Number 3 Meditation : Elevating Consciousness , Improving Health

Meditation is an ancient but simple cognitive technique that historically predates modern religions. The practice of meditation is associated with discrete changes in both psychophysiology and state of consciousness. This has lead to its use as both a spiritual technique in many religious traditions as well as a therapeutic intervention. Widespread adoption of meditation may ultimately contribute significantly to improvement in the quality of life in Western society. Meditation is most simply defined as the sustained control of mental attention in a relaxed and passive manner. The focus of attention may be on a single target such as the breath, a mantra or a visual point as in the case of so-called “concentrative” meditation, or it may be on the flow of sensation or thought in the present moment as in the case of mindfulness meditation. In either case, meditation is the antithesis of the typical ceaseless mental stream of ruminative thought. In this broad definition, meditation can also apply to any behavior in which the mind is so absorbed into/with something, that only the pure experience of the present moment exists. This state can be manifested in a deliberate and prescribed manner such as the formal practice of meditation and yoga. However, it can also come spontaneously for some in moments during the course of ordinary events when one is completely absorbed in something for an all-to-brief, fleeting moment a so-called peak experience. The practice of meditation has been shown to have discreet psychological and physiological effects. Benson has coined the term “relaxation response”, which refers to the coordinated psychophysiological response that is generated by meditation and a variety of other similar mind-body practices (Wallace, Benson, and Wilson, 1971; Benson, Beary, and Carol, 1974). The relaxation response is associated with an elevation of mood and well-being, a decrease in cognitive and emotional arousal and a reduction of physiological arousal in both the autonomic nervous system and the hypothalamic pituitary axis (Benson, 1983). Such psychophysiological changes are also consistent with the use of meditation as a spiritual practice to generate transformative, transcendent and unitive states of consciousness described so eloquently by saints and holy men and which underlie the philosophical discipline of mysticism. The first known archaeological evidence of the practice of meditation dates back to the Indus Valley civilization which ended no later than 1,500 B.C.E., and flourished for millennia before that time, in what is now Pakistan. Artifacts from the ancient cities of Harappa and Mohenjo Daro reveal images of postures synonymous with the practice of yoga and meditation (see www.harappa.com). The most famous of these, depicted on the cover of this issue, is a seal depicting a human figure seated in the cross-legged lotus yoga/meditation posture, with the heels inverted into the perineum, a well-known yoga meditation technique. Other artifacts from this civilization show sculptures and figurines which have been interpreted to depict the meditative practice of focusing the gaze upon the tip of the nose, the distention of the abdomen characteristic of the full yogic abdominal breathing technique (Rowland, 1953), and the adoption of postures suggestive of hatha yoga techniques (www.harrappa.com). The earliest clear textual description of meditative practice, and the associated transformation in consciousness associated with it, appears in ancient Indian texts which predate the advent of modern religions. In the Upanishads we find: As a fire without fuel becomes quiet in its place, thus do the thoughts, when all activity ceases, become quiet in their place...When a man, having freed his mind from sloth, distraction, and vacillation, becomes as it were delivered from his mind, that is the highest point...That happiness which belongs to a mind which by deep meditation has been washed clean from all impurity and has entered within the Self, cannot be described here by words; it can be felt by the inward power only...Mind alone is the cause of bondage and liberty for men; if attached to the world, it becomes bound; if free from the world, that is liberty. (Maitrayana Brahmana Upanishad, translation by Muller, 1884, pp. 332-334) In another passage, a direct analogy with the control of mental attention in meditation is made to the act of steering a horsedriven chariot in which the horses are the SPECIAL TOPICS: MEDITATION, CHANGES IN CONSCIOUSNESS, AND HEALTH