[Reclix]

The modern adaptations of meditation largely position meditation as a way to experience peace/calm/rest and to develop self-awareness of your thoughts that allows you space to change your inner environment. These are both true and great.

But the actual, original purpose of any inward looking practice -- meditation, inquiry, contemplation -- is to discover the nature of your consciousness, to answer the question, "who or what am I?" by starting with the only part of our experience that is not changeful -- our awareness that we exist.

When you begin to try to honestly answer this question -- "when I say 'I', what am I referring to? this body? this mind? how can I know what I am, beyond a theory or thought? etc" -- it leads to a radical and yet in retrospect totally natural process of self-investigation -- turning your self-awareness upon itself -- whose end product is called self-realization, spiritual awakening or enlightenment.