What is Meditation?
Meditation is a core practice of a Jedi. It’s something anyone of any age or background can learn, but for a Jedi is a required skill. Meditation is a mental process of quieting the mind. By quieting the mind you gain a sense of peace and part of being a Jedi is learning about peace. Peace is needed to gain happiness and happiness makes you want to keep on going, living, training, and learning. You should be happy with your path and if not, look into why and do something about it. There are many ways to meditation, although we usually think of one: blanking our mind. Today’s class is about learn what is and isn’t meditation, the benefits, and a quick how to.
Meditation is a very useful skill for further energy work has it helps you focus, be calm, and centered, which is vital to advance skills like astral projection and telekinesis. When you learned how to feel the Force, you didn’t know it, but you did a guided meditation. Awesome right? That wasn’t hard, plus fun and easy to do! Think about when I taught you about integration, that was a meditation too. Meditation doesn’t have to being about sitting on your bum, breathing weirdly, and trying to think enlightening thoughts. You can have a goal in mind.
One of the most common myths about meditation is it’s about blanking your mind. That’s not only not true, but also impossible. Go ahead. Try to blank your mind. You’ll find you can’t help but thing “damn it I’m not keeping it blank! Oh dang it there I go again thinking!” As you can see, the moment you try to consciously blank your mind, you can’t. Yet when you first felt the Force, if you followed the instructions, your mind when blank. I needed you to stop thinking in order to feel what is already around and in you.
We are made to think. It’s a survival trait. We are constantly thinking, being aware of our surrounding, analyzing s, solving problems, day dreaming, planning and so on. The Buddhist like to call this your monkey mind, a constantly chattering animal that never really seems to stop. This is brought on by our constantly busy culture. We seek entertainment through phones, tv, music, games, and people. Work demands your full attention for at least 8 hours a day. Then you come home to kids, a messy house, hungry tummies, and never enough time in the day for anything. We don’t really sit and rest. We don’t have quiet time. Most people get nervous when there is a long stretch of silence or boredom. We use silence and boredom as a punishment. So it’s no wonder why our brains go non stop.
There is nothing wrong with thinking, but it’s nice to get the gerbil to stop running at top speed in your head. Even if you don’t want to or think you can meditate, take some time for some stillness and silence. Get up a little early in the morning and slowly sip the coffee while you stare at nature. Sit in your car before and after work and take a few deep breaths. Sit in nature and just admire a tree or a lake with no phone or conversation. You will find that your brain naturally slows down, it might even stop when you aren’t paying attention. The same is true with meditation, which is just a more formal method of what I just explained. When you do meditation properly, your thoughts will naturally slow down, but this can’t be forced.
Meditation has the added benefit of changing how your brain works. Even science and medical research have shown in MRI scans how meditation changes your brain. The studies show that meditation can affect much of your brain in a big way. You are literally rewiring how your brain processes and reacts to information and emotions. They found through mindful meditation you can decrease the severity of depression, anxiety, and pain. You can try this yourself right now. Mentally on something that is hurting right now. Give it all your attention. Let the pain exist. It might flare up at the start (or not) and then slowly die down. It might even go away. I use this technique to deal with minor pain and itches while I’m taking calls at work. Just keep in mind, rewiring means many practices to form a new information pathway in your brain.
Meditation isn’t just one type of religious practice. Meditation is practiced by nearly every single major religion: Buddhist, Hindu, Toaist, Judaism, Sikhism Jainism Bahá’í Faith, Christianity, Islam, Wicca, Thelema, Neopaganism, occultism. According to very early writings meditation was first practiced by the Hindu religions and then later practiced by the Taotist in China and Buddhists in India. It’s an easy skill you can do anywhere and helps you appreciate the more deeper spiritual lessons that every religion is trying to teach. When you are calm and peaceful you are in a better mind set to see fair simple, yet not always obvious truths.
Even non religious people can and do meditation. You don’t have to do it for God or Englightenment or the Force. Jedi don’t meditate because it will make you an awesome powerful, superhero Jedi. We do it to help us do our job: helping others, feeling the Force, and bettering ourselves. Yes meditation can help you achieve enlightenment or bring you closer to your God, but you can do it just for you. You do it because it’s helpful and it brings good results. However it does help you reach that shiny carrot all religions have (being closer to God, being enlightened, being one with the Force, and so on).
You don’t have to be a master or a student or enlightened or even dedicated anything to meditate. Anyone can do it. Kids, highly educated and the least educated, poor, rich, busy, mentally ill, and so on. I’ve seen it taught in public schools, to ptsd victims, CEOs, martial arts classes, yoga, So please do not feel like you aren’t good enough. You don’t need to be Hindu or Buddhist to meditation. If you can think you can, you can meditate. If you doubt yourself, you will likely fail. You don’t have to any energy practices experience, be in good shape, have good mental or emotional state of mind. You don’t have to give up a huge amount of time. You can start with just 3 minutes and work up to as long as you need you, but It’s most effective if you do it daily.
Environment can be important for meditation. The ideal beginner environment would be a quiet peaceful room that you are comfortable in and not distracted, which is what I keep telling you all to be in for my Force classes. However you don’t HAVE to have that serine environment to mediation. You can meditation anywhere so long as you can find your center. Meditation is about being able to relax, so you can be in nature or in a library, the train/bus/car, taking a walk, exercising, in a noisy classroom, or out in public. Of course the less peaceful, the harder it is to meditate. You can use meditaton apps on your phone, but I wouldn’t recommend relying on technology. Research a technique you like, memorize it, write it down, and then do it and compare results. Find what works for you.
You might be wondering when to meditate. There is no perfect, set time for enlightment, time of the day to do it. It’s whatever works for you, but I would strongly recommend being consistent with the time. Meditation is like exercise for the mind and soul, so a routine is best for developing the habit. If you are a morning person, it might be best to get meditation before grabbing that coffee (which can help wake you up much more peacefully than the coffee). If you are a night owl, you might find settling down an hour before bedtime a great way to end the day. If you are mother at home, that precious hours of kids at school might be good time to meditate. Pick a time, try it, and if it doesn’t work, change it, but don’t give up on your first week. It’s better to be consistent with what time you do it. If you are going to pick the morning, stick with the morning. It’s ok if you have to break your schedule every so often, so long as it’s not every other day. If that is the case, you need to be honest with yourself and pick a better time for yourself. Make sure you are looking for excuse to skip that secession. You will need to use some self discipline to keep going and treats for reach a goal: if I meditation each morning for a week, I can go see that movie/ get chocolate/massage.
You might think you just weren’t build to sit still and be calm. Maybe you feel like you are the walking dark side. You are helpless to your thoughts and emotions. You are beyond help and hope. The truth us we actually are made to meditate, but we have to break the busy crazy lifestyle habit we have going on. We have to be willing to try to help ourselves. We all naturally meditate. You have probably done in the last few weeks in not days. Little kids, and I have seen this myself with my teacher’s kids, naturally meditate without being told or even aware of it. They just get quiet and calm and just do it. It’s kinda cool. However they seem to outgrow it (dang!) Cats meditate all the time, and no, it’s not sleeping. Grown ups meditate when they watch tv and just stare at the screen, but aren’t emotionally or mentally invested. They just zone out for a bit. However watching tv on purpose does not count in getting your practice in. It’s best to do something conscious and formal. Meditation is something we do naturally when we really need to and we don’t fight it. When you sit outside and just listen to the sounds outside or watch the sun rise or fall, or when you watch the fire crackle in the middle of winter, or just very quietly take a walk in nature, all of that is meditation.
You don’t have to sit down and try your hardest to become one with the universe. You can do this anywhere, in the car (not while driving!), in bed, while you are on break, even on the toilet if you can’t get 5 minutes to yourself. You can stand, lie down, or sit, but most people sit because it’s comfortable and you aren’t in danger of falling asleep. Of course you can also use meditation to help you sleep or calm down from a nightmare.
Meditation isn’t like some of the Force practices I teach, which can be shocking, inspiring, and mind blowing. You don’t always get an awesome realization every time, in fact you may get none and that’s ok. The point of meditation isn’t a quick fix to your issues. Like most exercises, this is a slow change that happens over time with daily practice. You may not notices the changes at first, but your family and friends will. You may start noticing how you react in different situations, handled drama better, or performed better at work. But one thing that is cool is when you are really deep into that meditation, time can fly, but that does take practice to get to that point. Another thing that can happen when finish meditating, sometimes the answer to a problem will pop up at you, just like taking a nap can help.
If you feel like you’ve tried meditation and it didn’t work, or you just don’t get it, you really aren’t alone. I’m not a huge meditation fan. In fact, I rarely practice it. I’m usually on the go, doing something, or reading, or teaching, or being smothered by cats. In fact before I moved to Utah, I rather had the idea that I hated meditation. It was boring. It was stupid. It was weird. Then my teacher commented one day I was being really peaceful and asked what was I doing? I shrugged and said I was just going back to a family winter practice of gathering around the fireplace, watching and listening to the fire in the fireplace. I have a gas fireplace and I was sitting in front of it, just watching the flames move, listening to the hiss of the gas, enjoying the heat. It turns out I found a meditation that felt natural, normal, and fun. So the moral of the story is if you are struggling with one form of meditation, try another. You are welcome to check with me to see if it counts.
During my research I found there are quite a few types of meditation, too many for me to research and explain, but here are a few of the more known ones. You can look each one up on how to do it
Benefits of Meditation
There are many many benefits of meditation. It’s funny how at least in America, meditation isn’t popular because we consider it “not christian” and yet pray is a form of meditation. Still, it’s a definite need for esp skills.
When I was thinking of this question my first answer was “because it’s good for you! Duh!” and then I told my ego that wasn’t a very good answer. lol. But seriously it’s very good for you. And when I did some research I decided to break up the reasons into three categories: Body, Mental, and Spiritual. And when I went to go find any reason I could find my first search on the wonderful internet showed me the MayoClinic website. I thought “wow, yeah that’s right. Science has done a LOT of studies to show the benefits of meditation” So here is what I found and can agree with.
Body: Meditation helps the following health problems
Anxiety disorders
Asthma (and other breathing problems)
Cancer (not a cure!)
Depression
Heart disease
High blood pressure
Pain
Sleep problems
Concentration
Tension
Headaches
Reduces your chance of sickness/boosts immune system
Helps with food cravings and can with lose weight
Helps you live longer
Mind you meditation is not a heal all solution. It can help, sometimes cure problems that are caused by stress, but I still strong recommend taking your medications and seeing your doctor or trained councilor. Sadly it won’t cure things like cancer, but it can help you cope with the pain and the emotional trauma. You can even stretch it to it will help with sex if you are calmer about fears and doubts.
And I will admit when I’ve had panic attacks, I’ll meditate because I can’t do with the terrible pain I get in my back/shoulders/chest. That calms down the body enough so I can look at WHY I’m panicking. This is were integration comes in very handy.
Mental: what I mean by that is your mental thoughts and emotions. We feel before we think (so fast we aren’t usually aware of it). So meditation can help with a lot of emotional problems such as rage, PTSD, Bi Polar, Depression, Anxiety/Panic attacks (I have personally used this myself), ADHD, mood swings, grief process, improves memory, even a tool in breaking addictions. It’s a way to stop, calm down, pay attention to what you are feeling, find out why, what triggered it, and then how to deal with it and move on.
Basically if you have an emotional day or a fight, meditation can help calm you down and make it so you can think and deal with problem. Finally there is Spiritual reasons to meditate. You will be able to feel the Force/energy more clearly and able to do the skills I teach better. You will find you have less issues with empathy/energy overloads You’ll find you can handle crowds and stressful situations better (don’t expect to be 100% at a car accident or anything) You can maintain your focus longer Will energize you. Your friends may notice a good change you in, improving your social life. And yes some girls like a cool calm guy. I can begin to teach you how to do a daily practice which helps with self progress You can understand what you are feeling/getting from the Force You can relax and overcome fears pertaining to the Force/energy (we all have them) You get out of your head, stop thinking, and start feeling. You can reflect on problems in your life and possibly find an answer. If you are stuck on a problem, taking a break and meditating, might just help you see from another angle to get to the solution. It might help you see what your personal problem is in a fight.