To put simply, meditation is the practice of diving within oneself, and removing layers upon layers of conditioning, to discover ones present form, ones truest self, ones consciousness in its purest form, or the God within.
Meditation is the journey of using our own body and mind as the vehicle, and traveling within our own self, deeper and deeper, to discover who we really are, who we always were, who we are always meant to be.
When you meditate, one by one, little by little, you peel out layers upon layers of ignorance that has formed over your mind.
The more layers you keep peeling off, i.e., the more serious your practice, the closer and closer you keep coming towards the truth about yourself.
Many people meditate to find peace, to relax, to take a break from other activities, or just because a friend or coworker told them that it’s a good thing to do.
However, that is not what meditation is all about. All these other benefits exist only at the surface-level of meditation. But the true potential of meditation is not what lies at the surface level, rather it’s what lies deep within.
If you limit yourself to only meditate for five minutes, or ten minutes, a day, you will only be able to enjoy these surface-level benefits – which is not bad by the way, if you are starting out just now with the practice of meditation.
But if that’s all you keep doing again and again, for the rest of the year, for the rest of your life, then you fail to realize what meditation really is all about.
It’s like going to a Fair and standing outside the Fair, taking a look from outside, and then returning back home. Of course you may be able to tell a few things about the Fair, of what little you saw from the outside. But that’s not what it’s all about.
The true experience is in crossing the gate, getting closer to what all is there to see, to enjoy, to play, or to buy. The true experience is in checking out each and every stall that exists out there, which you could never see from outside the gate.
And more importantly, it’s about experiencing everything out there for yourself; it’s about eating out across various food stalls, trying out your luck at various play stalls, taking a ride of various rides, checking out and buying all those things that you like, and just being present there, up and close, witnessing everything, being there from morning till night, and absorbing it all; letting it create its impact upon you; letting it excite you, satisfy you, forget your worries, make you live in the now – the present moment; letting it transform you in several ways, so that the person – that’s you – who went there, and who came out, are totally different.
And that’s how you should also experience meditation. While it’s perfectly alright to start out with five minutes of practice of meditation, you should never let it become your end goal.
You should do it more and more often, for as long as you can, and try to see, realize, and experience, what all it has got to offer you. You don’t have to listen to other people’s experience. You don’t have to rely on me or anyone else to explain to you what it’s all about.
You do it all yourself. You cross the gate – go beyond those basic benefits of relaxation and all – and you try out various ways to understand yourself; you try out various methods of meditation, if needed; you try out different objects to focus on while meditating – could be your breath, could be a mantra, could be your consciousness, could be an imagination of whichever God you believe in – and see which one you like best.
Just like you take that ride again and again which excites you the most, similarly, you will want to practice that way of meditation more and more which works for you the best.
And then, when you explore every nook and corner of what meditation has to offer you; when you participate in it fully, giving it all you have, and absorbing all that meditation offers you; when you let it transform you; that is when you gain most out of it.
So, the person who once meditated only to relax, but now who has experienced all these other aspects of meditation, for himself, totally transforms into an another person.
While earlier he was happy to get few minutes of peace out of his meditation, and be content with it, now he wants to know more and more, experience more and more, to see the truth about everything for himself, to experience the truth for himself, and ultimately, he will want to become one with the truth himself.
While who came to practice meditation may have been an ignorant, selfish, angry, and delusional person, who comes out of it is a wise, kind, peaceful, and enlightened person.
It’s the regular practice of meditation that brings such a change in you. It doesn’t happen in one session, or a week, but it does happen one day.
You are what you are today based on years, and decades of conditioning, so this transformation, this peeling out of all the layers of conditioning – which has formed over your mind, which has gotten firm and rigid and won’t leave you easily – won’t happen at once.
Don’t expect any miracles at the beginning. But, with practice, the transformations do happen. What looks muddy now, becomes clear one day; what looks impossible now, becomes possible one day; what seems far away now, comes closer and becomes one with you one day.
Then you know what was once unknown to you; then you see what couldn’t be seen earlier; then you experience what you never experienced before; then your mind becomes pure like it was never before; and then you yourself become what you could never become before – a peaceful, fully content, and enlightened being.
The only question here is, will you allow meditation to bring this change upon you? Are you ready to give up your control and let meditation guide you henceforth from here? Are you serious enough, dedicated enough, sincere enough, honest enough about your practice of meditation, to do it every day, to do it several times within a day, to do it as long as you can every single time?
See, meditation can only transform you, if you allow it to transform you, if you want it to transform you.
So, start towards this journey of transformation today. Practice meditation and allow meditation to stretch your mind, purify your mind, mould your mind, so that you can see the truth about who you really are, for yourself, without taking anyone else’s word for it.
You have already delayed too much. You have already wasted away too much of your limited and precious time on earth. You have already allowed your mind to become conditioned too much, and you continue to condition it moment after moment, day after day.
It’s time you put an end to all this nonsense, and instead do that one thing which makes perfect sense – meditation.
And you try to do this meditation so much and so often that you yourself become one with meditation. And once that happens, everything becomes meditation – walking becomes meditation, sitting becomes meditation; waking up becomes meditation, sleeping becomes meditation; talking becomes meditation, being quiet becomes meditation; happiness becomes meditation, suffering becomes meditation; living becomes meditation, dying becomes meditation.
Each and everything that you do becomes meditation. Every part of you becomes meditation. Your whole existence becomes meditation.
Then, the meditator, the object of meditation, and meditation, all become one. Then there is no meditator, no object of meditation, and no meditation; all that remains is only the consciousness in its purest form. And once you become one with that consciousness, there is nothing else left to become.
So start meditating today, and take the first step right now towards this journey of discovering yourself through meditation.
The journey is long and not an easy one. But it does have an end, and things too will become easier with time. All that you need to do now is begin, and one day you will get there. I can guarantee it.
Now close this article and meditate.