Natural Healing Treatment: Meditation

Introduction

Wellbeing, passive alertness and inner calm

'Select a clean spot, neither too high nor too low, and seat yourself firmly on a cloth, a deerskin, or kusha grass. Then, once seated, strive to still your thoughts. Make your mind one-pointed in meditation and your heart will be purified...'

These words come from the Bhagavad Gita, the best known and most influential of the Hindu scriptures. The book devotes an entire section to the practice of meditation, which is central to the Hindu way of life. It is also an integral part of the other great oriental religions, Buddhism and its close cousin Zen.

But while meditation, in the minds of many, is married to the East, it also has its place in Sufism, Christianity and Judaism. (That said, meditation does not require adherence- to any of the faiths and religions that advocate it.) Many people view meditation as peaceful but ineffectual self-centredness; in the words of one cynic, 'a form of self-indulgent passive introversion'.

They are wrong-the benefits to be gained from meditation in any of its various forms are many. Those who meditate regularly believe that it leads to a significant lowering of tension and negative emotions while at the same time increasing efficiency at work and deepening the sense of inner calm.

This feeling of wellbeing brings physical benefits, for regular meditation eliminates or reduces stress, and who in the helter-skelter days of the early 21st century is not stressed at some time or other? In reducing stress, meditation can ease migraine and tension headaches, reduce blood pressure, benefit the heart and reduce the pain of menstrual cramps.

Through meditation we seek to achieve a state of passive alertness that transcends the everyday level of thought and distraction. Achieving this 'higher level' of consciousness may at first seem a difficult proposition, but with practice and effort it is something all of us can do.

Some people are put off by the image of meditation as something steeped in impenetrable Eastern mysticism, but meditators don't have to submerge themselves in religious or spiritual teaching to gain from this art. Meditation is really a very simple way of lightening the mind, forgetting about everyday stresses and concentrating solely on mental relaxation