Aerobics for the brain? Fitness experts praise mindfulness meditation

Meditation without spiritual awareness is like a cart without the horse!

Not true at all. Meditation by itself will lead to spiritual awareness. We are naturally spiritual beings whether we have an awareness of it or not. Meditation is a tool and as such all tools will need to be eventually discarded once one finds themselves and at this point the meditation happens on its own. There will be no need to be aware of the breath as the awareness will go to the place that it naturally flows to as a river flows down stream.

Meditation by itself will lead to spiritual awareness.

I agree, and there is documented evidence to support this. Over ten years ago, a group of 30 inmates at Alabama's high-security state penitentiary volunteered to undertake a 10-day course in vipassana meditation. The results and their lasting effects are recorded in the documentary film The Dhamma Brothers. It is a must-see for anyone interested in this topic.

Meditation is the surest way for one to come to know and to master one's self.

I have just re-read this article, and can find no mention of spiritual awareness as part or parcel of meditation. I agree with the comments that it is! So why is the mainstream media keeping this a secret? Seems we live in an age where any talk of being more than our physical bodies is deemed socially inappropriate by the powers that be on this planet.

Why is spiritual awareness not mentioned in the article?

Good question.

Perhaps it's because psychology, in spite of its name (psyche + ology) mostly ignores the spirit and tries to explain it all physically - the brain - chemical balances, etc.

Whereas there are some branches of psychology that admit spiritual phenomena, the crap I was given to read at college certainly didn't.

When I got my B.A. in Psychology the professor called me in for a private talk and asked why, given my high scores, I hadn't applied for post graduate studies? I told him that Psychology was going nowhere, because they viewed all human actions as the result of behavioural conditioning and physical influences, with no regard for human consciousness. I see that same willful blindness in this article on meditation. A mind full of the belief that consciousness is merely an artifact of our physical bodies, is not open to experiencing the universe within and beyond that the meditative/hypnagogic/lucid dream/visionary/intuitive/whole brain state of consciousness is the gateway to!

Spiritual awareness is such a fluffy word. There is no real substance to it except as just being a word. There is a spirit of course but this can not be documented so it will never enter into the scientific program. One step at a time for man kind. What if we talk about the Self? That inner radiant being which is complete in itself. It is there but we can not prove it except on our own. In this regards the best medicine is to give people meditation and let them make their own discoveries.