Transcending Meditation

This month we’re talking about getting to know to your inner self through silence and solitude. Susan believed that meditation could be an important tool for connecting this way. Here is an excerpt from End the Struggle and Dance With Life about meditation:

Let me explore with you a very powerful way of reaching and ultimately embracing the silence of your mind, thus transforming your experience of life from one of confusion and clutter into one of peaceful awareness, MEDITATION.

Many of us don’t like the concept of meditation.  It conjures up pictures of people sitting in a monastery in the crossed-legged lotus position being quiet for days on end.  Yes, there are those who meditate that way.  But for most of us in Western civilization, this is neither practical nor appealing.  Luckily, there are other options.

One of the most popular of these options is called TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION (TM for short).  It was brought to the United States in 1959 by a monk from India, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.  Yet, it is important to keep in mind that…

TM has nothing to do with religion.  It’s not even a philosophy or a suggested lifestyle.  TM is purely a mechanical technique for achieving a deep state of restful awareness.

So don’t let any religious considerations stop you from deriving all the potential benefits from TM.  It is the most studied form of meditation and the documented value it gives to our lives is enormous. 

Because TM can be used by everyone, it has been adopted by many people in the mainstream.  It is practiced by bankers, college students, athletes, grocery clerks, teachers, and so on.  TM has achieved its popularity for a number of reasons. 

• TM is very easy to do.              
• TM offers us a deeper state of rest than sleep.
• TM is great for our health.
• TM improves our mental abilities.
• TM improves our emotional state, hence, our relationships with everyone in our lives. 

 The TM explanation for this is that at a very deep level, we are connected as one energy.  (Quantum physics is certainly agreeing with this notion!)  If that energy is negative, the negativity spreads throughout the community.  If that energy is positive, the positive energy spreads throughout the community. …

The reported benefits of TM go on and on.  It makes one wonder, “How does meditation work?”  Leon Weiner, my TM  instructor, used the analogy of water.  When water is in high activity, it boils…it’s volatile.  If you reduce the activity, a sense of calm comes over the water.  So too when we reduce the activity in our mind, a sense of calm comes over our being.