Meditate or escape from reality? Let's find out what meditation is.

Many years ago I started practicing yoga and also meditation. I went through all the techniques, all the “spiritual” centers, and even followed teachers who would give me the exact formula to reach enlightenment. All this together with being a vegetarian and dressing in white. A very beautiful stage of my life that has left me with many good memories. But today my practice has changed. I no longer want to get anywhere, I just want to be well aware of myself and everything that happens around me, or at least that is what I try to be. My daily routine is to get up early, wash my face, then grab the yoga mat and sit down to do asanas that provoke me at that moment and finish with some breathing exercises. Sometimes laziness tries to take over, but I always overcome it (ok, with certain exceptions), for the simple reason that I love doing yoga and I can already see some benefits growing as a result of my practice. I am no longer a vegetarian and I dress in comfortable clothes but they are no longer white. The question is: What is the difference between these two stages? In the early years I was very young and full of curiosity, I wanted to know everything, read books, experiment, etc. I wanted to become enlightened and practicing in a group with my friends was very nice, we only talked about how we could change the world, about what we felt when we were meditating, about the lights we saw, about the messages that came to us during our practice, a dream world. These were moments where I completely distanced myself from reality, which returned when I got home, because I grew up in a dysfunctional family, something very difficult to cope with. Being in “spiritual” groups greatly relieved my sense of belonging, which I always sought since I was a child. But all this fantasy vanished when I decided to follow a leader of a yoga philosophy, I became radical in my practice, I put a lot of pressure on myself, I was in a marathon and I wanted to reach the goal quickly. But the truth was that the more hours I imposed on myself for practice, the greater the moments of conflict were. But not everything was in vain, because the first great benefit of this wonderful practice arose, I finally became aware that I was encapsulated in a fantasy, I finally accepted my emotional wounds, my traumas, and I began a new path of acceptance, healing, and forgiveness. It was a long, tedious, very painful path, but it has brought me to where I am today. I have understood, according to my personal experience, that meditation is trying to be aware of oneself and one's surroundings at all times, it is also an action but one that comes from compassion for oneself and one's surroundings. An action that arises in the moment, in the present, that does not create conflict, but on the contrary unifies you with life, with the world. In conclusion, I understand that meditation is being present in the moment, an action that due to its simplicity, becomes very difficult. Because the challenge is to meditate within this world in which we live, that of armed conflicts, of corruption, of envy, of narcissism, of our traumas, sadness, failures, etc. But where hope and life can also be found. Because where a flower ends its life cycle, another is born, with all its splendor. Finally, I don't think there are differences in these stages of my life, but rather a constant movement that transforms everything.