What is a major factor in the cause of illnesses? What causes unhappiness or emotional tension? The answer is stress. The reduction of stress can work wonders for making one feel better or possibly healthier. I have found that I am a very stressed out person because my scores on the Schedule of Recent Experience, a stress measurement test created by Thomas Holmes M.D., was astronmomically high. According to this test, a score of over 300 qualified you as person who has an 80 percent chance of getting sick in the near future. My score was a 667!! I am definitely a very sick person. Surprisingly, the results from this test did seem to correlate with the chronic headaches, backaches, and frequent illnesses I suffer from. I have seen doctors for all these conditions but they never helped. I have even tried going to a chiropractor and a nerve therapist to alleviate my back pain, but was unsuccessful. I was willing to try anything to help with my chronic pains. During this summer, I took a health psychology course and was enlightened on how stress may affect our mental and physical well-being, and also learned that there were many stress management techniques. I attempted the technique of visualization and relaxation, but it didn't work very well for me, so I desired to explore other techniques of stress management.

I picked meditation because it seemed very powerful and it fell into the category of the topics that Dr. Jame's allowed us to explore. Our topic selection was limited to the areas covered by generation 3 in cyberpsychology on the World Ideas Bank page. Fortunately for me, the topic of spiritual experiences was covered by G3 and I was able to explore the topic of meditation through a search engine.

Dr. James allowed us to use any search engine we desired to use. The search engine that I decided to explore was the Yahoo search engine because I have used it before and it describes itself as the most up-to-date search engine. I have used the Yahoo search engine about 5 times previously to check on scores in basketball. I was working on-campus and had access to netscape so I fooled around on the computer and discovered the Yahoo search engine. The minute by minute update of the basketball game scores were amazing and convenient. It is an awesome way to keep up with your favorite sports team and access present scores every minute. To get to Yahoo you can type in the URL address for Yahoo (http://www.yahoo.com) or click "options." I thought that this screen would give me some information on how to use Yahoo, but instead, it provided options (obviously) on the format of your search. These options included: conducting the search in one of three areas, Yahoo, Usenet, or e-mail addresses; finding only listings added in the past how many years you select; finding listings that contain at least one of the keys (boolean or) or all the keys (boolean and); considering keys to be substrings or complete words; and displaying the amount of listings per page. This screen provides an option to modify your search according to your needs.

I began to scroll down the screen in Yahoo after I exited the options screen. There was a listing of areas to do your search in and they were all highlighted as links. I read each link thoroughly to identify the area that my topic would possibly be found. It was easy to do this because the areas were very broad and contained no detailed descriptions, rather it contained sub-groups within that area. The format was easy to follow because it was organized into two columns that were in alphabetical order. It did not contain wordy descriptions of the areas and the screen listing wasn't very long, so it made it much easier to scroll up and down to browse the areas provided. I clicked on the link called Health because I believed that it would contain the topic I was searching for. I expected a whole listing of categories that were related directly or indirectly to the concept of health. The screen that came up contained a comprehensive listing of subject areas related to the term health. I read all of the links which were the headings of the subject areas because I was trying to find an area where my topic would fall in. Again, it was easy to read this listing because there were no descriptions for each subject area (self-explanatory) and they were listed in alpahabetical order by columns. I was a bit surprised to the extent of categories available because they ranged from commercialism to sexuality to insurance to travel. I read each heading carefully in order to decipher which area my topic may be included.

I did not take notes at this point because there was no detailed information and I was planning to explore each relevant category to my topic anyway. I bookmarked this screen just in case I needed to get back here later, plus, it allowed a more convenient way to get back here when I needed to. I thought that the subject listings provided was very extensive and interesting because it pretty much covered every area in health you could think of. I have a personal interest in the health field so it excited me to have access to any amount of information at the click of a mouse button. I clicked on mental health and came up with a listing of subject areas related to this term. I chose this category because my topic of meditation fit this area best. I decided to search even further by clicking on psychology. This led me to a screen with a listing of practically all the areas related to psychology. There was also a listing of specific articles with a sentence explaining what the article was about. Unfortunately, the topic of meditation was not listed on this screen so I had to look for the most closely related topic to click on again. This led me to a small screen of topics related to hypnosis but there was no meditation. It was time to get back to the search window because I was getting nowhere and I wanted to access the information more quickly.

I began the process of thinking of words that I could type into the search window to access information on my topic. As mentioned earlier, my topic was meditation and I did not know too much about it. I pictured meditation as an old man sitting in a contorted position with his fingers pinched together and humming. I knew it was supposed to be a powerful technique for relieving stress or getting in "touch" with oneself. However, I did not know how to perform this technique correctly so I wanted to find out how. The formulation of the words I was to use in my search window was very simple, I decided to use "meditation" and "mantra." I chose mantra because that was the type of meditation I was interested in. I felt these words were sufficient to conduct my search, but if I ran into any problems (like a very long listing) then I would tackle that problem later. I referenced The Relaxation and Stress Reduction Workbook to get the word mantra.

I proceeded to type the phrase "mantra meditation" into the search window and pressed the enter key. I got to another screen where the bottom part said, "No Matching Yahoo Categories," and I began to panic (for example click

I went back to the Yahoo search window by clicking on the bookmarks that I saved (save your bookmarks, it makes searching much easier!). I then clicked on"options" and changed the parameters of my search by selecting Usenet. I then proceeded to type in the phrase "mantra meditation" in the window provided above the options for the search and pressed the enter key. I got a listing of 201 related newsgroups on the phrase "mantra meditation." The listing provided the date the writing was posted, the newsgroup it came from, and the author of the document. I clicked on one of the articles and came up with a discussion of mantra meditation, but it was mostly garbage talk between people. It is like eavesdropping on a discussion about mantra meditation, but there seemed to be no substance or enlightening information on how to do it. I'm sure that if I clicked on every listing I would find some relevant information, but I decided that it would not be possible to do this with time limitations.

I went back to the options screen and tried my search in e-mail just to see what kind of listing I would get. I was sure that it would be similar to the Usenet results with lengthy, meaningless discussions among people. I had no matches with the phrase "mantra meditation" so I decided to simplify it by only typing in "meditation" into the search window. I still had no matches, so I decided to give this search up, because I could not think of any other words or variations specific enough to meet my needs. The "no matches" screen I kept getting provided usfel tips on how to moderate your words in the search window.

I did not have a very long list on my results screen after typing in the phrase "mantra meditation." In fact, my list contained only 2 categories and they were How to Meditate and Mysticism in World Religions. I did not spend much time looking at the results before clicking on them because there were only two. I read the title of the listing and the following descriptions provided because there was only a limited amount of information to read. If the listing was very long, then I probably would have only read the listing titles and proceeded to read the description if the title was relevant to my search. I was pretty excited to see the results of "How to Meditate" because that was what I wanted to learn, however, I was disappointed that there was only one listing related to this. I picked Yahoo because I felt that the information was the most updated information available, but it seemed that the amount of information I was obtaining was quite limited. This may be because Yahoo groups its information into its own subcategories and does not leave much room for creativity (in word choices). Another reason why I feel that my results were so limited was because Yahoo may not deal that much with unusual topics such as meditation. I quickly attempted a search in webcrawler with the phrase "mantra meditation" and got a listing of 2188 categories. The listing may be too long but there is much more selection than Yahoo. I did not feel like scrolling down 2188 categories or thinking of new words so I went back to my Yahoo results because it was sufficient to me.

I decided first to click on Health: Alternative Medicine: Meditation and came up with a larger listing of topics related to meditation. There were 12 categories and I browsed the titles and read the descriptions for the listings I was interested in. I clicked on the topics that were relevant to teaching how a proper meditation is done. These pages also provided links to other pages and lead to more in-depth information or information that was either related or irrelevant. I did not have a plan of action in my search in the results page. I spontaeously clicked on links from these pages that I felt were interesting or relevant to my topic. I felt the need to bookmark each screen that I entered because I wanted to get back to them in a quick, convenient manner when I desired to. I bookmarked and saved these screens on my disk so that I did not have to remember the pattern of my search to get back where I left off. Taking notes did not seem necessary to me because I felt that if I needed to access the information provided, I would only have to get to a computer, go online, and click my bookmarks to get it.

The basis of mantra meditation lies in the mantra or chant. One needs to focus his or her mind on the mantra that is repeatedly cited and block out all other thoughts. This allows one to reach a deep state of relaxation and a sense of oneness with the universe. These are instructional articles on how to do a mantra meditation correctly and effectively.

• Meditation: How to Meditate
• BTS International Meditation Institute
• Meditation

There are other ways of performing a meditation and mantra meditation is only one of many methods. I did not research all the other methods of meditation but I did provide these links for meditation techniques that I found interesting or helpful in performing meditation correctly.

• Inspiration is the In-Breath of Spirit
• Welcome to Shambhala
• trancenet.org home page

There are many more other people out there who are meditating also and you can share your experiences and read their experiences. You can also gain new insight into better methods of meditating by reading the updated, subjective experiences of meditators around the world. Access to this information is at you fingertips, by clicking the mouse.

• Newsgroup: alt.meditation
• Newsgroup: alt.meditation.transcendental

Meditation can be done inexpensively with no products or services but if you can't do it comfortably or effectively, you may want to look into supplemental products. There are teaching workshops and retreats that teach meditation and provide a relaxing atmosphere. There are also supplemental equipment such as: benches, self-help tools, and mind machines.

• Yahoo! - Business and Economy:Products and Services:Health:Alternative Medicine:Meditation:Workshops & Retreats
• The Seventh Ray -- New Age Products & Self Help Tools
• Altar, Omni Meditation Bench TM, Omni Desk TM
• The Mind Machine Page

Meditation does not only reduce stress and provide an outlet from the "outside" world, but it is also very central to many religions. It is used as a tool for getting more in touch with yourself or with God. It provides the path for enlightenment, self-actualization, and peace with God.

• Yahoo! - Society and Culture:Religion:Mysticism
• Mysticism in World Religions

The search engines provided on the internet is the wave of the future in information accessiblity. Knowledge is only a click away and the search engines are so comprehensive and organized that any topic should be accessible. The search engines also provide a much quicker and efficient way of obtaining knowledge than the library. For example, at the library, one must first look up the topic on the directory computer and print out the call numbers, then they have to walk around the library looking for their books. This may be very time consuming and frustrating if one cannot find exactly what they want. The search engines provide a way of accessing information at one place (the computer online) with little time wasted. The information on the internet is also much more updated than the outdated books that many libraries carry. The search engines also allow one to view relevant information more quickly by clicking on links or scrolling down the screen, while a book must be flipped through and read.

The search engines are of great value to future students and people who wish to gain knowledge or do research on practically any topic. Its potential to provide updated information is unlimited and it provides a variety of perspectives on topics. For example, the search engines can search through e-mail and newsgroups to provide subjective information, and through pages posted on the net that provide professional or amateur opinions. All this knowledge and power is only a click away!!