Before answering the questions, I would like you to ponder what’s your understanding of the word meditation.
Meditation means discovering oneself and discovering the ultimate truth. As of now, I haven’t seen or felt my soul. So, I just firmly belief I have a soul. Likewise, I haven’t seen or felt my kidney. I firmly belief I have a kidney. Understanding the difference between knowing and belief is one of the basic pillars.
The next question should be how does one know oneself and how does one discover the ultimate truth? The path for both them is same. We start with the breathe. We all take breathe, inhale and exhale. Take a moment and observe your breath, inhale for some moments … and then exhale.
Hope you observed the breathe, else request you to take a moment and observe.
Observing breathe is the first step towards the journey. Most of the time we aren’t aware of our breathe. It is just on auto pilot mode. That’s the way we have been living our life. One can observe ones breathe anytime during the day. After you become better at observing breathe the next step is knowing the sensations. The sensations can be good, bad, lovely, hatred, jealousy and more. One doesn’t have to react or even respond to the sensations. The prime objective behind no reaction or response is to develop patience and tolerance to every situation in life. During those ten days, day by day one goes deeper in the technique. The best part about the technique is that it is not related to any religion. I earnestly request you to know read more about the technique and take a deep dive inside. We have time to travel all over the world but no time to travel inside? The sooner you can travel the better you can know yourself. The choice is yours.
My life has changed a lot, particularly the quality of thinking, after those ten golden days. I see the same thing from different perspective now. I understood the difference between dharm and religion. Previously, I considered both the same. My observations skill got better with time. I understood the importance of serving (seva). I can understand taking out 10 days is not that easy that too without mobile device. But it is not impossible too. I planned during my holidays. I request you to plan accordingly or at least read about it. There are centers all over the world. Have a look here.
Summing up the experiences, knowing oneself is a life long journey, the sooner one starts the sooner one can know oneself as well as the ultimate truth.