Your description is perfectly successful meditation. Meditation as a “thinking session” that starts with

Dear Deepak,

I love the 21-Day Meditations you & Oprah offer, and have been doing them for a long time now. But no matter how much I enjoy meditation, it always seems to end up as a thinking session. I catch myself thinking, return to the mantra, and my rascally mind takes off again within 1 or 2 mantras, to the point that pretty soon I realize I got totally caught up in thoughts for many minutes at a time. Are some minds harder to quiet than others? I truly wish for the silence you speak of, but it still eludes me. I would appreciate anything you might have to say on this issue.

Response:

Your description is perfectly successful meditation. Meditation as a “thinking session” that starts with the mantra, then lots of thoughts and then a little bit of mantra again followed by many minutes of thoughts is great. The only problem is that you are judging it as somehow wrong on inadequate.

Once we start meditation, we are engaging the intelligence of our higher self to bring us the exact experience of expanded awareness we need and are ready for. Thoughts in meditation accompany the clearing and releasing of past mental conditioning which inhibit our expanded awareness. So thoughts are an indication that our meditation is effective. This release is creating the basis for the experience of silence. Don’t grumble or resent these thoughts, they are an essential part of effective meditation. Have the attitude that whatever happens in meditation, whether it feels “deep” or not, you are getting exactly what you need for your spiritual evolution at that time.

Love,

Deepak