| Meditation is widely used in the western world today. | | | | practices into it's daily programme. You can now find |
| As people hear of the benefits of meditation it has | | | | meditation exercises adopted to suit Christianity, |
| travelled the world several times over under various | | | | Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, and many other religions. |
| different names. One thing that we have realised | | | | Some people are still finding resistance using meditation |
| though is that countries like India, China and Japan have | | | | within their specific Church or Temple. While meditation |
| always been at the forefront of meditation. Most of | | | | has been accepted by most religions some people are |
| the new enlightenment techniques that we are just | | | | finding it slow to trickle down to the people at the |
| learning now started in Asia, and often centuries ago. | | | | bottom. If you would like to incorporate meditation into |
| As you can imagine though there are a lot of | | | | your religious practices and are finding it difficult to get |
| differences between how people live in Asia and how | | | | information from your local religious centre there are |
| we live in the West today.Our upbringings are different, | | | | lots of examples and instructions online to show you |
| our lifestyles are different, and the way we learn and | | | | the best ways to use meditation for your own religious |
| understand is totally alien to the people of Asia. This | | | | purposes. |
| means that the way our countries understand and | | | | Spirituality |
| accept meditation is also slightly different. | | | | Spirituality and the new age movement was one of |
| In Asia students of meditation learn the concepts by | | | | the first groups of people in the west to adopt and |
| way of parables or stories. In the West we encourage | | | | accept meditation practices into their way of life. |
| critical thought. We teach our children how to think with | | | | Spirituality differs from religion in that spiritualists aim to |
| rational, logical minds. Telling stories to explain a thought | | | | reach a level of happiness in their lives. Religion tends |
| doesn't work. We require facts and scientific data. We | | | | to stick to a set of rules, where as spiritualists will try |
| lose a lot of the meaning behind meditation because of | | | | various different methods to find the path that is right |
| this, and limit ourselves to the depths that we can | | | | for them. It is a very personal experience and they can |
| reach. There is a meditation society in most countries | | | | use meditation to help them along the path that they |
| now. This is often the best place to find meditation | | | | have chosen. |
| courses and seminars local to your region. | | | | It really doesn't matter why you come to meditation. It |
| Religion | | | | is such a simple technique to master that you can |
| Religion has also adapted to encompass meditation | | | | adapt it to almost any situation. |