What Is Meditation?

Our mind indulges into negativities in the external world and constantly pulls our attention away from the source of love, joy and peace, which is within us. We need to quiet our mind and shift our focus inward on the Source of love, joy and peace within us.

You would have seen toddlers who play with their toys, scatter them, or even break them. They make a mess all around the place. However, when the child goes to sleep, the child’s mother neatly puts everything back in order. How did the child help the situation? The child helped by keeping quiet and sleeping. It allowed the mother to step in and restore order.

In the same way, you can help the universe to restore the divine flow of love, joy and peace in your life by quieting your mind through meditation. Thus, learn the art of meditation. Meditation is a gateway to the source of love, joy and peace within you.

When you watch your attention through meditation, you reach a no-mind state, an experience of pure consciousness. This is the inner source of love, joy and peace. Your outer world only reflects your inner world. When you connect to the Source through meditation and abide in its experience, your life automatically reflects it through the expression of health, wealth, loving relationships, abundance, creativity, compassion, simplicity and ease in the external world.

When you are in meditation, the states of mind may alter or various experiences would occur on the body, but meditation has nothing to do with that. These experiences are temporary, illusionary and they shall pass. If this is the case, then what is that which is true, permanent and remains unchanged?

The real essence of meditation is beingness that transcends all states. We simply cannot conceptualize this formless experience with words or thoughts, as the experience of our being transcends the realm of mind to which thoughts and words belong.

Your experience of ‘being’ never changes, yet it is ever fresh and new. It never goes anywhere. Actually, meditation is not separate or distinct from you. This state of beingness is who you truly are. That state is meditation. In other words, you are meditation (though, at first, this may sound strange). Meditation is the experience of the real Self, the real ‘I’. This may also be referred to as the Source, Consciousness, God, Allah, Christ, Self-witness, or Pure Awareness. Whatever name we use, meditation is our essential nature.

Source or Consciousness is the living, sentient principle that dwells within and around each and every living being. It is only due to the presence of Consciousness, the knowing principle, that our eyes can see, ears can hear, and tongue can taste. Consciousness is equivalent to the electricity lighting a bulb. There is no use of a bulb without electricity. Similarly, the body-mind mechanism comes alive due to the presence of Consciousness. Consciousness enlivens the mind. Thoughts arise due to the presence of Consciousness.

The purpose of meditation is to experience the real ‘I’, the universal Self, which transcends all concepts, words, thoughts and forms. When you meditate with this purpose, you realize your oneness with the universal Self through the direct experience of your true nature.

If you believe that whatever is inside your skin is “I” and everything outside your skin is not “I”, then meditation breaks this false belief.

The real goal of meditation is to permanently abide in the experience of pure consciousness and express the divine qualities of unconditional love, boundless joy and peaceful stillness through the human body.

One may ask, “How can I experience this state of beingness? How can I meditate?” The answer is ‘by doing nothing and not doing nothing.’ It is beyond ‘doing’ and ‘non-doing’ where we just need to be present; nothing else. However, for many people, even doing nothing seems very difficult. They ask, “How can I do nothing?”

This is like asking, “How can I fall asleep faster?” Of course, other than just lying down, we need to do nothing to sleep. If we try hard to sleep, it will simply elude us. In the same way, during meditation, we only need to be present and witness everything that arises.
‘Meditation’ may sound like a process or an activity, something we have to ‘do’. However, meditation is not separate or distinct from our true nature, since the essence of meditation is ‘beingness’ that exists beyond thoughts.

Summary:
Meditation is a gateway to the source of love, joy and peace within you. In meditation, you just need to be present in the state of beingness. The real essence of meditation is beingness that transcends all states. The real goal of meditation is to permanently abide in the experience of pure consciousness and express the divine qualities of unconditional love, boundless joy and peaceful stillness through the human body.