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A reader
asks:
What
do you really expect will happen to people who meditate
on their heart, using your method of Heart Rhythm
Meditation?
The overall
effect is that it allows people to make changes in themselves.
There are three things necessary to effect a change:
a clear vision of what you'd like to become,
the energy to overcome inertia, along with the
sensation of energy in your body, and emotion
in the form of longing and strong desire for change.
When you
meditate on your heart, the first effect is that the
practice brings your attention into your body. Some
people don't feel their body unless it's in movement
or in pain. Just being able to feel your body is healthful.
Most meditations take you out of your body; a focus
on sensation is unusual and very centering. (energy)
Second,
finding your heartbeat brings attention to your heart.
By concentrating on your physical heart you become aware
of your emotional heart. The heart has a different point-of-view
on your life. You gain that point-of-view by contemplation,
which comes from concentration. This will change your
attitude toward others and yourself. (vision)
Third,
the coordination of the heartbeat and the breath creates
power in your heart, which you experience as magnetism
and pressure. This gives you the energy to be the way
you'd like to be and to accomplish what you most wish
to accomplish. (energy).
Fourth,
along the way somewhere, not necessarily in this order,
the emotions of the heart become much more conscious.
You remember many stored emotions that have not been
resolved. Life becomes more emotionally rich. You find
emotions behind the emotions and you find that any emotion
connects to every other emotion. There develops a desire
to better understand these layers and types of emotion.
(emotion)
Fifth,
the experience of who you are begins to shift. This
is critical. The self-concept of identity is the filter
that gives you access to some of the emotions over others.
This is what it takes for the experiences of meditation
to become fixed in your life. (vision, again)
Sixth,
I hope for the experience of being connected to all
beings, and to the One and Only Being. This may begin
as a feeling of presence in the room where you're meditating.
Or it may come as an emotion of humanity, much bigger
than your own emotion. Or it may be that you just switch
into the state of unity. (combination of vision, energy
and emotion)
I think
you can see why I'm so excited about meditating on the
heart. It's a more complicated method than some other
methods, and harder to learn. But what could be more
worthwhile than the discovery of the beauty and power
of your heart and the connection, through the heart,
to all others?
Copyright 2000 The Institute for Applied Meditation,
Inc.
Puran
is an American, Sufi, spiritual leader, and author who
has taught meditation to tens of thousands of people in
the United States and Europe over twenty years. He is
co-founder of the Institute
for Applied Meditation, a non-profit, educational
organization devoted to heart-based meditation.
Puran's
book, Living
From the Heart, published by Random House, has been
hailed as a classic, "one of the most important texts
ever written on meditation." He has taught his method,
Heart Rhythm Practice, to CEO's, teams, and individuals
from a broad spectrum of businesses, and has worked
with leading researchers to document the physiological
changes that occur during the different stages of meditation.
Puran studied intensively for 25 years with his Sufi
teacher, who charged him with training other students.
Professionally,
Puran is a specialist in municipal bond investment,
working in the financial services industry. Previously,
he worked for IBM, Burroughs, and EG&G and was a consultant
to AT&T and several financial institutions. His spiritual
work has lead him to develop several environmentally
sound inventions. He holds one patent in wind-energy
power, with a second patent pending in high-speed composting.
Puran holds an MS degree in Computer Science from the
University of Pennsylvania. He has five children.
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