Meditation Is Being Warped & Perverted By New-Agers

thomas00

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Even before the new agers came along there were problems. Being a former meditator who got sick and couldn't do it anymore made me wary about most if not all the claims made by people who spruik it and teach it. So many pathological personality traits in many of them. Whatever benefit it incurs is probably just through raised metabolism which could be achieved other ways. I doubt the validity of the theories of mind that's it's spawned. I've never found the people who really into those things to be particularly impressive.

There's been a few good articles in the last few years pointing out the insidious corporate use of mindfulness in the workplace in order to extract more from workers (cynically framed as improving workplace harmony, your boss cares about your health etc).

Psychologists have also helped ruin it by turning into another utterly boring dry academic thing taught by people who write long papers about it.
 

CLASH

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I learned the practice of dzogchen from a lama in the bon tradition. There was nothing “spiritual” about it, atleast in the sense that people often use the word. It was literally learning how to open up awareness to what is directly in front of you, a sort of mind training for lack of a better explanation. The practice was something that greatly altered my life. Among quite a few things i learned/ observed some of the most prominent included:

1) moving outside the stream of conciousness of thought and the other “lamps” or doors of perception to a place of emptiness. This doesnt not mean that nothing is going on or that the mind is quiet. Quite the opposite actually. It means all of those things are going on yet “you” are essentially sitting back and observing the aspects as they go by. You just observe in your awarness state.

2) I was able to dissolve the felt sense of seperation of boundaries between my body and the environment or basically the totality of everything at large, they call this the “dharmakaya” from what I understand.

3) I subsequently developed the ability to be equanimous to my emotions, sensations and thoughts as they flowed through my awareness. This was very freeing. I can now have massive adrenaline rushes when a patient of mine is crashing and still maintain a centered mental state.

4) this one is simple but I learned how to dial up or dial down my focus in general.

5) my ability to fully experience each sense has been increased as I can direct my focus towards the sense I am specifically using.

I’m sure there was more to learn, but at 140$ a session I went broke... enlightment aint cheap :/

For those interesting in learning the first most basic step is focusing on your breath. Just watch it though, dont alter it. From there you then watch your stream of conciousness, the stream of thoughts that flow through your awareness (the voice in your heading talking sh*t to you basically). Then you can use it for the other senses.

After that Idk, try bending spoons with your mind and summoning demons with incantations. #spirituality 2019
 

Collden

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The danger with getting too immersed in meditation lore is that your mind will literally just use any information it comes across to interpret its experiences and give it meaning, it can become a never-ending rabbit hole of psychoanalysing your feelings in terms of its spiritual significance that may not always lead to useful results. When a couple of years ago I read up on Kundalini syndrome I started to interpret every strange sensation in my body as manifestations of "Kundalini energy" moving and got obsessed with figuring out what the various energy movements meant.

Especially about a year ago I started to experience pressure sensations around my head and up till now had just interpreted it as Kundalini energy moving up to my crown chakra and transforming my brain! Flash-forward to two weeks ago I learn about the ability of a certain nutrient imbalance to cause intracranial hypertension, I correct this and the pressure disappears. So much for Kundalini awakening. Perhaps becoming too accepting of whatever occurs in your body is just teaching you to ignore real signs that something is wrong in your life, and make you less motivated to take corrective action, whether it is in improving your physical health or your life situation.
 
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Runenight201

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Even before the new agers came along there were problems. Being a former meditator who got sick and couldn't do it anymore made me wary about most if not all the claims made by people who spruik it and teach it. So many pathological personality traits in many of them. Whatever benefit it incurs is probably just through raised metabolism which could be achieved other ways. I doubt the validity of the theories of mind that's it's spawned. I've never found the people who really into those things to be particularly impressive.
.

I agree, meditation is not curative of physical ills from an inappropriate diet.

In my experience meditation is best used in discernment of the appropriate foods/drugs to consume to achieve a desirable physiological state. Growing in this manner creates wisdom in health as one grows perceptive of the numerous ways illness sets in due to inappropriate food consumption, which manifest as negative physical or mental symptoms.

One has to have experienced a diverse enough diet with its corresponding effects to gain true understanding of how to eat correctly, and an overly orthorexic approach based on intellectual boxes inherently constrain. Being free to error is necessary to learn, and builds greater confidence in future discernments as one’s set of recallable experiences grows.
 

ken

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We spent a couple of weeks with Swami Ji about fifteen years ago. An amazing human, ran away from home in the forties, found his way to the Himalaya's, got excepted by a reclusive yogi. After living in a cave for a couple of years at 10500 ft. became the masters servant and moved into the hut. He inherited the hut and still lives there. He became a mountain climber even though he was crippled in an accident on his journey to the mountains. has been passed 21000 ft on a dozen occasions. He became a renowned master of yoga spending hours a day. Became a nature photographer and ecologist. In his ninety's he's crossing off one of his bucket list items, an art gallery, observation tower over looking the cave that is the source of the Ganges. As he said, I am Shiva, and Sufi saint too.
 

ShotTrue

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The danger with getting too immersed in meditation lore is that your mind will literally just use any information it comes across to interpret its experiences and give it meaning, it can become a never-ending rabbit hole of psychoanalysing your feelings in terms of its spiritual significance that may not always lead to useful results. When a couple of years ago I read up on Kundalini syndrome I started to interpret every strange sensation in my body as manifestations of "Kundalini energy" moving and got obsessed with figuring out what the various energy movements meant.

Especially about a year ago I started to experience pressure sensations around my head and up till now had just interpreted it as Kundalini energy moving up to my crown chakra and transforming my brain! Flash-forward to two weeks ago I learn about the ability of a certain nutrient imbalance to cause intracranial hypertension, I correct this and the pressure disappears. So much for Kundalini awakening. Perhaps becoming too accepting of whatever occurs in your body is just teaching you to ignore real signs that something is wrong in your life, and make you less motivated to take corrective action, whether it is in improving your physical health or your life situation.
That's if you add all the extra mumbo jumbo religious beliefs to this.
From my take on meditation, it is being more comfortable and present with what is currently going on. It helps to calm you (empirically proven to lower anxiety) by training your mind to focus on senstations, especially painful ones, rather than try to hide from them.
In comparison to your story, I would think mindfulness meditation would allow you to calm down and take notice of the cranial pain. Not to change the pain, but allow it into your conscious notice, which from there you can take actions to change it.
From my view, meditation is to keep the mind from mindlessly running around and around, not even paying attention to anything happening around you, or not being able to pay attention to your instincts.

@thomas00 I agree, people who are very into it seem not to go on an accomplish greater things in life. They often don't lift weights or run businesses, there's a lot of hoo haa or religiousity that get tied up. Such nonsense and my own experience does have me doubt its usefulness at times, but reading John Kabat Zinn's book helps me understand it's to help focus on present awareness and achieve more calmness of mind
 

ShotTrue

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I agree, meditation is not curative of physical ills from an inappropriate diet.

In my experience meditation is best used in discernment of the appropriate foods/drugs to consume to achieve a desirable physiological state. Growing in this manner creates wisdom in health as one grows perceptive of the numerous ways illness sets in due to inappropriate food consumption, which manifest as negative physical or mental symptoms.

One has to have experienced a diverse enough diet with its corresponding effects to gain true understanding of how to eat correctly, and an overly orthorexic approach based on intellectual boxes inherently constrain. Being free to error is necessary to learn, and builds greater confidence in future discernments as one’s set of recallable experiences grows.
Nice
 

ShotTrue

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I learned the practice of dzogchen from a lama in the bon tradition. There was nothing “spiritual” about it, atleast in the sense that people often use the word. It was literally learning how to open up awareness to what is directly in front of you, a sort of mind training for lack of a better explanation. The practice was something that greatly altered my life. Among quite a few things i learned/ observed some of the most prominent included:

1) moving outside the stream of conciousness of thought and the other “lamps” or doors of perception to a place of emptiness. This doesnt not mean that nothing is going on or that the mind is quiet. Quite the opposite actually. It means all of those things are going on yet “you” are essentially sitting back and observing the aspects as they go by. You just observe in your awarness state.

2) I was able to dissolve the felt sense of seperation of boundaries between my body and the environment or basically the totality of everything at large, they call this the “dharmakaya” from what I understand.

3) I subsequently developed the ability to be equanimous to my emotions, sensations and thoughts as they flowed through my awareness. This was very freeing. I can now have massive adrenaline rushes when a patient of mine is crashing and still maintain a centered mental state.

4) this one is simple but I learned how to dial up or dial down my focus in general.

5) my ability to fully experience each sense has been increased as I can direct my focus towards the sense I am specifically using.

I’m sure there was more to learn, but at 140$ a session I went broke... enlightment aint cheap :/

For those interesting in learning the first most basic step is focusing on your breath. Just watch it though, dont alter it. From there you then watch your stream of conciousness, the stream of thoughts that flow through your awareness (the voice in your heading talking sh*t to you basically). Then you can use it for the other senses.

After that Idk, try bending spoons with your mind and summoning demons with incantations. #spirituality 2019
CLASH this also represtents my experience. It's mind training, instinct and emotion training
 

morgan#1

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people who are very into it seem not to go on an accomplish greater things in life.
I wonder what the greater things in life are? Everyone has their own tough life, with its mundanities. I wonder what could be the greatest thing in life, if not to find your joy? Be it working out or being a flower seller or being a CEO; I think there is a way for it all.

I try not to judge anyone anymore. (Well I’m human so maybe it slips in a bit, but I’m aware and I know that it is wrong.) But I like the feeling of not judging. It feels natural and it makes me more open.
 
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TheSir

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That is one method, but just like mindfulness, it can end up being self abandonment and thus very damaging.
Can you elaborate on this? I have noticed that there is a distinct difference between focusing on an aspect of the external reality, e.g. everything you can hear, and diving into yourself, letting yourself be engulfed by your subconscious flow.
 

Hugh Johnson

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Can you elaborate on this? I have noticed that there is a distinct difference between focusing on an aspect of the external reality, e.g. everything you can hear, and diving into yourself, letting yourself be engulfed by your subconscious flow.
You have a feeling or emotion come up, and you can either attend to it or not. Mindfulness typically ends up being used to escape the feelings you have and thus you abandon yourself. You need nothing more than to be present with your emotions .

What you should do is experience every emotion fully as it comes up. It resolves the energy trapped there.
 

ShotTrue

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You have a feeling or emotion come up, and you can either attend to it or not. Mindfulness typically ends up being used to escape the feelings you have and thus you abandon yourself. You need nothing more than to be present with your emotions .

What you should do is experience every emotion fully as it comes up. It resolves the energy trapped there.
That sounds like the opposite of what mindfulness should be, meaning it's what you said at the end
 

TheSir

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You have a feeling or emotion come up, and you can either attend to it or not. Mindfulness typically ends up being used to escape the feelings you have and thus you abandon yourself. You need nothing more than to be present with your emotions .

What you should do is experience every emotion fully as it comes up. It resolves the energy trapped there.
If I never have emotions come up, other than basic calmness, would it be more likely that I have no emotions trapped down there, or that I am not going deep enough?
 

ShotTrue

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If I never have emotions come up, other than basic calmness, would it be more likely that I have no emotions trapped down there, or that I am not going deep enough?
I don't think you should be forcing an emotion, just letting it arise. That's why Jon-Kabat Zinn recommends mediating at times of stress, anger, other random or chosen times to allow your mind to fully experience that sensation.
 

CLASH

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If you go too deep, you can fall asleep, atleast in the beggining lol. I had quite a few amazing naps by accident.
 

Hugh Johnson

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If I never have emotions come up, other than basic calmness, would it be more likely that I have no emotions trapped down there, or that I am not going deep enough?
There is shadow work, which you should do when things are not going as you wish. If everything goes well, let sleeping dogs lie and party on.
 
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Exactly, while meditating the goal is to keep your mind completely blank so that you can realign yourself with your unconscious instincts, not focus on breath or sensations or dissociating yourself from your body, but the way it's being taught in so many places is doing the exact opposite.
So the practice should be to voluntarily shut down our internal chatter?
 
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