The modern adaptations of meditation largely position meditation as a way to experience peace/calm/rest and to develop self-awareness of your thoughts that allows you space to change your inner environment. These are both true and great.
But the actual, original purpose of any inward looking practice -- meditation, inquiry, contemplation -- is to discover the nature of your consciousness, to answer the question, "who or what am I?" by starting with the only part of our experience that is not changeful -- our awareness that we exist.
When you begin to try to honestly answer this question -- "when I say 'I', what am I referring to? this body? this mind? how can I know what I am, beyond a theory or thought? etc" -- it leads to a radical and yet in retrospect totally natural process of self-investigation -- turning your self-awareness upon itself -- whose end product is called self-realization, spiritual awakening or enlightenment.
If you set aside your preconceived notions and read it as a series of hypotheses that must be confirmed within your own direct experience, it will transform your experience of reality and set you on the (pathless) path to enlightenment.
But the actual, original purpose of any inward looking practice -- meditation, inquiry, contemplation -- is to discover the nature of your consciousness, to answer the question, "who or what am I?" by starting with the only part of our experience that is not changeful -- our awareness that we exist.
When you begin to try to honestly answer this question -- "when I say 'I', what am I referring to? this body? this mind? how can I know what I am, beyond a theory or thought? etc" -- it leads to a radical and yet in retrospect totally natural process of self-investigation -- turning your self-awareness upon itself -- whose end product is called self-realization, spiritual awakening or enlightenment.