What is meditation?

In this life we all have goals and we try to achieve things and certain feelings are coming and going. We can have another job, get another house, or change some other things, and this can give feelings of pleasure or sadness initially. After some time this stabilizes and we find something different to focus on. The thing we always end up with is with ourselves. Just an example; someone that is depressed will not feel suddenly happy when he moves to an other house or to an other country. That person brings himself with him. Meditation focusses on this deeper identity we bring always with us. It makes us realize there is a calmness within everyone of us that is not depended and all those things outside of us that are always changing.

We can look at the ocean as an example to make the above clearer. When we look at the waves the ocean sometimes we see high waves and sometimes we see small waves, but generally there is always movement. When we go a bit deeper into the ocean there are no waves and it is much more stable. The waves are only the top layer of the ocean and most part of the ocean is actually calm. The waves are real and the calmness is real too. Meditation can be compared with going deeper into the ocean. Even if the waves are very high, it is still calm deeper in the ocean. And even if in your life many things are happening, within yourself there is still a calmness that doesn’t depend on all those waves that are going through your life. The waves of our life make us feel happy and sad and always changes, but from the inside we can always feel calm. Not only will this stability within us give more calmness, but  from this calmness we can also much better deal with all those waves of life. Our intelligence and ideas are much better when we are calm ourselves instead. It doesn’t matter if you look to it from a material or spiritual point of view; meditation can make both better.