What is meditation?

Now we have heard a lot about meditation and different techniques to do it. But before doing it, have you ever thought about what is your purpose behind that? why do you want to do it? In my opinion the sole purpose to do meditation is to be in the moment. To be in the present instead of dwelling in the past or future. Its also called death of the mind because you are in the present, absolutely conscious, not in the past or future. You become witness of your thoughts.

Now there are varieties of techniques to do it. You can focus on breathing, chant om, sit in a particular position for long time and so on. There is no end to it. But as I have experienced, a person is in a meditative state if he is living in the moment and aware about his thoughts. Being aware means you just watch the thoughts and no emotions are triggered. Its like watching the traffic on road from your terrace. It means that you use your mind as a tool. You don't react to everything to think. You know you are not your thoughts or emotions. You are master of them.

Because in reality you cannot stop the thoughts, however, to react is your choice. And if you can differentiate between your thoughts and reality and you live in this moment, then trust me, you need not to sit for long hours to achieve something. Thoughts would vanish on its own eventually because you chose to be non-reactive and present in now. You just analyze your thoughts now. And that's where all of the power resides.