If you have come here, it’s because you want to meditate and something is preventing you from doing so. Personally, it was difficult for me, and beyond learning the technique, it was being able to feel comfortable during the meditation sessions. Despite reading many books, attending courses, and listening to all kinds of gurus, the key beyond the technique for me was starting to feel comfortable meditating. And the comfort I refer to is not about being able to sit in the lotus position and applying breathing techniques. The great challenge of feeling comfortable in meditation is being able to remain in physical and mental stillness, without feeling the need or annoyance of having to move. Physical stillness supports mental stillness, which is the most important component in meditation because it allows us to silence our egoic thoughts.

Many methods talk about not thinking or silencing the mind; I understood it when I replaced the word mind with “egoic thoughts.” Here we are talking about the mind defined as the ego, which includes all the thoughts arising from our individual desires. Therefore, meditation is the practice that seeks to silence those egoic thoughts.

Stillness in meditation is perhaps the most important component because it truly allows us to observe our being.

Egoic thoughts, as the term implies, are thoughts rooted in the ego. These are thoughts that stem from individual needs and do not consider others or the entirety of the universe around us. Egoic thoughts are rooted in individual desires and can often manifest as harm to others.

The root of egoic thoughts lies in the ego’s desire for individual satisfaction. These thoughts constantly speak to us about what we should be, about demands, personal satisfaction, accumulation, fear, and all the mental and emotional mechanisms that get activated.

Egoic thoughts are “the mind = ego” that meditation seeks to quiet, with the purpose of opening space for another mind to manifest—the infinite mind that many traditions also know as the heart.

Meditation is a technique to quiet egoic thoughts.

When I understood that meditation was that space of stillness and silence to quiet egoic thoughts, a new dimension opened in my meditative practice. In other words, meditation allowed me to hear the voice of my heart. The voice of the heart, if we listen carefully, is a compassionate voice free from the ego. At that moment, I understood that meditation is the space to harmonize the mind with the heart.

What made the whole meditation topic complicated for me was starting to awaken that voice of my heart. A voice that, the first time I heard it, made me feel a strong vibration in my chest that made me feel love and compassion for myself and all beings. Meditation allowed me to open that communication channel with the heart, and it is in that moment that I encounter that pure being that I am.

Imagine now that this being lives in an immense forest, and you want to find it, just like when you want to see animals that get scared at any noise you make, but also approach when you are silent and still. Just as in the forest, the splendor of nature is best observed in stillness and silence. That is why, to find that stillness, it is necessary to relax our body so that other senses can open, allowing us to feel the voice of the heart. Meditation is the tool that allows us to silence our mind and let the beauty of our being and existence enter us.

Types of meditation

The common denominator of all techniques is mental training based on concentrating on being present in the here and now. This is the foundation for starting to empty the mind of egoic thoughts that belong to the past or future and do not allow us to exist in the here and now.

Ancient traditions have been aware of the importance of this to connect with our inner being and the voice of the heart. For this reason, both religions and mystical schools have developed some type of meditative practice, be it meditation or prayer. Several types of meditation have become popular worldwide, but all are based on Hindu Vipassana meditation. This is the meditation that Buddha made known as it led him to enlightenment.

The common denominator of all techniques is mental training based on concentrating on being present in the here and now.

Often, this wide range of techniques can cause confusion for those trying to meditate for the first time. It can be difficult to adhere to one technique and trust that it is the most suitable for us. Often what prevents us from meditating is that we are forcing mental stillness and it can make us uncomfortable. The important thing is to start and trust that with practice, the chosen technique is the best for that moment.

Here are some of the most well-known meditation techniques:

• Transcendental meditation, popularized by the Hindu guru Maharishi in the 60s, based on Vipassana meditation.
• Mindfulness, an Anglicism that has westernized transcendental meditation, and is generally guided meditation focused on aspects like stress and anxiety.
• Zazen, Japanese Zen Buddhism meditation focused on emptying the mind, characterized by being performed in the lotus position.
• Kabbalistic meditation, based on visualization and Hebrew word mantras.
• Christian meditation, which has many variations but is based on prayers and reflections on biblical texts.
• Walking meditation, a type of meditation popularized by Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, based on conscious walking.
• Tibetan meditation, accompanied by Tibetan mantras, with one of the most used being the compassion mantra Om Mani Padme Hum.
• Kundalini meditation, focused on activating the Kundalini energy and based on reciting mantras to activate the chakras.

These are just a few of the many meditation techniques that exist in the world, and all of them have in common the goal of finding silence and stillness of the “mind = ego.” These ancient tools have been developed by mystical traditions to bring humans to a state of relaxation that allows contact with the inner being.

Why is it important to connect with our inner being?

The inner being, which some mystical traditions define as the inner divinity, is what brings us closer to God, the infinite, the divine purpose of our existence. This inner being connects with the true purpose that is unique to each one and exists in a spiritual dimension.

Meditation allows us to start listening to the voice of our soul.

On the other hand, the ego connects us more with the voice of the “should be this and that,” and the economic and professional demands. Our heart’s voice connects us with that divinity linked to an infinite purpose beyond duties and social demands. Examples of egoic thoughts:

• I must be economically successful
• I must please my parents
• I need to buy this and that
• I am not enough
• If I am not a successful professional, I am worthless
• I must be in control
• If I am an artist, I will be a failure

These egoic thoughts dominate our internal script and prevent us from seeing our true potential with purity and innocence. Egoic thoughts are like internal voices generated through internal programming built throughout life from childhood to adulthood and reinforced over the years. It only takes hearing them when we are children for these external thoughts to become our own. Thoughts that are not part of our essence begin to corrupt us and can lead us to an illusion of success or happiness or total failure.

Meditation is the space of stillness and silence in our mind.

What happens when meditating can only be known by the one who meditates. It is such an intimate act that no matter how much it is described, only the practitioner can experience it. The internal transformation that can occur can be an understanding that changes the way we see things; the understanding can come during meditation or at any moment, regardless of whether we are meditating or not. The meditative practice allows the mind to understand that there is a space of relaxation where comprehension arrives, and knowing that space of stillness and silence, it can recreate it at any moment.

That is why meditation is a great act of trust where we completely surrender to the act of listening to that internal voice of our heart.

What prevents you from meditating is not yet knowing that there is that space of stillness and silence in the mind. When meditating for the first time, it may be difficult to reach that place because we are used to living from our ego and satisfying the egoic desire. Only with meditative practice can we cleanse ourselves and bring our mind to that place of silence and stillness. In that state of pure relaxation, not forced, relaxed, and contemplative, we begin to hear the voice of our soul.

Meditation is the technique or practice that sets aside those voices and thoughts of our “mind = ego” that are not ours and allows us to start listening to the voice of our soul. That voice of the soul contains the essence and purity of who we are. It is difficult to start trusting that voice, which we have practically never allowed ourselves to hear. That is why meditation is a great act of trust where we completely surrender to the act of listening to and feeling that internal voice of our heart.