Meditation is key to a good spiritual life. It is critical in almost every spiritual and religious tradition. It is found in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, as well as all the Eastern religions of Hinduism and Buddhism and its many offshoots. It is found also in smaller religious sects and groups.
Meditation is an attempt spiritually to become closer to God. In Eastern traditions, this is an attempt to become unified with God as one substance, while in the Christianity and the West, its purpose is a communion between two separate agents. This is critical to understand. Even though meditation is about becoming closer to the divine, these two routes can take individuals down two different spiritual paths
Despite this, meditation shares many common traits among world religions. Meditation is personal and spiritual. Meditation is not usually a religious ceremony within the community but is a singular spiritual experience. It is a beyond the communal connections and social obligations of one’s faith. Meditation is hence very personal and the success of those who practice it depend on their spiritual levels of awareness.
Another important element of Meditation is its mental nature. Unlike vocal prayer, whether communal or singular, meditation is quiet prayer. It is reflective and looks to engage the divine in a way to communicate at a more subconscious level. It looks for quiet and peace to better hear the divine and to help the soul form a greater and more intimate union with the divine.
In attempting to find that quiet, the conscious mind must choose to enter into the meditative state. In the East, there are many spiritual practices and physical postures that attempt to free the soul from temporal distractions. The meditative trance is induced through quiet, postures and various practices to free the soul from the body. In the West, there is less emphasis on postures and definitely a rejection of any astral projection. Instead, there is more emphasis on the divine as a being and how one interacts. This is usually accomplished through private prayer and reflection on scriptures and images of the divine to inspire piety and spiritual excitement in the soul.
Meditation hence is a spiritual exercise for private devotion to inspire a closer union with the divine through mental and quiet prayer. If you would like to learn more about meditation or would like to become Meditation Instructor, then please review our Meditation Instructor Program. The program is more Eastern based and helps individuals gain the knowledge and expertise needed to help others in the area of meditation.
Individuals who are spiritual and wish to expand their knowledge can utilize the certification in their private practices, but also yoga instructors, and other holistic care givers can incorporate meditation into their practice. Some healthcare professionals also like to utilize meditation as well as hypnosis and other elements to give peace to their patients.
Meditation instructors are also in demand within the business world. With higher level of stress and the lower correlation of productivity associated with stress, employers are looking to gain every advantage against it. They look to hire stress manager consultants as well as meditation instructors to teach their employees how to manage stress and remain peaceful and calm.
So as we can see, meditation has more than simple spiritual ramifications but also many business and overall health issues. This gives one with a certification in Meditation Instruction, the unique ability to offer one’s services to a variety of outlets within the spiritual as well as secular world.
Whether one employs classical Western meditation or Eastern meditation, the need and urge for humanity to reconnect with the divine at a closer level is an innate necessity. Meditation Instructors can play a key role in helping others learn to meditate and utilize the numerous benefits of it. Please review AIHCP’s Meditation Instructor Program and see if it meets your academic and professional goals.