122. Benefits of Meditation

Physical health

Meditation has the power to transform you physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

Let me explain what I mean by health in these four areas. Physical health means digesting whatever you eat and having that food become part of your body. Mental health means digesting all the ideas and problems that you encounter and forming a clear solution. It is living without conflict. Spiritual health means receiving all the great teachings and energy, digesting them and living a liberated life. Having all three is total health.

If your digestive system is working perfectly, that is physical health. I tell you, you don't need anything else. If your digestive system is perfect, you don't even need food. Your physiology will be so

intelligent that it will take the energy directly from the ether. If Meditation is also a proven way to improve concentration and memory power.

your digestive system works efficiently, you will need very little or no food.

Meditation is also a complement to medication. Through meditation, you can regulate your blood pressure and blood sugar, you can increase your body's resistance to disease. Through meditation, it is possible to heal even chronic problems like skin allergies, asthma and arthritis. No disease can escape the power of meditation.

Mental health - awakening of intelligence and flowering of intuition

On the mental level, meditation enhances clarity of thought. Meditation is also a proven way to improve concentration and memory power. Above all, meditation leads you from intellect to intelligence to intuition.

Intellect is when you make your decisions with pure logic. Intelligence is when you respond to a situation in a more creative and constructive way. Intelligence is nothing but the ability to respond to life moment to moment, to be awake to the challenges life throws at us. Intelligence is to be aware of the situation, to alter your answers according to the demands of the moment. Intuition is when the decision simply happens as a revelation! It happens from the energy of your being, not from the space of the mind. Meditation puts you in direct touch with the Divine energy that lies latent within you, within every individual.

With meditation, you go beyond the mind, into the being. In the being no rules exist. You become free to explore your full potential. That's why with meditation you will suddenly find yourself at ease with your surroundings, easily able to cope with new situations. You rediscover your spontaneity.

Self-healing thoughts

You may have a medically fit body. That does not mean you are completely healthy. Of course, I can say from my experience of having seen millions of people, ninetynine per cent of those who do not have the 'self-healing clarity' in their system are never able to maintain even physical health.

When I say 'self-healing clarity', I mean the clarity and understanding to bring yourself out of depression whenever it tries to grip your consciousness.

Just a year ago, I did a small research study. I selected one group of people who had been through some meditation programs and had done some spiritual study. I asked them to write for just twenty minutes whatever came into their mind without editing. Then I also asked another group of people who had never been exposed to spirituality to also write down whatever came into their minds without editing for the same twenty minutes. The results of my study were shocking.

In the case of those people who were not exposed to spirituality, if they had written one hundred thoughts, more than eighty of them were directing them more and more towards depression. Only twenty thoughts were self-healing or bringing them out of depression. But in the case of those who were exposed to spirituality and meditation, I saw that more than sixty percent of their thoughts were self-healing! Only forty percent were taking them towards depression. This is the impact of meditation! It keeps you healthy holistically.

Knowledge-weapons to combat depression

The knowledge of the Truth is what I call 'knowledge-weapons' or shaastra-shastras. Shaastra means Truth, knowledge; shastra means weapons. Knowledge-weapons are the weapons of Truth that can destroy the depression of your being.

Whenever depression or suffering attacks you, suffering attacks you, your mind brings different scenes in front of you. In those moments, these shaastra-shastras, knowledge-weapons, can be so powerful, that you simply come out of the depression. They are thoughts that help you to raise yourself out of the suffering. So never feel that the Truth is too much to take in. Try to digest, assimilate and keep it in a corner inside you. Store it as knowledge-weapons inside you.

The more knowledge-weapons you have, the more depression will be afraid of you! If you have a huge army, naturally the enemy country will be afraid of attacking you. Just by seeing your pile of weapons, the other country will think twice before attacking you. In the same way, the more you accumulate the self-healing thoughts, the knowledge-weapons, inside your being, the more depression will fear to come near you. Practically speaking, you will have fewer depressive thoughts that can torture you and the self-healing thoughts as antidotes when they do.

Freedom

With meditation, you can live your life in a much better way, with greater clarity and greater intensity. You will be more aware, more creative. Yet internally, you will experience a deep and undisturbed silence.

You will no longer be doing, you will only be watching the doer. This is the whole secret of meditation – to become the watcher, to become the witness of your own actions and emotions.

As you start witnessing your own actions, you will realize that there is someone inside you who does not change, who does not get angry or feel sad, who does not care about money or security or fame.

That is the real you! The real you can never be touched. The rest is just a personality you have formed around yourself.

Once you become aware that the real you is not the one who acts, that the real you is not the one who feels angry or hurt or depressed, then you experience a tremendous sense of freedom. This will happen through meditation. This is real freedom.

All our life we are searching for freedom. Whether we realize it or not, every single one of us is searching for freedom. We think our freedom is dependent on others. Now you know, the other person is in no way connected to your freedom.

What we search for in our ordinary lives is either 'freedom for' or 'freedom from'.

Freedom for doing, having and being all that we wish, freedom to live as we imagine we want to live.

Freedom from all the things that we hate disease, worry, anger, stress, low selfesteem, pain and so forth.

We are caught between the greed for something good and the fear of something bad. Our whole life is controlled by these two ropes of greed and fear. But when these two ropes of greed and fear control us, we forget the real freedom that we are craving for.

A few weeks back a casual visitor, an artist, was speaking to me. He was telling me why he hated meditation.

He said, 'I hate all these rules and discipline. I like to be free to lead my life the way I want. I get up at ten o'clock, first thing I have my coffee, then I go for a swim whenever I feel like it…' He described his whole day to me.

Then I asked him, 'What if someone woke you up at six o'clock? Or what if your coffee didn't arrrive at your bedside one morning?'

'Oh, that would make me really mad!' he said, and laughed.

'And what if it was raining and you missed your swim?' I asked.

'Yes, that would be a bad thing. If I can't go for my swim, I feel really bad the whole day.'

Then I asked him, 'If your freedom is dependent on so many conditions, are you really free?'

He was shocked! To be really free is to be free no matter what.

That's what I call real freedom, not 'freedom for' or 'freedom from'. Real freedom comes out of living completely in the present moment. Freedom that doesn't depend on any external circumstances is the only true freedom. This is the freedom that you will experience with meditation.

Love and joy for no reason

You will be amazed to find how much love rises and floods your being when you enter into meditation. Through meditation, you will experience a dimension of your being communicating with you, that you haven't touched before. When you experience lasting joy that no external circumstance can alter, it means that you are moving deeply inwards. You will want to share this joy with everyone you meet. When this joy overflows from you and touches the other person, it is called love.

You will be amazed to find how much love rises and floods your being when you enter into meditation.

Just like freedom, this love will be different from any love you have ever experienced before. All your life, you have loved and been loved for a reason. Even in your most intimate relationships, even between husband and wife, between parents and children, there are hidden reasons for loving. All our love is tainted by jealousy, possessiveness and expectations.

With meditation, for the first time, you will understand what it means to love for no reason. For the first time you will not be giving something in order to receive. You will give love simply because you have so much to give! You will shower love upon the world in the same way that a rain cloud showers upon the earth or a flower spontaneously spreads its fragrance all around. You will love because you are so full and overflowing!

Work as play

Most of us feel that life today has become so competitive and stressful that we have no time to do anything that we want to do.