In Judaism, meditation is included within the Kabbalah, (essentially a meditative field of study) where a heavenly realm is visualised through which the soul navigates to achieve great spiritual realisations.
Islamic meditations include repeating Allah's 99 names and during prayer, meditation is included by performing the 'Salat' which focuses on the mind and heart of Allah 5 times a day. Islam has 2 main forms of meditation; one being the 'Tafakkur', a contemplative meditation which is more common as it is one mentioned in the Quar'an. The second and less accepted form of meditation is Sufism, a more mystical form called 'Muraqaba' - the Sufi word for meditation; - meaning 'to watch over', 'to take care of ' or 'to keep an eye on'. It implies that within this meditation, one is watching and taking care of their spiritual soul, and gain a knowledge about it, its surroundings, and its creator.
Christianity contains a practice known as a 'Ladder' of prayer, which originated from the "dessert monks" in Egypt who would read the bible slowly and meticulously to ponder over the deeper meaning of each verse. This was called the 'Lectio Divina', or otherwise known as the 'Divine Reading'.The monks would find themselves in a deep four-part progressive state; from a divine reading to meditation, to prayer, and finally to a 'contemplation' or a wordless focus on "God". This progression became recognised as the 'Ladder' of prayer, as it takes a few steps to reach a full state of awareness and contemplation. Another modern Christian meditation is called a 'Centring prayer' which focuses on the internal, beautiful and quiet experience of the presence of "God".
Although meditation precedes in many worldwide religions and is often considered a religious tradition, it doesn't mean that practising meditation is practising religion. Meditating doesn't require any conversion to a specific type of meditation in order to reach enlightenment; it is entirely dependant on your desires, goals and purpose of the meditation itself.
MEDITATION AND RELIGION
Meditation has originated and evolved through many religions, however, the first record of meditation was found in the Indus Valley, ( now modern Pakistan and Northern India) where archaeologists discovered wall art dating back from 5,000 to 3,500BCE. The wall art depicted the people sitting cross-legged with their hands resting on their knees, and their eyes almost completely closed. This is modernly recognised as the most common posture for meditation and is evidently the origin for the evolvement into the full or half lotus pose we use today.
The Hindu's initial development of meditation was by meditating 'The Buddha', created by Siddhārtha Gautama, ( 563 - 483BCE) when he sat meditating under a Bodhi tree around 500BCE and reached enlightenment - in order to understand and get closer to the nature of 'Brahman' ("God").
As the centuries passed, most of the world's main religions adopted the basic concept of meditation. Methods may vary in different cultures, but people all over the world believe that meditation is the key to spiritual development.
The greatest break between the Hindus' and Buddhists' interpretation is that Hindus believed that meditation should be and is used to connect with a higher being or power. The break occurred when the Buddhists no longer believed this and led to believe that meditation should be used to gain a colossal realisation of the interrelatedness with all things and beings.
Japanese Buddhism started growing around the 8th century and during his visit to China, a Japanese monk named Dosho was taught the ways of Zen. After returning back to Japan, he opened his first hall of meditation. He wrote the method for 'Zazen', a sitting meditation, and created a community of monks that focused solely on this form of meditation.
Buddhism has numerous versions of meditation such as Zen, Theravadan and Tibetan which all have the same purpose; to find their path to enlightenment.
Yoga and meditation were introduced to the United States around the 20th century by Swami Vivekananda, and meditation grew incredibly as the former meditation teacher Maharishi Mahesh Yogi introduced the method of Transcendental Meditation across the world.