1. "Benefits of Meditation." The Art of Living Foundation. 2012 Web. 17 Sept. 2012. <http://www.artofliving.org/benefits-meditation>.

Are you looking for a calmer and better life? Why not meditate. It is proven to have numerous health benefits while a person is finding himself or herself. One of the main elements of meditation is that is disintegrate stress from your system and leads to a refreshed state of mind. In addition, there are many health benefits such as reduction in migraines and anxiety issues while improving the immune system. All in all, a combination of techniques which combines the body, brain, and heart will lead to a more prosperous lifestyle. I believe this is a very credible source due that the Art of Living is worldwide non-profit organization. In addition, I have had a chance to meet people of the organization and work with them to learn information about meditation. Therefore, I am using this source because I know it is a proven organization that is used by many followers around the world. In addition, this website is a useful sources because it sums up a lot of information in a very few words that are important for its readers. 2. Stone, Justin F. The Joy of Meditation: An Introduction to Meditation Techniques. Garden City Park, NY: Square One, 2002. Online Print. The Joy of Meditation Author: Justin F. Stone Book This source is book authored by Justin F. Stone which includes the development, spread, and history of meditation. The book looks at various forms of meditation created in different parts of the world. In addition, the book goes in depth about how effective the mediations are and distinguishes the different forms of meditation. Stone goes in dept about the styles of meditation while including the religious origins and ties the topic together to by restating the main point; The Joy of Meditation. This book is a credible source due to the fact that the author has written a few other books on meditation. In addition, he includes his past experiences with meditation and said that he was a meditation student and scholar for many years. He also wrote a book about the origins of ancient East Asian forms of meditations. This book is similar in the shaping but different in context compared to the joy of meditation. In conclusion, the books serves purposeful for readers who are planning or just started meditation. 3. Seidel, David Mark. Peace, Butter, Jelly. 2011.Print Peace, Butter, and Jelly Author: David Mark Seidel Book

This book read in my 1102 English class serves a great personal example of the positive effects of meditation. The book includes a biography of a person who gave up everything to live in a peaceful ashram through mediation and yoga. The book goes in depth about a personal way of happiness and shows how he and his family deal with times of sadness. Such personal examples can be easily relatable to readers of my essay. It is a concisely written essay with times of emotion that portrays as pathos to his readers. This book is without a doubt a credible source due to the fact that it is a published first had experience of a person who I had a chance of meeting a few weeks back. Even though this is David Mark Seidels first book, he is about to write his second book again on meditation and his journey to happiness. This book is also a reason that I choose this topic to write about. In addition, Seidel has his own website where he allows for questions about his life.

4. Vora, Shivani. "The Simple Life." New York Times [New York] 11 Dec. 2008: pag. Print. The Simple Life Author: Shivani Vora New York Timeshttp://travel.nytimes.com/2008/12/12/travel/escapes/12ashrams.html?ref=meditation&_moc.s emityn.levart This source is from a newspaper article which describes certain examples of followers of meditation techniques in upstate New York. It describes the new daily life of some people, who gave up their lives of living in urban and suburban areas to live a simple and pure life. The article goes on to describe example of people who live in such ashrams in upstate New York. Such example of people give first hand experience to readers the benefits of meditation. Obviously, this news paper article authored by a journalist from New York Times is credible. The New York Times is one of the worlds largest respected newspaper companies. Therefore, the credibility of such sources cannot be questioned. The writers may be vague and biased but it serves its purpose for a person like me who is planning to write a paper on the same topic as the writer of the article. As stated above, this source is helpful to me because it writes about first hand experience. 5. Hagelin, John. The Effects of Meditation of the Brain. Youtube. 9 November 2011. Web Youtube video. 20 September 2012. One of my sources is a youtube video regarding the affects of meditation on increased intelligence. The speaker in the video goes through a study conducted by his group on improved IQ through practice of meditation. The main guy in the video is the president of a group known as SAND. He uses pictures to get through his ideas to improve brain power in normal human settings. He goes through a quick step by step process on how increase this brain power in an orderly fashion. This video is a pretty credible source. One of the main reasons is because the conductor of this show is a proven scholar. His name is John Hagelin who has developed and proved such type of scenarios in

the past. He is the president on two foundations and companies and is the director of the Transcendental Meditation Movement. These are just a few reasons why this source is trustable even if it is from youtube. 6. Picture: Sharma. "IJOY Graph." 1990. Raw image file. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3017967/figure/F0001/ The picture was taken to enhance a paper written to show the benefits of meditation on higher academic performance. In that paper, the author contributes to the fact the one main reason for the higher academic performance is due to the fact of lower stress among meditators. Therefore, the paper includes an upside down parabola with the peak being the highest performance and the bottoms being the two types of low performances. Since, this picture includes a graph, the reader gets a more in dept evaluation of the purpose of the paper. I believe this graph is a pretty credible source because it includes a graph made by a study by the National Institute of Health. While I was researching this graph, I noticed that a few others included the same graph. This goes on to show of the effectiveness of the graph and will aid me in my research. Also, the graph includes some bullet points from other sources. This will help in summarizing the graph when I use it in my paper.