What is Meditation?

There are many definitions of Meditation and approaches to “do” meditation as if it was an “act”. I believe that Yoga, like Meditation, is an experience or a state of being as opposed to an “act” or event! But the common parlance around the world for both these concepts (which are very tightly interlinked and synonymous really) is that Yoga and Meditation are “actions” and you need to follow certain steps in this exercise.

That is why most people get frustrated when they do not get the “fruits” of meditation. The very dropping one’s yearning for “fruits” and ready-made equations for action-result is the sine-qua-non for a Meditative and Yogic experience! Gurus fail to get this across to their followers.

This is an excerpt from a Q&A with Sadguru Jaggi who runs Isha Yoga.

Meditation is not an act. It’s a certain quality. If this quality has to come forth in you, it can only happen when the fundamental work of bringing the body, mind, emotion and energy to a certain level of maturity and cultivating them in a certain direction has been achieved. Then meditation will blossom.

Meditation is not something you can do-it is a state of becoming. So if right now you feel that the meditation is not working, there is nothing to worry about. Just check the process, and if you are doing everything properly, allow the process to continue. You cannot force things to occur. It may take different amounts of time for different people to reach that state. Sometimes nothing happens because you are anxiously expecting something to happen.

Its like growing a plant. Just because you want a mango to drop out of a tree, its not going to happen. You have to nourish the roots for sometime and then the fruit will come forth.

Depending on the individual’s receptivity, it will take different amounts of time for the meditative state to occur. There is no person who is totally unreceptive. It just depends on what they feel within themselves.