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moving society the logical left hemisphere carries most of the workload - we are called upon to be very rational most of the time - while the use of intuition is generally down graded. Meditation may correct this imbalance.
Reduction of Sensory Overload
It is obvious to anyone who meditates that the process of meditation reduces the intrusive effect of the external world. Sight, sound and touch become relatively unimportant as we focus on our chosen object of meditation, whether this be a mantra a candleflame, the sensations of our own breathing, or some other repetitive or unchanging stimulus. As we engage with our chosen focus of meditation, our inner world comes to the fore as the outer world recedes (4). What effect does this have on us? The answer may lie in what happens when human beings are bombarded by stimuli. Too much stimulation can be annoying and, carried to an extreme, overstimulation can seriously break down the adequacy of our mental or physical functioning. The strategies of the third degree' and of 'brain washing' are based on this principle. If someone is kept overstimulated by constant bombardment with intense lights, sounds or sense impressions for hours on end, day after day, the clarity of his/her thinking processes eventually deteriorates. At this point people often become susceptible to suggestions or willing to comply with demands which, in a more rational state, they would reject. With overstimulation our normal tendency to withdraw from tense stimuli seems to be dulled. At this point instead of withdrawing from excitement, we may actually reach for more. The tendency to drive towards higher pitch of excitement and to more exhausting levels of stimulation is one reason why meditation is beginning to be looked upon favorably by so many people in the modern world. We may sense that we are being caught in a trend which, unless we stop it, may continue until we drop in our tracks.
One of the most effective ways for us to re-establish a balance between too little and too great an amount of stimulation may be to meditate. If meditation restores us to a state of inner balance with respect to the adjustment of our stimulation level, its effects upon our health, both physical and mental, are highly beneficial.
Meditation Restores Natural Rhythms
Although during meditation we withdraw from our awareness of external things, when we meditate we do not retreat into a mere absence of external stimulation, but into the presence of something else. When one level of stimulation is removed - that of the world which often acts on us in ways convenient to it rather than to us - we are released to sense more subtle forms of stimulation. In the quiet of the meditative state, we may become attuned to the voices of the body which are ordinarily obscured by waking activity, Meditation seems to be the only natural state which is sufficiently still, and at the same time sufficiently alert so that when we are in it we can clearly perceive
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