Meditation is the seventh step of Yoga, just before the final step of Trance (Samadhi). As per the fundamental principle of Yoga, we must move from one step to the next in order — meaning to start a step, we must have complete mastery over all previous steps.

The first and second steps of Yoga are Do's and Do Not's, which establish the basic foundation of innocence, purity, morality, and gratitude. A person must have characters like empathy, sympathy, compassion, caring, sacrifice, loyalty, and responsibility — and must not have characters like lying, cheating, selfishness, manipulation, and betrayal. In the very beginning of Yoga, people must go for character development. Only then are you eligible for the very first step.

Only after completing the first six steps of Yoga can one become eligible for meditation. When all five senses have stopped their external focus and have been diverted within, only then are we eligible to start meditation.

However, throughout the world, all teachers inspire seekers to start practicing meditation without mastering the previous six steps. This is self-sabotage. As a result, seekers have to suppress their thoughts during meditation, which is absolutely impossible and very harmful for them. A majority of research conducted in the world suggests that meditation has harmful outcomes for practitioners themselves as well as their family and friends.

Think of it this way: you cannot perform open-heart surgery without first completing medical school, residency, and years of training. If someone tries to perform surgery without these prerequisites, they will harm the patient, not heal them. Meditation without prerequisites does the same thing to the mind.

The mind has three states:

1. Unhealthy Mind
2. Healthy Mind
3. Illuminated Mind

The Three States of Mind

1. Unhealthy Mind

People are absolutely controlled by unwanted, useless, non-practical thoughts. The frequency of thoughts is so high that most people live in either depression or delusion. People in depression suffer from an inferiority complex. People in delusion suffer from a superiority complex. In both states, people lose the ability to make right decisions and cannot grow — instead spinning in the same place or deteriorating further.

Due to lack of growth, they become very frustrated with life, and are vulnerable to falling prey to different tricks, techniques, and quick fixes to transform their lives. Their frustration compounds when nothing works.

These people are living at a very low level of consciousness. Prosperity, quality of life, happiness, and wellbeing are simply the expression of higher consciousness. Without the evolution of consciousness, no human can optimize their potential. At a low level of consciousness, nothing works — no tricks, tactics, techniques, dogma, or quick-fixes. They can only raise your frustration.

2. Healthy Mind

In this state, the majority of thoughts are useful and practical, and very few are unwanted or useless. This state exists after the evolution of consciousness, when a person reaches higher consciousness. It is the expression of higher consciousness that helps the mind have more useful and practical thoughts, and fewer useless ones.

Higher consciousness expresses itself through characters of morality such as gratitude, empathy, sympathy, compassion, caring, sacrifice, loyalty, and responsibility. Good quality characters are inherent — they can neither be learnt nor taught.

3. Illuminated Mind

In this state, people have absolute command over their useful and practical thoughts and have no useless, unwanted, or non-practical thoughts. This is enlightenment — the state of absolute stillness and silence, free from any thoughts. The enlightened mind can command thoughts at will, as needed.

Freedom from others and external factors is required for personal satisfaction, and the constitution of most countries already provides it. However, without ultimate freedom from the slavery of our own thoughts, people cannot enjoy a better quality of life and happiness. Without enlightenment, life is highly frustrating, devoid of pleasure and happiness. Everyone must attempt to accomplish the ultimate objective of their life — Enlightenment.

We Are Slaves of Our Own Thoughts

When we think of the mind, we associate it with conscious awareness and understanding. However, we are truly only aware of a small fraction of the thinking that occurs in our minds. The decisions we make, the habits we form, the way we feel, what we perceive of others and ourselves, our hopes, our dreams, our desires — all are at war with each other, and the dominating thoughts are often not the most useful, nor the most pleasant.

The mind is like a computer. The vast majority of its processes are programmed by the unconscious and subconscious parts of our mind, which ultimately dictate how we live and the choices we make. The subconscious and unconscious feed into our conscious mind as a constant flow of thoughts, ideas, and emotions that dictate our perception, understanding, and awareness.

Even on our best days, our peace and happiness are interrupted by intrusive thoughts — illustrating the disconcerting fact that many functions of the mind are outside our conscious control. Even the deliberate decisions we make stem from a complex root system of beliefs and past experiences shaped by our unconscious mind. We are only aware of the thoughts that arise in our conscious awareness, not the complex processes behind them. Even thoughts that suddenly pop into our awareness have been brewing deep in the recesses of our unconsciousness, shaped by processes we have no direct influence over.

The Meditation Industry

The dependency on reshaping the unconscious faculties of our minds fuels the personal development industry and the meditation market — a multi-billion dollar industry based on the hope that there is some method to control our thoughts and reshape our minds into a quieter, more nurturing environment.

Over the last 20 years, meditation has drastically increased in popularity. There are thousands of meditation apps, social influencers, life coaches, and new age teachers weaving meditative techniques into their programs. But many have lost sight of what meditation actually is.

Personal development coaches tell us to be optimistic, have positive thoughts, be inspired, be motivated — all the time. We are told to visualize what we want, focus on happiness and greatness, without any foundation that actually gives us the authority to control our minds and reign over our mental chattering and restlessness.

So the question is: are we the real thinkers? Do our thoughts control us, or do we control our thoughts? Can we control our thoughts in the presence of mental chatter, disorder, and restlessness?

No. The truth is — thoughts control us.

What Is Real Meditation?

The main objective of meditation is to free us from the slavery of our own thoughts. Our thoughts control our state of mind — sadness, anger, happiness, frustration — along with our successes, failures, physical health, mental health, emotional health, finances, and perception every day.

The validity of meditation can be measured through one scale: calmness. If you enjoy consistent calmness throughout your life, even when not actively meditating, then it is a real outcome. If you continue to suffer from restlessness, then your meditation is just a ritualistic or dogmatic practice layered with tricks and tactics that keep you in delusion. It is not meditation at all.

Real meditation is realized when the mind is in a state of silence — the absence of restlessness, providing stillness and command over thoughts, or ultimately, complete mental liberation. Successful meditation is when we enjoy streamlined focus and mental efficiency with the ability to control our own thoughts throughout our daily lives, even when not in meditation. We can think and focus on any subject, and when we don't want to think, we can suspend thought itself and enter a state of thoughtlessness.

This is the ultimate objective of meditation: silence and absolute thoughtlessness.

Why Most Meditation Fails

Many teachers instruct uninterrupted thinking or focus on an object, idol, deity, candle, light, a thought, imagination, or breath. However, this state of uninterrupted thought is impossible for most practitioners, even the most seasoned. Uninterrupted thought means one must already have achieved deep calmness — whereas many practitioners are trying to focus their thoughts as a means of achieving that calmness. It is backwards.

It is only when we are aligned with our ethics and morality that we become eligible for meditation. Then the subconscious mind leads our thought patterns and our lives, leading to higher levels of cognition, logical functioning, and a great sense of realism without delusional or draining thoughts. In this state of mind, we are capable of accomplishing thoughtlessness through meditation. Through this continuum of calmness, we are no longer adversely affected by stress, anxiety, depression, poor quality sleep, fatigue, fear of the future, mind chatter, and mental restlessness.

But if the unconscious mind leads our lives, we suffer from mind chatter and mental restlessness. We accumulate thousands of unfulfilled desires in the unconscious databanks of our brains. These desires infiltrate our conscious minds with intrusive thoughts and propel us into compulsive actions and poor decisions. We react to life's situations instead of reflecting, responding, and finding growth. The unconscious mind works on the pleasure and fantasy principle — so when we operate under its governance, we become delusional, impractical, emotionally unstable, and constantly busy in mental chatter. In this state, no matter the style, technique, or teacher, we are simply fooling ourselves. Meditation in this state is not beneficial. Unfortunately, more than 95% of the world's population falls into this category.

Benefits of Real Meditation

Real meditation improves alertness, awareness, self-control, quality of sleep, imagination, creativity, patience, tolerance, focus, mood, metabolism, energy levels, decision making, productivity, cognition, quality of relationships, inspiration, motivation, ambition, enthusiasm, and perception — as well as promoting satisfaction, clarity, relaxation, calmness, inner peace, and emotional bliss.

It reduces hyperactivity, negative emotions, anger, brain chatter, stress, anxiety, depression, irritability, frustration, fear of the future, sadness, and hopelessness.

Ultimately, meditation helps us accomplish health, wellness, and a better quality of life.