The Benefits of Meditation

You do not have to be an expert or skilled in meditation to enjoy its benefits. You just need to practice regularly without trying to get anywhere or achieve anything in particular. And just like interest in a bank account, the benefits just accrue by themselves. The following are some wonderful rewards one can acquire through meditation:

Being awake at the present time. When you rush breathlessly from one moment to the next while anticipating another problem or yearning for another pleasure, you miss the beauty and closeness of the present, which is constantly unfolding before your eyes. Meditation teaches you to slow down and take each moment as it comes; the sounds of traffic, the smell of roses, the laughter of children, the beauty of the ocean, the coming and going of your breath. In fact, as the meditative traditions remind us, only the present moment exists anyway. The past is just a memory and the future a fantasy, projected on the movie screen of the brain right now.

Being friends with oneself. When you are constantly struggling to live up to expectations, whether your own or someone else's, or racing to reinvent inner self to survive in a competitive environment, you rarely have the opportunity or the motivation to get to know yourself just the way you are. Self-doubt and self-hatred may appear to fuel the fires of self-improvement, but they are painful and they contribute to other negative mind-states like fear, anger, depression, and alienation. They also prevent you from living up to your full potential. When you meditate, you learn to welcome every experience and aspect of your being without any judgment or denial. In the process, you begin to treat yourself as you would a close friend, accepting and loving the whole package, the apparent weaknesses and shortcomings as well as the positive qualities and strengths.

Creating a deep connection with others: As you wake up to the present time and open your heart and mind to your own experience, you naturally extend this quality of awareness and presence to your relationships with family and friends. If you are like most people, you tend to project your own desires and expectations to those who are close to you, which act as a barrier to real communication. But when you start to accept others the way they are, a skill you can develop through the practice of meditation, you open up the channels for a deeper love and intimacy to flow.

Relaxing your body and calming your consciousness. Your mind and body are inseparable, so an agitated mind inevitably produces a stressed out body. As your mind settles, relaxes, and opens during meditation, so does the body. The longer you spend meditating, the more this tranquility and relaxation ripples out to every area of your life, including your health.