First, let’s figure out what meditation originally was. If we turn to our respected Wikipedia, we will be given the following definition:
Meditation (from the Latin meditatio — reflection) is a kind of exercise for the psyche used within the framework of spiritual-religious or health-improving practice, or a special mental state arising from these exercises (or for other reasons). Notice the word «reflection» … We’ll come back to this later.

Meditation, originally, is a method to awaken the human nature. It does not require any work with thoughts, affirmations, no self-hypnosis, etc. Instead, we go to a complete dis-identification with the thought process. We do not interfere or get involved with incoming thoughts, emotions, or desires. Instead, we bear witness to them. Thanks to the practice of meditation, after a while, we cease to suffer from the chaotic «cloud of chatter» in our mind, and the mind itself becomes clear and precise, turning into a good instrument. We become the masters of our mind.

Often a person’s mind works idly, chaotically. We think about something all the time — about the past, the future, and things that don’t exist in the present. We constantly evaluate and analyze everything — all this expends a huge amount of our energy. Most people do not have the skills to stop the process of their uncontrolled thinking, except for artificial means that give a short-term effect of quieting the mind, such as food, sex, music, smoking, drugs, alcohol and other entertainment. But in meditation, we can simply not get involved in the stream of thoughts, remaining a witness of what is happening. Therefore, if we interpret the definition of meditation as reflection, we can expand it in the following context: dis-identification with the thinking process and not thinking about something.

Today many people use meditation as a technique helping them to relax and achieve other positive effects. But if you go deeper, this is a technique that is an integral part of the educational process in spiritual schools, leading beyond the ego. This special type of inner work allows you to immerse yourself in the finer layers of consciousness, thereby awakening human nature. Thus, if we use serious techniques, they help speed up our spiritual evolution.

There are many techniques of meditation, but all of them in total can be divided into 2 types (based on the principle of working with attention):

1) Concentration of attention (when we focus and hold our attention on something: an object, a sound, a sensation in the body, our breath);
2) Deconcentration (when we do not focus or keep our attention on anything but simply observe what is happening, both inside and outside, including thoughts and emotions). One example would be the well-known meditation on emptiness in Buddhism.

In both cases, the correct approach to meditation implies that we do not analyze or evaluate the objects of concentration or what is happening.
We are not talking about techniques such as visualization, relaxation, and affirmations. As a rule, you need to imagine something, i.e., including the imagination. They have a different task: direct relaxation or realizing our goals and desires. In meditation, the task is initially much deeper: going beyond duality.
Most of the meditations came to us from the East. Still, this knowledge also exists in the Russian-speaking regions (former CIS countries). One of these meditations is the Paradanta Meditation, which in translation means «leading beyond any bounds.» It belongs to the second type of meditation (without focusing attention). This is the meditation taught in our School.

Many people ask, «How do I learn to meditate?» You can’t learn serious meditation techniques from a book or DVD. Learning these meditations requires a certain systematic preparation that goes through several stages and takes some time. Therefore, to start with, you need to find a school or a teacher, i.e., a competent person who can help you with this.

In some centers, where meditation is taught very quickly, mastering it is rather superficial. That is because the teaching system is like a mass conveyor, which does not imply a serious individual approach. Therefore, as a rule, such training does not yield profound results.

It is also very important to understand that learning to meditate is not a goal in itself. You need to understand what you want to achieve. For example, many people use meditation simply to achieve relaxation, ease mental tension, and relieve stress. But in professional schools, the main goal of meditation is not this, but to help a person reveal the control and the dictatorship of the mind. This allows the students to learn how to free their minds from old concepts and the body from various blocks and tensions.

We can say that meditation (if we talk about professional techniques) is one of the most powerful tools on the path of a spiritually developing person. This is because it allows you to do up to 50% of all the «rough work» of cleansing the body and, above all, the nervous system. Thus, meditation greatly accelerates and facilitates the process of restructuring the entire body and helps with inner transformation. The meditation technique transmitted from a master makes it possible to cleanse the consciousness from all destructive programs quickly and painlessly.

At most, you can learn some relaxation or concentration techniques from a book or video, but its effectiveness would be highly questionable. If someone really wants to get good results from practicing meditation, it is necessary to understand that it entails subtle inner work.

It is necessary to follow a professional approach and adhere to safety precautions; otherwise, you can harm yourself.
It’s even more serious than learning to pilot an airplane, though it seems: «Why do I need all this? I can do everything by myself: sit with my eyes closed and meditate!»

Experimenting with yourself is possible but is always fraught with danger. If you really want to get a positive effect and not be disconnected from life, you need a serious training system.

Scientists have long begun to study the mechanisms that occur in our bodies during meditation. During meditation, various transformational changes occur in some regions of the brain and normalization of certain hormones and neurotransmitters. For example, studies have shown that people who meditate have increased levels of serotonin («happiness hormone»), DHEA (dehydroepiandrosterone) — «youth hormone», GABA (gamma-aminobutyrate, gamma-aminobutyric acid), endorphins, somatotropin, melatonin (sleep hormone), and reduced level of cortisol (stress hormone).

During meditation, the brain changes its frequency from beta waves to alpha waves, corresponding to the intermediate phase between sleep and wakefulness (the peripheral phase of sleep). In this state, many insights come, and various discoveries are made.

In general, meditation activates the neurohumoral regulation in the body, launching the internal mechanisms of self-regulation and self-restoration, which contributes to a deep cleansing of our psyche and body. And, as a consequence, it produces many different accompanying effects.

The practice of meditation allows us to open up the very foundation of our life. When this happens, all spheres of our lives become enriched. It occurs in the most natural and easy way. In our usual life, in society, we chase pleasures that our perception organs, our mind strive for (to eat something tasty, buy something, etc., trying to fill the inner emptiness in every possible way).

And in fact, our life experience tells us that when we are searching for fulfillment outside, in the end, there is nothing that can bring us complete satisfaction. When one pleasure ends, we start searching for the next. But when our mind turns inward, towards the very essence of itself, to its absolute source, then in the most wondrous way, we can find total satisfaction and fulfillment.

Our mind always searches for fullness and completeness. It constantly strives towards something greater — more knowledge, more power, more influence and so on. But when our mind discovers its own origin, it can reach the highest completeness of knowledge. Not intellectual knowledge but “the fruit of all knowledge”.
This is not specific knowledge about something, but it is the purpose of any knowledge. This is the absolute, saturated fullness of knowledge.

At the level of ego, any life situation kind of knocks us out: that is, we feel as if we are insignificant, small, we are oppressed and offended, squeezed into certain limits and our sense of individuality wants somehow to break out and prove its own importance. And at the base of this feeling lies the simple desire of “I,” who wants to become Great.

It shows as an aspiration for significance and self-importance in our everyday life. As a matter of fact, we artificially pump up this feeling of individualization to be perceived as someone big and significant. But when this feeling of individuality finds its own source, free from any limitations, this sense of individuality passes from a small, point-like perception of itself into Infinity. We may say that the individual Self gains the Universal, Absolute quality. This is the very feeling of Unity with all the surrounding space that every human being subconsciously strives for.