Sound Healing, Energy Healing, Meditation, Spiritual Healing/Growth, Personal Growth.

Meditation: Using A Mantra To Help You Meditate

by Dada Vedaprajinananday

These days whenever a politician repeats a promise over and over again commentators say that this promise has become a "mantra" for that politician. For the journalists, the word "mantra" means a meaningless phrase that is repeated endlessly. For yogis however, a mantra is a word or collection of words, which has the power of liberating a human being from all limitations.

How can the repetition of a word or a few words have the capacity to bring about such miraculous results? It is all based on a simple psychological principle, "as you think, so you become."

If you someone tells you "You're stupid," that's of course a bad insult and will hurt you. However if you start to think "I am stupid," and keep repeating this phrase over and over, then that is far worse. When someone tells you that you are stupid, then this is a negative outer-suggestion. When you start to think about it, then you are giving yourself, a negative auto-suggestion. If you keep thinking in a negative way, then your personal development will be harmed.

Meditation mantras have a positive meaning. They remind you that your true nature is something great: pure consciousness and boundless love. If you start to think about the best part of your being, you will begin to have more confidence in yourself and this will become apparent in your actions.

However, many people have read philosophical, spiritual or self-help books explaining these ideas, and yet they never realize these great truths in their everyday reality. It is not enough to just think about a good idea once, and then close the book. You need to think in a concentrated and systematic manner over a period of time in order to get results.

Meditation mantras have a special quality that helps in the task of concentrated, positive thinking: their very vibration has the capacity to concentrate and focus your mind. Some sounds, such as power drill breaking a pavement, can upset you greatly, while other sounds, like soothing music, can transport you to another world.

The syllables and words used in meditation mantras have been chosen according their sonic capacity, and they greatly aid the task of concentration and contemplation, as well as carrying a positive meaning.

In order to get the benefits from mantra meditation, you need to meditate regularly with a mantra that has a positive meaning and the capacity to help you concentrate. You need to do it on a regular basis, sitting silently two times a day for a period of 10 to 30 minutes.

It sounds easy, but the common experience of most people is that as you sit and try to think about one word or one phrase, your mind is quickly filled with many other thoughts; thoughts about work, financial problems, disputes with people and all kinds of other matters. When this happens, and it certainly will, then you have to bring your mind back to the mantra. Meditation is a process where you concentrate on the mantra and its meaning for as long as you can, and when you mind wanders, you bring it back.

Keep doing it, and you will attain an improved capacity to concentrate and deep inner peace.

It may still sound too good to be true, and some intellectuals scoff at the alleged power of a mantra. Once, a renowned Indian yogi came to America and delivered many lectures on this subject. In one of the lectures he was challenged by someone in the audience who said that it was not possible for a single word to deliver the results that the yogi promised. The yogi turned to the man, who was a distinguished professor and said "You fool!"

The professor turned red, and began to shout at the yogi, who calmly watched the professor unwind.

The yogi then addressed the professor and said: "Now can you understand the power of a single word? All I did was utter the word "fool" and your behavior was changed in an instant!.

About the Author
Dada Vedaprajinananda has been practicing and teaching yoga and meditation for the past 35 years. He is the webmaster of the Ananda Marga meditation society's website, and is the author of Start Meditation, Stop Smoking and Yoga Weight Loss Secrets.

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Meditation: The Art Of Seeking The Silence

by Saleem Rana

Within every obstacle there is an equivalent or greater benefit. ~ Napoleon Hill

How would it feel if you rose to each obstacle with calm determination and completely free of anxiety and depression...ready to face each challenge with a smile?

How would it feel to look in the mirror and see yourself as unstoppable, invincible, and even a force of nature?

This can be much more than an exercise in imagination. You can experience this level of personal power and the profound sense of accomplishment that comes with it--and you can accomplish it through meditation.

When you meditate you slow down all your autonomic responses. You cut the fight or flight switch. You watch your anxiety, and remain detached. You watch your depression, and remain apart. The one with the life issue, the one with the sorrow, is not the one who watches the play of emotions.

In meditation, a watcher personality emerges, a consciousness that transcends the world, a vast spaciousness, a void that is paradoxically full.

If your agitation is strong, you may have to sit for a while, then, slowly and inevitably, you're forced to lose your grip on panic.

When this happens, when you're no longer living the problem, something shifts inside you and you find yourself still enough to see your own greatness.

In this vast stillness of your own beingness, you can plant the seed of your new desire, and replace thesorrowful event with its exact opposite.

Every tragedy in our life is an invitation to expand beyond the limitations that it sets upon us, and what you find is that you are indeed unstoppable, invincible, and even a force of nature.