WESAK 2008 - New Age Festival of Spiritual Unity and Blessings
Lectures, Teaching & Meditation On 17th,18th May 2008,9:30 am to 5:30 pm
venue: The auditoriam of the Indian Society of International Law, opposite the supreme Court 9, Bhagwan Dass Road, New Delhi.
Moon Light Meditation
19th May 2008, 6:30pm to 9:30pm Venue:97-A Eastern Avenue, Sainik Farm,New Delhi. For Reg:Poonam Sharma: 919313034752,Snigdha Nanda: 919818291375. More Detail>>
When we pursue happiness, it eludes you. However, when you recognise that happiness is the natural state of the soul, all you need is to eliminate all that comes between your happiness and you.
It was not till
the 20th century that a need for the creation of secular forms of popular meditative
techniques began to be felt. But for the most part these New Age meditative systems
were little more than rehashed versions of older techniques, which had been extracted
from their religious contexts. Transcendental Meditation (TM), as propagated by
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, is one such version, which
grew out of the Hindu practice of 'naam japa' or 'yoga japa' during
the 1960's.
Existent techniques of meditation can be categorized under two fairly
broad sections—Zen-based
forms, which are more "insight"-oriented and Hinduism-based
forms, which are largely "concentration"-oriented. Most New
Age techniques fall into either of these categories.
Concentrative meditation focuses the attention on the breath,
an image, or a sound (mantra), in order to still the mind and allow
a greater awareness and clarity to emerge.
The simplest form of concentrative meditation is to sit quietly and
focus the attention on the breath. Yoga
and meditation practitioners believe that there is a direct correlation
between one's breath and one's state of the mind. For example, when
a person is anxious, frightened, agitated, or distracted, the breath
tends to get shallow, rapid, and uneven. On the other hand, when the
mind is calm, focused, and composed, the breath is slow, deep, and regular.
Focusing the mind on the continuous rhythm of inhalation and exhalation
provides a natural object of meditation. As you focus your awareness
on the breath, your mind becomes absorbed in the rhythm of inhalation
and exhalation. As a result, your breathing will become slower and deeper,
and the mind becomes more tranquil and aware.
Transcendental Meditation or yoga nidra
(popularized by the Bihar School
of Yoga), which owe its origin to ancient Hindu meditative techniques,
aim towards a totally detached frame of mind. These forms encourage
the practitioner to retreat within the inner-self, into the "real" world,
away from the "illusions" (maya) of outside influences. Meditative
practices like Mantrayoga, for example, induces the mind
to concentrate on a sacred sound by ritualistic chanting, until it attains
the trance-like state of samadhi
(a state of mind, where it is only responsive to subjective impressions).
Mindfulness meditation involves opening the attention to become aware
of the continuously passing parade of sensations and feelings, images,
thoughts, sounds, smells, and so forth without becoming involved in thinking
about them. The meditator sits quietly and simply witnesses whatever goes
through the mind, not reacting or becoming involved with thoughts, memories,
worries, or images. This helps to gain a more calm, clear, and non-reactive
state of mind.
Zen-based forms like Thich
Nhat Hanh's (the France-based Vietnamese Zen master) mindfulness
meditation or vipassana,
which was promoted by S.N.
Goenka, concentrate more on the present, the here and now. This is
accomplished by non-judgmentally observing the breath and the sensations
in the body very keenly. The objective is to attain perfect concentration
without blocking out outside distractions. To reach an ideal state of
equanimity and objectivity.
But whether one adopts the method of the yogi, oblivious to the
external world, or that of the Zen meditator, keenly attuned to his environment—the
idea is to tap those vast resources of energy and enlightenment inherent
in all of us. To effortlessly find within, what we had been unsuccessfully
trying to discover without. That, in essence, is both the art and the
science of meditation.
