What is Meditation?

It's a surprisingly tricky question that one, because when you ask somebody what do you think constitutes meditative practice they will often tell you it involves sitting in the lotus posture (padmasana) with your hands folded into various mudras and using a repetitive mantra for concentration.

When I began meditation I spent a long time trying to figure out what it was. At first I assumed it was a relaxation technique. This is oversimplifying things. While meditation leads to relaxation it is not a relaxation technique of itself. I later realised that meditation requires concentration and teaching the mind to focus itself onto something, but at the same time meditation is not concentration of itself. The word "meditate" in English can have two meanings. The first definition can mean reflection or contemplation of something. This would denote thinking, which is not what meditation is. Meditation can never be intellectualised.

So if meditation is neither relaxation nor focus of the mind nor thinking thoughts over carefully, what exactly is it? The answer is quite counterintuitive. Meditation is a state of no mind. The mind becomes suspended. It is nowhere in particular. It does not think, it does not wander, it does not concentrate. It simply is. It lives entirely in the here and now, neither contemplating the past nor anticipating the future.

This is, of course, in the upper echelons of meditative practice and generally used for centering the mind. Meditation has also been used for purposeful contemplation of something, either for developing compassion for other living beings or for connecting to the Divine. It can be used to heal, physically, mentally and emotionally, used as an aid for relieving stress and also to explore yourself spiritually.

Meditation is a journey. It is path to Self discovery (note I've have said Self and not the self as we have understood it traditionally) and knowing who you really are. If you have ever experienced wondering who you really are, you will understand what I mean by saying it is exploring the real Self. Have you ever answered the question who are you? You can give your name, your age, sex, race, nationality, job, martial status, family size, and then maybe onto the less significant things that define you such as your favourite hobbies, food, films, etc. But when you come to the realisation that all that you have used to describe yourself is merely the sum total of all the circumstances and situations that you have chanced to grow up in, you really start questioning who am I really? That is what meditation seeks to answer.

To finish this post, I want to quote (again) Lao Tzu with one of my favourite sayings from the Tao Te Ching: "Knowing others is wisdom; knowing yourself is enlightenment."