While meditation has a number of benefits, we at Sahaja, are unique in bringing out some unusual benefits you may not commonly hear about with the scores of other forms of meditation in the market. That is because Sahaja is a very deep, holistic and intricate practice. It works at the deepest levels inside you – your subtle energy system of chakras – to produce multiple benefits.

A while ago, we explained how meditation can help avoid lethargy within you.

Today, we’d like to share another uncommon benefit – strategies on how to use meditation for becoming more balanced and grounded. What makes this discussion even more interesting is that most people have some sort of vague and generic understanding of what those two terms really mean or will feel like. And admittedly, it’s more cool these days to say “My meditation just blew away my stress” than tell someone “Meditation helps me stay grounded”.  The latter remark is sure to raise some eyebrows even though it is a much more sustainable and longer-term benefit and positive outcome.

We’d like to define them in a very practical way and how you can experience the benefits of being balanced and grounded on an everyday basis.

What It Means to Be Grounded

We’ve seen people who exhibit some characteristic traits of what constitutes as being grounded:

•  They remain calm in the face of adversity or in the middle of crisis situations.
•  They’re not the ones to react or speak more than necessary – their words are measured, powerful and yet, they’re liked by everyone around.
•  They have a kind of uncanny depth in their personality and it is tempting to ask their opinion or advice when we’re stuck. They’re highly trusted by their friends, family and colleagues to offer the much-needed help at the right time.
•  They’re not too serious and have a sense of humor, yet they’re never frivolous or silly.
•  They’re sociable and respected greatly, but there’s a lot of alone time they use to improve themselves or master something great that people are awed.
•  Lastly, they’re involved largely with deeper and higher things in life – peace in the world, lowering the impact on nature, being spiritual, the betterment of their communities – they aren’t the ones to be selfish, petty and short-sighted.

What It Means to Be Balanced

From a spiritual and self-improvement standpoint, being balanced means, first and foremost, that our attention is balanced – It is unfettered and not unnecessarily dragged all over the place and randomly to the past and the future.

Being balanced also means that we spend our attention wisely on things that matter the most in our lives and can help us and the world benefit in many ways. We also are not subject to sudden urges or temptations resulting in unwanted or uncontrollable amounts of time being spent on things that do not make us better in any way.

Being balanced means that we do not overdo anything in life. More specifically, we’re not excessively emotional nor do we indulge in excessive mental or physical activity and then try to recover later on from those excesses.

Being balanced means being in total control of ourselves at all times.

The Subtle Instrument within Us That Helps in Staying Balanced and Grounded

At Sahaja, we’ve said this over and over – we’re not into some mumbo jumbo of self-conditioning or mental exercises of self-improvement – like repeating or telling ourselves every day that we’ll be balanced.

Rather we achieve everything through our subtle, innate instrument within us – the energy channels, chakras and the all-powerful Kundalini energy within us. This is real and can obviously be felt and experienced. But, better than that, this instrument helps diagnose ourselves in detail, analyze our problems and current state and make improvements continuously.

Let’s see how we achieve balance and being grounded through this instrument. The central energy channel, also known as Sushumna nadi in Sanskrit, represents our axis, just like how the Earth has an axis of rotation and a center of gravity. This central channel also has our spiritual center of gravity. What this means is that if our attention and disposition are largely centered around our axis and center of gravity – or around the central channel – then we can achieve perfect balance in our lives and be very grounded.

And that, in turn, happens in two ways, which influence each other. First, our attention must be focused on things, aspects and activities that focus on betterment and improvement of ourselves and the world around us, on positivity and constructive things. It must also be focused more on spiritual evolution – the sole purpose of the Central channel in us is that it represents the path of spiritual evolution. That’s why it even exists and was created by nature within us.

With this focus in our lives, we also need to act and do something to augment our attention. That’s where the second step comes in – meditation. We’ve already defined meditation many times in Sahaja – in simple terms, it is a state of higher consciousness where we experience complete silence and what we refer to as Thoughtless Awareness. In this state, we’re nourishing our energy centers and channels. More specifically, we’re causing the expansion of our central channel as more strands or threads of the Kundalini energy rise from the base of our spine, through our brain and then piercing the crown of the head to maintain this connection with the all-pervading energy around us.

The more we’re in this state – during the act of sitting in meditation and at other times in the day – the more we use and stay close to our central channel – the path of spiritual ascent. This automatically keeps us balanced and more in the center of our being, closer to our own axis that is.

Then our reactions becoming balanced. We avoid overdoing anything and all those traits we explained above of balanced and grounded people, automatically begin to manifest and show within us. They radiate from deep inside us and that’s what people begin to see externally. That’s exactly what impresses them and makes them think that we’re balanced and grounded.

These two acts of focusing our attention and meditation are related to and dependent on each other – the more we meditate, the better and purer our attention becomes, which in turn gives us a deeper experience of meditation. Over time, we get closer and closer to the axis of our personality and stay rooted in our spiritual center of gravity, instead of wild swings to the extreme in our behavior or our indulgences. This is also what lends clarity in our lives, ending the confused search for solutions to problems in our lives.

So how can you start realizing these benefits in Sahaja? There are a few simple ways. Meditate regularly at least twice a day. Collective meditation sessions have a huge impact on your progress. Which is why we’ve made it as easy as it can be – offer them online, so you can cut through the hassles of driving somewhere and made them available to you on your device in your living room.

And we’re not big fans of downloadable apps – fine arts and subtler things in life like spiritual ascent need to be “custom learned” – they need to work for you and your problems and needs individually. Cookie cutter meditation apps and recorded guided meditation can only go so far. Having a different instructor in each session guide you and having the opportunity to ask questions so you can custom learn and experience spirituality is not just a benefit, it’s a necessity for spiritual improvement.

That is why we created Sahaja Online.