Meditation is often visualized as an Eastern tradition where the person sits in a circle surrounded by candles and chanting. Currently, meditation and its benefits are recognized and are far from what we had in mind before. Aside from the calming effect that it could bring, meditation is often said to be a path to awaken the spirit and start the journey towards spiritual awakening.

Meditation has different schools. Each school would have its own thought about meditation. There are also different techniques for meditation and it can also be classified based on their focus. There are meditative techniques that focus on a field or a background perception, while there are others that focus on a specific object.

Meditation is used to calm the mind and relax the body. Tension, stress, and anxiety can be relieved by performing simple techniques. Aside from the inner peace that meditation brings, it can also improve the body’s health as a whole. It is also a great way of improving your concentration. There are studies showing the relation between meditation and other concentration exercises with the performances of athletic and sports professionals.

Health benefits of meditation would include better circulation, a deeper level of relaxation, an increase in exercise tolerance among heart patients, regularizing blood pressure, reduces anxiety attacks and muscle tension, helps against allergies, arthritis, and shows significant help for those who are recovering from operation or surgery.

With this concentration process, you get to listen to the inner self and separate from the pressures of daily life. Understanding the inner self would lead to the understanding of our higher self. This would increase our knowledge of how the higher self unites with the universe. In meditation, you get the chance to tap into your inner self and get in touch with how it sees your life. Getting in touch with the inner self will provide guidance towards our happiness and fulfillment.

There are religions that advocate the use of meditation to reach enlightenment. As mentioned, there are different schools of thought and focus that each religion adapts. But the method or the technique used is not as important as the underlying concept that is behind meditation.

Meditation is about listening to the inner self, therefore it has very much to do with controlling your attention and focusing. When your mind is in a meditative state, many feelings can come forward, especially the feeling of bliss. Bliss is referred to as a natural state of the soul that cannot be experienced easily in daily life. During this meditative state, spirituality and also the mind expands its consciousness and understanding of the universe. Destructive thinking and behavior brought about by the materialistic and fast-paced world can be flushed away by focusing more on your spirituality.

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A deeper understanding and connection would be felt with a power much greater than us. This they say would be what would link us to the Divine. Attaining this mental state in mediation could be compared to a spiritual awakening, where the body and the mind can fully understand what cannot be seen or touch in the material world.