Meditation originated in India and has been practised for thousands of years in Asia, but people from all backgrounds now experience its benefits.
Meditation is a way for people to explore their own spirituality. At a time when many people are disillusioned with many aspects of the world, meditation offers us a method to enter our own inner world, and experience spirituality directly and gradually this leads us to discover that our own consciousness is infinite. This is why the goal of meditation is sometimes described as ‘Self Realisation’ i.e. to realise who we really are at the core of our being. The philosophy of yoga says there are two different levels to our inner self: our mental or emotional self and our spiritual self.
The mental self is sometimes called the individual mind. It is limited because it is strongly associated with our limited physical body and is the cause of the feeling “I am this individual person” – our ego. But our real sense of self-awareness comes from our connection to a wider, subtler form of consciousness. Yogic philosophy says there is a reflection of an infinite, all knowing form of consciousness within our minds. This Infinite Consciousness is unchanging and eternal, and is at the core of our true spiritual ‘Self’.
To many the word yoga just means a series of physical exercises stretching and tying our bodies into various positions. But these physical postures are only one aspect of yoga, known as ‘asanas’. The physical postures of yoga are practiced for their health benefits, and because they help to prepare the body for meditation. The word ‘yoga’ actually means union between the individual self and Infinite Consciousness. Meditation is the most important practice in the yoga system and is the means by which this merger or union is achieved. So yoga is a system or science that enables an individual to develop themselves physically, mentally and spiritually, and meditation is the practice that makes the mental and spiritual development possible.
Science is most commonly defined as the investigation or study of nature through observation and reasoning, aimed at finding out the truth. The term science also refers to the organised body of knowledge humans have gained by such research.
Since the yogic approach to spirituality uses both observation and reasoning to approach the inner truth, the tradition of yoga constitutes one of the most ancient forms of knowledge in the world.
The central idea of spirituality is that Infinite Consciousness is the ultimate reality and is thefeore common to most oriental and some occidental forms of philosohy.
With time your meditation will develop vast understanding of areas that could be defined as spiritual e.g. a feeling of connectedness, oneness, happiness and joy and with continued practice these feelings increase and benefits all of our lives.