Although many people meditate for health-related reasons, the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicines cautions against using it as a health care alternative because its effects are not well understood. In its purest form, meditation is simple relaxation and watchfulness, but people enter into it through various techniques. Some of these techniques, if continued, can worsen long-standing physical, emotional or psychological patterns and prevent the full flowering of the meditative state.
Meditation Has No Goal
Although the mystic Osho, who was one of several Indian nationals who taught meditation in the West during the 20th century, called it the key to unlocking the mysteries of life, he stressed that it is a simple and completely natural activity. While offering supporting words for other teachers, he criticized those that promoted it solely as an unworldly or transcendent activity. Sensationalizing meditation creates an attitude of striving in the practitioner that can block relaxation. Instead of deriving the benefits of relaxation that meditation offers, you may actually increase your stress level by setting unrealistic goals for yourself.
Meditation is Beyond Techniques
In a deepening meditation practice, as you become increasingly aware of more subtle layers of your body, mind and emotions, an appropriate technique can help you maintain that awareness without falling asleep. Some techniques involve breathing, some the repetition of a mantra and some posture. Even cathartic and movement and dance can be helpful, at least in the early stages of meditative practice. Respected teachers like Osho, J. Krishnamurti and Paramahansa Yogananda have warned, however, of the dangers of mistaking the technique for meditation itself. At some point in your practice, you must let go of the technique, or at least deemphasize it, for the relaxation to be complete.
Meditation Is, Above All, a Spiritual Practice
MayoClinic.com considers meditation as a type of mind-body complementary medicine with possible beneficial effects on a number of ailments, including cancer, depression, heart problems and allergies. Entering into meditation solely as a means to alleviating health problems, however, may limit the depth of your practice. Its broader spiritual purpose, as elucidated by experienced teachers and as practiced for thousands of years, is to gain freedom from the limitations of the body-mind complex. Keeping this in mind, there is no way to predict what effect a deep practice will have on you until you begin it.
Cautions
Some meditation techniques can have adverse physical or psychological effects. For example, practitioners of vipassana, or insight meditation, typically sit cross-legged for long periods. You may experience pain in your legs while doing this if you have poor circulation or joint problems, and it may be more prudent to abandon the posture than it would be to risk permanent injury by waiting for the pain to subside. The NCCAM cautions that meditation can worsen symptoms in people with certain psychological problems and recommends consultation with a health care professional before beginning a meditation practice if you have mental or physical health conditions.
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