The Power Of Group Meditation

How could this be so? How could a group of individuals, sitting quietly with eyes closed, all gently repeating different mantras, cause my meditation to feel so much more deep and profound? Surely this was impossible? And yet, it was a visceral reality. I distinctly remember the paradigm shifting moment when the lightbulb switched on and I realised that I clearly didn’t understand the world nearly as well as I thought. It opened my eyes and my mind to the possibility that there was something extraordinary going on with this meditation that I couldn’t yet comprehend, and it sparked my curiosity to find out more.

Being of a scientific disposition, I retained a healthy scepticism and decided to return for several more group meditations to see if it really was the case. Did the experience bear the sort of consistent repeatability that would transform this experience from remarkable curiosity to discernible phenomena.

In the ten years that have followed this life changing juncture, I have been able to verify and articulate the many reasons why this is so.

It’s not to say that my first instinctive reaction that the psychology of investing time to come to such an event and surrendering to the experience didn’t play its part. Clearly it did and continues to make a difference for all those who attend our group meditations. We all know that creating space in your day for a true experience of internal surrender tends to have a more deepening effect than the more psychologically distracted approach of ‘squeezing it in’. But we can prep ourselves for a super fine meditation at home and it may or may not be any more exquisite as an experience. However, doing it in a group (provided we’re not super self conscious), always seems to deliver.

So it was with great delight that I discovered the work of the good people at heartmath.org who have found a very significant foundation for why this reality is experienced by all.

It transpires that there is a one foot electromagnetic field around our brains, and an eight feet field emanating from our hearts. How cool is that? Even more remarkable, is that the wave patterns of our hearts influence the brain patterns of those within our event horizon (the eight foot field). So if I’m in a calm state, and my heart is harmoniously and gently beating away, then my internal state of harmony will begin to have a soothing impact on all the people who come into my range, by calming down and soothing their brain sates. Even to this day, with all that I know, I still find this absolutely mega!

Like all field effects, there is an inverse square law at play whereby the closer people come to us, the more this effect becomes amplified.

Another one of my favourite factoids is that we each emit a six foot cloud of hormones around us at any one time. At any given moment we are in a certain neurological and physiological state that causes neurotransmitters to be racing around our bodies at al times. Curiously, some of these neurotransmitters are released through our pores and into the atmosphere around us. Now, when we’re agitated, not only does our heart frequency become distorted and racy, but we start to emit a cocktail of stress chemicals like cortisol and adrenaline which pollutes the atmosphere around us and starts to be ingested by anyone within our hormone horizon. We are sharing molecules with each other all the time, and they are entering the neurotransmitter receptor sites of the people in our orbit and creating chemical messages within their systems that are not coming from their brains!

The only real question we need to ask ourselves is; Are we emitting stress chemicals or endorphins? Because if we’re emitting endorphins, then we help give people a feel good factor that goes even beyond the feel god factor of our calm and tranquil heart states.

So next time you’re going on a date, maybe get some meditation mojo rising and increase your pulling power!

Of course, when we’re in a  group of people who are all optimising their heart states and their neurochemical profiles, we find that we are all contributing to a smooth and harmonious heart field that we are all a party too. This has a calming and soothing effect on each other’s brains. There is then a feedback loop that calms the heart states of each participant even more, and that then adds further juice to the meditative effect and activates even more release of yummy neurochemicals like serotonin, oxcytocin, and dopamine (the bliss chemical named after the sanskrit word for bliss).

In addition, there is also a strong scientific argument for their being a field of consciousness that is even more subtle than the electromagnetic field. Now this is more speculative, but when you’ve spent the last decade of your live becoming familiar with this field, it imbues you with a certain confidence that this theoretical field truly does exist. If that is the case, then if the laws of field theory also apply to this consciousness field, then by individually putting ourselves into a more expansive state of consciousness, then we are collectively enhancing our ability to access this field when we meditate together.

Another very noticeable and tangible phenomena is when there are advanced meditators in the room. When I do advanced mantra courses, the power of the regular meditators is noticeable – as you practice more, the power of your field effect increases. When they start using more powerful mantras the group meditation we have on the second session of the course is really very powerful. Indeed, in the interests of full disclosure, I no longer notice the effect of group meditations, even when there are 35 people in attendance. But if there are 10 advanced meditators in the room, I really notice it and absolutely love the juiciness of it!

It’s the same when people have done retreats. It kicks up their state of consciousness and imbues them with more power. And when peeps do the The Veda Course, the power of people’s field effect goes up exponentially. Interestingly, I recently completed a very advanced course called the Siddhis, and although there were only three of them on the course, the group meditation we shared during the course was as powerful as a group meds I have done with three hundred people! That’s how much we can scale up our personal power and by doing so, have a hugely positive influence on all he people around us

So if you want more juiciness in your meditations, here are our top tips for achieving more from your daily practise:

1. Attend group meds regularly. Not only will they keep you on track, you will learn more about the subtleties of meditation and tricks for integration and further personal development. The extra depth from the group effect will put wind in your sails for a few days at least. There are 24 a month of these now, so no excuses not to attend some from time to time! Feel free to pop your name down for a group meditation anytime here.
2. When meditating every day, do the best you can to set up a non-stimulated, non-rushed approach to your meditation. That means; no staring at phones before your morning med; giving yourself a bit of space around the meditation so you’re not sweating about time; psychologically preparing yourself to let go of your cares and nonchalantly surrendering to whatever is about to come.
3. Attend a retreat and learn the technique of rounding which will allow you to self generate the same sort of power as a group meditation, in the comfort of your very own home!