Meditation can sound daunting if you have never done it, but it is as easy as breathing, walking, or bathing. In meditation, you don’t have to do anything—you just have to observe and become aware of a few processes that are already happening on their own. Thus, it is a practice-based approach that reveals insights through experience and action rather than through thought or theory. Let us uncover a few basic truths about meditation.
1. Meditation is Practical
Meditation is not philosophical in nature. In other words, you cannot understand meditation purely through the mind. Instead, you will have to perform and experience it to comprehend the reality. In this way, it is like any other activity, be it driving, swimming, dancing, or cooking. Just reading a few books, grasping the concepts, and developing theories will not reveal the truth because the truth of meditation has to be experienced. It has to be lived… just like reality.
Reality is not an idea to be grasped intellectually but a phenomenon to be lived existentially. You have to go through the process to know how it feels; then the experience itself guides you and lets you form your thoughts, ideas, or beliefs. However, these things are secondary, and they are not required. A traditional religious approach may demand faith and belief from you. They may force you to imagine and accept a few theorems, but meditation does not require these things. You just have to be open and ready for a fresh experience. The door is open—you just have to take the first step and enter.
2. Meditation is Not Religion
Even though many religions in the world employ meditation as a technique and practice to achieve the highest realization, meditation in itself is not associated with any religion. It is completely free and universal, kind of like sports. It doesn’t matter what language you speak, which nation you belong to, what creed you follow, or which team you support—meditation is free from these subscriptions.
No matter who you are, no matter where you are, you can always practice and experience meditation and discover the truth on your own. Thus, you don’t require any priests, scriptures, or gods to instruct you about meditation. Most of it is your own journey, though a master or a teacher can nudge and guide you, kind of like how Dumbledore guided Harry Potter or Gandalf helped Bilbo & Frodo.
3. Meditation is Simple & Easy
Meditation is not rocket science, though if you meditate, you can understand rocket science even more clearly.
One of the reasons why people are unable to meditate is because it is so effing simple. In practicing meditation, you don’t have to do many things—just a few basic techniques like observing your breath, listening to silence, or staring at blank space with open eyes is enough to absorb you in the practice. But precisely due to its ease and simplicity, people find it difficult to perform.
The tragedy is that the 21st-century modern world is filled with so many over-stimulating objects that our senses and brain are completely overloaded with gigabytes of unprocessed information. The engines of our mind are always running—sometimes they are fuming and break down with great noise and chaos. Mental breakdown and emotional trauma are so common that they are turned into daily jokes and parodies. People are more likely to suffer from mental health issues than any serious physical condition, and all of this is supported by overindulgence of the mind and senses. We absorb just way too much information.
Since our innocent mind is hyper-intoxicated with an unstoppable stream of content, we are unable to perform absolutely basic tasks because these tasks demand our mind to be slow. When your vehicle is moving at 120 km/h, you cannot observe anything in detail—everything just passes by in whirs and flashes.
Thus, meditation is difficult for many people—not because it is difficult in its essence, but simply because, as human beings, we are growing distant from easy things. We are over-intoxicated with mental information, due to which we are hypersensitive & active. If there is such a thing as collective social-level ADHD, then our time period may be suffering from it.
Most meditation practices involve performing one or two steps, such as observing the gap created between breaths or observing the silence between two words, but since we are not used to performing simple things, we find it difficult and irritating to execute. Thus, one of the challenges of meditation is not to accomplish difficulty but to discover simplicity.
Consequently, practicing and performing meditation opens us to that dimension of existence that is quiet, calm, composed, and peaceful. If the world is full of noise and chaos, then meditation is the pool of silence.
4. Meditation is Creative & Playful in Nature
When we are children, we discover many things by playing because there are no rules, systems, plans, or authorities. Most things are open to interpretation, and we are free from social dogmas that are injected through tools of society like academic institutions, policies, or propaganda. Thus, as a child, we make our own meaning and realities through a creative and playful engagement with the world and reality.
As we grow up, we lose this unique ability to play with the world. By and by, our relationship with life is reduced to ideas, plans, and systems that we try hard to maintain & execute. Some people cherish their concepts so much that they are even willing to fight, kill, and die for them. All these things occur because we grow distant from one of the most fundamental human processes. We forget to play.
The practice of meditation is the same. It is not a strict Nazi-regime-based military activity. You don’t have to conquer the world or anything, nor do you have to attain the prize (though if you meditate, you will get the greatest prize of them all). It is simply a game that you play for fun, and in this fun-based approach, you get everything you could have asked for and even more, because in meditation, ultimately, you discover your own true self.
So, meditation is not a task or a job to be performed—it is a game to be played with as much freedom and creativity as possible. The ultimate purpose is to destroy all purpose and have fun—kind of like doing a wild dance without any meaning. This is what Lord Shiva also does, and the dance is called Tandava. Thus, he is called the God of Dance and Drama. He is called the Nataraja.
5. Meditation Is Natural
If you are unable to meditate, then simply spend some time with nature and the natural world, and observe it quietly. You will find that the whole natural world is deeply meditative. The sea is meditative because it makes a very cosmic and calming rhythm through the rising and fading of waves. These waves are like life itself—they come and go… they are like the breath—they come and go.
Unlike the human world, nature is quieter, silent, and musical. If you pay attention, you can tap into the music of the wind through the leaves, the chirping of the birds, the sound of the insects, and many other things. Once again, the rhythm and silence of these natural activities create an inner space and opening in you to discover your own rhythm and silence. You are not different from these things of nature—you are also a part of nature. You are one with it. Thus, by spending time with nature and observing it, you can discover your own innate nature and quality. You can discover meditation.
6. Meditation Complements Thinking and Activity
Contrary to widespread belief, meditation does not prevent you from thinking. In fact, it makes you a deeper thinker.
When your mind is dirty and contaminated with a million thoughts, you cannot think clearly. Often, your ideas and decisions are filled with inertia and contradictions. One moment, you decide one thing, and in the next moment, you opt for another. In this way, you keep oscillating between the infuriating dualities of mind and reality. Thus, you suffer from anxiety and declare it to be normal and a part of your everyday being.
But this anxiety is not natural. It is like dirt and rust in your mental faculties, preventing the cogs from moving smoothly. When you meditate, it is like going through a cognitive shower. You wipe off the dirt and dust from the mirror of your mind, enhancing clarity and sharpening the resolution. Thus, after your meditation, you acquire clarity, depth, patience, precision, and a wonderful surge of energy that keeps you charged to perform any activity.
You see far into the future, gaze deeply into the past, and perceive your present with utmost clarity and precision. This empowers you to enhance your life and experience everything on a deeper level. Thus, meditation also opens up dimensions of existence that may have been hidden from you due to your lack of perception and rusty mental activities. Meditation oils the cogs of your inner being.
7. Meditation Reveals Your Divinity
A leaf is not separate from the tree. A wave is not different from the sea. In the same way, you are not disconnected from God. You are one and the same thing. You are a note, and he is the music; you are a stroke, and he is the painting; you are a beat, and he is the rhythm. No matter what you do, you are always connected with God—just like how the light of the sun is connected with the sun.
This light and the sun are not two different things, though we can conceive of them as two because of the power of language. But this conception is illusory. In reality, they are one and the same.
In the same way, we are one with God and connected to him, but we forget this connection and ignore our own divinity. We abandon the infinite source of wonder, passion, beauty, and creativity that is present within us and seek the same things from outside. We spend our whole life in pursuit of something, but we ignore one of the most profound things that is present within us. It is as if we receive a gift on our birthday but never open it. It is as if we acquire a free ticket to a buffet but never visit it.
God is a wonderful gift and possibility that is waiting to blossom within our own being, but we remain seeds forever. We don’t pay attention to it, nor do we miss its presence. We ignore it completely and live our lives on the periphery.
Meditation brings us closer to this truth and confronts us with the deepest core of our reality. It removes the veils of ignorance and lays bare the facts of existence for us to experience and feel. Once we get a taste of our divinity, then we know that it forms the basis of everything that is great in us—our faith, our morals, our education, our culture, and our evolution.
We are not assortments of flesh and bones thrown randomly into a meaningless universe, but we are notes and chords in a symphony that is playing on a cosmic and divine scale. Meditation simply reveals this self-existent truth. Then the choice is ours—either to embrace and experience it or to continue ignoring it and go back into a deep slumber.
Conclusion
Meditation is a simple, practical, and creative activity that is easy to perform and cleanses our mind. It provides us clarity and empowers us to live our life deeply. By practicing meditation, we can enhance our cognitive abilities, overcome mental inertia and fatigue, and cultivate a deeper relationship with the world and ourselves.
Most importantly, meditation helps us discover our divinity, which is present in the depths of our own self. It is a practical and universal activity that is to be felt and experienced.
Practice Meditation Today.