What If You Stopped Merely Trying to Be Mindful and Started Really Meditating?

The key to unlocking the potential of your reality was always yours.

There is a great interest in mindfulness that has taken over the Western world. As a meditation teacher and a person who meditates daily, I can’t help but shake my head just a little bit because mindfulness seems like a cop-out. There is so much wonder and joy that comes from meditation, and when we try to water it down into mindfulness, it loses so much of its power in our lives. It seems like a practice for people who don’t want to go all the way for one reason or another.

Mindfulness is the practice of keeping awareness in the present moment to fully enjoy every experience of life. Chopra Global explains:

Mindfulness is the simple act of paying attention and noticing and being present in whatever you’re doing. When you are being actively mindful, you are noticing the world around you, as well as your thoughts, feelings, behaviors, movements, and effects you have on others around you.

Mindfulness is when you’re keeping your attention on what’s going on right now instead of letting your mind worry about the past, future, or places other than here. This is great because it allows you to deeply experience life moment to moment.

But meditation goes deeper. To me, it goes “all the way” and allows you to fully experience reality. Chopra Global also explains meditation:

Meditation is an intentional practice, where you use focus to increase calmness, concentration, awareness, and emotional balance... In meditation, you typically spend a focused amount of time — anywhere from a minute to an hour or more — tuned inward.

In meditation, we are able to access places within us that mindfulness can’t go. Meditation opens doors for us to experience reality and understand who we truly are. It brings happiness.

Meditation takes us beyond surface reality to understand that there’s more to life.

What if you stopped trying to be mindful and just focused on meditation for a change? Let me tell you why I think you should.

Mindfulness Keeps Us on the Surface

When we are just living in the present moment, we aren’t thinking about the nature of the present moment. Keeping awareness here and now is wonderful if you’ve already deeply experienced reality.

Unfortunately, if you’re only practicing the skill of keeping your mind on the current situation and experience, then you are just staying on the surface. You are enhancing the quality of life, which is wonderful, but you aren’t really giving yourself a reason to keep doing it.

Mindfulness still doesn’t answer deep questions like “why?”

I would imagine that anyone practicing mindfulness without meditation has a hard time staying with it. Why are you doing this? Just to have rich experiences? This is a compelling reason, but I am guessing that it isn’t compelling enough for most people to keep at it. Their minds will wander and they’ll go back to getting stressed. They’ll go back to getting caught up in the busyness of life.

Meditation is Spiritual When Done Right

When you meditate to find a deeper purpose, this is what it means to be spiritual. You don’t need to believe in a deity to hold the belief that there is something greater than yourself holding reality together.

Meditation goes beyond mindfulness because it allows us to uncover who we truly are.

When we slip into what Deepak Chopra calls “the gap” — the stillness within — we find that there is something beyond surface-level existence. We find that there are thoughts and there is also the thinker of the thoughts. We find that there’s a consciousness that is witnessing the events in the mind.

It’s truly incredible. For this reason, I highly recommend that you begin a meditation practice.

With the realization that we are more than our thoughts and feelings comes an awakening. Suddenly, we understand that there is meaning in everything. We have a reason to keep meditating. We have a motivation beyond what mindfulness could give us by itself.

Mindfulness Follows Naturally from Meditation

After understanding our true nature as human beings, mindfulness becomes natural. It becomes effortless. It flows. In all moments, there is meaning, therefore we have a reason to stay in present moment awareness.

When we’ve woken up to the nature of reality and the fact that there’s more going on than what’s in front of us through meditation, we naturally let go of worries and thoughts that were taking us away from the here and now awareness. We want to stay in that awareness because we understand why we’re doing it.

Mindfulness is a side effect of a regular meditation practice.

Meditation should be done daily to keep reminding ourselves about reality. We need to keep going into the silence to remember that we don’t need to be attached to our thoughts and feelings anymore.

Without meditation, a mindfulness practice loses its appeal.

Start Meditating Today

If you’re a mindfulness enthusiast, I think you’re going to love meditation. Start meditating today so that you can fuel your daily life and be effortlessly mindful. Meditation will lead you into a beautiful world of meaning, understanding, and bliss.

The present moment will simply seem lovely. You won’t want to stray from it.

Maybe you’ve tried it before and it was too intense or too uncomfortable — but that’s the point. You have to just keep going. The thoughts and feelings will sometimes be so strongly attached to your existence that you need to put a bit more work into it before that attachment fades away. Feeling like your mind is too busy to meditate is a normal first reaction. You just have to keep going.

After a period of dedicated practice, you will understand what I am talking about here. The juiciness of the present moment will be irresistible. Calm and bliss will just wash over you. You’ll wonder why you were ever worried about things that aren’t here and now.

“One’s attention has to penetrate the chaotic activity, pass through all the layers of subtle thought, and at last emerge into silence. This is the basic process of transcending.”

— Deepak Chopra

Hi, I’m Emily. I write about wellness, consciousness, and existence, and I help others in their healing journeys through spirituality, Ayurveda, and meditation. I have a graduate degree in philosophy and I’ve lived around the world. Visit my website to find out more.

The divine in me recognizes the divine in you.