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Meditation as a Survival Tool
By Ken Andert, Licensed Clinical Social Worker.
I often ask my clients the following question: “Are you meditating?” or “How is your meditation going?” I do this because I know that meditation, along with the other work that we do together and that you pursue on your own, is the key that unlocks the door to peace of mind. Peace of mind allows for a life to be lived authentically. When we meditate we find that we are not the mind’s prisoner.
I consider meditation to be a tool for survival. Find out the benefits that meditation offers each one of us:
1. As your meditation deepens the distance between the mind and you widens. This distance allows for a deeper relaxation into the present moment and places you in charge of living. You realize that you are not your mind but rather that the mind is a tool to be used but doesn’t have to “run the show.” This is a relief!
2. Healing of old stories that the mind has kept you trapped within is possible. This happens because you are no longer the stories themselves, but the observer of them, and can choose to be some of them but not others. Meditation is a tool for survival, your survival beyond the tyranny of the mind. Once the key has been turned and the doorway to freedom opened other realizations are possible. These realizations are about yourself and the world and could not be perceived before.
3. Resistance to meditation is a product of the ego–an ego/mind that is afraid of change, that becomes anxious when the possibility of change is recognized. So, it begins to tell stories. It tells you that you don’t have time to meditate, don’t know how to meditate, that meditation is a waste of time, that you don’t know anyone else who meditates, that a friend of yours meditated for a while and they seen the same to you, that . . . Don’t let the mind get away with these stories. Tell the mind, “never mind”!
“When you meditate you discover over and over again that you are not a prisoner of your mind.”
–Andrew Cohen
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4 comments
add your comment »Moreover, I agrew with Andrew Cohen not only because he has a book out on Christian Meditation, and I purchased it, but the man is "in touch", much of his work has been put to the test and proves to be valid.
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As you like it, play on words as you please. As one with a previous wandering mind, meditation has been a gift for me. Yes, mind is an instrument to use. But can I tell you if you don't find a method of taming it, it will take you places you don't hardly need to go? Agree or not, an untamed mind is a potential dangerous thing. This stuff about meditating to find yourself, I am not familiar. But I do know when the breath is observed through meditation, and words such as "LOVE", and "PEACE" are meditated on the endorphins are activated while leaving an emotional state equivalent to a natural high.
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“When you meditate you discover over and “When you meditate you discover over and over again that you are not a prisoner of your mind.”
–Andrew Cohen
These so-called spiritual teachers are always in confusion, when they talk about meditation, awareness, consciousness, why?
Because their spirituality based on knowledge and information gathered from scriptures of so many religions and enlightens masters. This is very easy to observe what Andrew Cohen is saying. As one discover him that he is not a prisoner of mind in meditation. Very negative approach. May be he must be prisoner of his mind.
Mind is an instrument to use. There is no need to go against.
As if An artist has to discover that his hands are not prisoners of him because these hand are destroying all the canvas.
When you meditate you discover yourself. The center, where all movement stops. Mind has a center, body has a center, heart has a center, and everything which exists has a center. Meditation is nothing but a technique to reach that center.
Sit down before facts like a child, and then only meditation descends where there is no prison and no prisoners.
flag as inappropriate
why is this inappropriate?
“When you meditate you discover over and “When you meditate you discover over and over again that you are not a prisoner of your mind.”
–Andrew Cohen
These so-called spiritual teachers are always in confusion, when they talk about meditation, awareness, consciousness, why?
Because their spirituality based on knowledge and information gathered from scriptures of so many religions and enlightens masters. This is very easy to observe what Andrew Cohen is saying. As one discover him that he is not a prisoner of mind in meditation. Very negative approach. May be he must be prisoner of his mind.
Mind is an instrument to use. There is no need to go against.
As if An artist has to discover that his hands are not prisoners of him because these hand are destroying all the canvas.
When you meditate you discover yourself. The center, where all movement stops. Mind has a center, body has a center, heart has a center, and everything which exists has a center. Meditation is nothing but a technique to reach that center.
Sit down before facts like a child, and then only meditation descends where there is no prison and no prisoners.
flag as inappropriate
why is this inappropriate?