Incense- A Companion on your path of Meditation

It is a common ritual around the world, to light up incense before meditation, which is one’s attempt to reach the ultimate state of bliss. Although meditation only requires control over the mind and to have a spiritual experience, but it is easier said than done. Therefore, meditators often use various methods as mediators to cherish the ultimate blissful experience. Common mediators are dance, music, bells, candles and incense amongst others. Although you maybe a master of meditation, but the mediators help you to have a more richer experience and with much more ease.

Incense is one of the most common mediators. Scientists and academicians around the world are all praises for the use of incense not just during prayers or meditation but for use in general at any time of the day. A group of researchers from John Hopkins University and Hebrew University have found positive effects of incense on our body including alleviating depression and anxiety. The same group of researchers also found, that incense activates a protein called TRPV3 in our brain. This protein is involved in emotional regulation. It is because of this protein that people often feel elated when fragrance of incense is lingering in the surrounding. But the positive effects of incense have been most enthusiastically asserted by many religions all over the world beginning from ancient times. Incense has been claimed to dispel all negativity from our mind and soul, making them purer and fit for mediation.

Apart from relaxing your mind, which is a prerequisite for someone who wants to meditate, incense purifies the atmosphere and creates an ambience of positive energy around you. Incense is usually made with elements plucked from nature and the fragrance may remind you of a particular flower or a place in nature. Although the best place to meditate is a calm and tranquil place in nature but provided the limitations of today’s lifestyle finding such a place and reaching out there every time you want to meditate is not possible. However, even while meditating at home or office, you could take a mental walk through the beaches one day and through the mountains the other as the natural fragrances exuding from incense will surely make you feel like you were sitting right in the lap of nature. Your meditation in this way is more likely to be successful and blissful.

Meditation is a very pure practice of feeling connected to one’s real self or in some cases even with the order of the entire universe. It is imperative to have a very pure atmosphere around when trying to meditate. The significance of incense thus escalates to newer levels when meditation is to be practiced. Therefore if meditation is part of your routine then lighting up incense right before meditation should be a part of your routine too.