THE MEDITATION HOAX

 

 

Don't all of us – even if only occasionally – succumb to emotions like irritation, jealousy, sadness, and anxiety?

There are nary many of us who wouldn’t like the power to change the way things are in our life – in the world around us! We labour under the belief that it is the people in our life, the objects we own, and our interactions with them that cause negative emotions that make us unhappy. We all seek happiness. We do not earn money merely to buy the barest necessities of life.  Money, to us, is something that can buy us comforts and luxuries that can bring us 'happiness' – either now or in the future. In short, most of us conceive of 'happiness' as a dividend of external factors – possessions, relationships, and wealth – extant in our lives.

This is paradoxical because most people will agree that all the negative emotions that make us unhappy emanate from the mind. While a great deal of attention and energy is devoted to physical beauty, material wealth, and building and maintaining relationships, the mind receives the least grooming and attention.

 

Meditation exists in myriad flavours – each with its technique but all with a common underlying concept. All seek to bring the mind to a single-pointed focus – to stabilise the unstable mind. Such a stable, controlled mind can then be caused to generate controlled thought processes. The individual who was a victim of her/his moods now emerges as their controller.

 

Easier said than done!

Indeed anyone who begins to meditate quickly realises that it is difficult to keep the mind focussed on anything – a form, a name, an object, a sound, the breath – the mind seems to slip away unnoticed, repeatedly, and frustratingly! Sitting down with the eyes closed for even 30 minutes turns out to be far more difficult than it would appear to be to someone who has never tried it. Keeping the mind focussed for even a brief period turns out to be well nigh impossible!

      Daniel Goleman in his book The Varieties Of The Meditative Experience (1977) examines twelve different types of meditative practices – including Sufism and Jewish Kabbalah. There are many more. The spectrum ranges from pop meditations involving visualization or meditation music to intense and serious practices like Vipassana and Kundalini Yoga which need years of sustained effort. Visualisation meditation, meditation music, and other techniques that are available on online platforms like YouTube and Spotify have undeniable benefits. They can reduce stress levels. They bestow a certain sense of peace and calm. They do not demand a great investment of time nor a high level of commitment and can be practised almost anywhere and at any time. And yet, these rarely make any deep impact on one's mind. The calmness and positivity felt barely outlast the period of the meditation practice. The mind stays uncured of its deeper malaises.

 

It is intuitive for human beings to expect great rewards at the end of great efforts. The few who do attempt to get into intense meditation practices - especially those of South-East Asian origins like Vishuddimagga, Kundalini Yoga, or Vipassana - sometimes do so in expectation of states of transcendental bliss, rapture, ethereal experiences, or special powers. A persistent meditator may indeed experience any or all of these as the practice progresses. Yet, it would be a serious mistake to consider these extraordinary experiences as the goal of meditation. It is these experiences that make up the meditation hoax.  They amplify the craving for pleasurable experiences leading to discontentment

 

The state of the meditator who loses himself in the enjoyment of the extraordinary experiences has been symbolically expressed in the mythological story of Sage Vishwamitra who gives up his penance distracted by the charms of the celestial nymph Menaka. The perception of these experiences as 'good' is something that the meditator needs to overcome if he has to arrive at the goal of developing lasting equanimity that gives peace.

Meditation is a hoax if one expects it to bring anything extraordinary. If anything, it should make one content with being ordinary and should rid one of the craving to be extraordinary!