What is Meditation?
Meditation is often defined as thinking continuously about one object of thought. We often get stuck on this definition, however, and lose the real purpose of meditation. Meditation must reveal the true nature of that object upon which we are meditating. Such revelation comes not as a thought, but as a feeling. Therefore, meditation is a process in which we shift from thinking to feeling. It is a journey from the complexity of mind to the simplicity of heart. It is for this reason that most methods of meditation involve the heart.
There are 112 techniques of meditation that can be practiced to achieve a certain stage of enlightenment. Of these 112, 84 are purely ‘kriya’. Fundamentally, ‘kriya’ means ‘internal action’. When you do inner action, it does not involve the body and mind because both the body and mind are still external to you. When you have a certain mastery to do action with your energy, then it is a ‘kriya’. But in today’s world, most human beings do not have the necessary physical body to do Kriya Yoga in its entirety. It will just burn you down if you don’t have the right kind of body.
So, a combination that involves other aspects of you—body, mind and emotion—works best.
