Motivation is the basic driving force, and without it, kung fu can never be reached. It means both interest and the will to do something; a person who is forced to do something is not truly motivated. A motivated person, on the other hand, has interest in learning: they have a goal.
Enlightenment as a concept, is related to the Buddhist Bodhi . It is a cornerstone of religious and spiritual understanding in many, but not all religions. (Its counterparts, the Christian and Judaic ideas of spiritual knowledge used the concept called divine illumination .) Systematic search for enlightenment was a goal of the seekers after they found their master teachers or gurus , who could guide them. However, this formulation was not necessarily spiritual. In earlier times, such as during the Bon period of Tibetan religion, it was essentially magical, which is a pre-scientific stage. After the systematic methods were learned in India, the nations of Asia made pilgrimages to learn them. The relationship between seeker and guru was and remains, in most cases, an essential point for Enlightenment. There are practical signs of such a state, which can be recognized by a guru. Thus there is a practical, even secular component to Enlightenment, which differs from the requirement of Christian divine grace from God , which was essentially mystical or sacred.
Meditation usually refers to a state in which the body is consciously relaxed and the mind is allowed to become calm and focused. Several major religions include ritual meditation; however, meditation itself need not be a religious or spiritual activity. Most of the more popular systems of meditation are of Eastern origin.
Another form of meditation is more closely akin to prayer and worship, wherein the practitioner turns spiritual thoughts over in the mind and engages the brain in higher thinking processes. The goal in this case is the receipt of spiritual insights and new understanding.
From the point of view of psychology , meditation can induce — or is itself — an altered state of consciousness .
The purposes for which people meditate vary almost as widely as practices. It may serve simply as a means of relaxation from a busy daily routine, or even as a means of gaining insight into the nature of reality or of communing with one's God . Many have found improved concentration, awareness, self-discipline and equanimity through meditation. The disciplined self-cultivation aspect of meditation plays a central role in Taoism , Sufism , Sikhism , Hinduism and Buddhism . Generally, there is religious meditation , where one meditates to commune with or on the Divine , and focus meditation , where one meditates to improve health or mental faculties. Very often there is significant overlap between these two positions in many meditative traditions.
However, see spiritual materialism .
The phrase altered state of consciousness was coined in the 1970s and describes induced changes in one's mental state, almost always temporary. A synonymous phrase is "altered states of awareness".
An altered state of consciousness can come about accidentally through fever , sleep deprivation , starvation , oxygen deprivation, nitrogen narcosis (deep diving), or a traumatic accident. Intentionally it can sometimes be reached by the use of a sensory deprivation tank, hypnosis , meditation , prayer , or disciplines (e.g. yoga or Sufism ). It is sometimes attained through the ingestion of recreational drugs , plant poisons, or psychedelic substances such as LSD , 2C-I , peyote , marijuana , mescaline , datura (Jimson weed), and alcohol .
Naturally occurring altered states of consciousness include channeling , dreams , premonitions , euphoria , ecstasy , limerence , out of body experiences , and "being in the zone" (athletics).
There have been recent MRI scans of people's brain while in altered states. Monks had different parts of their brain light up than normal people.
The uncollapsing theorem proposes that people in certain altered states can affect the quantum wavefunction of matter.
Lucid dreaming researchers often define lucid dreaming as simply "being aware in a dream that one is dreaming". Many others define a lucid dream as a dream in which the dreamer has full awareness that the situation he is in is a construct of his mind, and thus can analyse the situation logically and react accordingly. Such full awareness adds numerous extra abilities to the dreamer. The dreamer usually has control of the direction of the dream and can thus explore the dream world. This control is particularly helpful during nightmares , when the dream self can turn round and face the attacker to confront or destroy it. When lucid, the dreamer usually has direct control of the dream environment, and hence can do things impossible in real life, such as making new objects appear, polymorphing, or flying . Lucid dreams can occur spontaneously, especially during youth, but for lucid dreams to occur more frequently, dedication and practice is almost always necessary.
Lucid dreams can be categorized into Dream-Initiated Lucid Dreams (DILDs) and Wake-Initiated Lucid Dreams (WILDs). DILDs start as non-lucid dreams, but at some point in the dream the dreamer realizes they're dreaming. In a WILD, conscious logic and reasoning is preserved while the dreamer transitions from waking to dreaming, and the dreamer is lucid from the beginning of the dream. These uses of "WILD" and "DILD" have mostly fallen into disuse (or rather they mostly never came into use), though "WILD" is often used to refer to any technique in general that happens to induce a wake-initiated lucid dream, by moving directly from conscious wakefulness to conscious dreaming.
Lucid dreamers are those who practice lucid dreaming frequently for personal or spiritual gain. They usually induce lucid dreams through the use of one of many induction techniques. A common technique, known as MILD (Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams) and developed by Stephen LaBerge , consists of remembering to recognize that they are dreaming the next time they have a dream.