Importance Of Meditation.
"What exactly is the importance of meditation?" my curious friends often ask me. Well, meditation has two important purposes. Broadly speaking, the main constituents of a human being are : (a) gross body (स्थूल शरीर). (b) subtle body (सूक्ष्म शरीर). (c) soul (आत्मा). The gross body is composed of five basic elements (पंच-भूत) - earth (पृथ्वी), water (जल), fire (तेजस), wind (वायु) and space (आकाश). The subtle body is the mind. It is in the form of desires, thoughts, emotions. The soul or the inner self is the observer. It is the soul that makes the various body organs, faculties function. To refresh the bodies - gross as well as subtle - to increase their efficiency, one has to take some hours of good sleep everyday. Likewise, the soul also needs rest. Through meditation or by withdrawing the soul from the outside world and reconnecting it with the Source, soul gets re-energized. Sometime back, I visited a government hospital in Chandigarh. There I saw a sad, su