Difficulties in Meditation

So many of us meditate regularly, yet why most of us are not at peace? I feel that there is a fundamental issue with the process of mediation. Most of us believe that meditation is a process that one can undertake by making efforts. However, if there is an element of effort then there has to exist someone who is making the efforts. Who is this person making the effort to do the meditation?

Somebody will say what a stupid question. It is me who is making the effort to do the meditation. That is precisely the point I am trying to make. This "me" is the mind that is making an effort to undertake meditation. So long as "me" is making an effort, "I" will continue to exist. The entire process of meditation aims at melting this "me" and it is this "me" that is making the efforts to undertake mediation. With each effort, this "me" is getting more and more stronger. How can it melt and disappear?

To set into witness mode, one needs to surrender this "me". The only way out that appears feasible to me is to be a witness. We can set in a witness mode by first moving the attention away from the mind to some neutral medium. Our breath is one such neutral medium. Generally, we are not aware of breath but we always have a capacity to become aware of the breathing process. Our attention has a very typical feature. It can be aware of only one thing at a time. Though it can switch the attention very quickly from one object to the other. However, at a particular moment, one can not attend to two different things.

That is the reason when we become aware of the breathing process, we come out of the thoughts. However, it is not easy to keep the attention on the breath. The attention will keep shifting to the thoughts and one needs to practice to bring the awareness back to the breath. With practice, one learns to maintain awareness of the breath for a longer time. 

As one gains control over one's awareness by practicing awareness of the breath, one can slowly start to witness the sensations in different parts of the body. This awareness of the breath and sensations is to be practiced without bringing the mind into the picture. As soon as the mind comes into the picture, it will start evaluating the sensations into good and bad, like and dislike. One will shift from the witness state to the state of reaction which is a normal state of awareness. To get back to the meditative state, one needs to switch back to the witness mode.

This practice is not easy as our mind takes control of the awareness soon and we again start reacting to the sensations in different parts of the body. The stream of thoughts takes over and we again start traveling into the past and future. Since most of the time we sit in meditation is spent thinking about the past and future and there are very few moments wherein we are able to maintain the witness state, that is the reason why most of the time meditation is not that effective and despite meditation, we are not able to be at peace.