A mind is a beautiful tool, an instrument, but it can also become your worst enemy. All day long it runs by itself and more often than not, we are at the mercy of our immediate reactions, wasting energy worrying about things that may or may not happen. The nature of this inner dialogue also tends to be very negative, projecting fears and self doubt, focusing on what is wrong and seldom allowing space for an opposing point of view. When we think of our misfortunes and disappointments, we go over and over them in our mind, rubbing in the hurt and the pain. Finding ourselves stuck in endless thought loops, unable to break the cycle, we lose countless hours, days, years, processing the same information and seeing the same results. There is much to witness and learn about the mind. It is estimated that an average person has up to 60,000 thoughts per day, with as little as 10 percent of those thoughts being relevant to the present moment. The other 90 percent is spent arguing, dreaming, worrying, analyzing and building stories, our truths that we deeply believe and hold on to. Filled with compulsive streams of thought and conditioned beliefs about ourselves and others, we live distorted and limited lives. Often seeing the world through a clouded lens, unable to fully experience the only moment we are alive — this present moment! Meditation is an ancient practice, dating back as far as 2000 B.C. Researchers speculate that primitive hunter-gatherer societies may have discovered meditation while staring at the flames of their fires. Over thousands of years, meditation evolved into a structured practice. It does not belong to any particular religion, caste, creed or community. It is a science of self-exploration and self-realization. Although some rituals or religious practices have become a part of many meditation techniques, it still remains a perfect science. Over 600 research studies have been conducted at more than 200 universities and research centers (including Harvard, UCLA, and Stanford). These studies have been published in more than 100 journals.