TOOLS FOR TRANSFORMATION – MEDITATION

Dec 15
2012

Two Perspectives on Meditation as a Tool for Transformation

Dr. Amit Nagpal, New Delhi, India, and

Dr. Janet Smith Warfield, Florida, USA

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Dr. Amit Nagpal’s Perspective

For introverts and silence lovers, meditation is probably the most powerful personal transformation tool. While chanting and Vipassana may be good examples of formal meditation techniques, living in the moment, silence and simply observing your breath may be good examples of informal meditation techniques.

Here are some of the major benefits of meditative/contemplative practices:

Finding Joy and Peace

The conscious mind is the source of stress and limiting beliefs. Silencing the conscious mind helps us not just relieve stress but rather find peace and joy. I personally believe, “Meditation should not be used as a reactive tool for handling stress but rather used as a proactive tool for creating joy.” In fact my collaborative book (with 19 thought leaders from 6 countries) highlights that money is not the only source of joy but connecting with self, discovering our deep passion and so on are sources of joy which the society is yet to fully tap.

Understanding our Passion and Purpose

Self-reflection with the help of meditation is the best way to discover our true and deepest passion. We can use many spiritual and non-spiritual tools to discover our passions but using meditation can make the process of discovery much faster. If you feel more comfortable with self reflection or plain contemplation or sitting silently surrounded by nature rather than meditation, it is very much fine. The sub-conscious provides us the wisdom, intuition and clarity of thinking to find out what we truly want. We have many passions in life or many hobbies we feel passionate about, but it takes time to discover our deep passion. Here is a post I wrote, “Discover Your Deepest Passion.”

Boosting Our Creativity

Meditation releases Theta waves which boost our creativity and provide us inspiration. My advice to creative professionals is to practice meditation to see exponential growth in their creativity. Meditation boosts our creativity through reflection, though practice and repetition play a critical role in honing creative skills. A desire to boost creativity through meditation can create stress and expectation, which may backfire. So just meditate to relax and improved creativity will be a side benefit. Here is an interesting post, “How I Regained my Lost Creativity.”

Beauty and Charisma

When one has peace within, the face being the index of the mind reflects that as peace written all over you which makes you look beautiful and attractive. Inner beauty comes from a stress-free mind and a confident, giving personality. Someone has rightly said, worry is like a rocking chair; it gives you something to do, but it doesn’t get you anywhere. Here is a detailed post on “Beauty and Charisma through Meditation.”

Tapping the Sub-Conscious

Prayer and meditation also increase levels of dopamine, often referred to as the brain’s pleasure hormone. During meditation the conscious mind gets silent. As a result, we are able to hear the sub-conscious mind or we can say that the sub-conscious gets activated. Then begins the sweet journey of creativity, joy, wisdom, intuition, awareness and in fact, a point of ecstasy and oneness, where none of these matter.

(If you fail at meditation or have failed in the past, then you must read this post.)

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Dr Amit Nagpal is a Personal Branding Consultant and Deepest Passion Coach. He is based in New Delhi, India and specializes in personal branding with a holistic touch. His philosophy is, “Enlarge as a Human Being, Excel as a Social Media Being and Evolve as a Personal Brand.”

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Dr. Janet Smith Warfield’s Perspective

Background:

Meditation is a mind-body-spirit practice originating in ancient Eastern spiritual traditions and used throughout the world for thousands of years. It calms the conditioned mind, relaxes the body, and allows the practitioner to connect to a much larger, more encompassing energy, variously labeled “God”, “The Tao”, “Higher Power”, “Allah”, “Jehovah”, “Universal Consciousness”, “YHWH”, “intuition”, “creativity”, Cosmic Energy. The practitioner learns to trust this power because of the amazing growth, freedom, and spiritual strength it provides.

Benefits of Meditation:

  1. Relaxed awareness
  2. Stress release
  3. Letting go of fear
  4. Channeling rage into constructive action
  5. Mental self-regulation
  6. Improved focus
  7. New ways of thinking
  8. Single pointed concentration
  9. Correct understanding
  10. Humility
  11. Effortless speech
  12. Effortless action
  13. Building internal energy
  14. Developing compassion, love, patience, forgiveness
  15. Openness to synchronicities that effortlessly resolve challenges
  16. Indestructible sense of well-being
  17. Bliss
  18. Transformation

Enhance Your Experience with:

  1. A quiet location
  2. A comfortable position
  3. An open attitude
  4. Mental focus

Some Forms of Meditation:

  1. Mindfulness meditation
  2. Transcendental meditation
  3. Mantra meditation
  4. Zen Buddhist meditation
  5. Breath meditation
  6. Relaxation response
  7. Action meditation
  8. Sound meditation
  9. Reiki meditation
  10. Guided meditation
  11. HeartMath meditation
  12. Walking meditation
  13. Crystal bowl meditation
  14. Chanting
  15. Rituals
  16. Jungian meditation

Areas in Which Scientific Research is Being Done:

  1. Relief of chronic back pain
  2. Minimizing hot flashes in menopausal women
  3. Relieving asthma
  4. Improving the ability to focus and prioritize
  5. Releasing stress in caregivers of elderly patients with dementia
  6. Fibromyalgia
  7. Cancer
  8. Hypertension
  9. Psoriasis
  10. Changing brain and immune functions in positive ways
  11. Anxiety disorders
  12. Women’s health

Here is one example of a guided meditation:

 

Here are some other resources:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfFJ6BI1l_E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mx-cJrVUBPE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wbC2n-9FKI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWttCv0p6WQ

Enjoy!

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Dr. Janet Smith Warfield serves wisdom-seekers who want understanding and clarity so they can live peaceful, powerful, prosperous lives. Through her unique combination of holistic, creative, right-brain transformational experiences and 22 years of rigorous, left-brain law practice, she has learned how to sculpt words in atypical ways to shift her listeners into experiences beyond words, transforming turmoil into inner peace. For more information, see wordsculptures.com, janetsmithwarfield.com, and wordsculpturespublishing.com.

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The Power of Intention

Jul 17
2012

Two Perspectives on The Power of Intention

Dr. Amit Nagpal, New Delhi, India, and

Dr. Janet Smith Warfield, Florida, USA

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Dr. Amit Nagpal’s Perspective

As I had completed a little more than one year of my passionate journey into Personal Branding Consulting, I felt the need for an annual reflection. I decided to do the introspection and reflection in the Himalayas – probably the best place in the world for contemplative practices.

The questions which were hanging in my mind were related to my intentions and the purity, clarity and parity of my intentions. (I call it the PCP of intentions)

a)  Purity – Are my intentions pure and in alignment with the universe? Are they surrounded with positive energy? Am I doing something which is blocking the manifestation of my intentions?

b)  Clarity – Are my intentions clear? What do I want in life? Why do I want it? How do I expect to get it? Does the order of my prayers match the order of my intentions (priorities)? What future course of action is required to convert my intentions into reality?

c)  Parity – I believe in Nichiren Daishonin Buddhism which says, “Earthly Desires lead to Enlightenment” It means I can ask God/Universe what I want and once my desires are satisfied, I shall be ready for enlightenment. So my daily prayers include my personal wishes. Now the question arises, “Do my prayers match (are at par) with my intentions?”

(Even from the sub-conscious mind perspective, we need to exactly visualize what we want in life and then a complete commitment to our goal creates serendipity.)

The gratitude to Universe started flowing automatically due to the natural beauty and calm of Himalayas. Thus I began my journey of self-reflection with gratitude prayers. I posted on Facebook, “In the heights of the mountains, I found the heights of my consciousness. In the depths of the valleys, I felt the depth of divine love.” Never in my life, have I felt so inspired.

Excellent ideas began to flow. I wrote probably the most beautiful (and concise) sentence I have written in my life, “If he could, he would. So don’t judge and say, he should.” The mind loves to frown and the soul loves to smile. In touch with my soul, I was all smiles. I was like a spring, “Ego is like a stubborn mountain, sometimes an emotional rock. Soul is like a free flowing spring dancing towards the ocean.”

RW Emerson said, “Once you make a decision, the Universe conspires to make it happen.” The decision Intention) must be accompanied by a complete commitment. If our desires continue to change, how can we blame God for not meeting our desires? Poor guy (God) must be so confused because we keep changing what we want and are doubtful about whether we really want it. Sometimes we are praying for the means while we want something else (ends).

Over a period of next seven days, I meditated and reflected upon these questions. The chit-chat between mind and soul began. There is a saying, “When we speak, God listens, when we become silent, God speaks (to us)”

Had I finally understood “The Secret”? I created a list of desires (intentions) which had purity, clarity and parity.

And when I reached absolute silence, God began to speak.

(And I came back with more answers than the questions I had left with.:-))

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Dr. Amit Nagpal is a Personal Branding Consultant, passionate Blogger, and Motivational Speaker based in New Delhi, India. He specializes in personal branding with a holistic touch. His philosophy is “Enlarge as a Human Being, Excel as a Social Media Being and Evolve as a Personal Brand”

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Dr. Janet Smith Warfield’s Perspective

As we approached Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain, 90 miles southwest of London, I could suddenly feel the energy shift. Before us lay miles and miles of open grasslands, gently rolling hills, burial mounds, and peaceful mists. It was as if I had been transported back in time to a space held sacred by a Neolithic culture.

We had passed the restrictive energy of the military complexes surrounding Salisbury Plain. Now, I was beginning to feel the sanctity of the natural environment. Despite a parking lot crowded with tourists, I did not want to take pictures. I wanted to hold the awe of a mystery I couldn’t explain. I wanted to experience amazement over the dedication of those unknown human beings, thousands of years ago, who hauled those massive sarsens, blue stones, and lintels from miles away, then found a way to set them upright, raise the lintels to the top of the sarsens, and chisel them so they were stable and all fitted seamlessly together. I had clearly set my intention not to get sucked into the chaotic tourist chatter in the parking lot.

What I experienced was a mystery my mind could not understand. What I received was peace, awe, amazement, gratitude, connection, unity, wholeness, and sanctity. Had I shifted my intention to taking pictures of a physical place, I would have lost an amazing energetic healing experience. I would have mentally divided the experience into a subject/object relationship with “me” taking pictures of “Stonehenge”.

On the way back, I shifted my intention. This time, I wanted the pictures as a memento of a wonderful experience. I mentally split the energetic field into myself as photographer and Stonehenge as object. The experience was totally different. I had my mementos.

Intention is everything! It sets the direction of each and every moment of our lives, focuses our attention and actions, and allows us to manifest whatever we desire.

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Dr. Janet Smith Warfield serves wisdom-seekers who want understanding and clarity so they can live peaceful, powerful, prosperous lives. Through her unique combination of holistic, creative, right-brain transformational experiences and 22 years of rigorous, left-brain law practice, she has learned how to sculpt words in atypical ways to shift her listeners into experiences beyond words, transforming turmoil into inner peace. For more information, see www.wordsculptures.com, www.wordsculpturespublishing.com, www.janetsmithwarfield.com

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