What does Meditation Music Do to You?

Article By Werner Boersch, Siena

Personally I belief that it is possible for anyone to live a life of happiness, inner peace, and outward success, no matter what their present or past circumstances. There are very real methods anyone can use to achieve these things—if they are willing to make the necessary changes in how they see themselves and their relationship to the rest of the world, and take the necessary actions.

All traditions of meditation flow from one premise: that the entire universe is made of one all-encompassing energy, intelligent and aware, existing forever as the source of everything. Because there is nothing outside of it, say the mystics, because of its completeness, this energy has nothing to get or need, nothing to fear. Simply because it is its nature to do so, this one energy continually spins itself out as the entire, infinite universe. The very nature of this energy, it is said, is contentment, love, peace, happiness, and perfection.

The totality of this energy, say the mystics, is who you really are; your seeming separateness, an illusion. Saints and sages have for centuries attempted to describe to humankind a state of awareness where this feeling of oneness with everything in the universe is the predominant experience.

For thousands of years, curious seekers have responded to these explanations by asking, "If I am this one, infinite energy, the beginning less and endless totality of everything, if I really am Love itself, then why do I feel so bad? Why do I have so many problems? Why don’t I feel the peace and happiness you say is my true nature?" And the mystic invariably would answer, "You do not experience your true nature because of your mind. Your mind keeps you from the experience of what truly is."

These explanations state that the one energy of reality, at the moment of creation, polarized itself into a seeming duality—good and evil, male and female, up and down, here and there and all other pairs of seeming opposites. This duality, however, is more apparent than real. In each pair of opposites, each part is dependent on the other for its existence, like two sides of the same coin. "Cold" is meaningless without "hot"; "good" makes no sense without "bad". According to the mystical philosophies of the East,it is the tension between these pairs of opposites, in your mind, that actually causes the universe to manifest. This tension between opposites is also reflected in the human brain.

The brain, divided into two hemispheres, right and left, has the same dual structure—made more acute by the fact that in virtually all people the two hemispheres are unbalanced, a state called brain lateralization. Since the brain filters our reality in this split-brain way, we tend to see things in terms of duality rather than the oneness spoken of by mystics. Of course, today we know that this is true—the mind does indeed act as a filter, coloring our view of reality just as colored glasses give an illusory tint to what we see. As we grow up, our brain is programmed that some things cause pain and should be avoided, while others bring pleasure and should be sought. Our brain will always filter reality to confirm that its predominant beliefs and associations are the truth.

No wonder we don’t see the universe of love and harmony described by saints and mystics! If the brain could somehow learn to operate in a more coherent, holistic manner, if the two sides of the brain could somehow balance, interact more, and function, as one, then possibly our experience of reality would be different. The more lateralization in the brain (in other words, the more tension between polar opposites) the more feelings of separation, fear, anxiety, and isolation. In fact, as we shall see, only a lateralized brain can continue to entertain the types of beliefs that result in dysfunctional and addictive behaviors and the painful feelings that accompany them.

But our brain should not be considered like an organ what produces our consciousness, we should consider it instead like the product of our consciousness. The connections between the cells in our brain become created following the necessities of our consciousness. In this way, our brain evolves and produces his self and our implicit consciousness. Therefore, must our mind be seen as a potentiality!

Modern brain research indicates that long-term meditation does in fact balance the brain, creating a synchrony between the two hemispheres. They discovered that electrical brain wave patterns of meditators changed, in periods of deep meditation, to a single, coherent pattern, indicating that both sides of the brain — ordinarily out of phase — were working together in a balanced, synchronous manner. This and other research has demonstrated that this balancing, or synchronization, of the hemispheres of the brain happens in all forms of meditation. The degree of hemispheric synchronization can be very precisely determined by measuring the meditator’s brain wave patterns with an electroencephalograph (EEG) machine. Any kind of focusing will bring about a degree of brain synchronization (i.e. meditation).

The greater the focus, the greater the synchronization (and the deeper the meditative state). The mystic, then, sitting to meditate, balances the brain through some form of focusing, whether by repeating a prayer or mantra, keeping the attention on the flow of the breath, staring at a candle flame, or by using one of many other techniques. Whatever the technique, the effect on the brain is substantially the same—brain synchronization, and after much practice, transcendental experience. So just what is this transcendental awareness? Is it becoming some kind of a blob of undifferentiated guru that wants to sit and stare at its navel instead of going to work in the morning, or some kind of robed, smiling person handing out flowers in the airport?

Contrary to common Western mythology about such things, persons operating continually in this type of awareness (a kind of 24-hour-a-day state of meditative alertness sometimes referred to as "the awakened mind") are more productive, happier, and capable of more intimacy, more creativity, and more wholeness. Since the filter through which they view reality does not split everything in to categories based on arbitrary early life programming, they see life more objectively, without fear and judgment, without a need to manipulate others, without need for approval—in short, without the limitations of mental programming. This is, in fact, a state of peak performance. And, when the brain is in this highly synchronous and coherent state, it produces large quantities of pleasure-causing petrochemicals called endorphins, making the whole experience very pleasurable!

In order to accelerate the personal growth process, can you take advantage from the results of modern brain research and use the combined method between meditation and brain wave stimulation with scientifically developed meditation music, what stimulates your brain in a more effective and faster way than traditional meditation. By doing that you’ll exclude any upcoming difficulties regarding focusing your mind and concentration.