(Below is a continuation of the post Nurturing Peace Through Yoga & Meditation)
I think you have answered your own question. So it is not a question anymore!
See, with a few minutes of meditation, you are able to relax. And when you relax, you can handle problems in a much better way; unless you are being threatened with a gunpoint right at you. Then you can’t say, 'Wait a minute, I will close my eyes and meditate'. It is not possible.
But fortunately, when you are not in that extreme kind of situation, there are three things one can do:
1. Look back in life, and realize that you have had many such situations. It is not for the first time. Many stressful events have happened in your life, and you have overcome them all, and you are still alive. Somehow nature has helped you move. When you realize this then your perspective changes and you feel, 'Okay, let me take this challenge'.
So faith in yourself, or faith in the spirit, or faith in the divine can put your mind at rest
2. Invoking confidence within you.
Do you know the definition of stress? It is lack of confidence in yourself, lack of confidence in the people around you, and lack of confidence in your own abilities. These three things can give rise to anxiety
3. Meditation and breathing techniques. If you are a technical person who does not believe in anything, techniques do work
Body mind and spirit is already coordinated. That is how we are here, and that is why we are listening and understanding. If there is no coordination between them, we would be gone. Body will be under the ground, spirit will be somewhere else and mind somewhere else.
They are all together, we simply have to recognize it. For this, take a couple of days off. I would recommend everyone to take at least four to five days off in a year and go on silent retreat, be with the nature, meditate little longer. Right food, right amount of sleep and proper amount of meditation.
Usually we do this silent retreat and meditation retreat for five days. It can recharge your batteries for one year. After a year you can again come back and charge your batteries. You can even do it four times a year.
When we are so busy in day-to-day life and we cannot meditate every day, at least we should do this. Charge our batteries once every three to four months.
You can through our research work. AIMS (All India Institute of Medical Sciences) and also NIMHANS (National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences) in Bangalore, they have published papers on this. They have given all the scientific data on how Sudarshan Kriya and meditation can be substituted for medicines in case of depression and suicidal tendencies. And personally if you ask me, I have on ground experience of thousands of people coming with broken hearts, or with depressed and going back feeling much better in just five days, after doing the program.
Yes, depression is always clinical depression. It is in the mind. The clinical depressions have been treated at NIMHANS (National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences).
Have you heard about this institute? It is a premier institute based in Bangalore. Also AIMS (All India Institute of Medical Sciences) recently conducted a seminar where 600 doctors presented papers on the effects of breathing techniques and meditation on various diseases, such as diabetes, cholesterol, heart conditions, depression, and many other neurological conditions.
As a layman, though I have a doctorate degree, but it is only an honorary doctorate, I am not very much qualified to talk about that, but cortisones in the system reduce, stress hormones reduce in the body while meditating. It also increases positive energy, so pressure goes away.
You know, I get about seven to eight hundred emails every day where people share the healing that they have undergone. Not just in India, right from Mongolia, Japan, to Argentina.
I think here in US also they have done the research in Harvard University, The University of Wisconsin and The University of Pennsylvania. Also University of Oslo has done some research. Dr. Farid from University of Oslo, who has studied genealogy has said that meditation has an impact on our genes. It is interesting. You may like to contact Professor Dr. Farid in the Oslo University.
The biggest problem is that we try to eliminate thoughts, and we think that we should have no thoughts in the mind. Meditation is not concentration. Unfortunately many people give you this idea that meditation means that you need to focus your mind, and get rid of other thoughts, and keep only positive thoughts,. No, meditation is an art. It is a way to make the mind relax, and for that there is no effort involved. You can talk to one of our teachers.
