Is Meditation the Future of the USA?

 

More and more I see meditation taking the forefront in society. I see it used by people to relax, escape, cope with pain and ailments, to find deeper meaning in one’s life, and for physical and overall health. It’s interesting and exciting to see American culture evolve and expand in it’s understanding of meditation and utilization of it.

“Recent research shows meditation’s soothing effects can be detected in arterial walls and in the brain. Once considered outside the mainstream, today more insurers are paying for meditation, both as a form of medication and as preventive medicine.” – (abc news)

I feel like not so long ago meditation was lumped into a vague category under “New Age” along side with UFO’s, fairy’s, and fortune telling.  Or maybe seen as an eastern religious practice but nowadays the line between science, religion, conciousness, and human well being is being stretched and blurred into what appears to be a very modern cutting edge approach to living mainstream life.  Even doctors are becoming prominant advocates.

“Meditation is the act of disidentifying from inner thought flow and concentrating on calming and healing,” explains Robert Thurman, Ph.D., a professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University in New York and the first American to become a Tibetan Buddhist monk. Through meditation, doctors help patients detach from their pain and anxieties and cultivate a connection between the mind and the body, he says.” (abc news)

Although it may still be in it’s early stages and far from completion, meditation in the US has proven to be a future force to be reckoned with.  From dealing with minor aches and pains to asking the age old question “Who Am I”?

Modern science seems to be asking this question more and more as advances show that the universe may not be existing as a material platform as previously believed for so many years.  It seems to be trending from the objective to the subjective.  Science, meditation, healing, spirituality, and the experience of life seem to be melding into one as people are becoming aware that they are more than just their mind and body.

In one of my favorite quotes from the book “Harmony Meditation: A New Way to Completion” Master Johwa says:

“If your thinking is trying to attach to something continuously, then instead of trying to release your thoughts from that attachment I want you to detach yourself from your thoughts.”

Who is doing the detaching?

“Savor Who Am I, and It’s Power”