What Is Meditation? -
A Gift To You

What is meditation? Before going any further, lets clear up a few misconception:

• It is not about throwing and switch in your mind and everything goes blank and magically you are in the ‘meditative state.’
• When you are here, you are relaxed, at peace, calm, have insight and dare I say it, blissful. Well, it is not that easy. Otherwise everyone will be ‘blissfully happy.’
• It is not another word for relaxation
• It is not all about entertaining some thoughts and getting rid of others
• It is not entirely a way to control your thoughts and some meditation techniques are about developing specific qualities

These pre-thoughts of what meditation ought to be makes the practicing of meditation more difficult than it ought to be. This is because we are already in the future than here and NOW.

What is Meditation?

Meditation is a suggestion to the heart and mind to experience the full spectrum of awareness of the present moment. There are 100s of methods and techniques associated meditation.

Think of it as instrumental, a process, a discipline that allows you to develop, improve, and expand your capacity to pay attention and have a home in the NOW.

It is amazing how much your mind dwells on the past and the future. Try watching your thoughts and you will confirm this.

This is because you are always trying to escape from the NOW and even when you what is happening, you are already thinking of the time when it won’t be here.

Meditation is not a destination as it were. It is a way of being, seeing, knowing, perceiving or even loving. Mindfulness is at the centre of meditation.

When asked 'what is meditation?' Most people will say it is relaxation. Well, it is not the same although you do feel relaxed when meditating.

All meditation techniques are different ways of getting to a manner of being or feeling in relation to NOW in respecct to your own mind and experience.

If you come to meditation with a goal of using it to get some place else, experience some special result or state, then you might find it frustrating.

The whole point of meditation is for you to see whatever arises in the moment as a rich opportunity for insight and learning. Rather than a chance to check how well ‘this meditation thing’ is working.

You approach meditation as a way of doing the appropriate thing in each and every moment, here and now; no future, no past and no agenda.

This means that, as various things arise in your life, good or bad, you deal with them in a mindful way.

The thing is, you get so caught up with in things that you end up not fully understanding what is going on, much less what is the most appropriate thing to do.

When I started meditating, I began to understand how reactive most of decisions were. Most of them made out of frustration.

So as I said before, meditation is about clear perceiving and the willingness to act appropriately as a result of this perceiving.

Again, what is meditation? Well it is not about the content of the experience; rather it is about the awareness of the lessons contained therein.

It is natural to expect a result from a period of meditation. But this expectation means that you are attached to a result and you are already in the future not in the 'NOW.'

I can honestly say, not looking for a result is not easy to do even for seasoned meditators.

Our minds are conditioned to expect something and finds it difficult to expect nothing even though it is more at home when it doesn’t.

It is not easy to fully accept what is happening; you as you are; the moment as it and the world as it is.

It is even more difficult if you are meditating because you hope in doing so you will change things.

‘Why would I be doing if not for that?’ Well, the problem is not in the aspiration but rather your expectations. The paradox is that to get to where you want to be, you have to lose yourself first; give yourself over, trust and no pursuing of anything.

Einstein put it rather well ‘The problems that exist today cannot be solved by the thinking that created them.’ Message?

Madness is doing the same thing and expecting different results. You need to find a new of seeing, knowing and perceiving.

This is so that you can recognize and transcend the motive and concepts that created your current situation.

Getting the right answer to the question 'What is Meditation' can help you do that.

It can help you get back to the original, untouched and unconditioned mind. How? First you need to get out of your own way.

That means being where you are and with whatever you are feeling: anger, delight, sadness and confusion are all mind states you can stop, look and listen, and learn about yourself.

I personally think that learning to meditate is the greatest gift you can ever give yourself.

It is only through meditation that you can undertake the journey to discover your true nature. Meditation is the road to spiritual enlightenment.

In asking what is meditation?, it is natural to wonder what the benefis are. Well, there are many:

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