The best way to meditate

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Questioner: How to meditate? Whenever I try to meditate, I get stuck with thoughts, relevant and irrelevant.

Acharya Prashant: Meditation is a huge myth!

Given what you are, you will continue doing what you are, even when you are ‘meditating’. Your act of meditation will be as per what you are because you are the one who decided to meditate. Meditation is your decision, so you are bigger than meditation. Even in the act of meditation, you will continue to be. You will continue to be, and the same patterns that exist otherwise will exist, maybe in changed forms, but will exist even during the process of meditation.

We often think that we have a choice. The ambitious man comes and asks, “Is it alright to be ambitious?” Now, even if I say, “No,” will he be able to drop his ambition? Because ambition is what he is; ambition is the very structure of his mind. And the mind will not commit suicide. The mind will not drop itself or kill itself on its own.

You do not really have a choice as long as you are the chooser. But you come and you ask a question assuming that you have a choice. You do not have a choice. Are you getting it?

Q: Sir, do we really need to meditate?

AP: What is the final point that one wants to reach in meditation? What you want is peace, right? What you want is peace. Now peace cannot be the outcome of a ten minutes or forty minutes daily process, because the process is decided by you and adhered to by you. So you are bigger than the process. And peace is bigger than you.

Whatever you choose will never bring you to peace. Only peace can bring you to peace.

When you adopt a method of meditation, what you are saying is, “I will reach peace using my methods”. You are saying, “I am smart enough to reach the Truth using my own road.” You are not willing to surrender. You are not saying, “Let the Truth decide, how I will reach the Truth. I will just surrender.”

Do you understand the arrogance contained in methods of meditation? You are saying, “I am choosing this method”, even if on the advice of somebody. “I am choosing this method. And this method will take me…