Meditation is one of the best antidotes to the excessive stress of modern life. Stress pushes the body into a “fight or flight” response. This can be valuable for short-term survival, but over the long run, the resulting physiological response can cause serious health problems. Meditation gives us a respite from pressure. As we relax, the heart beats more slowly and the blood pressure lowers. Meditation helps retrain response mechanisms so we don’t react as strongly or as negatively to adverse situations. It gives us the ability to be more centered, to be more in control of ourselves.
Meditation has been found to strengthen the immune system, which helps ward off diseases before they affect us and lets us recover more quickly if we do become ill.
Much has been written recently about the mind-body connection. Meditation helps create a healthy mind, one that is alert, positive, and calm. This, in turn, produces a body filled with vitality and health. A master of meditation can control even autonomic processes such as heart rate, pulse, and brain waves.
Meditation fosters a healthy life style. Modern medicine recognizes that general health can be greatly improved by a combination of meditation, proper diet, and yoga postures. Even serious heart and circulatory problems can be reversed through a careful regime of diet, meditation, and exercise. Perhaps the ultimate sign of mainstream acceptance is that insurance companies in America are now paying for patients to learn how to meditate.
We can learn to release negative mental states such as fear, worry, and anger through the practice of meditation, and replace them with positive attitudes. Daily practice of interiorising the mind eventually gives us control over our inner flow of energy, our “life-force,” and redirects it inward. As a result, we feel more fulfilled and lose our addiction to a constant seeking of satisfaction outside ourselves: from possessions, endless entertainment, or drugs and alcohol. Redirecting life-force gives dramatic results. Far from leading to boredom or being life-negating, we regain our ability to find enjoyment in simple pleasures.
Energisation Exercises help you learn to consciously control the flow of energy (life-force). This can be a powerful tool for healing. A member of the Ananda community had a remarkable experience in this regard while hiking alone on a glacier in Canada. During the morning he had walked several miles, intending to reverse directions after lunch and arrive home safely before sunset. But, just as he started his return trip, he slipped and badly sprained his ankle. Unable to walk, or even to stand, he knew the situation was serious, unprepared as he was to spend a night on the ice.
Knowing this yogic technique for re-charging the body’s cells with energy (Energisation Exercises), he sent life-force to his swollen ankle. Within a few minutes, the pain subsided, and after a half-hour he was able to resume walking. He has always felt that he owes his life to the healing principles of energy control.
