Meditation empowers one to soar to great heights of success while keeping the mind calm and silent. Success without silence is like a flower without fragrance.
Feelings of insecurity result from our dissatisfaction with the past, disillusionment with the present and distrust of the future. One has to learn from the past, enjoy the present and plan for the future. Only through this three-pronged approach to time can we eliminate our feeling of insecurity. The three-pronged strategy proceeds from a mind cultivated in specific ways. An untrained mind interferes with perception so much that we don’t see the world as it truly is—we see it subjectively.
The objective world enters our consciousness in the form of impressions. The predominant impressions shape our minds in their image. For example, if a person's mind is shaped by a cat-like pattern, any impression from the outer world will prompt them to respond like a cat. A cat is non-responsive and non-reciprocative to the love it receives. People with a cat-patterned mind will be similarly indifferent to the love and attention showered on them. Some people have a dog pattern. If you show love to a dog, it will wag its tail, but only as long as your demonstration of love lasts. Those with a dog pattern will react with hostility to those who fail to show love to them.
Meditation helps us overcome the effects of acquired patterns of the mind, which distort our experience of the outer world to make it conform to subjective patterns. The tussle inherent in this situation creates tension and renders us ineffective. Meditation and resultant enlightenment relieve us of the tension and purify the mind. The real range of the capabilities of meditation is only being gradually realised. Different mudras facilitate thoughts that impact as instant change. Shear attitudinal change is not sufficient, but behavioural change is important.
The efficacy of meditation in countering yuppie flu is a case in point. Yuppie flu is a psychological disorder due to stress. A cell in the nervous system sends messages through axons and receives messages through dendrites. The message has to pass through the synaptic fluid, which contains dopamine and serotonin. If these two chemicals are not in a perfect state of balance, the message cannot be transmitted smoothly. Communication between the cells becomes foggy. This foggy communication creates a mental malady called yuppie flu. Essentially, it is a psychological syndrome endemic to modern youth, driven beyond their mental limits by the blind pursuit of material goals. Dopamine pills are given to patients suffering from this depressive disorder.
People engaged in stressful and excessive work are prone to yuppie flu. A mind given to constant planning and not getting adequate rest is a prime candidate for this disorder. Nature, in her infinite wisdom, has ordained sleep as a regular means of maintaining homeostatic harmony in our bodies. The stresses and strains of the waking state upset the normal dopamine levels. In that disturbed state, we perceive not ‘what is’, but our projection of ‘what should be’.
A calm and serene mind is characterised by homeostasis, a neurochemical state in which dopamine and serotonin levels are balanced. Meditation and pranayama help us achieve it without resorting to pharmaceutical supplements. Meditation, like sleep, helps restore the biochemical balance that enables us to emerge victorious in our battles with forces of both outside and within.