Cease to listen and you will hear truth.'
If we're honest with ourselves, we'll almost certainly see room for improvement in our lives. We can be more contented. We can be healthier, happier and more peaceful. We can eliminate many of the life-shortening risks that surround us.
It is a well-publicized fact that one's health, happiness and harmony can be dramatically enhanced by concentrating on four lifestyle areas:
1) Diet
2) Exercise
3) Attitude
4) Meditation
But can you achieve significant results by following just one of these routes?
The answer is yes. A rigorous devotion to exercise will have a marked effect on the overall quality of your life. So will a similar devotion to diet or attitude. The deal is obviously a balanced pursuit of all four areas: then the effects of one will compliment the other, and the effectiveness of each is enhanced by the practice of the other.
If your determination is such that you can pursue all four categories with equal effort and sincerity, your energies will be rewarded manyfold. However, the one which has the greatest single capacity for life improvement and fulfilment is meditation. Even though this book stresses the importance of all four areas and contains chapters on each, it is mainly concerned with meditation.
The traditional approach to a book on this subject is from the mystical point of view. When you consider that most publications have been written by mystics of one sort or another, and that many of the teachings have been the products of various mystical schools, this is understandable.
What will distinguish this book from the others is my intention to describe the wonders of meditation without the magic and the mysticism. In writing, I have endeavoured to explain everything in everyday language, to avoid exaggeration, and to keep in check my enthusiasm for this subject. You may be familiar with the religious writer's favourite literary devices, mystical metaphors, parables and allegories. While these may be much lauded techniques in traditional writing, they can often be elaborate and exotic ways of saying very little and, as such, have no place in this book. Nevertheless, as much of the material here concerns the most intimate workings of the human mind and psyche, the use of the metaphor will be a necessary convention from time to time. Care must be taken so that metaphor does not become confused with fact. A phrase like 'the body becomes light' is nothing more than an attempt to convey a subtle feeling; you should not run to the bathroom scales in anticipation of a Weight Watchers miracle. There are no miracles to be had.
Unfortunately, meditation will always be shrouded in mysticism (as it has been), that is the nature of the art. While I feel no compulsion to try to alter this state of affairs, I do feel obliged not to add it. Hence this book (and the Calm Technique itself) does tend to err on the side of the practical rather than the romantic. It was written in the belief that meditation is a useful, easy-to-understand exercise that deserves to be treated as matter-of-factly as aerobics or diet.
Those of you who have ever tried to learn about meditation from some of the traditional sources will probably know the frustration that goes hand in hand with this search. If you were reluctant to subscribe to a new set of beliefs, or to pay dearly for a course in mystical studies, you didn't have many choices. I am not for one moment questioning the sincerity and credibility of these teachers of meditation, I know and trust many, and their teachings come from a much longer lineage than mine. However, the Calm Technique presents many of their teachings in a much simplified way and sacrifices very little in order to do so. Still, should you ever want to continue your studies beyond the scope of this book, you will find the Calm Technique an excellent starting point.
This excerpt was taken from The Calm Technique by Paul Wilson
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