Survival is important to all life forms. Survive we must. Is there something else that also is important? If the answer is in the affirmative, we have to go get it.
What is stopping us from getting it? You will be surprised to learn it is our deemed survival needs that stop us from going and getting what else we want out of our life at any given time of existence. Our deemed survival needs come in the way of life, even survival itself.
To make progress on the way to getting whatever is our goal of life, we have to find a way to get past our survival. We not only have to get past survival, we have to keep it from coming in our way.
Meditation is the process of experientially figuring out with our own insights how we get past our survival and proceed on our journey towards our goal without letting our survival related issues coming in the way and stopping our progress. For vital goals, it is our personal insights that lead us to them more than the insights of the others around us.