“What really drew my attention and interest towards meditation was the astute focus on understanding the self — our thoughts, our emotional patterns, our personality,” says Sister Jayanti, who practices the Raja Yoga form of meditation.
“People come to us having experimented with many things and what they find here is that there’s a body of knowledge about the self. For me, that is what’s most exciting about meditation. It helped me discover that you can actually understand your thoughts and where they’re coming from, so you can channel them in the right direction.”
Understanding who you are is fundamental to getting rid of your negative patterns and enhancing your positive attributes, believes Sister Jayanti. For instance, you may tend to get impatient quickly or you get angry very quickly. Doctors are telling you to watch out for your blood pressure or else you may have to be on medication for the rest of your life. You feel like you can’t do anything about it. You get angrier, you react and you become part of a vicious cycle. You know you need to change but how do you get to it? “If you keep giving way to anger, it becomes a pattern of behaviour, which keeps getting stronger. It’s almost like an addiction, which gets worse each time you repeat the behaviour,” she explains.
“Through meditation, you can bring about a change in your personality in a way that you want, instead of feeling helpless about your situation,” says Sister Jayanti. Elaborating further, she adds, “Meditation also allows you to explore these patterns and behaviours. There’s a moment from which impatience turns into anger and if it persists for longer, the anger explodes. Meditation allows you to recognise these signs and patterns,” she adds. “So, you can catch yourself in that moment before it turns into anger and start a dialogue with yourself. Being mindful enables you to utilise the power of that moment.”
