How to Meditate Properly: A Beginner’s Guide to Meditation

Beyond Peace: Understanding Meditation as a Path to Higher Consciousness

In modern times, meditation has been marketed as just a technique that brings calm and balance, a stress-relief tool for busy professionals. That's a very limiting definition of meditation, one that does injustice to the true potency and transformative power of this ancient practice.

I also grew up thinking that meditation was just about calming your mind and feeling peaceful, perhaps also improving some focus. Back then, I used to think: why should I practice meditation, something so difficult and boring; just for calmness and peace? I'd rather listen to music for peace, play video games for joy, get into sports if I want to feel alive, or read a good book to improve focus. So why meditate, where I just have to sit still doing nothing? It doesn't seem fun at all.

The Turning Point: Discovering What We're Really Seeking

Later in my life, as I kept exploring and involving myself in different aspects of living, as I read many books and experimented with various practices, I started to develop a deeper understanding of meditation. What I discovered changed everything.

Meditation is a state we are all invariably seeking subconsciously. Think about it: when you lose your sense of that tiny self while absolutely absorbed in music, or the intensity of experience while playing a video game, or that sense of "being in the zone" while intensely involved in a sport, what's really happening? When you're deeply concentrated and focused while reading a book to the point that it's not just about the content anymore but the state of insight and clarity you feel after intense focus, or while experiencing deep love or devotion for someone, you're touching something profound.

We are all seeking that state of bodilessness, mindlessness, where there is less of "me" and more of life intensity and sensitivity. We crave that intensity, that sensitivity, that expansive feeling, that empowerment in whatever way possible. There is something within us that wants to grow, to expand beyond our limitations. So we try to achieve that state, to reach that zone through music, sports, art, relationships, or any absorbing activity.

F1 The Movie (2025)

The Limitation of Physical Means

But here's the problem: no matter how much we try, it is often limited. It is difficult to stay in the zone while playing sports because the body has its limits. You can't play intensely for hours without exhaustion. The same goes with many activities where we thirst for that heightened state: it remains limited and short-term. The high we get from video games fades when we turn off the screen. The intensity we feel in music dissipates when the song ends. The focus we achieve while reading diminishes when we close the book.

We go a little higher for a while, then come down, and then try to attain that state again the next day. It's a cycle of seeking and losing, seeking and losing. Since we are trying to approach this elevated state through physical means: through activities that depend on external circumstances, bodily stamina, or material conditions, it remains unfulfilled and temporary.

Many others have tried reaching this heightened state in unaesthetic and impatient ways through consuming substances like alcohol or drugs, but most of the time that only makes us worse in the long term. These shortcuts create dependency, dull our natural sensitivity, and ultimately take us further away from the very state we're seeking.

2014 FIFA World Cup final

The Silent Revolution: Meditation as the Direct Path

This is where the art of meditation, or the knack of meditation, becomes all-important. This is when we sit for meditation and attempt to go and live in that zone: not temporarily, not dependent on external conditions, but through direct inner cultivation. That zone we're all chasing is indeed a meditative state. We are all seeking that meditative state constantly, but since we've been conditioned to approach it through physical means, it remains elusive.

Hence the practice of meditation becomes essential to awaken to this possibility. This is what we attempt through sitting still, through turning inward. Meditation is essentially a process that cultivates and fosters a higher quality of inner life. Higher quality, higher intensity, higher sensitivity, higher sense of being, higher empowerment.

Basically, meditation makes us high—genuinely high—and it only takes us higher every day we sit for it. Unlike other physical means like sports, music, or entertainment, where we go a little higher for a while and then inevitably come down, meditation builds a foundation. It's not about peak experiences that fade; it's about establishing a baseline state of heightened awareness and inner richness that becomes your new normal.

Meditation is an ancient science to approach life with dignity, grace, and aesthetic; to touch that level of being where we exist in a next-level state of beauty, growth, and awareness. It's not about escaping life or transcending reality; it's about engaging with life from a deeper, more conscious place.

The Cultivation of Natural Intelligence

The more and longer we stay in the state of meditation, the longer we remain meditative, the more we mature in life, and the more we grow in self-awareness. This is when and how we cultivate and let our natural unique intelligence flourish; the intelligence that's been there all along, waiting to be uncovered.

The natural intelligence that we possess has been repressed under the burden of responsibilities given by an unhealthy society. Modern culture has conditioned our minds with endless demands, comparisons, anxieties, and distractions. This conditioning has made our minds dull, compulsive, and unintelligent; reactive rather than responsive, mechanical rather than creative.

Through daily and consistent meditation, we decondition our minds step by step, removing these layers of social programming and mental noise. We start accessing our higher state and letting our innate intelligence flourish. This isn't about acquiring new knowledge or learning new techniques; it's about unlearning the patterns that block our natural clarity and wisdom.

Beyond Information: The Need for Experience

There have been countless articles, books, videos, YouTube shorts, and Instagram reels about what meditation is. More information often only confuses us or makes us more knowledgeable about meditation without actually transforming anything. We become experts in talking about meditation while never experiencing its depths.

When it comes to subjective aspects of life; whether it's love, creativity, or meditation; it is better to experience than to intellectualize. You can read a thousand books about love and compassion, but until you actually feel love and naturally act with compassion, you haven't truly understood what they are. The same applies to meditation. The map is not the territory; the menu is not the meal.

Understanding meditation conceptually is useful, but the real transformation happens only through practice. This isn't to dismiss learning or guidance, both are valuable; but to emphasize that meditation is fundamentally experiential. It's not a philosophy to be studied but a living process to be lived.

How to Meditate Properly

Now that you have gotten the gist of what meditation truly is; not just relaxation but a gateway to higher states of consciousness and the flourishing of your natural intelligence; the next question naturally arises: how to meditate properly?

The beauty of meditation is that it's profoundly simple, although simple doesn't mean easy. Here's how to start today, right now:

The Basic Practice

1. Sit with your legs crossed, either on the floor or on a chair.

Find a position that works for your body. If sitting cross-legged on the floor is uncomfortable, sitting on a chair is perfectly fine. The goal is stability, not discomfort.

2. Keep your spine comfortably erect, not stiff, but gently erect.

Imagine a string gently pulling the crown of your head toward the ceiling. Your spine should be upright but not rigid. This posture naturally supports alertness while allowing relaxation.

3. Take three slow, deep breaths.

Breathe in deeply through your nose, feeling your belly expand, then exhale slowly. These initial breaths signal to your nervous system that you're entering a different mode of being. They serve as a transition from the chaos of daily life to the practice of inner stillness.

4. Once done, start feeling the inhalation and exhalation of your breath in the nostril. Be aware of your breath.

Notice the sensation of air entering and leaving through your nostrils. You're not trying to control or manipulate the breath; just observe it as it naturally flows. Feel the coolness of the inhalation, the warmth of the exhalation. This simple awareness is the foundation of meditation.

5. If you get distracted, that is absolutely fine and natural. Bring back your awareness to the breath when you notice you have been distracted.

This is crucial: distraction is not failure. The mind will wander; that's its nature currently. You'll think about your to-do list, replay conversations, plan the future, or drift into random thoughts. That's completely normal. The practice is in noticing when you've drifted and gently returning your attention to the breath. This act of noticing and returning is the meditation itself. This knack is what develops your mind!

What Happens with Consistent Practice

As you keep doing this practice daily, something remarkable begins to happen. Your number of distractions reduces gradually. In the beginning, you might stay focused on your breath for only a few seconds before the mind wanders. Over time, those seconds become minutes. The duration of your awareness on your breath will increase naturally, without force.

As your awareness expands and deepens, you will start rising toward that higher state of being mentioned earlier. You'll begin experiencing those glimpses of intensity, sensitivity, and expansiveness; not occasionally through external activities, but regularly through your own inner cultivation. You'll find that the quality of your entire life begins to change: your relationships become richer, your work becomes more creative, your challenges become opportunities for growth.

This isn't magic or mysticism; it's the natural result of regularly accessing and stabilizing that elevated state of consciousness that you've always been seeking through other futile means.

Taking the Next Steps

The instructions I've shared are enough to begin your journey today. You don't need expensive equipment, special clothes, or a perfect environment. All you need is your body, your breath, and a commitment to show up for yourself daily; even if it's just for 10 or 15 minutes at first.

For those who want guided meditation practice and structured support, click here. Sometimes having a voice to follow and a framework to work within helps establish the practice more easily.

To get personal guidance from me and experience rapid growth in your meditation journey, visit here. Individual guidance can help you navigate the challenges that inevitably arise, deepen your practice more quickly, and address the specific obstacles and questions that emerge as you progress.

The Invitation

Meditation isn't reserved for monks, yogis, or spiritual seekers alone. It's for anyone who wants to live at a higher level of intensity, awareness, and inner richness. It's for anyone tired of chasing temporary highs through external means and ready to cultivate a lasting foundation of inner well-being and evolution. Meditation is for people who value their lives and respect themselves. Meditation is for those who understand stagnation is death and growth is life.

The process is simple but profound. The commitment is daily but the rewards are lifelong and perhaps for lifetimes. The method is ancient but the results are immediately relevant to modern life.

Start today. Sit down, follow the steps, and experience for yourself what all this truly means. No amount of reading will substitute for 10 minutes of actual practice. The path to that heightened state you've been seeking; through music, sports, relationships, and countless other activities; is right here and now, available in every breath, waiting for you to simply turn inward and begin.

Learn Authentic Meditation