What is meditation? For someone who has been involved in its practice, the question need not be asked. For a person who has never had any contact with meditation, however, the subject is shrouded in mystery. To many people, the term “meditation” suggests an image of someone sitting in the lotus position with eyes closed in serene concentration. Others may associate meditation with holiness and spirituality. Individuals seeking spirituality might look into various disciplines of meditation without having any idea of what they are looking for.

In its most general sense, the first step of meditation consists of thinking in a controlled manner. It is deciding exactly how one wishes to direct the mind for a period of time and then doing it.

The more advanced stages of meditation can be defined as a controlled expansion of the mind, a state which is triggered precisely by directing the mind as above, but for longer duration of time.

Goals of meditation

It is strange that most people never give a thought to their thoughts. Thoughts are so much a part of our being that we take them for granted. But try for a short time an apparently simple exercise: stop thinking!

Having tried such exercises, you can see that the mind has a “mind of its own”. There are thus two parts to the mind, one that is under the control of the conscious will and one that is not. That part of the mind under the control of the will may be assimilated to the conscious mind, while that which is not is called the subconscious. Since for the beginner the subconscious is not under the control of the will, one cannot control what it passes into the conscious mind.

One of the goals of meditation, then, is to gain control of the subconscious part of the mind. If one were to succeed, one would also gain a high degree of self-mastery. This, too, is a goal of meditation.

This explains why so many disciplines use breathing techniques associated with meditation. Breathing usually occurs automatically and is therefore normally under the control of the subconscious mind. Unless you are consciously controlling your breathing, it will mirror your subconscious state. Yet, if you wish, you can control your breath, and do so quite easily. Breathing therefore forms a link between the conscious mind and the subconscious. By learning how to concentrate on and control your breath you can go on to learn how to control the subconscious mind.

The thought process itself is also controlled to a large degree by the subconscious, but it can also be controlled by the conscious mind. This is most obvious in the case of reverie. When one is relaxing and not paying particular attention to it, reverie flows from one thought to another without conscious effort. Indeed, there are a number of psychological techniques that try to imitate this “free association,” in order to gain an understanding of the subconscious mind. However, no matter how free the association may be when one is expressing it to a second party, it is never as free as in the case of pure reverie. Reverie can thus also be seen as a point of interface between the conscious and subconscious.

The same is true of the visions that appear in the mind’s eye. Since they are not under the control of the conscious mind, they are obviously coming from the subconscious. Controlling them is very difficult without practice; one can learn to control them, however, and doing so also serves to form a bridge between the conscious mind and the subconscious.

One of the most powerful benefits of meditation is control over the subconscious mind. One learns to use the conscious mind to control mental processes that are usually under the control of the subconscious. Gradually, more and more of the subconscious becomes accessible to the conscious mind and one gains control of the entire thought process. Unless one is able to control the entire mind, one cannot develop full concentration.

Sometimes, two parts of the mind appear to be acting independently. The conflict between two parts of the mind can be so strong that a person feels like two separate individuals. During such inner conflict, it seems that one part of the mind wants to do one thing, while the other part wants to do something else.

Sometimes not two but three, four, or more voices seem to be giving different signals in the mind. If a person were to learn to control his subconscious, he could avoid much of this conflict.

There are many theories outside Yoga about the subconscious, and a full discussion is far beyond the scope of this course. However, if meditation is at first controlled thinking, it implies that the individual already has some of the thought process under control, including input from the subconscious. The experienced meditator learns how to think what he wants to think when he wants to think it, and gradually how to rise to the superior levels of meditation where “thinking” becomes a multidimensional perception of Reality, by an enlarged mind. Thus he can always be in control of the situation, resisting psychological pressures that work on the subconscious. He is also in control of himself, never doing something that he knows he really does not want to do. In many school of Yoga, this self-mastery is one of the most important goals of meditation.

Thus, meditation can bring many benefits. Most people learn how to think as very young children, and throughout their adult lives, they do not think differently than they did as children. That is to say that most people use their minds in a manner not essentially different from the way they did when they were six years old. Through meditation, one can control the thought process and learn to think in new ways, thus gaining new and richer mental experiences.

People often think of concentration and meditation in terms of problem-solving. But they can also involve the most basic experiences, such as the perception by the senses. Another important goal of meditation is thus enhanced awareness and perception. The greater the portion of the mind focused on an experience, the more the experience will be enhanced. When every cell in your brain is tuned in to experiencing a rose, for example, the experience is indescribably different from what you would see in your usual state of consciousness.

This increased awareness can be used in many ways. Meditation can be used to gain a greater and clearer awareness of the world around us. Looking at something like a rose while in a meditative state of consciousness, one can see much more in it than one would otherwise see. It has been said that one can see the entire Universe in a grain of sand. In a high meditative state, this is actually possible. As one’s capacity for concentration increases, one can also become aware of subtle phenomena that are not otherwise detectable. Thus the world of the meditator may become richer than that of those who have never had the experience.

A number of Yogic sources speak of meditation as a means of attaining extra-sensory perception (ESP) in such areas as telepathy, empathy, healing, clairvoyance, predicting the future, and many others. These powers may also involve increased awareness. In the ordinary state of consciousness, ESP signals received by the mind may be overshadowed by the perceptual information entering the brain, as well as by the mind’s natural “static” or “noise.” As discussed earlier, this static consists of thoughts and images spontaneously produced by the mind which are not under the conscious mind’s control. In the meditative state, when this noise or static is quieted, ESP phenomena become more readily discernible. A number of ESP experiments in Parapsychology appear to indicate that this is true, and that meditation enhances the effect.

Another purpose of meditation is to attune the mind to certain truths (or Truths, with a capital “T”). When an average person tries to explore questions such as the meaning of existence, the true goal of life, or the ultimate nature of Reality, the answers remain elusive, tickling the edge of the mind. Possible answers hover on the borderline of consciousness, but are so subtle that they cannot be discerned through the static of the mind.

One of the most elusive truths is the knowledge of the real Self. Generally we see ourselves only through a thick veil of ego. For this reason, it is hard to see ourselves as others see us, and even more difficult to see our genuine, essential, ultimate nature, which the Yoga texts have called ätman. Through meditation, however, we can gradually remove the veil of ego, and see ourselves with a degree of objectivity. In this manner, we can look at ourselves objectively as a third person. Also, we are then able to see our personality’s shortcomings and overcome them.

The self-awareness engendered by meditation can also strengthen some features of our superficial personality when needed. Thus, a person with a weak self-image and feelings of inadequacy can learn to be more self-assured. He can examine his motivations and learn to become more inwardly directed, doing the things he desires, and not simply what others expect of him. He can look objectively at his relationships with others and learn to improve them.

One of the more powerful goals of meditation is to gain an awareness of the “spiritual.” Although we may be surrounded by a sea of spirituality, we are not usually aware of it. Spiritual “sensations” are quite faint and usually overshadowed by the world of the senses. Even in a state of sensory deprivation, such as those induced by the now notorious “samädhi-tank,” the self-generated thoughts of the mind tend to obscure spiritual perception. However, if a person can quiet down all extraneous thoughts, he can then “tune in” to the spiritual. This tuning-in is what is known as the mystical experience. In this sense, meditation is the most important technique of mystics all over the world.

On its highest level, meditation can provide a person with an experience of God. Either this is a first “vision” of the Divine, or it goes as far as a total communion (unio mistica), this is certainly the highest possible spiritual experience. Our perception of God is often clouded by ego and anthropomorphism, so that we tend to see God as a mirror image of ourselves. By freeing the mind of these encumbrances, meditation can help us to open our minds totally to the experience of God. In many spiritual traditions, including Yoga, this is the highest goal of meditation.

Types of meditation

The world of meditation is definitely as vast as the mental universe. That is why so many systems of meditation have been devised throughout time in the various spiritual schools of this planet. Trying to classify them into categories, we find certain predominant types recurring:

a. Meditation as a controlled manner of thinking – meditation on a specific subject, for deepening knowledge of it. The subject can be concrete or abstract.

b. Meditation on spiritual/religious texts; it involves the focusing of attention and power of understanding upon chosen paragraphs from inspired traditional writings, certain sacred verses, etc., and deepening their meaning by the power of meditation.

c. Meditation on the fundamental questions of life. Examples:

- Who am I?

- Where do I come from?

- Where am I going?

- Why am I here?

- What do I ultimately want out of life?

- What gives my life meaning?

- What is the meaning of life in general?

- If I had my life to live over, what would I do with it?

- What ideals, if any, would I be willing to die for?

- What would bring me more happiness than anything else in the world?



d. Suggestion-meditation and re-moulding of the personality, in which one confronts the flaws of one’s personality and actively struggles to mend them by systematic, positive self-suggestion.

e. Visual meditations or contemplation, which are external when one uses various supports for concentration (yantra-s, maëòala-s, colours, fire, symbols, etc.) or internal when one uses self-generated mental images of the above.

f. Mantra-type meditation, where one uses repetitively various resonance-formulas for long intervals of time. The best kind in this category is the one in which we focus on traditional béja-mantra-s and try to merge mentally into the subtle sound (näda) that arises as a result of the mantra’s mental emission. The Laya-yoga meditation is the most advanced form in this category.

g. Action meditation, observing the traditional principles of the Karma-yoga system (detachment and consecration), and at the same time aiming to attain a permanent state of awareness and mindfulness, such as in some Buddhist and Zen forms of meditation.

h. Sense input meditation, in which what we see, smell, taste, hear, touch or feel with the body can become the support for concentration. Music meditation or Sufi Dervish dance can be examples in this category.

i. Emotional meditation; the main emotions had in mind here by yogin-s are frantic love, devotion and surrender to God under one of His beloved forms, such as in Bhakti-yoga. In particular Tantric systems of India and Tibet, other emotions (such as sexual or fearful) may also be used as a springboard to spiritual realisation, but such systems require constant guidance and surveillance by a competent guru.

j. Void or nothingness meditation, such as the Tibetan Mahämudrä, which are usually considered very abstract and difficult for beginners.

k. Prayer meditation, which is illustrated by the many prayer techniques in various religious traditions (such as the “Prayer of the Heart” in Hesychasm and by the 24-hour prayer method in Yoga), and which may lead to the genuine state of “conversation with God”.

l. Thought-control meditation, as in the Räja-yoga processes of dhäraëa, dhyäna and samyäma.

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