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Ease your mind
Swami: Meditation is means to calm state that's beneficial to your health
By Mark Coomes
mcoomes@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal
Neville Chamberlain's promise of peace in our time is as elusive today as it was in 1939.
Sally Kempton suggests we set a more modest goal:
Peace in our minds.
Try for a moment to forget the war in Iraq. Turn off CNN, log off the Internet and tune into Swami Durgananda's "meditation channel: a very deep and peaceful place &elipse; where at any moment you're feeling calm, joyful and resourceful."
So say Sally and the Swami, who happen to be one and the same.
About 20 years ago, Kempton walked away from an award-winning journalism career to study meditation. Never one for half-measures, she moved to India and learned at the feet of the masters.
Now she is one of them — a swami, or monk, in the Siddha Yoga tradition, one distinguished by her globe-trotting missionary zeal.
For two decades, Kempton has taught meditation and spiritual philosophy in Europe, Asia and the United States. This weekend, she comes to Louisville for a three-day workshop that has as its host The Connection Point, a new Louisville business that is, according to its brochures, "committed to providing dynamic opportunities for transformational learning."
New Age argot is known to trigger outbreaks of eye-rolling skepticism in America's heartland, but Swami Durgananda is no subversive. All she is saying is give meditation a chance.
"It is a hugely beneficial practice , " she said, " and the more people do it, the more it becomes demystified and less associated with strange occult practices."
That rep is a bad rap. Meditation is nothing but a four-syllable word for the process of trying to find some good o ld-fashioned peace of mind.
The humming chants and contortionist poses often associated with purposeful meditation can be helpful, Kempton said, but they are by no means necessary. Kempton To join workshops ...
To register for Sally Kempton's meditation workshops, call The Connection Point at 485-9332. For more information, go to www.sallykempton.com and www.theconnectionpoint.org. Ask any athlete who has ever been in The Zone, a term coined by tennis legend Billie Jean King to explain the state of supreme confidence and concentration she sometimes reached in her matches.
"A lot of people have that experience during intense sports," Kempton said, "where their actions are spontaneous and correct, and the mind is in a knowing, intuitive, high-functioning, calm and peaceful state."
Even weekend warriors occasionally visit The Zone, where every shot goes in and every putt rolls true. But whether you're standing at the foul line or sitting in the Lotus position, deep meditation achieves the same end.
"It's a way to tap into the resources of inner being," Kempton said in a calm, soothing, yet subtly powerful voice. "Among those are a tremendous level of natural intuitive wisdom. When we find that channel, that bandwidth, we know how to act and what is needed in any situation.
"What we really aim to do by studying meditation is to enter that state consciously and deliberately — and enter it again and again and again."
Meditation is a boon to physical health as well. Its ability to lower high blood pressure has been known for years and has become the topic of more formal studies in recent years.
At the University of Louisville, Dr. Sandra Sephton of the Department of Psychiatry directed a recently completed study of the effects of meditation on women with fibromyalgia, a rheumatic disease characterized by pain and stiffness in muscles and tendons.
Women who regularly meditated experienced less depression, felt less stressed and got more sleep, said Dr. Paul Salmon of U of L's Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. Meditation also appears to have positive effects on the body's use of cortisol, an important stress hormone.
"It's certainly not a panacea or `magic bullet' with respect to health problems," Salmon said, "but it can help people become more accepting and less judgmental about their experiences, which can be especially helpful during times of &elipse; illness, job layoff, family problems, etc."
Though meditation is a solitary pursuit, it is difficult to properly learn without expert help. Even the best books — Kempton's "The Heart of Meditation" is consistently ranked the most popular book on meditation on amazon.com — only point the way.
To find your channel of peace, shift your focus from the global to the personal. Tune out what you can't control; tune in what you can.
To actually find the silent center of your personal power, a good teacher is usually required, Kempton said. "I really do recommend taking a class, and it's important to get correct instruction."
Kempton is offering that opportunity this weekend at The Inn at Jewish Hospital. Friday's introductory workshop from 7:30 to 9 p.m. costs $15. More advanced workshops on Saturday (1 to 5 p.m.) and Sunday (10 a.m. to 6 p.m.) cost $75 and $135, respectively.
If you're pinched for time or money, Kempton said it's not impossible to teach yourself — provided you have an ample supply of interest.
"If you are really interested in finding the channel, and you give it your full attention and pursue it with a real spirit of inquiry, you can get there , " she said.
It's not a 20-year journey, either.
"It depends on the person and their commitment," Kempton said. "Some people can get there in an afternoon. Then the question is can you give yourself the time to keep returning again and again until it becomes such a natural part of your experience that you can go there at any time."
Swami: Meditation is means to calm state that's beneficial to your health
By Mark Coomes
mcoomes@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal
Neville Chamberlain's promise of peace in our time is as elusive today as it was in 1939.
Sally Kempton suggests we set a more modest goal:
Peace in our minds.
Try for a moment to forget the war in Iraq. Turn off CNN, log off the Internet and tune into Swami Durgananda's "meditation channel: a very deep and peaceful place &elipse; where at any moment you're feeling calm, joyful and resourceful."
So say Sally and the Swami, who happen to be one and the same.
About 20 years ago, Kempton walked away from an award-winning journalism career to study meditation. Never one for half-measures, she moved to India and learned at the feet of the masters.
Now she is one of them — a swami, or monk, in the Siddha Yoga tradition, one distinguished by her globe-trotting missionary zeal.
For two decades, Kempton has taught meditation and spiritual philosophy in Europe, Asia and the United States. This weekend, she comes to Louisville for a three-day workshop that has as its host The Connection Point, a new Louisville business that is, according to its brochures, "committed to providing dynamic opportunities for transformational learning."
New Age argot is known to trigger outbreaks of eye-rolling skepticism in America's heartland, but Swami Durgananda is no subversive. All she is saying is give meditation a chance.
"It is a hugely beneficial practice , " she said, " and the more people do it, the more it becomes demystified and less associated with strange occult practices."
That rep is a bad rap. Meditation is nothing but a four-syllable word for the process of trying to find some good o ld-fashioned peace of mind.
The humming chants and contortionist poses often associated with purposeful meditation can be helpful, Kempton said, but they are by no means necessary. Kempton To join workshops ...
To register for Sally Kempton's meditation workshops, call The Connection Point at 485-9332. For more information, go to www.sallykempton.com and www.theconnectionpoint.org. Ask any athlete who has ever been in The Zone, a term coined by tennis legend Billie Jean King to explain the state of supreme confidence and concentration she sometimes reached in her matches.
"A lot of people have that experience during intense sports," Kempton said, "where their actions are spontaneous and correct, and the mind is in a knowing, intuitive, high-functioning, calm and peaceful state."
Even weekend warriors occasionally visit The Zone, where every shot goes in and every putt rolls true. But whether you're standing at the foul line or sitting in the Lotus position, deep meditation achieves the same end.
"It's a way to tap into the resources of inner being," Kempton said in a calm, soothing, yet subtly powerful voice. "Among those are a tremendous level of natural intuitive wisdom. When we find that channel, that bandwidth, we know how to act and what is needed in any situation.
"What we really aim to do by studying meditation is to enter that state consciously and deliberately — and enter it again and again and again."
Meditation is a boon to physical health as well. Its ability to lower high blood pressure has been known for years and has become the topic of more formal studies in recent years.
At the University of Louisville, Dr. Sandra Sephton of the Department of Psychiatry directed a recently completed study of the effects of meditation on women with fibromyalgia, a rheumatic disease characterized by pain and stiffness in muscles and tendons.
Women who regularly meditated experienced less depression, felt less stressed and got more sleep, said Dr. Paul Salmon of U of L's Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. Meditation also appears to have positive effects on the body's use of cortisol, an important stress hormone.
"It's certainly not a panacea or `magic bullet' with respect to health problems," Salmon said, "but it can help people become more accepting and less judgmental about their experiences, which can be especially helpful during times of &elipse; illness, job layoff, family problems, etc."
Though meditation is a solitary pursuit, it is difficult to properly learn without expert help. Even the best books — Kempton's "The Heart of Meditation" is consistently ranked the most popular book on meditation on amazon.com — only point the way.
To find your channel of peace, shift your focus from the global to the personal. Tune out what you can't control; tune in what you can.
To actually find the silent center of your personal power, a good teacher is usually required, Kempton said. "I really do recommend taking a class, and it's important to get correct instruction."
Kempton is offering that opportunity this weekend at The Inn at Jewish Hospital. Friday's introductory workshop from 7:30 to 9 p.m. costs $15. More advanced workshops on Saturday (1 to 5 p.m.) and Sunday (10 a.m. to 6 p.m.) cost $75 and $135, respectively.
If you're pinched for time or money, Kempton said it's not impossible to teach yourself — provided you have an ample supply of interest.
"If you are really interested in finding the channel, and you give it your full attention and pursue it with a real spirit of inquiry, you can get there , " she said.
It's not a 20-year journey, either.
"It depends on the person and their commitment," Kempton said. "Some people can get there in an afternoon. Then the question is can you give yourself the time to keep returning again and again until it becomes such a natural part of your experience that you can go there at any time."
