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Meditation benefits life in so many ways that it truly deserves to be called the best thing you can do not only for yourself, but also for others and for the world. On the physical level alone, meditation is highly effective for a wide variety of ailments. The American Heart Association, for example, has said that learning to meditate is the best thing you can do to prevent a second heart attack. Meditation has also been shown in clinical research to relieve hypertension, chronic pain, and even aging. Truly, in whatever way you might want to improve your health and well-being (which certainly affects those around you), meditation is the place to start. Meditation is also tremendously beneficial for your mental and emotional well-being. It improves concentration and mental clarity, helps you overcome anxiety and nervousness, and develops the inner strength to face life's challenges with dynamic courage and joy. Neurological research has shown that meditators not only have a much higher tolerance to normally upsetting events, but also recover much more quickly from such episodes when they do occur. As meditation increases self-awareness, it helps you become more in control of your reactions to circumstances and thus more able to respond by choice rather than by habit. It's clearly difficult to help others effectively when you are confused, anxious, or upset. Little surprise, then, that many professionals from doctors and caregivers to police officers, software engineers, and CEOs find meditation an indispensable aid to their work. It helps you concentrate on your own work, relate more meaningfully to others, stay calm in the midst of crises, and clearly see solutions to difficult problems. Many people find that meditation, in addition to mental and rational abilities, develops creativity, intuition, and a greater sensitivity to the needs of others. As meditation expands your self-awareness, so does it increase your awareness of everything around you, including an understanding of others' realities. Love, compassion, and countless other virtues thus develop naturally. Over time, this dynamic awareness develops an ever-increasing connection with all life and with God, the very source of Life itself. Joy becomes more and more something you experience within yourself, independent of all outward circumstances and conditions. It's been well said that if you wish to change the world, the place to begin is with yourself. Meditation is thus the foundation for any meaningful change both in your own life and in the world at large. For in the end, what our world needs is not new laws or new social programs but simply more joy. Meditation puts you in touch with that joy, and with the inner strength to creatively channel that joy into the world.
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