True meditation is the practice of meditating with an intense and singular focus only on achieving a state of consciousness that is not concerned with the external world. Meditating with this approach entails focus on a state of simply being present in time and space without the visual images such as colored chakras that come with other meditation techniques. One of the main purposes of true meditation is to free the mind from its normal fixations on everyday concerns such as physical tiredness, recent memories, and intrusive emotions. Proponents of this type of meditation report that unhealthy mental processes can occur from too much inner focus on these types of thoughts that lead to incorrect and constricting conclusions. How detrimental these kinds of conclusions can be depends on the kind of mental conditioning each person has experienced throughout his lifetime.
Learning true meditation often entails first learning to quiet the mind of its normal daily intruding thoughts that interfere with true self-awareness. The practitioner studies the preliminary lesson that all daily and largely superfluous thoughts come from one deeper source of consciousness within the mind. Moving into a true meditative state involves a singular focus on this source, and those surface thoughts generally become far less noticeable once the meditation newcomer successfully achieves this state. Some experts in meditation define this set of thoughts as the ego that can regularly get in the way of genuine inner peace.
Many people report several benefits of true meditation after they have made it a part of their lives on a regular basis. These include increased mental clarity, greater acceptance of others' shortcomings, and a better ability to put everyday irritations in perspective. True meditation can often be helpful for people seeking to reduce their levels of negative mental stress, as focusing on simple awareness can aid them in realizing that small daily setbacks do not matter nearly as much in the large scheme of the universe. Relief of this kind of stress through meditating can thus prevent many of the associated physical, as well as mental health detriments, that can usually come with too many daily worries.
This practice can sometimes be considered one of the more challenging forms of meditation due to the prevalence of external distractions in modern daily life. Many novices initially struggle to tune out every thought and worry that enters their minds. Keeping a quiet and peaceful physical environment for meditative sessions is considered an important first step towards reaching a quiet mental state.