of the whole of consciousness, and you are accepting it as part of the experience of the reality, of being the observer.

You will allow whatever happens during your meditation session to happen.

There are many types of meditations, from schooled traditional, to the modern meditations that use binaural beats. This includes guided meditations, ones that use just atmospherics, or music, there are meditations that help us to clear our chakras.

There are mindfulness meditations, and ones to help us sleep, to reduce stress, or to make us more aware, more alert, more focused.

There are walking meditations too, when you focus on each step you take, to connect to the moment.

My wife taught me one form of walking meditation, as I walk I consciously imagine, with each step I take, that light spreads from the sole of my foot to expand love and light everywhere.

She also taught me a simple breathing meditation that just takes three minutes.

Close your eyes, and think when you breathe in, "now I breathe in," and then when you exhale, you think, "now I breathe out." Start doing this for three minutes, and then do it for longer periods of time, up to ten minutes; and the amazing thing is the longer you do it, the more you will feel like you are becoming the breadth, and one with whole. By the way you can try this out in Daniela's free meditation course.

There is Vipassana meditation, which is a component of Buddhist practice

This is were we focus on awareness, of our bodily sensations and psychological status.

I was once taught that to do this, is to focus on the extremities of your body, and feel the ends of your fingers and toes all at once; and then go beyond them with your focus, to become your true self as the observer, just observing all that is happening at once in your awareness. To understand this, know that your logical mind can only focus on one thing at a time, like each finger; but your true self, as pure consciousness, can focus on everything at once.

It's an amazing feeling, just being part of the whole.

Advance from of meditating in caves over years

One monk who meditated in a cave through much of the 1970s, 80s and 90s, emerged in the late 1990s when he reached the level of spiritual growth he had been seeking. People became fascinated with his story, and appeared in droves to listen to his lectures.

Advanced Tibetan Buddhist monks are trained to remember complex images as a way to clear their minds, and achieve new levels of awareness. According to an article published in the Washington Post, an experienced monk can visualize the details of as many as 700 deities used in meditation.

Sometimes they would visualize the deity close up, sometimes from far away. Some experienced mediators can keep a mental image in their minds for minutes, and even days.

For the regular every day meditator like me this level of advanced meditation practice is not necessary to achieve the benefits of meditations.

What is a binaural beat meditations

A binaural beat is created when listening to two different frequencies, one in the left, and one in the right ear. At that moment an auditory illusion is perceived as a third tone, and then a binaural beat is created in the listener's brain.

In this way the binaural beat can represent different brain waves during different brain states, thus mimicking the brain waves that only true masters can achieve through meditation.

A binaural beat meditation can reduced stress, and anxiety, increase focus, concentration, motivation, confidence, and deeper meditation.

Brain waves

Frequency band	Frequency	Brain states
Gamma (γ)	>35 Hz	Concentration
Beta (β)	12–35 Hz	Anxiety dominant, active, external attention, relaxed
Alpha (α)	8–12 Hz	Very relaxed, passive attention
Theta (θ)	4–8 Hz	Deeply relaxed, inward focused
Delta (δ)	0.5–4 Hz	Sleep

You can see just with this small chart how being able to achieve these brain states would be beneficial through binaural beats. The Alpha to Delta states are great for stress relief and healing, And the Gamma for focus, cutting out the noise, and seeing reality clearly. Beta is more of our waking daytime state.

From my experience, meditations that include binaural beats are very effective, although, unlike regular meditating, this has not been scientifically proven to have any physical or mental effects. Again I don't need science to tell me how I think and feel.

Trance dance, a deep meditation

Shamanic Dancing is another way to meditate.

There are so many ways to do shamanic methods, because there are so many reasons to practice them.

You might already know about Shamanic Journeying, in which you can learn different methods of how to visit spiritual worlds, how to find Power Animals, Symbols and Lost Souls.

But you can also learn more about yourself through Shamanic Dancing, which is another shamanic way of self discovery, and spiritual growth.

But it is also a powerful way to meditate.

If you like to dance, and if you like Shamanic Journeying, then this course is for you.

No worries, if you have never done a Shamanic Journey before, and you are interested Daniela has a course that you can join, as long as you feel drawn to shamanic methods.

What is Shamanic Dancing

Shamanic Dancing is simply another way of Shamanic Journeying by using breathing and dancing to reach a light or deep state of Trance that you need for Shamanic Journeying.

How does it work?

Shamanic Dancing is a practice were you invite Spirit, the power of all creation, into your body through dancing.

This is attained through a special breathing method. You focus first on your breathing, like a breathing meditation, then let yourself get carried away by the music.

When using this breathing method you will free your mind, and when your body is dancing, your soul can travel to other worlds, were you can meet your shamanic ancestors, spirit animals, or spirit guides.

There, you can get answers to questions, and you can learn, heal, or even help your friends to heal on a spiritual level.

Hypnosis is a from of meditation

Meditation on its own may take people years to master. But the result is great when you have reduced stress in your life, and so much more.

A lot of people don't have the time, or patience, to meditate, so one alternative is hypnosis. This mental technique focuses on the subconscious mind, and can produce results in just one session, which would take much longer through conventional meditation.

Meditation is deep relaxation, and hypnosis is deep relaxation with added suggestion. And that suggestion goes deep into your subconscious for reprogramming, so you can get rid of the negative trash in there.

Meditation music

Simply put, listening to music is pleasurable and perfect for distracting your logical mind. It is an easy way to focus on one thing, the music, and music has its own healing qualities of its own.

Meditation music can have has an effortless, calming effect.

It can take away your worries, and put you in the moment of the melody.

It's like a gentle wave that washes over you, cleaning you of the filth of logic and worry. Music can also lift your mood, slow your breathing, and create other stress-inducing changes.

Then there is the Sahaja yoga mental silence meditation

The Sahaja meditation will switch off parts of your brain so that noisy unimportant inappropriate information is shut out. This will lower your level of depression, and is great for metal health, and general happiness.

Kundalini yoga

Kundalini yoga uses energy at the base of the spine to activate your chakras. Doing Kundalini yoga as a from of meditation helps to increase the prevention of cognitive decline.

So basically this can help to increase your memory.

Generally yoga is a from of meditation.

Transcendental Meditation, as spiritual meditation

Transcendental Meditation not only allows the practitioner to reach higher states of consciousness, it also has health benefits like stress reduction. It helps with high blood pressure, and reducing heart disease risk.

But it is also good for enhancing creativity.

The Free meditations in Daniela's online school

Daniela offers a free meditation course, which include guided meditations. A guided meditation lets the listener focus on the voice of the one guiding them through the meditation. This is done to stop the listeners mind from wondering.

Three popular forms of guided meditation are mindfulness, stress reduction, and relaxation.

Guided mindfulness meditations are done to focus the mind.

So they help us to cut out the noise, so to speak. And the noise is our constant thoughts, and daydreams, and sensory distractions, and memories of the past, or worries about the future.

It's not that the noise necessarily goes anywhere. It is that being mindful of it allows us to be the observer. The mind remains in the present, by focusing on the breathing process, physical sensations, or a sound.

Here is what Daniela offers in here free course:

• Simple Breathing Meditation

  2 Lessons
  • 3-Minutes Breathing Meditation
  • Breathing Meditation

• Inner Peace Meditation

  2 Lessons
  • Take time during the day
  • Inner Peace Meditation - long version

• Gratitude Meditation

  1 Lesson
  • Enjoy this meditation

• Thank you, I love you - Mantra

  2 Lessons
  • Mantra: Thank you, I love you
  • Meditation with Binaural Beats

• Healing with Drums

  1 Lesson
  • Healing With Drums

• Drumming for Shamanic Journeying

  1 Lesson
  • Drumming For Shamanic Journeying

• Trance Music With Binaural Beats

  1 Lesson
  • Trance Music

Daniela's free guided meditation techniques

So get started now with meditations, and take Daniela's FREE GUIDED MEDITATION COURSE? This is a great time to start your journey into the awesome world of spiritual meditation. Get started right now, Click on the link now!

Categories: Meditations