The following is a synthesis of the traditional teachings about meditation. This is not a meditation technique but general rules to be followed for entering the meditation state.

 

Before starting
Most people can successfully practice aerobics or body building, for instance, without knowing human anatomy or without understanding at all what they are doing or why. Unfortunately (or, perhaps, fortunately), this is not so with yoga and meditation. Without knowing exactly the nature of this process it is impossible to correctly realize it and therefore there can be no true meditation.

Meditation is the highest yoga practice (this doesn't mean it is difficult!). In fact, very few people can really meditate, and this for two main reasons:

Very few know exactly what meditation is;
Even fewer are willing to comply with it (lack of motivation).
Not everybody that stays motionless with the eyes closed is meditating. Meditation is an accurate science, therefore it cannot be practiced in total ignorance. Only those who study it with a serious inner motivation can successfully practice it.

Keep in mind that meditation, especially in the first stages, must have an object. Without object to meditate upon, there is no meditation. The simplest object of meditation is a physical object (a pot, a drawing, a ball, etc.). In more advanced stages, the objects of meditation become ever more subtle: mental Images created at will, a piece of information, a problem that needs a solution, a feeling, a thought, an idea, a subtle energy, a state of consciousness, etc. In this material the word "object" will refer to any of these.

An important point here is that the object of meditation has to be very well perceived by the subject. In other words, the object must have a clear objective or subjective reality. A very vaguely defined idea cannot function as an object of meditation. The subject (the practitioner of meditation) must be able to "take hold" of at least one of the major characteristics of the object, if not of all of them.