Meditation is neither Eastern nor Western. It is Universal. Meditation techniques and practices may be Eastern or Western or Northern for that matter. We don't have to travel to far and distant lands to become enlightened. The Eastern is no more mystical than the Western; the Urban no less close to God than the Rural.
 
This need to get away to find IT only reinforces the illusion that we are separate from God. This would imply that there is some place that the Divine is not or at least less present than in other places. Enlightenment is never any farther than your own heart and mind. Meditation is only a term for the practice of quieting the mind; a journey within; a conscious connecting with the life force.
 
Every society on the planet has some form of this quieting of the mind in its history. Prayer, meditation, solitude, chant, drumming. Don’t get hung up on the technique or the term. Get hung up on the doing and the being—get hung up on the result.

 Two of the greatest gifts we have been given are the ability to create our experiences and choice. When we use these two gifts from a state of awareness we come to know and experience our divine limitlessness. In order to do this we must quiet our mind enough to experience what is beneath the chatter. A quiet mind is not necessarily a blank mind but rather one that has been given a task rather than being the giver of the task.
 
Getting beneath the chatter allows us to see the connection between our thoughts, belief systems and our life experience. So what do we do once we get beneath the chatter?  It is the perfect opportunity to consider the nature and characteristics of our thoughts and beliefs.