The fact that you are looking at a web site focused on meditation, chances are you have some interest in learning to practice it.

There is no end to the list of reasons why one might choose to practice meditation. Meditation can help you to reach any goal, become any thing, and achieve any thing. It is the Universal, all applicable, self-transforming life skill.

All benefits of meditation stem from one simple truth: meditation takes you out of your mind and puts you in your heart.

The first step in meditation is learning to control and still the mind. The mind is a tool of capacity beyond measure. It could identify 7 digit prime numbers, recount capital cities of all the US states, remember birthdays before they arrive. But instead, it focuses itself on points of zero importance. Worries, anxieties, stress! Over and over and over. Did you know that 70% of the thoughts in your head today are the same thoughts you had yesterday? Had you noticed? And you might be so preoccupied with these thoughts that you never stop to notice how beautiful that flower is, that the world is glorious.

If you were to stop focusing on this stream of information running around in your brain, you might get the chance to discover other parts of yourself. Parts of yourself that have more light, more joy, more understanding. Tap into these parts of yourself and they will flow forward, and with this new wealth you will find yourself able to do more than you thought you could, to be more than you thought you were.

Much of this wealth lies within the heart. There is a lot more to the heart of man than meets the eye. Think of what we already know as being the qualities of the heart. Love, compassion, kindness, sincerity. These qualities are not available merely to spruce up an otherwise dreary existence. They are the emanations of a deep wisdom and truth that lies within each of us and is available at every moment come forward and build a better world.

In this mentally oriented culture the qulaities of the heart often get sidelined or ignored, so we have not really had the chance to develop them. But the heart is actually a source of tremendous power. If you show kindness, compassion, love to someone, it will give them the strength, the energy, the inspiration to do good things.

The heart is inspired. It dreams. As children, we imagine that when we grow older we will do amazing things. Not so bound by the presumptions of the mind, we create all sorts of ideas. But as we grow older, we take on more and more the preconditioning of the established world. Because we don’t see outside of us what we feel inside of us, we conclude that these things don’t actually exist.

Each of us has our inmost aspirations, and these aspirations are born out of the world’s necessity for their fulfillment. Meditation is our window inside. It clears aside the doubts, the confusion, the presumptions that impede us, so that we may see what is possible and bring it to light.

Susan Marshall has been a member of the Sri Chinmoy Centre since 2003 and practices meditation daily. She is a keen runner and works in the service industry as a waitress and kitchen assistant at The Lotus-Heart vegetarian restaurant in Christchurch, New Zealand.

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