Category Archives: Meditation

Understand What is Meditation

driving car

I like to explain meditation comparing it with simple things in life. Imagine that you want to be in a place of peace, calmness, joy, love, wisdom, acceptance, empowerment, balance, clarity, hope, and all the good qualities to feel content. Meditation is the vehicle to bring you to this place. When you are using meditation techniques you are driving this vehicle. It means that while you are doing breathing exercises, using mantras or visualizations, you are conducting your meditation in that direction.

How do I know that I got there? When you feel part of that place of peace, calmness, joy, love or wisdom you will automatically stop practicing the techniques and enjoy stillness. It means that you arrived at your destination.

Kamagra is cialis tabs an oral drug which is available in tablets and jelly. The effects tadalafil 40mg of medications on the arteries can get bigger or smaller. People who have already tried it have got levitra free sample impressed by its result. Twin studies demonstrate the importance cialis from india online of genetics in establishing causes.
What if I don’t feel any of these aspects of contentment? Keep driving. Keep practicing meditation. The place of contentment can have different distances for each one of us. Some people need to drive for days and others for months. You will find the distance for you along the way and according to how you are driving. Anyway, you will be able to get a taste of this place each time that you meditate, you will be closer and closer.

By Ester Castruita, founder and teacher at Dharana Star – Meditation, Inner Self Workout, and Expressive Arts Therapy. www.dharanastar.com

Pink Floyd: My First Meditation Experience

I still remember my first experience with meditation. I was about 17 years old and I knew nothing about it. The walls in my room were covered by posters of Led Zeppelin, Ramones, Guns n’ Roses, Metallica, Nirvana… and I just felt a strong desire for sitting up in a weird position with my legs crossed listening Pink Floyd! That was my “transcendental” meditation, with guitars solos and cosmic drums. Two years later I was finishing the book Autobiography of a Yogi, by Paramahansa Yogananda, and discovering a whole new world called yoga.

I started visiting group meditations at Self-Realization Fellowship in São Paulo (Brazil) and after that my meditations started to make sense. I understood that I needed techniques and discipline. So, I decided to meditate every morning. The first day of my new journey I sat on my bed with my feet on the floor, looked at the clock and thought that I should start with 10 min at least. After being in meditation for a while I opened my eyes and realized that I had done just 3 min! Sometimes minutes can be an eternity and I have to confess, I wasn’t good with the discipline part of it but I never gave it up. Few weeks later I was able to concentrate very well and my focus was no longer the duration of my meditation but how deep I could go within.

I can say that meditation is the most important habit in my routine and the most important tool in my life. Choices in my profession, health issues, family decisions, marriage…all the challenges that I went trough in the last 15 years were faced with meditation. And now I know that closing my eyes and fixing them on the point between the eyebrows can take me to a better place, no matter what! It’s simple, I just need to make the effort.

Precautionary Measures while Taking cialis in the uk This drug should not be absorbed by women, children and young under the age of 18 years. Sometimes, it is a combination of physical and mental condition. tadalafil buy canada More than 175 million men have erectile deficiency for cost levitra lowest different span of time. If they are not, then there is something larger cialis canada wholesale which is wrong.
Ester Castruita, founder and teacher of Dharana Star – Meditation, Inner Self Workout, and Expressive Arts Therapy. www.dharanastar.com

pink floyd Pink Floyd Live Video – Hey You

Spotlight: Dharana Star on San Diego News

One for the ages: New company offering free meditation classes

The negative health effects of stress, worry, fear and anxiety have for many years concerned modern society. Many say this is the fastest paced, most stressed period that humanity has ever experienced and that a spinning mind means spiraling health!

Chromosome sequencing is directly related to aging and becomes shorter over time, which affects the cells’ ability to divide. A stressful event speeds this process up immensely. Many new studies now focus on ways to protect sequencing from the effects of stress; trials suggest that exercise, eating healthfully and social support help. But one of the most effective interventions, apparently capable of slowing this sequential erosion — and perhaps even lengthening them again — is meditation.

“Every stress,” noted holistic physician Deepak Chopra states, “leaves an indelible scar, and the organism pays for its survival after a stressful situation by becoming a little older.” His research with UCSD showed that four days of meditation practice led to an increase of 40 percent in telomerase, an enzyme that helps to slow the aging process.


According to Ester Castruita, founder of new La Jolla company Dharana Star, a new and local wellness company, this is where meditation excels.

“Everyone from scientists to athletes and celebrities,” she says, “are using meditation as a means of getting focused and centered on more positive, empowering thought patterns. Some have used meditation to help with everything from stress management, headaches and respiratory problems to cancer and coping with death.”
In comparison to the tablet form, Kamagra has also been successful in cialis consultation other introducing Kamagra Oral Jelly and Kamagra soft. Only pure buying cialis cheap herbal components have been used in natural medicine for more than 2000 years to control diabetes. While exhaling during abdominal breathing the chest and sternum order generic levitra sink stimulating the thymus gland. With the help of its active constituent, generic sildenafil citrate http://regencygrandenursing.com/post-acute-sub-acute-care/comprehensive-wound-care cialis properien it improves the blood supply to the male sexual organ causes sexual problems.

People who meditate just five to ten minutes a day and find a quiet place have shown to quickly achieve health benefits such as stress relief, slower heart rates, lower blood pressure, reduced oxygen consumption and lower lactic acid levels. It is seen as a crucial tool in treating mental illnesses such as depression and stress while it has also been shown to boost functionality of the immune system.

Dharana Star focuses on self-awareness and self-improvement, utilizing meditation techniques that bring serenity, peace and more happiness in daily lives. Ester Castruita teaches meditation classes for the company in La Jolla and throughout Southern California. Dharana Star, also offers live meditation online, meditation programs for corporations and the unique Inner Self Workout, which mixes neuroscience, psychology and meditation techniques to increase happiness level.

Ester is holding free meditation classes for beginners. She says everyone is welcome to participate and invites our community to visit her website for the schedule, location and RSVP at www.dharanastar.com.

Read more: San Diego Community News Group – One for the ages New company offering free meditation classes

 

Meditation Made Easy – Part I

I always find people saying that meditation is not for them because their minds don’t stop, they are to busy or that it is too complicated.  Meditation is not difficult and most of the techniques are very simple.  Like the athlete needs to practice, the same is with the meditator.  So, think that meditation is your new sport and you will practice until you get good!  Anything worthwhile takes effort and mediation will change your life.

Step by step:

1.    What is meditation? A practice of introspection.

2.    Goal: to experience a higher level of consciousness feeling peace, happiness, love and power.

3.    Where? Find a quiet place.

4.    How long? First 7 days start with 5 min. Increase the time according to your development.

5.    How to meditate? Follow the posture and technique below.

Meditation posture

Females who experience from consistent complications or headaches are more likely to experience sexual dysfunctions, say experts. online viagra store levitra sale Sometimes people give all their money to a trust or a foundation or they hand it over to their heirs. Kamagra or Sildenafil Citrate cialis from india tadalafil http://greyandgrey.com/third-department-decisions-5-29-15/ is interesting, being the first noteworthy oral pharmaceutical for ED, which is broadly well known at this point. Appropriate usage Tadalista should be used only cialis low cost by men to get through the issue of ‘doping’.
Peace technique:

1. Seat in meditation posture.

2. Mentally say peace and visualize each part of your body surrounded by a big ball of light (Note: one part of the body at a time): feet, knees, lower back, belly, heart, throat, third eye (midpoint between the eyebrows). Repeat it 5 times.

3. Concentrate in your third eye, visualize a ball of light and mentally say peace until you feel peace.

4. When finished just contemplate peace and enjoy being still.

technique peace

Written by Ester Castruita – Founder & Teacher of Dharana Star. www.dharanastar.com

Neuroscience – How spirituality can improve your brain health?

brain light

In a recent survey, 95% of American physicians said that spirituality is important to the well-being of their patients.

What is spirituality?  You can have your own concept. Read the different definitions published by The Ohio State University website and create yours:

1.    “The idea of a process or journey of self-discovery and of learning not only who you are, but who you want to be.

2.    The challenge of reaching beyond your current limits. This can include keeping an open mind, questioning current beliefs, or trying to better understand others’ beliefs.

3.    A connectedness to yourself and to others. Spirituality is personal, but it is also rooted in being connected with others and with the world around you. This connection can facilitate you finding “your place in the world.

4.    Meaning, purpose, and direction. Spirituality, while it doesn’t necessarily solve or reach conclusions, often embraces the concept of searching and moving forward in the direction of meaning, purpose, and direction for your life.

5.    A higher power, whether rooted in a religion, nature, or some kind of unknown essence.”

Scientific Benefits of Spirituality

Based on new evidence culled from their brain-scan studies on memory patients and meditators, their Web-based survey of people’s religious and spiritual experiences, and their analysis of adult drawings of God, neuroscientist Andrew Newberg, therapist Mark Robert Waldman, and their research team have concluded that active and positive spiritual belief changes the human brain for the better. What’s more, actual faith isn’t always necessary: atheists who meditate on positive imagery can obtain similar neurological benefits.

Neuroscience discoveries: 

  • Not only do prayer and spiritual practice reduce stress and anxiety, but just twelve minutes of meditation per day may slow down the aging process.
  • Contemplating a loving God rather than a punitive God reduces anxiety, depression, and stress and increases feelings of security, compassion, and love.
  • Fundamentalism, in and of itself, is benign and can be personally beneficial, but the anger and prejudice generated by extreme beliefs can permanently damage your brain.
  • Intense prayer and meditation permanently change numerous structures and functions in the brain – altering your values and the way you perceive reality.

However, buying Kamagra online is a better alternative to increase the length and tadalafil buy cheap girth of penis is to make sure that you have chosen the right pill for you. Another type of this condition is ankylosing spondylitis. cialis without prescription uk In cases cialis consultation get more where an individual is sick or ill, he cannot consider being cured without the endowment of money. High blood sugar levels during the early stages of life. buy generic cialis
Researchers found that meditation:

  • Influences the amygdala, a portion of the brain responsible for emotions and for memory.
  • Produce lasting changes in emotional processing in the brain.
  • Reduces loneliness among the elderly and improves the functioning of the immune system combating the increase in the activity of genes related to inflammation and diseases caused by the feeling of isolation.

How can I “practice” spirituality and improve my brain health?

1.    Create your own definition of spirituality and write down your spiritual goal.

2.    Have a spiritual plan. Make a list of small steps that you can do to reach your goal. It might include reading books, praying, doing meditation, choosing a spiritual path/church/philosophy/mentor, traveling, etc. Answer the question beside each step: When am I going to do it? Set up date and time.

Cultivate spiritual habits

  • Do meditation
  • Recognize your spiritual nature 
  • Cultivate good feelings 
  • Forgive
  • Being thankful
  • Find inner peace

Written by: Ester Castruita – Founder & Teacher of Dharana Star