What Meditation is Not

It is very difficult to describe what meditation is, so I decided to share what meditation is not. While this is based on my own experience, I will be using Patanjali’s eight limbs of yoga to help.
Yoga is not sitting down with your legs crossed, eyes closed and hands in gyan mudra. This is a posture, also known as asana. Asana is the third limb of yoga.
Meditation is not breathing deeply or any other form of breathing. This is the fourth limb of yoga- pranayama.
Asana and Pranayama are related to the physical body and its processes. No doubt, they will both have an effect on the mind and your experience, but they are not meditation.
The fifth limb switches from the body to the mental aspects of consciousness. If you sit down and with your eyes closed and breathe deeply, you will likely begin to experience one of two things. Integration of all your senses or withdrawal from your senses. This can produce many types of experiences: being nothing, being everything, seeing colors, hearing sounds or even feeling energy pulsing through the body.
None of this is meditation. This is known as pratyhar. You are moving inward, but you have room to go.
After some time of sense-integration or sense-withdrawal, your mind will become like a laser. It will be capable of looking past thoughts and any emotions that arise. Your attention can now shift to the pure sense of wakefulness, or “I am”.
Still, this is not meditation. This is Dharana. The sixth limb of yoga.
Once you’ve mastered this process of moving to Dharana and bringing the attention to your being, only then can meditation happen. It is a very subtle shift from Dharana to meditation.
This is meant to inspire you to rethink your relationship with your “meditation” practice and to encourage you to go deeper. Sitting for 30 minutes with your eyes closed has it’s benefits, but you may actually never meditate during this time.