Data For Meditation
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People may consider meditation as a worship or
prayer. But it is not so. Meditation means awareness. Whatever you do with
awareness is meditation. "Watching your breath" is meditation; listening to the
birds is meditation as also are contemplating meaning after reading a text or
looking at a work of art. As long
as these activities are free from any other utilitarian distraction to the mind,
it is effective meditation. The
word meditation, is derived from two Latin words : meditari ( to think, to dwell
upon, to exercise the mind) and mederi (to heal). Its Sanskrit derivation
'medha' means spiritual
intelligence. To apply this intelligence one does not have to
be religious. Many people who are religious do not have high spiritual
intelligence.
Meditation is not a technique but a way of life. It
may be manifest within membership of one of the major world faiths, or it may
simply be that a person feels that there is more to life than merely acquiring
material possessions and meeting the physical requirements of existence. In both
situations meditation is a manifestation of spiritual
intelligence. It is not a cessation of the thought process'. It describes a state of consciousness
where the aim is to attain inner peace.
After all, to realise you have emptied your mind of distractions it has
to be filled with an awareness of its being empty of these distractions. Meditation encompasses a variety of
practices that are somewhat different, all holding to the basic principles of
consideration and quiet thought to
bring about a state of rumination. Some methods of meditation may require the
body being absolutely still or to be moved with controlled deliberation, while
other types allow for free movement of the body. Methods may differ but
the end goal of all types of meditation lead to a mind that is quieted from day
to day chatter and free from stress by the use of quiet contemplation and
reflection on the meaning of life and one's place in a greater scheme of
things. The Indian philosopher J Krishnamurti gives instructions on how to meditate in this
way.
Art plays a
great role in most religions. It often serves to educate and to bring the
practitioner closer to a religious goal. In the latter sense a work of
art often acts as a focus for meditation, which is a key element to practicing
the religion through the use of specially made icons. For instance,
icons produced within the Russian Christian tradition are thought of as
bringing Heaven and Earth together as perceived through the frame of a
window, which always concentrates attention on what is present on the other
side. Meditating on a work of art takes someone out of the normal realm of
thinking and feeling and calms, focuses and transforms that
person into another awareness.
This website contains a personal selection of sculptured images and
texts which are suitable for creating an awareness of the world as
meditation. It is a development of
an educational programme based on the meditative qualities of the
great tapestry of Christ in Majesty above the altar at Coventry
Cathedral. The tapestry was specially designed as an
icon to encourage meditation and prayer within the context
of the Christian religious system. All religions have
produced icons as symbols of faith . Another
important route to meditation is by contemplating memorials. Memorials serve an important function in any society.
They help us remember, teach important life lessons, and are evocative places to
meditate and reflect.
On February 17 1922, a cross-section of Parisian artists gathered at the
Closerie des Lilas cafe in Montparnasse in order to mount a defence of the Dada
poet Tristan Zara. This time it was not the establishment who were their
target, but the poet Andre Breton, who had described Tzara as 'come from
Zurich'', a phrase specifically interpreted as zenophobic. This charge
remained a sensitive subject. The sculptor Constantin Brancusi ,
signing the resolution in Tzara's defence, pinpointed his position by adding:
'In art, there are no foreigners. Brancusi, along with Andre Derain were
following the idea that the artists role was not to imitate the visible world
but use a universal language to create a view of the world as meditation .
Andre Derain, Crouching figure, 1907
About 1908 Derain became interested in African sculpture and at
the same time explored the work of Paul Cézanne and early cubists. He became a
friend of Pablo Picasso and worked with him in Catalonia in 1910.
We
are just one of the many animal outcomes of evolution with lives governed by
goal attainment and self-protection.
But in our behaviour towards other people and the environment we uniquely
express goal attainment and self-protection through mind-mapping the universe to
produce many things that are useful and a few that are useless but poetic.
Engaging in the arts is a poetical process of meaning-making, applying
spiritual intelligence to cultivate a relationship to mystery. The useless
and poetic things humans make are meaningful because they address the mental
realms of being that are not seen but felt on an emotional scale of sadness to
elation. Also the process of art-making itself can be a path of discovery. Paolo
Knill, one of the founders of expressive arts
therapy says: "The practice of the arts, as disciplined rituals of play in
painting, sculpting, acting, dancing, making music, writing, story-telling, is
and always was a safe container, a secure vessel to meet existential themes,
pathos and mystery." Stephen K. Levine argues that poiesis, the creative
act, is also the act by which we affirm our identity and humanity.
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