As a person who has tried a few different meditation practices I do have an opinion about meditation. There are even scientific studies that show the benefits of meditation such as stress reduction.

Taking that into account, I would venture to say that there may be other aspects of the health benefits of meditation that have not been studied well yet. Let us put the science aside for a minute and move into the realm of subjective experience.

My personal experience tells me that not all meditation practices are equal. I will not discuss the names of different practices that I have tried in this article.

People try meditation for different reasons. Some have heard of the health benefits. Others are seeking a new spiritual dimension to their lives. Therefore they enter various practices of meditation from different angles and experiences.

Now, this of course means the 'end goal' of meditation is different too. This leads to the next natural question - what is the purpose of meditation? Is it simply stress relief or does it have something to do with enlightenment and greater wisdom? Who can answer this question?

As human beings we do not understand what enlightenment is except perhaps in some abstract sense. Without truly understanding what it is, how do we make a decision about whether we want it or not? A bit of a dilemma?

Therefore it makes sense to learn about meditation and what its real purpose is. Once you do that, you will be able to make a choice about what you want out of meditation and then decide which meditation practice is best for you.