Almost every day new scientific research emerges to reveal what mystics and meditators have known for centuries—meditation improves our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being.  Let’s take a look at this phenomenon, examine the why and how, and find out how to amplify these benefits even more. 

Some of the Benefits of Meditation 

Studies have been done over the past 20 or more years that show that these, and many more conditions, respond to meditation.  For example, meditation: 

• Reduces risk of heart disease and stroke
• Decreases pain
• Improves focus, attention, concentration and multitasking ability 
• Improves focus, attention, concentration and multitasking ability
• Gives you mental strength, resilience and emotional intelligence
• Boosts happiness and optimism
• Reduces emotional eating
  

(See my book, The Amazing Benefits of Meditation on Amazon Kindle for a more detailed discussion.) 

Why Does This Happen? 

Scientists are less clear about the “why?” and “how?” meditation works than about the fact that it does.  This leaves to us who study the subject of meditation deeply and comb the writings of mystics, as well as personally research these questions, to develop our own answers.  

Many of the undesirable conditions listed above get started and become chronic because the ego/body/mind gets caught in a loop of cause, effect, cause, effect until a momentum gets generated that self-perpetuates the problem.   Conditions, like the ones listed above and others, respond, or more accurately, recede, by interrupting the flow of the condition with a pause and a break in the momentum of the condition.  

This is, of course, what meditation does.  It interrupts the ego/body/mind, especially the mind, in its relentless pursuit of thought, thought, thought, worry, worry, worry, and remembrances of past difficult situations.  Churning, churning, churning. 

This is the mind’s job, it seems, in times of threat.  Meditation interrupts this cycle, calms the mind, assuages the ego, and relaxes the body.  The whole system takes a bit of a break, and the body’s natural healing mechanism, which tends toward well-being, kicks in.  

Can This Benefit be Amplified? 

The next logical question is “Can the interruption of ‘the loop’ be amplified and made stronger”.  I think so. In fact, I think that is what Master Teachers who were healers did.  By amplifying their own healing energy, they were able to interrupt the flow of their patients’ conditions, allow Spirit to flow, and cause healing to occur. 

Of course, not all conditions respond to meditation, and modern medicine is needed.  Conditions from  a broken bone to a broken childhood may require the assistance of a trained medical expert.  Even here, though, from  my personal experience, mediation can be beneficial. 

My theory about that is that the right kind of meditation can cause the physical body, mental body and/or emotional body, when Spirit begins to flow, to increase our internal  rate of vibration and, thereby, raise the vibration of the effected element of the human system.  Again, interrupting the “loop” or improving the strength of the medical approach being used. 

For this reason, I always do a short meditation, a mindfulness exercise, the improve the efficacy of the medicine I might be taking for a short term or long-term condition.  I have the beginnings of macular degeneration, for example, and take eye medicine to address the problem medically.  Ever since I found out, and began my medicine/meditation routine, my condition has ceased to get worse per the ophthalmologist.  I usually accompany my pill swallowing by saying to myself, “Peace, be still”.     

Amplifying the Benefit of Meditation 

With that I mind I have developed the following guided healing meditation that has served me well.  It goes like this:

• I take a moment and a few deep breaths to allow yourself to slip into my Buddha Mind, my Christ Consciousness state of Awareness. 
• I visualize going into my Holy of Holies. I become aware of my Eternal Beingness of myself by simply saying, “I acknowledge my Eternal Beingness” and then get quiet for a moment.   
• Next, I state, “I also acknowledge that the condition I have (or the problem I am having)  has no power over me, other than the power I give it”.
• Then I begin breathing a series of deep breaths, saying on the Inbreath, “Illuminate”, experiencing my inner Higher Consciousness expanding and becoming illumined.  And then say, “Elevate” on the Outbreath, encouraging the illumined energy to amp up to a higher level of vibration.
• I continue to do this until I feel a little bit of a “release” or an extra strong exhalation involuntarily occurs, indicating that the cycle has been broken.  Sometimes it seems very appropriate to say “Ah, Amazing Grace” or “Thank you, oh my Soul”, an indication that Spirit has begun to flow and will do the work that It Will. 
• I do not, I repeat, do not, proscribe what that work should be, what condition should be altered, or what the outcome should be. I remind myself to “have no expectations”.  This keeps my ego/mind from becoming involved. I recognize that the momentum of the condition has been interrupted, even for just a moment, and that Spirit is involved and some shift, perhaps ever so slight, has occurred.
• I then take a couple of more Healing Breaths and return to the present moment.

All these steps comprise a pretty thorough healing process, of course.  There are times however, when I might just say to myself, in any moment I’m inspired to or feel in the need to, “Illuminate” on an Inbreath, and then “Elevate” on the Outbreath a time or two.   The “click” or “release”  I feel that internal “click” or “release” is the indication that Spirit has begun to do Its work. 

Conclusion 

Give these meditation techniques a try and see what you experience.  It may take you a while, and a number of tries, until the “release” happens.  These are not part of the technique that most meditation researchers use.  Instead, they mostly use a simple mindfulness meditation exercise in their studies. 

I have found, however, that the techniques mentioned above have an additional potency and are worth trying.  Do not use them solely, however, as a substitute for the  professional medical attention that may be needed when a problem arises.

What do you think?  Does these ideas resonate?  Have you used similar techniques?  Comment below.

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