Posts Tagged ‘Sahaja Yoga’

Meditation and My Idea Process

Posted: January 11, 2015 in ideas, Living and Life, Reflections, short story, Writing
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I’ve mentioned several times on this blog that I do a kind of meditation called Sahaja Yoga, and I have to say, it’s been an amazing influence on my life. Not only is it really relaxing, but it’s invigorating and I feel calmer and more balanced and focused after meditation (though nothing can ever seem to take away my wild, silly side). And, during the three years I’ve been meditating, I’ve been given a lot of ideas for stories or on how to modify stories that I’ve been having trouble with.

The first time this happened was after I started learning Sahaja Yoga. I was having trouble trying to figure out this short story I was working on and make it flow as a story. I knew something was missing, but I couldn’t figure out what. At one point I just sat down, started meditating for five or six minutes, and then went out for a walk. During that walk I felt much calmer and more open minded, and I found a way to make the short story work. I went home and finished the short story within the week.

It’s been like that a lot since then, especially during classes on Sundays. I’ll meditate and while I’m cleaning chakras and relaxing, my mind will go into a very different state, in which ideas just come much more easily to me. It’s amazing. Today, I was having trouble figuring out which direction to to go with this short story I’m working on, and I was hoping that today’s class would help me figure out where to go with this story. I put myself into a meditative state and let my mind go. And about ten, twenty minutes into the class, I had it. I knew how to make this story work. And after we finished the meditation, everyone looked very happy to hear that I’d had my idea (everyone in the class is very supportive of my career, and one woman has even read all my books and reviewed one of them). I also had four other ideas for stories today, which is a bit more than usual (don’t know if they’re all related to my class, but I like to think they are).

Why does meditation make me so much more creative? Like hypnosis, meditation puts you into a different state of mind that helps you unwind, relax, and sometimes make you a bit more suggestible. I think that state of mind allows me to hold onto passing thoughts and twist and turn them into workable ideas for stories. In any case, usually after meditation I’m pulling out my little notebook and writing down my ideas, making Sunday one of my more creative days of the week.

Whatever the case, there’s no doubt that, in addition to all the other benefits of meditation I receive, Sahaja Yoga definitely makes me a much more creative person and gives me several more ideas for interesting stories. I never know when I’ll write any of them (that’s how many stories I have and how busy I am trying to get through just one story at a time), but it definitely means I’ll never run out of stories. And it’s another reason why I won’t be giving up meditation any time soon.

Well, that’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. Tomorrow’s the first day of classes, so I’m going to finish up and call it  a night. I’ve got a busy first day (2 classes, a shift at work, and a phone conference, plus Buckeyes take on Oregon tomorrow night. Go Bucks!) so I have to get as much sleep as possible if I’m going to get up tomorrow and take it all one with my usual chipper temperament. Wish me luck, and goodnight, my Followers of Fear!

Hypnosis vs. Meditation

Posted: January 12, 2014 in Living and Life, Reflections
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Some of you know I go to a weekly meditation class on Sundays. Today at the class we had an interesting discussion about the differences between meditation and hypnosis. The discussion started while going over some of the aspects of a particular chakra. One suggestion for clearing this chakra of impurities or of other problems is to abstain from activities such as hypnosis. Because I use hypnosis a lot in my life as well as meditation and because I know how to perform hypnosis, I had to ask why one should avoid it, especially since hypnosis and meditation are very similar and have similar aims when performed (unless you’re a stage hypnotist, in which case your goal may just be to do some interesting trick).

Ultimately, the problem comes down to relying on yourself vs. relying on others. The form of meditation I do, called Sahaja Yoga, has a great emphasis on practitioners being able to do Sahaja Yoga on their own and become their own guru in order to find the answers they are looking for or to resolve the problems they are experiencing. Hypnosis, on the other hand, relies heavily on the hypnotist to help a subject, and because hypnosis is largely dependent on the hypnotist’s suggestions, there is an opportunity for abuse on the part of the hypnotist to hurt the subject or cause them to do harm onto others. For this reason, some Sahaja Yogis are very against hypnosis.

As someone who has positive associations for both practices, I saw it as almost like the science vs. religion debate: while they may seem at odds, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they can’t work together. For example, many people are able to believe in both the Genesis story and the theory of evolution, and that’s just one example of how people have learned to reconcile religion to scientific beliefs or theories that seem to contradict each other. Also, both disciplines can be abused by those who are trained in them: a preacher could abuse his followers’ trust in him to scam them or hurt them, while some scientists used to use pseudo-science to justify racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, or homophobic beliefs (a few still do, sadly).

Hypnosis and meditation can also be like this. While some may see the two as distinctly different and that they can’t work together, others see them as very similar and that they can work together. Many researchers have found that the hypnotic state is very similar to the state of consciousness achieved during meditation, and that they can both have positive effects on the physical, mental, and emotional self. For a personal example, last semester there were a couple of weeks where I was under intense stress and was constantly worried about finishing projects and homework, my finances, and other problems. It took a very powerful combination of meditation and hypnosis to be able to get back to my normal self and handle my schoolwork without having a breakdown of any sort.

Not only that, but both hypnosis and meditation can potentially be abused by those who practice it. A hypnotist may use a client’s suggestibility to cause harm to the client or to themselves, but someone who knows some meditation can easily create their own brand of meditation and charge through the roof for lessons or even start a cult based around them and their meditation brand (when I pointed this out to my class, my first thought was, “Hey, that could make a great short story”. Believe me, I will make it into one).

Whatever you feel about hypnosis and/or meditation, it’s important to keep in mind that both aim to help people, that they are very similar in several ways, and that there are people who will swear by one, the other, or both that they are helpful disciplines. I feel that my life is enhanced by both, and I’m glad to be able to know how to do both.

If you are interested in trying either in order to better understand the issue, I’ve embedded two videos below. The first features Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, the founder of Sahaja Yoga, giving an introductory session in Sahaja Yoga to an audience in Sydney, Australia. The second video is a basic hypnotic relaxation video that gives you an idea of what a hypnotic state is like and what one can accomplish in it. All you have to do for either video is follow the instructions given (preferably while wearing headphones for best quality), and you’ll get a sense of what each is like.


What do you think of hypnosis and/or meditation? Do you think they’re incompatible or compatible? Or do you just think the whole discussion is silly?