“Meditation is a bliss, meditation is the solution to all your psychic and physical problems, meditation removes all your anxiety, stress and fills your life with love, peace and calmness” we all have been reading, listening, and watching to these kinds of statements from the meditation masters, gurus and yoga trainers. Meditation and its benefits are true, but when we try meditation alone, we find it very difficult to practice and attain a meditative state. If you are practicing the meditation under someone guidance or in a retreat your experience will stay till the retreat and guidance continue, but once you start practicing meditation without any guidance then the mind starts overflowing with the thoughts and it ends with overthinking and anxiety, the real purpose of meditation completely ruined, you have become completely lost and frustrated.
So, what to do now?
First of all, we need to understand that mediation is not just an experience, but an insight to create the awareness toward the path of self-realization, it is not just a quick fix to solve the problem of anxiety, stress, panic, etc. kind of problems these are just some of its benefits. Meditation is the flow of all your energy toward(initially) any object, process, event, etc once this flow achieved perfection then the part of self-wisdom starts which we will talk about later. There are various forms and ways of practicing meditation that has been developed from time to time like in Vipassana meditation there is a meditation practice where you focus on your breathing or silence etc. So, there are many practices but all lead to the One, the pure consciousness. But it is not that easy to achieve you need to develop some new habits and remove some old habits and bring some new perspectives in life. But it is not necessary that we need to change first to start the change, suppose an alcoholic wants to change his habit of drinking alcohol or any intoxication. How meditation can help him? he wants to get rid of that hobby that stops him to meditate. How can he start it? Tough but can be done easily and naturally. He doesn’t need to quit alcohol drinking to start meditation you can start with this habit also but just need to add these two habits 1. The habit of practicing patience and 2. The habit of self-observation. If you follow these ways you can get rid of any bad habit or issue of your life.
Patience is also known as Viveka in Sanskrit, which means keeping self-control. Self-observation or Atam-Parikshana in Sanskrit, which means to keep the focus on self and your activities and habits of life like eating or drinking alcohol, smoking, etc just observe, no reaction is needed. This starts the process of awareness.
If you see in ashtanga yoga where meditation or dhyana is the 7 steps to reach the state of pure consciousness called Samadhi. The other 6 steps of this yoga i.e Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pratyahara, and Dharna these are nothing but self-control and observation practices.
But many people do not understand it wisely and take meditation as a product that after using it, gives them enlightenment, relaxation, anxiety-free life, mindfulness, etc., etc. Now, that idea creates a blunder and can make meditation a painful process. But just know about the truths of meditation you can experience the reality of life.
There is not a single doubt that meditation is Bliss. Meditation is a fullness of life. So, create bliss in your life, not the blunder.
