Normally everybody thinks that meditation is a process of stilling the mind concentrating focus on some object or point for a prolonged period of time. But actually meditation is far from that. Calming the mind or focusing the attention is only the first part. You need to travel beyond that to experience the real meditation effects and improve your life.
The basic idea of meditation as per Indian vedic culture is to find out the real power sitting inside each one of us and contemplate about it – Consciousness or awareness. The one who experiences everything or the one who knows everything. Experiencing or knowing is the property of the Atman or Soul or Consciousness. That is the basis of our life or existence. All experiences arise in the awareness and are made out from awareness.
Everything – thoughts, feelings, emotions, perceptions, sensations, imaginations – are felt and experienced by the awareness. So we need to watch and enquire about this infinite energy which is sitting inside. It is called self enquiry – popularized by the great Indian sage ‘Ramana Maharshi’. As per him we need to ask questions like “Who Am I ?”, “What is my Real Being ?”, “From Where Did I Come From ?” etc. There is only one answer to all such questions. “I” or “I Am”. That represents our consciousness or awareness.
Infinite consciousness is supposed to be the real master and all other things like mind and body are only accessories to access the physical world. But now problems are accessories like mind and body are taking the main position and we are not even bothered about consciousness. We are too much identified with the mind and we think that we are finite mind and finite body. That limits our possibilities and powers.
As soon as we realize that we are not just this finite mind and body but we are part of an infinite energy or field our lives will change forever. You will no longer be irritated with silly thoughts or emotions because they are objects outside you. You are not thoughts or emotions. Problem is we are too much identified with the psychological drama created by the mind. What mind thinks and operates based on the data collected by the senses. Senses bring whatever information comes to its way and our subconscious mind keeps on writing that information to our memory without much cross checking. So what you think or believe may not be true always. So move away from the limited, finite world to the unlimited, infinite world with infinite possibilities and potentials.
To start with, keep on concentrating on the “I” or “I am”. Our every thought starts with this “I”. Without it we don’t exist. Our every belief or emotions or feelings deeply connected to this “I”. Start focusing your attention to this “I”. That is the real meditation. Once you start concentrating on this “I”, all other distracting things like thoughts, emotions, feelings etc will slowly subside. These are like clouds in the unlimited sky of consciousness. When these clouds disappear, infinite consciousness will start illuminating inside. Then you will realize that whatever you were searching outside all these years are sitting inside – like peace, happiness, joy etc. You will realize that you were searching for coins when a mountain of treasure was sitting inside. This is the real goal of our life. Finding the true self.