What is Meditation?
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What is meditaion? What is for you meditation? Have you ever meditated, really? What was one of the things that always happen when you meditate? any ideas? any thoughts? yes, this is my point. One famous contemporary Spiritual Teacher called Tony Samara once told me: "Once you figure out the mind you become enlightened." Now, this doesn't mean anything specific, and i cannot speak about what he is really referring to, but I believe that the mind is vey powerful and commands our lives, even when we are meditating. So for me meditation is simply watching the mind. Of course you can have meditation where you exercise the body, but ultimately if you cannot unfocus from your thoughts then you are lost in your mind aspect of your being. This is not bad or good, its just an experience.
Love,
Theriaca
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3 categories of meditations
In general you can categorize meditations into 3 types:
The simplest type is active meditations in which you have certain mental doing involved (e.g. guided meditation, Pranayama).
The 2nd type is passive meditations in which you only observe some object without any active doing involved (e.g. Vipassana, Anapana).
The 3rd type is the highest one in which there is just being without having any object to observe ("I AM").
Examples of meditations
Other examples:
Active meditations: Osho's dynamic meditations, visualization meditations.
Passive meditations: "observing the thinker" of Eckhart Tolle, observing your emotions, self inquiry of Ramana Maharshi (observing the "I Thought")
The 3rd type is actually one: just being, this is the beauty of it, no objects, no entertainments for the mind, just abiding in the subject. Difficult in the beginning. This is Nisargadatta Maharaj's "I AM", and Eckhart Toll's being.