The Importance Of Meditation

“What exactly is the importance of meditation?” my curious friends often ask me.

Well, meditation has two important purposes :
(a) To re-energize the soul.
(b) To remove one’s fear of death.

Broadly speaking, the main constituents of a human being are :
(a) gross body (स्थूल शरीर).
(b) subtle body (सूक्ष्म शरीर).
(c) soul (आत्मा).

The gross body is composed of five basic elements (पंच-भूत) – earth (पृथ्वी), water (जल), fire (तेजस), wind (वायु) and space (आकाश).

The subtle body is the mind.
It is in the form of desires, thoughts, emotions.

The soul or the inner self is the observer.

It is the soul that makes the various body organs, faculties function.

To refresh the gross and subtle bodies and to increase their efficiency, one has to take some hours of good sleep everyday.

Likewise, the soul also needs rest.

Through meditation or by withdrawing the soul from the outside world and reconnecting it with the Source, the soul gets re-energized.

Sometime back, I visited a government hospital in Chandigarh.
There I saw a sad, surprising spectacle.

A very frail man in his eighties was imploring a cancer specialist to save him from the clutches of the deadly disease.
He was crying bitterly.

I sincerely believe that material sciences, including medical science can never remove one’s fear of death.

To overcome one’s fear of death, there is a dire need of including meditation as an indispensable part of school curriculum.

Spiritual/Religious organizations should regularly organize meditation camps in different parts of the country.

It is only through meditation that one discerns that even though the gross body is mortal, there is something “inside” that never dies, that lingers on!

~ Sanjay Gargish ~