Many people messed up themselves by following the norm that meditation is only about concentration around some external objects. Meditation requires a different form of attention. The object of focus is internal to the person. In sum, it is a journey of self-discovery and self-awareness.

Contrary to common belief, meditation does not require hard effort; it is something that we do at our ease.  What is the right thing to concentrate as we meditate?  Instead of focusing our attention on some imagined objects, ancient wisdom suggests that we should focus our attention on sound, which requires less effort and exhaustion. We could effortlessly concentrate on internal sounds produced by nature within us.

The ancient Indian scriptures suggest that every element in our being and becoming are necessarily part of the cosmic sound called ‘Aum.’ We cannot experience that sound as long as we keep our attention on the noise produced in the external world. We need to withdraw our notice from the external noise to hear that cosmic sound widespread within us. That is why it is always advisable to meditate in a calm place. Somehow, if we can keep our ears closed, we cannot hear external noise. Then, we can withdraw ourselves from the outside noise, and subsequently, we can keep our attention on the sounds that emanate from within our being.   Our mind always takes our care from the spiritual world within us to the sphere of the material realm existing outside us.

It is a tricky little business that unless we are calm, we cannot meditate. And, unless we meditate, we cannot come to a state of calmness. Both calmness and concentration take place together. It is possible only when we withdraw from the outside world and start focusing on our spiritual being inside us. The starting point in this journey is becoming aware of our breathing–observation of the breath as we inhale and exhale. We become a little calm with this practice, and then we move our attention towards hearing the internal sounds produced within us. We go more in-depth and farther, hearing the minute and subtle sounds produced within us. The more we do, the higher we benefit from the meditation practice.