The Meditative State—Can It Truly Be Attained Through Trataka, Concentration, Stress Management, Rhythmic Breathing, or Any Other Technique?

Rahul is around forty years old and has been working as a manager in a private bank for the past several years. In the beginning, he found it difficult to believe his friends when they told him that such a position could drain the very life out of a person. Their words seemed exaggerated to him. However, within a short period, his opinion began to change.

Rahul had always been the kind of person who would not rest until he had found a solution to a problem. Naturally, he was determined to find a solution to his stress as well. For the past three years, he had been practising meditation for twenty minutes every day through a highly popular meditation app. Wearing headphones, closing his eyes, and listening to the soothing sound of ocean waves, he had completed nearly 1,127 days of meditation sessions.

The peace he had experienced when he first began did not remain the same after a year. What he felt after the first year was no longer present after the second, and whatever little remained until the third year had now disappeared completely. As a result, Rahul had begun to feel troubled not only by the stress of his work but also by his own inner condition.

At last, overwhelmed and disappointed, he called Sanjeev, the father of his friend Shivam, and said, “Even after meditating for so many days, nothing in my life has changed. Why is meditation not working?”

Sanjeev possessed a deep understanding of spirituality, tantra, mantra, and meditation. He laughed gently and asked Rahul, “What do you actually understand meditation to be?”

After thinking for a moment, Rahul replied, “Meditation is a technique that reduces stress. It calms the mind, improves concentration, and provides self-soothing, through which a person feels relaxed.”

Sanjeev said softly, “Rahul, my son, this means that during the past three years, you have not meditated even for a single minute.”

Rahul was shocked, and his astonishment was entirely natural. Everything he had heard and understood about meditation had taught him exactly what he had just described. For the first time in his life, someone was telling him that whatever he had been doing for three years was relaxation, self-soothing, and entertainment for a tired mind—but it was not meditation.

This is one of the greatest tragedies of our time. Millions of people are practising different techniques in the belief that they are meditating, while true meditation may not have occurred even for a single moment.

Today, we shall enter deeply into one fundamental question: What is meditation? And, perhaps even more importantly, what is meditation not?

Before we can understand what meditation truly is, we must first examine everything that is being taught, explained, promoted, or sold to us—both online and offline—in the name of meditation.

Friends, meditation is not a technique in the ordinary sense of being instructed to do this or that, to breathe in a particular manner, to sit in a particular posture, or to repeat a particular mantra. Since the journey towards meditation begins with the body, these practices may serve as methods through which one approaches meditation. Yet they are not meditation itself.

Through such techniques, one may reach the doorway of meditation. However, the door of meditation opens by itself. It does not open merely because you have reached it, nor does it necessarily open because you continue to knock upon it. Techniques may assist you in reaching the threshold, but they cannot take you beyond it.

A technique may give you temporary peace, relaxation, enthusiasm, or happiness. Since these practices are connected with the body, it is natural for them to produce such experiences. Yet we are repeatedly told that experiencing these states is the beginning of meditation. In truth, they are only the first steps towards reaching its doorway.

As long as the doer remains—as long as the sense of “I am doing meditation” remains—meditation has not yet happened.

Friends, meditation is also commonly described as concentration or one-pointedness. This is the second great misunderstanding.

Concentration means fixing the mind upon a single object: the flame of a candle, the rhythm of the breath, the repetition of a mantra, or any other chosen point. Most meditation apps today teach concentration and present it as meditation.

However, concentration contains tension. It demands effort. It requires the mind to choose one thing while rejecting everything else. In other words, it creates division and conflict. Where there is conflict, meditation cannot be.

In Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, the path of Ashtanga Yoga describes dharana, dhyana, and samadhi as three distinct stages. Dharana is concentration. Dhyana comes after concentration, and samadhi lies beyond dhyana. By distinguishing these three states, Sage Patanjali makes it clear that concentration is the foundation, not the destination. The modern world, however, has mistaken the foundation for the destination itself.

Friends, meditation is not relaxation either. This is the third and perhaps the most common misunderstanding.

“I feel relaxed after meditating.” Millions of people repeat this sentence today. Yet this statement contains two errors. The first is that the purpose of meditation is not relaxation. The second is that anything which gives you relaxation is not necessarily meditation. You may simply have used a relaxation technique that has physiologically settled the body and the nervous system.

This is a medical phenomenon, not a spiritual one.

In true meditation, relaxation is not something that is obtained. In fact, nothing is obtained at all, because the one who wishes to obtain something disappears.

Another group of techniques is commonly presented as meditation under the name of stress management. This is the fourth misunderstanding, and perhaps the most dangerous of all.

The corporate world has transformed meditation into a productivity tool: “Five minutes of mindfulness before a meeting,” or “Meditate to improve your focus at work.”

This is an insult to meditation.

Meditation is not meant to turn you into a better employee. Meditation is meant to take you beyond the very identification that you are merely an employee. These two movements lead in completely opposite directions.

A question must now be arising within you: What, then, is meditation? Are all others wrong while this one person alone is right? How can such a thing be possible?

Friends, all the techniques mentioned above are true, useful, and beneficial in their own place. Stress-management techniques are valuable. They can reduce stress and increase productivity; there is no doubt about that.

We are also not saying that concentration, proper breathing, correct posture, music, vibrations, mantra chanting, or any other kind of practice is wrong. Nor are we claiming that those who teach such methods through online or offline courses are teaching falsely. Whatever they are teaching may be perfectly valid within its own context, and it may certainly bring benefit to those who practise it.

We are not speaking in order to prove anyone wrong.

We are only saying that it is incorrect to call these practices techniques of meditation, or to declare that these techniques themselves are meditation. No technique, at any time, can ever become meditation.

As we have already said, all these techniques may help you reach the doorway of meditation. Beyond that doorway, however, no technique can function.

To be continued in the next part…