Shri Krishna, in Bhagvatam, when addressing his beloved devotee Uddhava, states: 

"With a view to effecting the liberation of men/women, I have inculcated three yogas or methods, namely, that of knowledge, selfless work and devotion or total surrender. There is no other means anywhere."

There are no quick, easy remedies to the ills of ignorance. No genuine teacher will offer such seemingly quick solutions. To illustrate this, here's an anecdote:

A lady lost her house keys at a party ten miles away from her home. When she came home, she started searching for her keys in her brightly lighted garage.

"Why are you looking for your keys in your garage when you lost them at your friend's house?" someone asked.

"I am looking for my keys here because there is a lot of light here," she replied.

Such is our case when we look for peace of mind by sitting in a posture with our eyes closed or by depending on someone to put their hands on our head, etc. We can't find peace of mind there because that is not where we lost it.

Meditation is the seventh step in the eight step system of Patanjali Yoga, or Raja Yoga. With Realization of God or Self Realization being the goal of Sanatan Dharma, authentic scriptures such as the Upanishads and Shreemad Bhagvad Gita show many paths. These paths are Jnana, Dhyan, Karma and Bhakti Yogas. All of them require the first two steps of Patanjali Yoga, which are:

1.    Yama:

• Ahimsa (nonviolence, love)
• Satya (truthfulness)
• Brahmacharya or Continence of all the five organs and the mind
• Asteya (non stealing)
• Aparigraha (not hoarding what is not immediately required)

2. Niyam:

• Shauch (purity of body and mind)
• Santosh (contentment)
• Tapa (disciplined, sacrificial life)
• Swadhyaya (self study of scriptures in life)
• Ishwar Parnidhana (surrender to the Lord)

The other six steps mentioned for Self Realization are:

3.    Asana (easy and suitable physical posture)
4.    Pranayama (control of prana or vital energy)
5.    Pratyahar (to repeatedly bring back the wandering organs and mind within the heart)
6.    Dharana (concentration)
7.    Dhyana (meditation)
8.    Samadhi (attenuation of the mind-vritties or all samskars, good or bad)

Western and even modern eastern societies, being body, wealth and fame oriented, look for quick, easy solutions to attaining peace of mind. They're overlooking the first two steps shown above, which  according to sage Manu, are required under all circumstances, for people of all times that are trying to acquire peace of mind.

Today, the third step of asana, or posture of the body, has become a fashionable or trendy thing to do in the name of yoga, indicating our love for the flesh. Indeed, the body must be kept pure and tuned, but it must not become an obsession and a goal in itself. So is the case with prayanama. While everything has a proper place in the process of acquiring the love of God (Meditation), we should not isolate items of our choice from the above list of items or follow without any order.

Those who are teaching meditation and those who are hoping to learn mediation without thoroughly acquiring the mastery of the first two steps are under a great illusion. They will experience frustrations. The Upanishads are the authorities on Meditation and Self Realization. Tejabindu Upanishad, representing the views of all genuine Upanishads, on this subject, states clearly that meditation is performed in three stages: gross, subtle and transcendental, and also, it is difficult to attain. 

"Even to the wise and the thoughtful men and women of renunciation, this meditation is difficult to perform and difficult to attain, difficult to cognize and difficult to hold on, difficult to define and difficult to go beyond; its end or goal is difficult to be reached."

To attain that real meditation, one has to be: 

"To be moderate in food and take only satvika food which is good for health and conducive to mental purity; a master over anger (lust), free from attachment and passions (good and bad), free from pairs of opposites such as happiness and miseries, birth and death, heat and cold, winning and losing, liking and disliking etc., devoid of egoism, free from hope and free from all possessions including the body, mind and intellect."

Shreemad Bhagvad Gita and Patanjali's Raja Yoga summarize our need to understand meditation thus:

"Self Realization or love of God is attenuation of all impressions or samskaras (good or bad) of the mind."

This can be achieved by: 

"The mind can be brought under our control by repeated practices of Yama and Niyama as well as renunciation of our Moha, or attachment, for perishables -- people, things, events, places, occasions, time and causations."

--Swami Radhanandaji

Note: It is not out of place to recommend the reading and understanding of the writings on the mind in the book "Beyond the Mind" by David Frawley (Vamadeva Shashtri)