Prayer involves cogitation (thinking). To pray is to entreat or implore and is often used as a means of introducing a question, a request, or plea addressed to a deity either, on the behalf of the person praying, or on behalf of of another person, institution or city, country, nation, etc. I do not pray as I do not believe that deities of any kind actually exist; I meditate.
Meditation does not involve cogitation at all. Meditation is the opposite — it’s non-thinking — it’s just being. Meditation does not seek for information or make inquiries. It does not ask that a wish or desire be granted; it does not seek intervention on the mediator’s behalf, or the behalf of another person, institution or city, country, nation, etc.
The meditative state is achieved by stilling of the mind and body, becoming aware of vital stillness, and hearing within that stillness. It is the stillness of being naturally present before you become attached to thoughts and things; before you identify with thought-feeling-reaction.
Here are some ways you can practice meditation every day on your own, whenever you choose. Take a few minutes or as much time as you like.
Blue sky mind
During meditation one turns the light of their consciousness inward instead of always running out after things. Practice means that everything you do, you act from Blue Sky Mind. You don’t run off with your delusions when they arise. You visualize a blue sky and view all thoughts, concerns, attachments and associated emotions as clouds floating through your blue sky and gradually your brain stops generating them.
When “clouds” enter again you remain still and detached returning to Blue Sky Mind, and as you spend more and more time there, eventually that becomes your place of residence. At this point it feels like a true turn-around has occurred, one with entirely different quality of being — just being.
This turn-around occurs when all the things associated with “self” (i.e. the ego) like desire, greed, anger, hate, etc. dissolve. Then the mediator experiences that there is no “self”; there is no distinct being that is separate from the universal stream of pure consciousness.
Why meditate?
Often we feel the need to find some tranquility in the otherwise frenzied experience we define as life. We need to step away — find some peace so we can let go of our daily worries — cleanse them from our beings.
We use meditation to reach a state of peaceful and mindful thought. Like stepping into a forest, meditation will teach you that calmness can surround you and fill your senses. This serenity allows us to leave everything else behind and ease our minds and bodies so that we can take life on again with a fresh and more peaceful approach. — Patsy Grey
Benefits of Meditation
- reduces blood pressure
- relaxes the nervous system
- improves the immune system
- lowers oxygen consumption
- decreases the respiratory rate
- improves the blood circulation
- alleviates headaches and migraines
- reduces the pre-menstrual and menopausal symptoms
- resting in a conscious state of natural being assists generation of peaceful and positive thoughts throughout the day
My meditation practice
I sit to meditate everyday, usually more than once a day, and I also do a walking mediation once each day. In between these times I endeavor to be remain in a state of meditative mindfulness.
Related posts found in this blog:
Meditation Practices
Questions for Readers:
- Do you pray?
- Do you meditate?
- Do you do both?
To me meditation is a form of self understaanding and bringing yourself to consciousness………..by the love your site :)
1. Yes. i’am a moslem and do prayer 5 times a day.
2. Shalah give good effect as meditation.
3. Yes.
Do you pray? – Yep
Do you meditate? – Yep
Do you do both? – Yep (The Deluxe Supplemental Coverage Package always works for me)
~Nards~
Thanks for the post and the information on this blog.
1. Of course I pray and do believe in God. My belief in a higher being answers a lot of life’s questions. Why are we here? Where will we go or what will we become when we leave the Earth.
2. I also Meditate. It is healthy to sit in silence and think. Visualizing is the better term. I am able to map out my future by pre-creating it during my visualizing time. If it’s wealth, happiness, a new car, whatever, I create it before it happens. I always do it first thing in the morning and probably the most important part of it all is to express gratitude for what I do have before I start visualizing about what I don’t have.
3. Doing both is definitely good. They don’t contradict one another but go perfectly together. Praying is a conversation with another powerful being. Meditating is a conversation with myself and my atmosphere.
It always interests me when someone does not believe in a higher being, God. In your belief, what happens when you die, which, I am sorry for the loss of your dog.
Fantastic post! I recently began meditating and find it vital to give me a breathing space in a busy life. I don’t always give myself this gift and on the days I don’t practice I notice a real difference to my stress levels. It’s about the best thing I can ever do for myself (and those around me!) and I think I need to start trying to do it every day.
Firstly I must say I love your post, you have discribed the experience of meditation perfectly.
I’m not religious so no, I don’t pray. I try to meditate once a day too, it is wonderful.
1. Yes I pray. Though I have no idea who’s hearing it or will it be answered… just keeping the old habit I got used to esp. before going to sleep. But then, praying calms me.
2. Yes I meditate. I chant a japanese buddhism mantra silently while facing a blank wall…calms me as well.
3. :)!
Great post..
1. Yes, as a christian I do pray. Sometimes (mostly) I doubt prayers too but i think it is the strength of one’s faith that creates a prayer. Is Prayer an act of meditation?
2. Yes, I do meditate. Meditation is an art of living.
3. Yes,
1. No. One, because I don’t believe in an answerer of prayers. And two, because I already have everything I want.
2. No, not in a formal way. It’s quite natural with me now to be in a relaxed and receptive state, looking and listening to the world around me. To live through my senses, and not ideas. I lead a very simple and unbusy life, intentionally so.
3.No.
I think just being (or not being) is the answer, as you suggest. Thinking just creates a bunch of imaginary problems.
I pray occasionally even though I’m not religious. It’s a habit reminiscent from when I was younger. I pray for comfort.
I would like to meditate though. I’ve tried before, but they were meager attempts.
<3 Lauren
I stood once and imagined everything – I put it all in one bundle and thought of it all as one thing.
And I asked myself whether on a balance of probabilities it was more likely that this everything simply existed – just of itself – or that God existed.
And when I thought of the stars and the galaxies and the stones in front of me all as one thing together, I thought it more likely that there is a God, because it didn’t seem very likely that everything simply ‘was’.
I like the story in the Old Testament of what happens after the flood. Noah is berating himself for having not really believed there would be a flood – arguing to himself that if he had truly believed he would have been more powerful in convincing people, and he would have saved more people.
And he becomes a drunkard – full of guilt and self-pity. There is a part where one of his sons ridicules him for what he has become.
Then his sons are debating what the future will hold, and God talks to them and tells them that if they set up the institutions of social justice and social care he will come down and erect a tent around them.
I like the idea of God coming down into the world. The world is all we know – the rest we have to imagine or intuit.
But in the story of God talking to Noah’s sons, God can come into the world or remain out of it.
When I look at it like that, then a world with God out of it is a cold place, whereas a world with God in it is a warm place. I am not talking about a psychological state but a reality.
Well it could be poppycock – but it holds together as a thought. Or rather it raises a question – which is why the world exists. But that is explained as well.
Do I pray? I would say that praying does include all the things you described, but it is not just ‘to treat or implore’ It also includes just talking. And I sometimes find that I think about a thing and then when I have an understanding – I send it into the void to bounce it off God.
And I thank God, as well.
Who may be there, on a balance of probabilities.
I hope this helps.
Advantages of meditation and its benefits are wonderfully brought out in this post by you. Good. Belief in god makes it easier to meditate.
1. Nope–while I’m open the the concept of some kind of higher power beyond our comprehension, I think the idea of one that has human characteristics and “listens to” or “answers” prayers is based on a desire to return to the kind of security most of had as small children, thinking our parents were omnipotent.
2. Not nearly as much as I’d like to. With my attention-deficit issues, I find it extremly difficult.
3. Nope.