Is everyone able to meditate?

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No. Not everyone can meditate.

Meditation is, in essence, the creation of sacred space inside the mind. It’s best accomplished with a certain amount of ceremony. When I was taught how to do it, it was all about inducement of the ‘alpha’ state. This was accomplished through deep breathing and patterned visualization techniques. This kind of meditation is also called trance.

There are other forms. Mindfulness meditation, concentration practice. What these all have in common is the sense of sacred space. You were in a mundane frame of mind before, now that you’re meditating you’re in a different one.

There are people out there who simply cannot ever produce this feeling of ‘different state of mind than the mundane’. I’ve observed that total limbic deactivation, also called psychopathy also produces this inability to escape the normal functioning of mind.

But most people simply aren’t aware of how to do it or what the common pitfalls are or how to tell when you’re actually there. I suspect many people manage to induce a meditative state but then are unclear as to ‘what to do next’, causing them to do the equivalent of taking a plane all the way to Nepal with the intent on climbing Everest and then just getting back on the plane and flying back because you couldn’t find your way to base camp.

These people can meditate, indeed they probably have a bunch of times, just not thinking they can or were. All they needed was a bit of a push or encouragement.

Spirituality is a collaborative pursuit. It loses a lot when you try to just do it all yourself.