Meditation

Meditation is a form of mental discipline that encompasses a wide range of spiritual and/or psychophysical practices, each emphasizing different goals.

These goals include:

• Achievement of a Higher State of Consciousness
• Greater Focus
• Creativity
• Self-awareness
• More relaxed and Peaceful Mind State
• Mental Clarity and discipline
• Harmony
• In the Moment self inquiry and living
• Achieving a greater sense of Truth
• Achieving Longevity
• Achieving a higher state of Enlightenment
• Lowering Blood pressure
• Improving Cardiovascular Health
• Improving Internal Physiology
• Improving Metabolism
• Improving Balance and Reflexes
• Stress Reduction for chronic or terminal illness patients to reduce complications associated with increased stress
• Improving Immune System
• Establishment in the essential nature of the Self
• Improving Brain Chemistry

Recognized forms of Meditation include:

• Qi Gong
• Taoist Meditation
• Yoga

Yoga

Yoga refers to traditional physical and mental disciplines originating in India. The object of Yoga is to lengthen life and vital energy through, in part, focus on breathing. Yoga accomplishes extended life, in part, by living within the five 'Observations': (i) purity, (ii) contentment, (iii) austerity, (iv) study, and (v) surrender to god.

Yoga teaches five 'Abstentions' (i) non-violence, (ii) non-lying, (iii) non-covetousness, (iv) non-sensuality, and (v) non-possessiveness.

Yoga is often accomplished in a sitting position with focus on some of the following: (i) Withdrawal of the sense organs from external objects, (ii) Fixing the attention on a single object, (iii) Intense contemplation of the nature of the object of meditation, and (iv) Merging consciousness with the object of meditation.

In Yoga, breathing control techniques are used to control the movement vital energies within the body, which is said to lead to an increase in vitality and Longevity in the practitioner.