This time we are going to talk about meditation, particularly about a question that I see is very frequent among those who are beginning to meditate or who have ever tried it.
Is meditation to leave the mind blank? Is the goal of meditation not to think?
For me, meditation is something fundamental in the process of personal development, the evolution of consciousness, and spiritual growth.
However, many do not understand how and what meditation is for.
There are many techniques and meditative practices, and there are many ways to meditate, and those who are just starting in this practice may feel somewhat confused with so much information that we can find today.
One of the biggest doubts of people who are beginning to meditate is how to eliminate thoughts or how to leave the mind blank.
Can we stop thinking?
The purpose of meditation is not to eliminate mental processes, the purpose of meditation is not to stop thinking.
This would be to go against the nature of the mind and its thinking functions, conceptualizing, and organizing functions.
It would be like expecting our lungs to stop breathing or our heart to stop beating, it would be going against something natural.
What we can do is to cease or appease that mental chatter or noise, we can learn to center the mind and focus it on what really contributes to our life.
The mind, for lack of training, wanders between the future and the past.
We allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by the worries of the future or we become nostalgic with the attachments of the past.
We tend to identify with external day-to-day situations and our problems, and forget to live in the present moment, the only moment that really exists.
That is why meditation is important because it brings us to the here and now, it helps us to stop that constant monologue and to stop wasting so much mental energy in that internal chatter.
What is the goal of meditation?
Meditation is an end in itself.
Meditation brings us to reconcile with our inner world.
We spend much of our daily living life outwardly, observing and analyzing the daily experiences of our environment, and solving and trying to make sense of everything that happens outside of us.
But we spend very little time observing within ourselves.
That is why it is said that meditation helps us to compensate for these external stimuli to find a balance between the outside world and our inner world.
In addition, meditation leads us to the direct experience of what is real, to live from our own truth and our own individual path, it leads us to connect deeply with our intuition and our true essence or inner self.
It is through meditation that we can still the waters of the mind to observe life from an unbiased point of view, it is through meditation that we can feel those transcendental realities of life, and we can sense those extra sensory dimensions that lie dormant within ourselves.
Through meditation, we can really set ourselves on a deep process of self-knowledge to observe ourselves and transform ourselves from the inside out.
How can we control thoughts during meditation practice?
To answer that question let’s compare the mind to a lake, a lake with cloudy water, or moving water.
Because of the movement of the water, it is very difficult for you to see the bottom of the lake, the movements of the water make it impossible for you to see the ground and to see your own submerged feet.
The more you move, the more you walk on the lake, the more movement you generate, and the more turbulence there is in the water, the more difficult it becomes to see through the water.
The only way for you to see the bottom of the lake is for the water to stop moving, for the ripples to stop and for the bottom to be revealed by the stillness of the water.
When the water is finally still, you will be able to observe with great detail and clarity everything that was previously hidden or distorted, you will be able to see without problem the bottom of the lake and your feet.
Well, something like this happens when you try to control your thoughts when you try to put your mind in white.
It is useless to try to fight against the thoughts, every time you try not to think, another thought will come in.
The only way to put clarity in that mental lake is to slowly allow things to fall under their own weight, slowly allow the intensity and frequency of thoughts to diminish and you will enter into a state of mind of greater harmony, stillness, and clarity.
You will not stop thinking, and you will not stop having ideas, but with practice and perseverance, you will be able to observe with greater clarity and understanding the different areas of your life, because thanks to the fact that the mental noise has decreased, you have the ability to focus your mind and execute processes more effectively.
The emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical aspects of your life can be managed more easily and in general terms, your well-being will be increased from different points of view.
When you observe life through an agitated mind, you observe life in a distorted way, the reality is significantly affected and neutrality is unbalanced by those mental distortions and those agitating waters that come and go in the form of uncontrolled thoughts.
We must learn to know the mind, we must learn to calm its waters, and to achieve through meditation the tireless observation of our own thoughts.
The idea is not to judge, condemn or justify them, the idea is simply to observe, know and accept them.
See how they come and see how they go.
Just as with the ripples in the water, the frequency and intensity of the thoughts will decrease, and although the thoughts will not disappear completely, you will be able to observe life in a much clearer way and without all the distortions that an agitated mind usually brings.