Let me describe what my thought is in a visual manner.
Imagine every thought and emotion, life event, relationship represented as a small or big particle, orbiting all around you in 3D. You are walking and all of these particles are moving with you, much like the sun and its planets.
So in this visual picture, you can see the silhouette of you, separate from the particles.
Now visualise the same picture but in this case, many of the particles are stuck on you with glue. Fewer particles floating around. You are vigorously trying to shake them off! You are running but the damn particle is still stuck on you, flapping in the wind like a half stuck piece of rope on a windshield!
Feels uncomfortable, doesn’t it ?
Meditation in my experience is the state in which, you can gently dissolve the glue.
When the particle is stuck on you, you are unable to be aware of its existence. When it floats in front of your eyes, you are aware of its existence.
Meditation, as it dissolves the glue, allows you to remove your attention from a few particles floating in front of your eyes, to all particles now free and floating around you.
I call this the state of gentle awareness. None of the particles define you or are attached to you, however you are aware of their existence.
In this gentle awareness or soft sense of being, you are able to aware of everything and nothing at all.
The particles floating in the air are still a part of your identity and move with you, however they are not stuck on you. The particles of success, failure, pain, trauma or joy, habits are orbiting around you. However, they are not a part of you.
In such a state of complete awareness and liberation, you are able to simply reach out, observe any particle, play with it, and then release it again into its orbit.
You are able to make decisions and approach any question/challenge in life from a holistic perspective. Why? Because remember, you cannot see a particle that is stuck on your behind, you can only see it, once it floats in front of your eyes.
This I believe is the gift of being in a meditative state, regularly.
That’s why a big realisation for me in my life has been, that its not only what I want to change about myself that is critical for me to change, but the things that I accept as a part of me (particles stuck on me) that need to may need to change as well.
It’s hard and takes a lot of time, however, as I am trying to go deeper into the practice, I can observe the value its personally adding to me, where I try not to let a failure, mistake, habit or achievement define me but be yet another particle that is floating around me. It is associated with me and I can see, feel and observe it, however I refuse to let it define me. I am separate from the things that are happening to me. I am everything yet nothing.