What is meditation?
Magic in Imagery
There's another dimension which can be added to basic meditative focusing techniques: the use of visualization. Research indicates about a third of people can visualize easily. For those with an ability to visualize, particular outcomes can be conjured up more effectively while in a meditative state. Kevin Hume's CDs contain meditations on pain and healing, encouraging a sense of well-being and diminishing one's anxieties. All of which are useful for testing and developing this skill.
Again science is now telling us what ancient practitioners have always claimed: putting the mind to work in not just relaxing the body and calming the mind but also to healing the body can produce often remarkable results. One study, quoted in a recent TIME magazine cover story on science and meditation ('Just Say Om' by Joel Stein TIME magazine 4 August 2003 ), shows that 'women who meditate and use guided imagery have a higher level of the immune cells known to combat tumors in the breast'. But it's not the use of positive imagery alone which seems to make the difference. It is the combination of these imaging techniques with meditation.
Meditation seems to produce a magic all its own at a physical level in the body. In another study quoted in the same TIME magazine article, results of antibody tests after flu shots showed meditators had more anti-bodies at both four and eight weeks after the shots. 'The better your meditation technique, the healthier your immune system' was the conclusion drawn by researchers.
Meditation can be used to connect oneself with a larger sense of purpose, or to heal one's physical or emotional hurts, or it can be used simply as a means of creating moments of profound calm in the midst of the busiest and most stressful days in our highly industrialized, crowded urban societies. The choice of what you make of meditation is as various as are those individuals across many cultures who use meditation in their daily lives. This is why in his teaching Kevin Hume provides a variety of techniques as a 'menu of infinite delights' from which you can choose as the varied aspects of your life require.
But Western science is now also more and more intrigued with the possibilities of meditation. Many medico-scientific researchers are attempting to determine within the boundaries of scientific inquiry what happens when you meditate and why. And the results of that research are fascinating. As a recent cover story in the Sydney Morning Herald Good Weekend ('Keep Taking the Meditation' by Kim Zetter GW 30 August 2003.) pointed out: 'What they (University of Wisconsin functional magnetic resonance imaging researchers) discovered has been causing them to rethink the workings of the human brain and its ability to be rewired for health and happiness.' (See What Meditation Does)
'I was beginning to suffer quite debilitating performance anxieties before I went on-stage. Kevin's simple Breath of Life and Bodywork meditations I've adapted to use just before I play in public are quick and effective and give me a control over my breath. And they take care of any last minute nerves. Great.' Eric Mazen, chamber orchestra cellist, Melbourne.