What Does Meditation Feel Like?

What does meditation feel like? When you let go very deeply, what’s happening in your awareness?

There are different hallmarks of deep meditation. As you move deeper into meditation, you begin to recognize these for yourself.

Here are two key characteristics of deep meditation you might recall from your own experience.

Nowhere To Go

When you are absorbed in meditation, you have the overwhelming feeling that there is nowhere to go in all the world. You are in the middle of everything. In fact, your house could be burning down, your kids could be pulling on your mustache, and it’s still unlikely you’d want to respond.

When you feel that there is nowhere to go, it’s significant. It’s the opposite of what many of us feel most of the time.

It means that you really feel that everything is fine. And more than that, you feel that everything is perfect. Reality is whole and complete just as it is. You’re convinced that you couldn’t add a single thought, feeling, or experience to make this moment any better.

Can you imagine that?

The truth is, when you are that deep in meditation, you understand that this wholeness is the essence of life. When all the busyness falls away, when we are truly still, and when we’ve released our habit of resisting the endless flow of experience, that’s when we really encounter life as it is.

And when we meet life like this, it’s already full and complete. That’s what I mean when I say there is nowhere to go.

Nothing To Do

The other characteristic of deep meditation is that you feel that there is nothing to do. There isn’t anything more that you could do to improve upon this moment. It’s perfect, so what would you do?

I’m not kidding. This is really what deep meditation feels like. Can you picture yourself living life with this palpable sense of perfection and fullness?

What happens when you have an experience like this? What happens when you have it again and again?

I think it changes you. I think if you spend regular time in deep meditation knowing there is nowhere to go and nothing to do, something let’s go deep inside.

As far as our short human lives go, I think this rich experience of fullness and completion is an important milestone and an essential part of our evolving humanity.

I’ve had this experience countless time. Mostly on long meditation retreats. And when I have that experience, I never want to leave it. I just want to keep going. I know that it’s nourishing my soul on some deep level.

And when I emerge, I come out refreshed, recharged, and renewed in my conviction that life is a miracle, and I’m lucky to be here.