Over the years that I have meditated, changes have occurred in me that were so subtle that often I couldn’t detect them at all — though I did, of course, notice that everyday stresses seemed to bother me less. If someone offended me or was rude, instead of having it out — as I might have done in the past — I instinctively adopted an attitude that the matter could wait till the next day — and in most cases, by then the issue didn’t seem worth pursuing. People were nicer to me and everything came more easily. But all that felt like no big deal. It took the observations of others — family, friends, and colleagues — to show me how dramatically I had changed.
When I first decided to start meditating it was at a time in my life when I was in a state of deep depression after losing my dad. I was anxious, stressed, sleeping poorly, working 18 hours a day. On the one hand, I was fed up with my life, but and on the other hand an optimistic fiber in me wanted to get my life back on track. I still remember the day when I was deeply reflecting on my depressive state and demanded answers of my questions. I heard a voice say “meditate”. I looked around and found no one. I thought I was losing my mind. I immediately chalked it up to some woo- woo crap. But that wave of energy was strong that I could not ignore the calling. The next morning, I searched on youtube for guided meditations (See the links at the end of this page for the meditations that helped me).I was looking for a quick meditation 1- -20 minutes meditation as I wanted to get back to my work as soon as I am done with meditation. But that 20 minutes changed my life. It was total bliss. I did many guided meditations after that. But always made sure to stick to one at least for a week. After going through training in meditations, learning different types of meditations, I had another calling to spread awareness about meditation benefits and help people through my guided meditations.
What Meditation did to me??
Meditation helped me explore different layers of consciousness.
The practice of meditation is the practice of consciousness itself. Before going any further, I feel obliged to say that I have haven’t reached that summit of enlightenment (here I would like to refer to David Hawkins consciousness calibration level 1000 as the highest level of consciousness, which is enlightenment). In the book of Power vs Force, David Hawkins calibrate the different levels of consciousness based numerical chart starting at 20 (the lowest level of consciousness which is Shame), all the up to 1000 (the highest level of consciousness, which is Enlightenment.) See the chart below. What he describes is the thoughts we naturally engage with, determines the person’s level of awareness. Since everything starts in the mind, engaging in the lower levels such as shame (20) or apathy (50) we naturally resonate with people and emotions of that nature. A person who is in a content state of apathy, for example, is someone who feels hopeless and has no control over themselves. It is a state of mind nobody voluntarily chooses, such as depression.
I encountered many such events in my life that had caused anger, fear, guilt, shame, apathy, pride, anger, grief. With meditation, I was able to understand how emotions come and go like a passing wind. Instead of getting disturbed by these emotions, I reflected on each one of them and developed optimism, trust, and courage to address them and forgive myself and anyone involved in those situations. Forgiveness helped me release all the trapped emotions, limiting beliefs, past traumas, and helped declutter my mind. By doing meditation, I became aware of my thoughts, which dictates my mood, emotions, and behaviors. Through meditation, I was able to disidentify with unwanted, negative thought patterns I had embodied over the years, throughout life. With a clear unadulterated mind, I was able to contemplate on what I am grateful for in life and rejoice in my new understanding of blissful life and cultivate unconditional love for not just myself, but for everyone else.
Meditation helped me higher levels of emotional maturity, universal love, and mental purity
Meditation led me to embark on a Samudra Mathana journey. As with everything else in Hinduism (Sanatana Dharma), Samudra mathana is symbolic of the churn that happens within our minds as we embark on a journey to higher levels of emotional maturity, universal love, and mental purity.
The story of Samudra Manthan (churning of the ocean) appears in the Bhagavata Purana, the Mahabharata, and the Vishnu Purana, and explains the origin of amrita, the drink of immortality. As the Devas and Asuras (positives and negatives of one’s self ), churned the ocean of milk (the mind) for the nectar of immortality (self-realization) with Mount Mandara (concentration) resting on Vishnu’s Kurma Avtaar (withdrawing their senses using Vasuki (desire) as the churning rope, the first thing that came out, was the halahal poison (pain and suffering ) which had to be resolved for further progress. Lord Shiva consuming the Halahala poison educates us on how we should deal with this inner turmoil with courage, discipline, austerity, detachment, and total commitment. This story teaches us how to hold the poison of our inner selves only at a surface level, without letting the same get into our system or our mind, thereby affecting our entire life. This is exactly what meditation did to me.
The meditation process took me deep into my subconscious and brought to the surface all of the old junk that was hidden there. Unknowingly, I was going through a process of healing.
I took comfort in the fact that I was releasing and healing a lot of emotional baggage that had accumulated over the years. As difficult as it was at the time, I knew I would get through this and the benefits would be great.
Meditation helped me understand I am not my mind
I realized that all the stress, anxiety, depression that I had was a result of my inability to manage my own mind. Like many others, I faced a monkey mind during my meditation. It wandererd to the thoughts of the future and fantasizing, or entertained resentment about the past action, or simply bounced from one thought to another thought. We all face the monkey mind in our practice. Sometimes it is mild and we’re able to work with it, while other times it consumes us. I noticed whenever I tried to fight with the wandering mind, and resisted, it created a lot more stress.
I learned the hard way to manage my consistent monkey mind. Let me share with you the ways I learned to manage my monkey mind:
Bringing awareness to the mind
When you’re meditating, practice noting the wandering mind. You don’t need to fix it, judge yourself too harshly, or try to figure out exactly why the mind wandered. Just by bringing your awareness to the monkey mind, you can dramatically change your relationship to it. When I was able to harness my mind, it impacted other dimensions of my system – my body, emotions, and energies.
As Sadguru had said, In yoga, a well-established mind is referred to as a Kalpavriksha.
If you bring your mind to a certain level of organization, it in turn organizes the other three dimensions of your system – your body, emotion, and energies. Once these four dimensions are organized in one direction and kept unwavering for a certain period, anything you wish will happen. You don’t even have to lift your little finger. Without having to do any activity, you can manifest what you want.
The problem with your mind right now is that it changes its direction every moment. If you walk somewhere and keep changing your direction every two steps, the chances of reaching your destination are very remote unless it happens by accident. But if you organize your mind in one direction, and in turn organize the whole system in that direction, anything you wish will happen.
Working with the breath
Like other meditation practices, working with the breath is slow cultivation. As we continue to collect the mind on the body breathing, we build the ability to rest our awareness on an object. When the mind does wander, we simply bring it back to the breath. Every time we bring the mind back, we are training the mind and strengthening the ability of the mind to focus. This can be immensely useful in working with the monkey mind, especially when practiced regularly.
Just like I observe my breathing going in and out during meditation, I observe the mind getting irritated, the body warming up, and the impulse for action rising. And I know that I always have a choice. A choice to act based on it, to make use of it, or to simply let it go. This is the power and freedom that meditation keeps giving me.
Cultivating compassion
Managing a monkey mind can create quite a bit of stress and discomfort. This calls for some self-compassion. So, as opposed to complaining about distracting thoughts, I noticed what my reactions are, and tried to respond with compassion, mindfulness, and patience. our minds aren’t fully within our control in every moment, and we don’t need to take it so personally. Watch your reactions, noticing when you fall into resistance, craving, or aversion. When we become reactive, we are often not able to respond with mindfulness and wisdom. Compassion can help us to pause and be with the stress rather than trying to avoid it or push it down.
Meditation helped me in my spiritual ascension
Spiritual ascension, also known as a spiritual awakening, is a natural evolutionary process that involves the process of shedding the old self and experiencing an inner rebirth. Many people speak about spiritual ascension in terms of being “upgraded,” “rebooted” or being elevated in vibrational frequency. All of these terms are a way of referring to the inner evolution and expansion of the mind, heart, or soul. As the name implies, spiritual ascension is about reaching new heights and transcending old limiting habits, beliefs, mindsets, and ways of being. Spiritual ascension, however, is not all angels, unicorns, and roses. It is often accompanied by severe and shocking shifts that result in what is called the Dark Night of the Soul. (I elaborate on these dark experiences in my book The Spiritual Awakening Process.)
It helped me realign and recenter my chakras, purge dark energies and purify and heal your soul throughout the awakening journey. When your energy is blocked by past life pain, connection issues, and fears. Meditation helped me to release that to BECOME who I truly am – so that I can freely and effortlessly use my gifts with clarity, authenticity, and self- assuredness. When I was able to realign myself energetically, I reawakened unconscious parts of myself that I might have forgotten, reawakened my divinity, most importantly, a sense of FEELING the energy for myself - a sense of tangibly sensing it there, and knowing that it will support and carry me forward until I am able to confidently stand as not only a receiver of it, but an EXPRESSION of it in my daily physical life.
Meditation helped me have healthier relationships
Meditation helped me improve my relationships by working on myself. The more you respect yourself, the better your relationships with others. When you possess more peace within yourself, your relationships will benefit from that composure. When you share more love, patience and compassion with others, they will very likely respond in a positive manner, and your relationships will improve. Meditation taught me the power of abandoning unhealthy ego and forgiving. Having an unhealthy ego, holding a grudge, and refusing to forgive can rob a relationship of trust, vitality, and the ability to grow. Meditation can help you work through such issues, and allow you to move forward with healing. Forgiving someone is one of the greatest gifts you can offer. Relationships are important for connection, community, and growth. Meditation helps you start with yourself and then focus your attention on creating connections and long-lasting relationships with others. Meditation helped me understand that we don’t’ need others to “complete us” This is our true inner wealth. From a place of completeness, we can connect better and more profoundly with others. We are able to leave clinging, expectations, and dependency behind and embrace genuine openness and appreciation. Mindfulness meditation is the simple, yet profound, method that makes it possible for us to love better. When we practice meditation, we train in not grasping the concepts that appear in our minds, including the thoughts, images, sensations, and emotions that color how we experience the world. We can perceive situations more accurately and our true selves can be revealed. By not clinging to the misperceptions we have about others, by being able to recognize and let go of them, we discover that there’s plenty of space. We have the space we need to connect with our own innate qualities of wisdom and compassion. This leads to a healthier, more genuine ability to love. The irony is that the qualities we seek out in others are already within us – it’s the projecting outward that brings about codependency and dissatisfaction in relationships.
We don’t need others to “complete us” – we are already complete. This is our true inner wealth. From a place of completeness we can connect better and more profoundly with others.
We are able to leave clinging, expectations, and dependency behind and embrace genuine openness and appreciation. Mindfulness meditation is the simple, yet profound, method that makes it possible for us to love better.
Meditation increased my prana (life energy)
Prana (the vital life energy) is the very basis of health and well being, for both body and mind. You can gain prana through meditation. When your body is alive with more prana, you feel alert, energetic, and full of good humor. A lack of prana results in lethargy, dullness, and poor enthusiasm.
Meditation helped me heal my surroundings
Meditation purifies the environment. Meditation and Sudarshan Kriya have transformed aggression and violence in people - to compassion, love, and care. For example, notice how you feel when you enter a room where someone is really angry? It leaves you feeling the same!
Similarly, when there is a harmonious or a happy activity, you feel good. You may wonder why. Feelings are not isolated in one's body - they are all around. It is in the whole environment because the mind is subtler than the five elements (earth, water, fire, air, ether). If there is a fire somewhere, the heat is not just in the fire, it is also radiating throughout the place.
Note: If you are unhappy or depressed, you are not the only one who is feeling it; you are spreading it to the whole environment.
In the current global situation of conflicts and disease, it's important to meditate a little every day. Through meditation, you can nullify the negative vibrations in the environment, thereby creating a more harmonious environment.
A time may come in the future when people will be fined for being depressed because they are creating emotional pollution! The words that you hear from people around you, affect your state of mind. They either give you peace and joy or create a disturbance (such as jealously, anger, frustration, or sadness). You’re affected because the mind is not in its Self; it is not centered. Meditation is the key to control 'emotional pollution'. Meditation helped quieten the chaos in my minds and helped me raise my vibration, that in turn, helped me manifest things faster in my life. I suddenly found that I was surrounded by beauty, by wealth, by an abundance of joy. Don’t get me wrong, it didn’t happen overnight; it took a couple of years. But as my mental outlook improved, my real-world results changed, too. My business improved, and before long I found my career back on track and my confidence along with it. Financially, things improved, and my social skills began to return. My life turned around almost completely. It’s not all a bed of roses. I still have bills to pay and debts to clear. I still get angry on a regular basis. But these days, while depression lurks in the background and pops up occasionally, I have the tools to manage it. Staying positive is like going to the gym. For me, that centers around meditation. It gives me a chance to slow down, to gain perspective, and to take a break from my ego, my anxieties, and my self-doubt. Meditation enables me to cut through the chatter and see the beauty in life. It allows me to choose who and what takes up space in my thinking and to choose happiness and joy over misery and rumination. If we could all spend a couple of moments every day to concentrate on our breathing and look around at the world, we might find there is a lot less to complain about than we think. Meditation for me was a literal life-saver! It really bothers me to sit back and watch other people suffer when I have some of the answers that could help them. I started my you tube channel to help people.
Some of the meditations that helped me in my journey
Isha Kriya Yoga Learn Meditation for Health_Dynamism_Well-being by Sadhguru (Other than my own guided meditations, I do this meditation to bring my breath into awareness that I am not mind, I am not this body
Morning Guided Meditation by Deepak Chopra
Morning Guided Meditation (This is my own meditation I do when I am really pressed for time to open up my main energy centers)
Chakras Attunment and Activation Meditation (This is my own meditation to activate all my chakras by chanting chakras mantras)
Here is the link of my channel . I would love to have you all like and subscribe and share with people, who can benefit from this channel. Let's share the positvity and help people awaken to their true potential.
Through the use of these guided meditations, angelic and divine meditations, guided visualizations, inspirational videos you can open yourself to changes of immense harmony for your body, mind, and spirit. Get ready to take reigns of your life in your own hands and willing to make a change for the better
I want to hear your miracles! Jump into the comments and let me know how meditation practice goes for you. It has supported me greatly, and I hope it supports you.
What a beautiful journey! Thanks Aashita for taking out time and talking with me. It really was inspiring and helped me to get on track back on mindfulness..looking forward to lots of such discussions and inspirations!