Meditation in Amsterdam - The esoteric meditation trap
One more entry to the Amsterdam Meditation blog here on a Monday while surviving the flu!
And today I wanted to write about the esoteric scene that tends to surround all topics regarding "spiritual" (for lack of a better word) development. And of course meditation is not the exception.
As I write this I would like to start with a big acknowledgement behind the reasons of why topics like meditation are often shrouded in mystery, which, depending on who you are, can attract you or scare you away. Whichever the case may be, mystery detracts from the truth and the real content behind things.
However I wanted to begin with this acknowledgement to ensure that those who still treat meditation as a mystical topic are given a pass for doing so. We're not here to allocate blame but rather to try to take the discussion to a better level.
Now consider what the first meditators must have experienced before we knew anything about the brain. To them, it would have been like voices were playing in their head, and often these voices told them what to do and were in conflict with one another. How to interpret this? And how to interpret the visions that the mind was giving them when they were in altered states of consciousness?
Their meditations had open a first glimpse into the nature of the mind, but they did not have the science behind them to explain this. In fact its not been until the last 20 years that we really start to understand some of these topics, which is why meditation is now becoming so popular and well understood.
So, scientifically blind as they were, they tried their best to explain meditation through a series of metaphors and allegories, which included all kinds of forces and sometimes beings that were there to aid the process. One has to admit that for someone like Christ or the Buddha* to have developed an enlightened disposition was a quantum leap in how the mind had been used until that point.
*Incidentally I've come to believe that Christ or Buddha are not persons but states of being that can manifest in a person who's become enlightened. In the case of buddhism this is already clear as there are many recognised buddhas whereas Christianity only recognises one Christ, which kind of misses the point
Given the language and believes available at the time, these meditation practitioners and masters must have had a gigantic task in front of them in trying to explain what meditation was, how to practice it and what you were trying to achieve. Their mystical language had a double problem.
First it failed to capture, correctly describe and clearly explain what meditation is. Secondly, as with many religious and mystical teachings, the words, stories and analogies got mistaken for the real message. The map became the territory.
And so it's not surprising that to this day, many meditation teachers and mystics still cling to these obscure words and analogies even though we now understand much more, and such obscure language is no longer necessary.
So when choosing a meditation practice or teacher, attractive as it may be to get lost in delicious mysticism, try to understand the concrete and scientific basis for what you're doing. It will clarify things, and your progress will be far better.
Make sure that your teacher and yourself are not just feeding your egos by throwing magical terms around or making use of weird ritualistic props with no basis behind them. Nothing wrong with ritual as long as we understand that a dumbo feather is just that.
Hope this inspires you further!
Namaste
Pablo Bran
www.meditationamsterdam.com
And today I wanted to write about the esoteric scene that tends to surround all topics regarding "spiritual" (for lack of a better word) development. And of course meditation is not the exception.
As I write this I would like to start with a big acknowledgement behind the reasons of why topics like meditation are often shrouded in mystery, which, depending on who you are, can attract you or scare you away. Whichever the case may be, mystery detracts from the truth and the real content behind things.
However I wanted to begin with this acknowledgement to ensure that those who still treat meditation as a mystical topic are given a pass for doing so. We're not here to allocate blame but rather to try to take the discussion to a better level.
Now consider what the first meditators must have experienced before we knew anything about the brain. To them, it would have been like voices were playing in their head, and often these voices told them what to do and were in conflict with one another. How to interpret this? And how to interpret the visions that the mind was giving them when they were in altered states of consciousness?
Their meditations had open a first glimpse into the nature of the mind, but they did not have the science behind them to explain this. In fact its not been until the last 20 years that we really start to understand some of these topics, which is why meditation is now becoming so popular and well understood.
So, scientifically blind as they were, they tried their best to explain meditation through a series of metaphors and allegories, which included all kinds of forces and sometimes beings that were there to aid the process. One has to admit that for someone like Christ or the Buddha* to have developed an enlightened disposition was a quantum leap in how the mind had been used until that point.
*Incidentally I've come to believe that Christ or Buddha are not persons but states of being that can manifest in a person who's become enlightened. In the case of buddhism this is already clear as there are many recognised buddhas whereas Christianity only recognises one Christ, which kind of misses the point
Given the language and believes available at the time, these meditation practitioners and masters must have had a gigantic task in front of them in trying to explain what meditation was, how to practice it and what you were trying to achieve. Their mystical language had a double problem.
First it failed to capture, correctly describe and clearly explain what meditation is. Secondly, as with many religious and mystical teachings, the words, stories and analogies got mistaken for the real message. The map became the territory.
And so it's not surprising that to this day, many meditation teachers and mystics still cling to these obscure words and analogies even though we now understand much more, and such obscure language is no longer necessary.
So when choosing a meditation practice or teacher, attractive as it may be to get lost in delicious mysticism, try to understand the concrete and scientific basis for what you're doing. It will clarify things, and your progress will be far better.
Make sure that your teacher and yourself are not just feeding your egos by throwing magical terms around or making use of weird ritualistic props with no basis behind them. Nothing wrong with ritual as long as we understand that a dumbo feather is just that.
Hope this inspires you further!
Namaste
Pablo Bran
www.meditationamsterdam.com
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