The power of meditation

Did you know that without moving a muscle, at any place, any time, anywhere, you have the tools to radically enhance your physical, mental and emotional states?

Meditation is an ancient universal system of knowledge. Approach to it varies but the basic principles remain.

The word meditation is used very freely and often out of context. It sounds cool right!

For most of us, meditation means concentration. The Sanskrit term for this is Dharana, the 6th limb in Patanjali’s 8 limb yoga system.

Through the lens of yoga, meditation is a process. You begin with concentration and then move through different levels of concentrative absorption to various phases of meditative states.

The first phase is often the most challenging – simply being able to concentrate and focus for a set period of time. Yet this initial phase brings great clarity and transformation.

Developing your power of concentration is the bedrock of meditation, making your mind bright and sharp.

The health benefits of meditation are vast (and backed through science). They include…

• Enhanced concentration, focus and performance
• Improved self awareness and self esteem
• Stress reduction
• Help with managing depression and anxiety
• Help with reducing and managing addictions and controlling pain
• Cultivating internal peace which can change your behaviour and in turn, how you react to others.

As well as employers appreciating the value and benefits of meditation in the workplace, it’s fantastic to see the education system increasingly adopting such practices, recognising the huge positive impact on the mental and physical health of children.

Meditation doesn’t need to be an independent practice and it can take many forms and approaches.

Through the schematics of yoga principles such as the Patanjali Yoga Sutras, the physical body is the first focus of concentration to better equip you to focus on the subtle and less tangible facets of your being such as emotional and mental states.

Meditative practices can be very simple, but having a little more context and understanding of why you do it can help make sense of the practice.

Meditation asks us to look within, to turn our attention and awareness to the inner world and landscape of our thoughts. The idea behind meditation is to gain control over this internal world, to find balance and peace. With meditation (as with all yoga practices) we work on ourselves, the task at hand is us. In an age of constant acceleration, concentration and meditation are vital.

Would you like to learn more and develop your own powers of concentration?

Dory Walker has developed a 5 week course focusing on a specific area of meditative practice. It starts Tuesday 18th January 2022. In the course you will…

• Explore your subtle anatomy with meditation techniques from the Tantras
• Invigorate your morning practise or initiate a morning meditation Sadhana
• Systematically explore the chakras, three main Nadis, inner psychic pathways, the micro and macro cosmic spaces you inhabit with breath and mantra.

This is a live at home (online) course format and is accompanied by weekly theoretical video content and audio practices to support and give context to the live practice sessions.

Before the course starts you’ll receive an introductory recording to set the scene for the first live session. The live sessions are early morning, a good time to practice before the distractions of the day. The sessions are recorded in case you can’t make the lives and to be re-watched to further practice.

You’ll have access to the live recordings and supporting resources for 6 weeks from the start of the course. The cost is £77.

Give yourself this gift and benefit your life physically, emotionally, energetically and mentally.

Book through Dory’s website here

Categorised in: Meditation, Relaxation, Well-being, Yoga