Why Learn To Meditate Early?

Tuesday, April 24, 2012, 12:30

To know as to why one should meditate, the actual purpose of meditation has to be understood. Meditation is the state of being in peace, an inexplicable calm that spreads over one's being. Meditation brings in focus, clarity, a healthy body and mind, and overall, peace and harmony.

Though all the benefits of meditation that are discussed above are what one normally looks for in life, meditation is pushed to the later stages of life.

Meditation is the last resort to most, as it is taken for granted that it is not the need of the hour as there is enough and more time to pursue it when one retires.

We place more importance for action that drive our material pursuits and pleasures believing that they ought to be pursued, while young and energetic.

We thus dedicate our major part of our life for material needs. Paradoxically the mad rush for material pursuits has in fact driven one, battered in body and mind, towards meditation.

Why should one meditate early in life?

All human pursuits, if we try to understand beneath the layers of varied motives, could be realised for nothing but peace. Can one ever deny peace? It is the most wanted thing to all invariably at all stages in life.

Hence peace is what we are looking for as an outcome of all our pursuits. Peace, whether we recognise it or not somehow is the underlying goal of all our set goals.

However unknowingly we engage ourselves in a stream of activities throughout, not clear about our objective. So to sum up, our life is made up of activities that we perform throughout. Actions do not seem to tire us, as we are mechanically groomed to perform them till the end.

When one is old, one's body is not anymore physically equipped to get engaged in continuous activities. The mind is agile, but the body does not admit. This is a crucial stage, which is common to all. Without much to do, one starts complaining and becomes an object of other's complaints. This can be seen in those who lived a throughly active life, without a balance.

With surmounting unrest, it is when meditation is tried, many a times considering it as an action. It is to be understood that meditation may be a subtle form of action to beginers, while in its essence, it is a state. The mind always accustomed to pursuits, refuses to succumb to a state of peace and rest all of a sudden. It is no less than an herculean task.

Fortunate are the ones who learn to meditate in an early stage, either by choice or guidance. Good for those who learn to meditate, owing to stress. The blessed are the ones who follow it with the right understanding and its actual purpose of Self realisation which can be translated into everlasting peace.

It is however not to be understood that one should refrain from engaging in action. It is just that one will have to understand the importance of inaction as well, where the mind is trained to rest. The focus is to strike a balance.

It is also to be understood that one need not have to shun pleasures of life that we rightfully need to enjoy. All that one has to do is understand its transitoriness. It is to understand that we normally mistake pleasure for peace. A standard rule to differentiate between pleasure and peace is that, the former is fleeting and the latter is stable, even amidst seeming adversities in life.

Hence to learn to meditate and get involved in it at an early stage is imperative. Further more it only compliments all undertakings in life with clarity and focus and to look at things with the right perception. This is to be incorporated in all stages of life, if we are looking for the fulfillment we are seeking in all our endeavours, material or spiritual.

Hence the need to pursue meditation at an early stage, to experience all goodness early, to experience peace throughout and to be established in peace with time.