There is a lot of confusion about the role of meditation in spiritual awakening. Meditation is widely touted as a tool for mental clarity and peace that anyone can use. Yet the fact is that when meditation is not approached in the right way, it can be very frustrating or even have a negative effect. 

​​

There comes a time in some people's lives when they realize they need to face their inner world and go deeper. They realize that they have been avoiding stillness and solitude for a long time, despite also feeling called to it. 

We need to see that meditation is part of a continuum; it is a natural part of a contemplative and thoughtful life -- a life of awareness and self-understanding. As such, one should not practice meditation mechanically, or religiously, as a duty or regimen. 

When we meditate, we have simply resolved to sit still for a time, to experience the sense of timelessness, presence, and clarity in our consciousness. We are seeking to discover the essential qualities of consciousness. It does not have to be done for a very long time to be effective. 

When you are willing to be more quiet and still in your daily life, so as not to be constantly distracted and lost in the noise of thought or the world, then meditation is not seen as something exotic. It becomes just one more expression of enjoying stillness and knowing yourself.
​

Once a person has resolved to become deeply present with themselves, then meditation will serve its purpose of opening and exposing what needs to be seen in the psyche. This will not depend on sitting still for long periods of time, or upon meditating every day for years. It depends only on intention and affinity. For a certain season one might meditate more intensively, and in other seasons not as much. 

​

When the affinity is there, then during meditation one will experience the slowing or even stopping of the waves of thought, as well as a stable sense of peace or subtle bliss suffusing the consciousness.

​

If it is a time in your life for penetrating into the depths of consciousness, then meditation will feel like a must. If that time has not come, then there is no need to pretend about it. One either enjoys longer periods of silent meditation or not. Meanwhile, one should never make a fetish or crutch out of quietude and meditation. One should not seek refuge from life by spending long periods of time in a semi-sleep or trance of meditation. Nor should one await and expect tremendous or exotic experiences in meditation. 

​​

There are those who will say meditation does not work for them; they will say that their thoughts remain restless and chaotic during meditation. This is either due to not having been guided in how to meditate, not being ready to meditate, or it is due to having a more restless and active quality of mind which in Sanskrit is called rajas. But surely, if this person would meditate in the early morning, or evening when the mind is more calm, or after reading spiritual works, then there will be greater stillness. 

​

It may also be that one has trouble meditating because there are more pressing and obvious emotional crises in one's life that need to be dealt with. As such times, courageous action is needed to resolve one's outer life. When harmony is restored in the outer life, then meditation will be deeper. 

​​​

 

​​

​​