The State Of Relaxed Awareness And The Benefits Of Meditation Practice On The Brain

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The State Of Relaxed Awareness:

Meditation is a state of effortless awareness of our true nature, the Pure Consciousness. One can be mindful and meditative while eating fresh food, while taking a walk and also while spending time in the presence of loved ones.

When we’re in a state of relaxed or effortless awareness in all areas of our lives, we don’t see duality in things. We are not hyper aware of everyone and everything as distinctly different than us.

Just look at your hand for instance. Wiggle your toes. Until I brought up their topic were you aware of them as a separate consciousness?

A fish spends all its life moving here and there, trying to get to the sea. But, its already in the sea, it’s a part of it. Non duality is that, realizing that all of us are nothing but an integral part of this world and not separate from it.

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The Brain On Meditation:

The Amygdala gets smaller and its activation reduces because of the daily practice of meditation. We get better at handling feelings of stress, fear and anxiety as our brains don’t get hijacked into the Limbic system’s flight, fight or freeze responses. Instead, we start engaging our superior Prefrontal Cortex (PFC) to make better and appropriate decisions.

During meditation, there’s increased grey matter density in the PFC. The PFC controls our memory and decision making. We develop heightened awareness and become introspective, while we understand that we’re privileged. We get better at thinking and we can start making decisions quickly. We also find ourselves calm and focused as we continue to keep up with the practice.

The Corpus Callosum increases in density and connectivity with trained meditators. Thereby increasing the communication between the left and right frontal cortex.

Meditation Meme

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Silence And Letting Go:

Why seek peace and bliss in a small window of our day instead of making it a part of our existence? That is why Meditation can be a way of life, not just a 20 minute chore you do once a day.

The best time to meditate is right after waking up as the brain is in theta rhythm, still tuned into our inner world. At that time, our brain tissue is also very malleable. Once you control and pause your external stimuli of notifications, pings and conversations, you can allow your focus to turn inward.

Meditation doesn’t mean you have to qualify your thoughts as good or bad. You just need to realize that you’re different from your thoughts and let go.

Sensations, perceptions, and feelings and thoughts – let them all come up. All you simply have to do is to allow them to pass. After all, it’s called meditation practice and not perfection.

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Meditation As A Daily Practice:

There are many different varieties of meditation. There’s the breathing, the visualization and the mantra chanting types. But the bottom line is what works for you personally is always the best for you.

Imagine the gap between an inbreath and an outbreath. The place where there’s nothingness must be our destination each time. A few of us will be lucky enough to find enlightenment as an awareness of the interpenetration of time and space.

Prime yourself with these three thoughts before you start meditating.

1. Belief in yourself.
2. Belief in power of positivity.
3. Radical forgiveness. Letting go of judgement towards yourself and others.