Meditation is one of the Five Principles of Yoga. It is the practice by which there is constant observation of the mind. It requires you to focus your mind at one point and stilling the mind in order to perceive the self. Through the practice of Meditation you will achieve a greater sense of purpose and strength of will. It also helps you achieve a clearer mind, improve your concentration, and discover the wisdom and tranquility within you.

Meditation is also one of the Eight Limbs of Yoga which leads to Samadhi or Enlightenment. Research shows that the practice of Meditation contributes to our physical and psychological well-being. It can reduce Blood Pressure and relieve stress and pain. Meditating also brings our mind to a level of consciousness that promotes healing or what is known as the alpha state. Achieving the alpha state can help decrease Anxiety, Depression and other Mental, Psychological, or emotional problems.

If you want more information on Meditation you can surf to our dedicated Meditation website www.abc-of-meditation.com. On www.abc-of-meditation.com. you will find lots of information on meditation, meditating, meditation techniques, meditation postures, meditation courses, meditation products, the advantages of meditation and a meditation forum.

Until recently the word "Meditating" only caused things like raised eyebrows, ideas of magical tricks and even feelings of irritation with most people. What many people do not realise is that Meditating deals with mental power and selfcontrol. People use Meditation to enjoy life better because they become more aware of things and more relaxed. People use Meditation to live less on the "automatic pilot", to live more in the NOW, in the present moment and to be more observant. Life is great, but we must learn to appreciate that. In our present society where life becomes busier and busier, our brain has to deal with a constant flood of impressions and we experience an increased longing for relaxation and rest. Meditation can help us a lot with this and it is no surprise that of late it has become trendy to meditate.

But what exactly is Meditating? Is it an experience, a technique or just an end in itself? In our opinion Meditating is any technique which enables us to relax our body and our mind and, besides, to free our mind of unnecessary thoughts and brainactivity. For us Meditating is not an end in itself or a special experience, but just a very efficient technique which helps us to control our mind and to relax our body. In general any form of Meditation rests on the following three principles:

In order to concentrate our mind we focus on one thing or object. This focus could be our breathing, a word that we repeat, sensations in our body or even our thoughts. When Meditating we often concentrate on our senses. When we smell, feel, listen or taste we escape from our puzzling thoughts and we live again in the now.

When our thoughts start to wander we take them back to our object of Meditation or focus. We do not try to hide our thoughts or suppress them. Fighting to bring rest to our mind has nothing to do with relaxing. The whole process looks like focussing a camera on an object. The object comes to the fore and all other things are present but they disappear into the background. Every time we are distracted by objects in the background we again focus on our object in the foreground. This process may be repeated an endless number of times during a Meditation session.

During our Meditating we ignore all irrelevant thoughts and sensations. When we meditate we still hear the sound of passing traffic, we still feel yesterday's hangover, we still think of the jobs we will have to do tomorrow, etc. The big difference is that these distractions do not disturb us any longer. During our Meditation we try not to judge, not to draw conclusions or to think of trivial matters. We accept the present moment as it is.