The Different Paths Of Meditation

What is meditation? It’s the practice of diving deeper within yourself to discover your true self.

I have been meditating for 19 years now, and have tried and tested different ways of doing it, and have also fine-tuned them to suit my own practice and my own spiritual goals.

And that’s why I know now, what I didn’t know at the beginning, that there are many different ways to do your meditation, and all of them ultimately lead to the same goal.

It’s like climbing to the peak of a mountain. You can start from any direction. You can take any path. You can even change paths in between the way. What matters is that you reach the peak of the mountain.

Once you reach the peak, it won’t matter what path you took to reach there. It won’t matter how much time you took to reach there. It won’t matter how much effort and what types of effort you put in to reach there. What matters is that you kept moving every day towards it; what matters is that you kept analyzing and figuring out the best path to reach the peak; what matters is that you didn’t stop in your path midway and gave up on it.

Now, once you reached the peak, if you found several others there who, too, took their own path to reach the peak, would it make any sense to convince them that your path was the best? Would it make any sense if all of you kept fighting with each other, and each kept thinking that only their own path is the best?

It won’t, right? What matters is that you reached the top, beyond which there is nothing else to be reached. What matters to you is that your journey has ended and you arrived at your goal.

The same way, all the different paths of meditation too lead to the same goal. It’s only that we call this goal by different names based on which Teacher, which Guru, which Culture, which Religion we followed. Otherwise it all means one and the same.

Some call that goal as to become enlightened; some call it as to become liberated; some call it as attaining Godhood; some call it as seeing God; some call it as freedom from the cycle of birth and death, or as moksha or nirvana; some call it as becoming one with the universe; some call it as becoming one with the source; some call it as to become eternal and infinite; some call it as to return to your original form; some call it as to become one with Ram or Krishna or Buddha or Shiva or whatever God you believe in; some call it as to have reached the land of all these Gods.

What name you call it won’t change its true nature though. It will all be the same. It all feels different now only because your little mind thinks of all these ultimate goals as different from each other.

It’s only when you realize that all these goals essentially mean one and the same thing that you begin to see things how they truly are. And becoming one of these automatically includes all the rest as well.

To become enlightened is to become liberated, is to become one with the ultimate God, is to attain nirvana or moksha, is to become one with the universe, is to become eternal and infinite, is to return to your original timeless form, is to become one with Ram or Krishna or Buddha or Shiva, is to have reached their lands which they keep for their most loved devotees.

It’s all the same.

It’s only the paths that are different. So let’s talk about some of those paths. They say that there are infinite paths to reach enlightenment, to become one with Parmatma – the ultimate God; and I agree with it. There is no way I, or anyone else, can even understand and explain all those paths, as we can only know fully about those selected paths that we have practiced ourselves with full sincerity.

What any Master, any Guru, can do is try to explain the path that he himself has taken. And I am not even any Guru. I am just another fellow human who has set out towards the goal of enlightenment as you have. So let me share my own experiences so far.

When I started with meditation I took the most scientific approach towards it as I could. Back then I didn’t believe in practicing any other way of meditation. I felt the non-scientific approaches were wrong and even worthless and meaningless to practice – this should tell you how stupid I was, all filled up with my own ego.

So, I started with the scientificish approach which I had read about in various books. I wanted to meditate on something that I can actually experience or feel or think upon, rather than some imaginary God or thought or mantra. So I meditated upon my breath. My goal was to focus solely on my breath and thus dive deeper and deeper within myself. And it’s a good approach and perhaps best suitable for those who only want to follow the scientific way of meditation.

Just like any other meditation practice, this too helps you to become peaceful, to get rid of distractions and to become focused, and to become fully self-aware. This is the way also suggested by the Buddha to reach enlightenment.

Meanwhile, as I kept meditating upon my breath, all these years I also continued to read various spiritual books – In India, we are fortunate to have thousands and thousands of such great enlightened beings from the past who showed us the way towards enlightenment.

So, when I read these books, I often came across such sentences that shook me to my core. And then I closed my eyes and meditated on that sentence for a good while, until I understood it fully. And that made me realize that this is also a form of meditation – to read spiritual books and meditate upon the teachings.

I also learnt that there was one more way to meditate, and that was to ask yourself questions. Deep questions. And try to find the answers to those questions, try to find the truth about them. Actually it was this way of meditation that turned me towards the spiritual side more than anything else back then. Questions like: Who am I? What am I here for? What is the meaning of life? What is the purpose of my own life? Does this whole world, this whole universe, has any meaning at all? Or is it all meaningless? Why is there so much suffering? Why do even good and kind people suffer? Why do even innocent animals suffer?

Asking all these questions to myself, and trying to understand all these answers was also a good way of meditation, which I was unknowingly doing then without even realizing what it was.

As time went by, and as I started turning more and more spiritual, I also realized the greatness, and the existence, of God – the one who creates this whole universe; the one who destroys this whole universe. I began to understand his ways, his nature, his greatness, and I realized that even surrendering myself completely to him was meditation. Just bowing down to him with full sincerity, full respect, and asking for something or asking for forgiveness, or not even asking for anything, was also meditation.

And you can call this God by whatever name that connects the most with you. For me it is Bramh(universal consciousness), Parmatma(universal soul), Ram, Krishna, Shiva, Vasudeva, Buddha, and few others as well. You call it by whatever name you think about it and you feel about it, based on whatever religion or culture you are coming from.

Again, years went by, and then I also realized that even saying a mantra of your God, and meditating upon it, is meditation. There are thousands of mantras for every God here – be it Vishnu or Shiva or Bramha or Durga, and many others. We can just pick one of these mantras of the God with whom we connect with the most, and we keep saying that mantra again and again, and keep meditating upon it, and trying to experience that every thing in this universe is that God/Goddess alone. And besides them there is nothing else.

And in case you find it hard to meditate upon a mantra, you can also meditate upon the universal consciousness itself – also called as Bramh(this is different from the similarly sounding Bramha). It is this universal consciousness that exists in every thing. It is this universal consciousness that is the highest form of consciousness, and what we ourselves become one with when we become enlightened.

Later, I also realized that only sitting and closing one’s eyes, in some quiet place, isn’t the only form of meditation. Even offering water to Sun God(Surya Dev) is also meditation; even offering water to Tulsi plant(Holy Basil) or Peepal tree is also meditation; even offering water to Shivlinga while saying ‘Om Namah Shivay’ in your heart is also meditation. Even simply standing and offering your prayers to the various Gods and Goddesses is also meditation.

And as all these various types of meditation got more and more clear to me, I also realized that even doing one’s Dharma(one’s duties) in life selflessly every day is also a kind of meditation – it’s called as Nishkam Karma Yoga in Bhagvad Gita.

I realized that not only sitting in inaction, but also doing all your actions selflessly, or as a service to God perhaps, or as a dedication to God, or surrendering all the fruits of that action to God, is also a form of meditation.

As you can see, these are so many different ways of doing your meditation, and all of them have that one common thing in them – that they destroy your ego and they lead you to the same goal of enlightenment, or becoming one with your God.

And now, with so much practice of meditation behind me – 19 years is no short time – I have reached a stage where I don’t even have to do anything to meditate. If I just sit erect meditation automatically starts happening. I don’t even have to do anything and my body starts to shake on its own. Or if I just sit, even with my eyes open, and I look outside the window at the trees, and I think and do nothing, meditation automatically happens.

It’s beautiful to have reached such a stage in my practice, where I continue to meditate upon various forms of meditation, shifting from one type to another all the time, and it all keeps advancing me towards my ultimate goal of enlightenment.

My purpose behind writing this article is only to show you that there are so many different ways to do your meditation. All you need to do is pick one with which you connect the most, which you feel is the best for you, which aligns with your own thoughts and feelings and understanding, and you get started with it and then do it every day.

Later, as you advance, you may, or may not, discover other forms of meditation. And perhaps you will switch to them, or keep going back and forth with them, or keep practicing them all every day depending upon where you are and what you are doing at that time. Or maybe you will just follow one and only one path of meditation, and follow it seriously to its end until you reach your goal.

The key thing to understand is that there is no right way or wrong way to do your meditation. The right way is one which works the best for you. And this way too can keep changing with time, and depending upon how much you advance in your practice.

Every path is beautiful. Every path is guaranteed to take you towards enlightenment. There are Great Masters and Enlightened Beings for every path, from whose teachings you can take the help from.

All lead to the same peak of the mountain. All lead to liberation from the cycle of birth and death. All make you inclusive of this whole universe, and all remove your exclusive identity only with your own body. All put a permanent end to all your suffering. All help you to attain the highest form of consciousness – beyond which there is nothing left to be attained.

The only thing that you need to do is to keep walking in your path and keep practicing your meditation every day – of whatever type it may be – and never stop, until the final goal, until the ultimate goal of enlightenment is reached. My best wishes are with you.