Meditation, Positivism and Productivity

It has been a long time since my last post – the reason for not writing was there was nothing positive to write home about! Whatever I have written in the past has been a critique on current events of the day. It was just a criticism of the system and what needs to be done to try and set things right.

The trouble with life today is that the news on offer in the visual as well as the print media is news that sells, not necessarily news that is good, in fact, it can be safely said that good news does not sell. Today news is run as a business model – wherein TRP’s and eyeballs dictate the ad revenue for the media house. Who the hell would be interested in reading good news – people today are interested in news which titillates, excites, disgusts and which leads to gossip – good news does not set the blood racing you see. So what one reads and absorbs is all kinds of negative news which in turn adversely affects the thought processes of the person reading/watching the news. The programs on TV are also not ones which encourage positivism – there are a surfeit of programs that deal with the “Saas-Bahu” syndrome, adventure, action, violence, infidelity, etc.

Over the last several months I have been practicing samarpan meditation and realized that the collection of negativity which used to move around my surroundings has slowly but surely disappeared. The purpose of this post is to highlight the connection between meditation, positivism and productivity. Meditation helps you to focus on the NOW, it turns your attention inwards as opposed to outwards. Once you start moving inwards, what happens outside stops affecting you and your soul starts protecting you from negative forces. It is important to forget your past and forgive all those who may or may not have hurt you or affected you through the passage of time. This is important for you to progress through meditation. Meditation regulates and slows your breathing which helps the mind to refrain from wandering. The Hatha Yoga Pradipika states “When the breath wanders, the mind also is unsteady. But when the breath is calmed the mind too will be still, and the yogi achieves long life. Therefore one should learn to control the breath”.

The human thought process moves back and forth like a pendulum – from the past to the future and so on and so forth – it never stabilizes and focuses on the “NOW”, as a result the mind is always in tumult. Human tendency is towards remembering events which are negative, with the mind trying to extract revenge for such events in the future. The entire thought process thus tends to be negative - from a negative past into doing something negative tomorrow as a reaction to the past.

As you meditate your personality starts becoming positive as negative thoughts stop coming to your mind – this helps calm the nerves bestowing a feeling of goodness and oneness with the Universal Consciousness. Once negative thoughts stop coming to your mind, you do not tend to think about the future – this managing to concentrate on the “NOW”. Once you start living for the moment your entire mind and body is focused on doing the current activity – as a result, if you are a student your concentration on your studies improves getting you better grades, your productivity in the office improves as your thought processes are totally focused on the work at hand. All this helps you save time and money for your employer as without too much of an effort your productivity goes up. This will have a positive spin off effect on your co-workers (not always – negative forces exist all over the world) as they too would be affected by your calming and productive influence. You would find yourself leaving office on time and getting to devote more quality time for yourself and for your family.

I would definitely recommend devoting half an hour of your time towards meditation to help you get rid of negativity, increase focus and concentration, and become a positive force by yourself resulting in spreading positivism to all those who connect with you.