“I can’t meditate! It should be easier…” - sounds familiar?

Mainstream has taught us that meditation is easy: sit for 5 minutes, breathe a little, and you’ll have a stress-free life. When it doesn’t work like that, we think we’re bad at meditating. Or that this is all bullsh*t. Well, it’s not.

I’ll use the word “yoga” a lot here. When Patanjali - the guy who wrote the actual manual on this, the Yoga Sutras, says yoga, he doesn’t mean poses (asanas). He means the whole path, preparation included, that leads to and culminates in a still, meditative mind. Meditation isn’t separate from yoga in his system - it’s yoga’s inner core, its final stage. So talking about yoga is really talking about everything that has to happen before and during real meditation.

He defines yoga as citta vritti nirodhah (YS 1.2) - stilling the fluctuations of the mind. That’s the goal. Not poses, not vibes, but a quiet mind. And in the very next line (YS 1.3), he explains what happens once that quieting occurs: you will get a direct glimpse of who you actually are, underneath the mental chatter.

But here’s where things get complicated: your mind reflects the state of the three gunas: sattva, rajas and tamas. If your daily life is dominated by rajas (restlessness, ambition, constant chasing, agitation) or tamas (dullness, laziness, confusion), you can’t just sit down and expect stillness. Nope! A rajasic or tamasic mind carries its imbalance straight into the meditation - it doesn’t magically go sattvic for 5 minutes because you closed your eyes.

That’s exactly why Patanjali doesn’t start with meditation - he starts with: non-violence, truthfulness, contentment, cleanliness, self-discipline… these aren’t moral decoration, they’re the actual groundwork. They gradually shift your baseline state of mind toward sattva (clarity, balance), which is what makes real meditation even possible. Only after this foundation — plus asana, pranayama, pratyahara — does he get to dhyana, meditation, at step 7 of 8!!

So skipping straight to “let me sit in silence for 5 minutes” while living a rajasic or tamasic lifestyle the other 23 hours a day is like trying to get calm water by dropping a stone into a lake that’s already storming.

Patanjali also gives the core method, in YS 1.12: abhyasa (consistent practice) + vairagya (letting go, non-attachment) - sustained over a long time, without gaps (sutra 1.14).

And even when the conditions are right and we do sit, real silence doesn’t come instantly: part of the mind starts watching itself meditate, judging if it’s “working.”

So meditation isn’t „broken” and usually, we’re not doing it wrong. Stillness is the fruit of a whole lifestyle pointed toward sattva, plus sustained effort — abhyasa + vairagya — and it’s not a 5-minute reset button. It’s a lot, it’s a real work, it’s a commitment. But well worth the hassle, I promise you!

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