The premise of meditation is the very essence of simplicity. Unencumbered by complication, successful meditation hinges on letting go of thoughts, emotions and strivings. Instruction in its application is often minimal because the more you are not doing the better you are meditating. With the reduction of layers of sophistication and mental wanderings, meditation takes us to a place of inner stillness and a strangely fulfilling emptiness. It carries us inside ourselves and the deeper the silence the greater the benefits.

Since meditation is fed from springs of silence and simplicity, I find it oddly paradoxical that its practice applied in my life for the last two decades has reaped such a complex harvest. From doing something that the outer world would characterize as suspiciously like not doing much at all, how could it offer such multifaceted benefits? For I find that in my life meditation plays the role of teacher, ethicist, protector, tour guide, healer, friend and minister not strictly in that order. These rich benefits fill needs inside me that no single individual ever could. Instead of saying it takes a village we could say it takes meditation because of all it offers.

I believe that this bountiful harvest inside meditations emptiness is linked to meditations ability to foster spirituality and inner communion with God. From the foundation of inner meditative silence, space is reserved in my life to hear the inner voice and wisdom coming from a source much greater than my own frail and mistake-prone ego. During meditation, my life intertwines with God and because of this deeper divine communion, meditation carries wisdom on its coattails.

This wisdom coming forth from inner stillness has expressed itself in several ways. Like a tour guide, it opens up inner vistas that remain invisible when my awareness remains on a surface ordinary level cluttered with internal mental chatter. Like a teacher, new ideas and creative solutions to problems come forward while I meditate. Like a minister, meditation often leads me to discover passages in scripture of different religions of the world. Like an ethicist, meditation invariably exhorts me to forgiveness and cautions me not criticize others when I can keep more than busy with my own self-improvement.

Like a healer, it reduces stress and produces scientifically proven physiological benefits such as lowering blood pressure, cholesterol and muscle tension. Like a protector, I have heard inner warnings while meditating. In one instance, I felt urged while meditating to find a new apartment prior to my outer knowledge that burglers were breaking into the building where I lived. In another instance, meditation carried the inner message to look for a new job prior to finding out that my area at work was targeted for downsizing. Lastly, like a lifelong friend, the inner communion with God while meditating has engendered a feeling of self-acceptance and unconditional love towards myself and the world around me.

I know of no other element in my life that makes easy work of serving so many purposes. Good marriages usually last precisely when one doesnt seek to meet all needs only from ones spouse. School teachers know they cannot accomplish their job without a students needs also being served by parents and other caretakers. In virtually all aspects of society, specialization and compartmentalization abounds. Only in meditation can we find something that rises to the task of being all things to all people. While acting in myriad ways, meditation rhymes with wisdom and offers the curious paradox that in some instances less is truly more than most.

Sharani Robbins has studied meditation under the guidance of Sri Chinmoy since 1985. Sharani is an accomplished photographer and writer, contributing several articles to Inspiration Letters an ezine of the Sri Chinmoy Centre.

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