The simplest definition of meditation is the ‘cultivation of self awareness'. In a media driven age, where information is largely the currency of exchange, most of us spend our lives being aware of everything except ourselves. Even the idea of self awareness can sound pretentious and unnecessary, if not strange. Yet without self awareness we cannot see what we are doing wrong at the levels of our own thoughts and feelings. In fact we cannot even see that it is ourselves and not someone else who creates our thoughts and feelings! When we fall under the illusion that others are responsible for what we feel we condemn ourselves to stressful life as we become dependent on external sources of stimulation and perform our very own award winning performance of The Victim!

Our spiritual well being can be measured by the quality of our inner peace, our ability to create stillness at will and our capacity to radiate love from our heart into the world. Unfortunately it seems we have decamped from our hearts and moved to take up residence in our minds. We have become unendingly busy, creating thoughts filled with worry, anxiety, frequent frustrations and rising levels of anger. Like the layers of an onion these mental and emotional states gradually accumulate and suppress our spiritual heart. Negative mind sets to starve our physical heart and our everyday relationships of the oxygen of love. Busy minds also lead to busy and tired bodies. Perhaps this is why we now see meditation enjoying a rising tide of interest and practice. Meditation is the oldest and most effective way to quieten the mind, release past hurts, be fully present to know the joy of the moment, transform the quality of our thinking and begin the healing of our heart from inside out.