The Global Movement Of Mindfulness: Celebrating World Meditation Day

Meditation has immense benefits on the physical and mental health and wellness of an individual. What is meditation? Meditation is an ancient practice that involves focusing an individual’s attention on the present moment, to focus in the ‘now’. Meditation has its deep roots in the ancient Yogic practices and has also been prescribed in the texts of Sanatana Dharma, the eternal philosophy that is the basis of Spirituality in the east. Even though the concept of meditation and the art of stilling the mind and entering into a state of consciousness was originated and propounded in the eastern spiritual philosophy, today, meditation is embraced worldwide, transcending its spiritual origins to become a universal tool for personal well-being and mental health.

Meditation is a practice of mindfulness, focused attention and concentrated thought that results in mental clarity, emotional calmness and physical relaxation. Regular meditation has a great ability to reduce stress, improve focus and balance, alleviate anxiety and depression and also improve the quality of sleep of an individual contributing to better physical health including lowering blood pressure and in some cases, managing pain. What is mindfulness? How can one practice mindfulness?

To understand mindfulness, we must first understand the mind. What is the mind? Human beings are usually in a state of mind and mind is nothing but a bundle of thoughts. The mind is the biggest enemy of peace, calm and bliss that one can have but human beings don’t realize this and treat their mind as a king. On an average, a human being is bombarded with an array of thoughts by their mind. The mind can also be compared to a monkey that keeps jumping from one thought to another, thereby not letting one live in peace. One must understand that the monkey mind will destroy their peace and will create chaos instead of calm in their lives. The monkey mind bombards a person with an average of 50 thoughts per minute, resulting in about 50,000 thoughts in a day and most of these thoughts would be negative ones. This is the average MTR or Mental Thought Rate of an individual and this what results a human being to be engulfed in the 14 monsters created by the mind – fear, worry, stress, anxiety, regret, shame, guilt, anger, hate, revenge, jealousy, pride, greed and selfishness. So what is the solution to this monkey mind? It is to flip from a state of mind to a state of consciousness or mindfulness. And one can achieve this state of Consciousness or mindfulness through meditation.

As simple as it may seem or sound but meditation is not easy. It is to still the mind. It need not necessarily be done by sitting with an erect spine and sitting cross-legged but it is observed that when the body is still and straight, one has a higher chance of observing their thoughts and stilling the mind too. Stilling the mind is simply observing the mind and the thoughts thrown in by it. When one starts observing the thoughts, the mental rate dips from 50 to 40 to 30 and so on, till it is one thought at one time. When an individual reaches this state where he has only one thought occupying him at one time, he is in a state of Consciousness or Mindfulness or Awareness. The names are different but they essentially, mean the same. In this state of Consciousness, the intellect shines and one discovers the power of discrimination. One can discriminate his thoughts from right and wrong and he can realize the profound truths about life. This is also the state of Enlightenment and the person who is in Consciousness of the Truth experiences SatChitAnanda or Eternal Bliss in Truth Consciousness. Hence, meditation is that powerful tool that can take one to a state of Consciousness and help alleviate all the monsters created by the mind.

Declaring a day dedicated to an eastern spiritual tool such as meditation by a global forum such as The United Nations means that the benefits of this ancient practice is now recognized globally. This is a global movement of mindfulness. One must celebrate this day by meditating, being in Consciousness or at least trying to embark on their journey of Spirituality, Mindfulness and Self-Realisation by this beautiful method of meditation.

AiR Atman in Ravi

Guest Author Spiritual Leader and Founder of AiR Institute of Realization and AiR Center of Enlightenment