Why Meditation Isn’t A Tool

It isn’t dancing, and yet, it is strangely similar to it in intention

There are problems with meditation and mindfulness. They are coming forth the more popular these methods become in the west.

In the west, people who try to meditate do it mostly for self-help or productivity. I’ve crossed paths with people who do it to sleep less and to be more “alpha-male”.

Some people do it to get high. Lots of people, actually. The Wim Hof method contains elements of stillness and silence. Yet around it, you often hear parallels drawn to drug-like experiences.

This, in short, is a bad idea.

Here is why meditation will lure you in as a replacement for Red Bull and viagra, and how it will spit you out as someone tattered, broken, and incapable of the simplest tasks, if you are not careful.

Meditation is not psychology. It is energy. If you are an asshole or a thief, chances are high that the energy gathered during meditation will find itself in the foveas of your oh so desirable character traits.

If you are a closet sex addict, guess what will happen?

If you have one too many derogatory jokes about women stored, what now?

If you speed every time someone is trying to take you over on the highway?

If you rush to advance your career but you do not sleep well at night, tired but wired?

Of course release is a possibility during meditation. It is actually one of the main purposes of meditation — to shed that which you are not, until there is only witnessing.

But this is why meditation cannot be a tool for self-help or productivity. This is why ayahuasceros in the Amazon are speaking out about Silicon Valley guys coming down to siphon from the Mother yet another app idea.

Because yes, you might get an app idea, or a business reshuffle, or the libido for credo. But you will also get a host of other things. And they may sneak in the back door.

Instead of a tool, meditation is an art. People who have meditated long enough understand that sitting is an act unto itself, its own vindication.

If you say to a beginner meditator that mediation is supposed to be fun, they will snicker. What do you mean? Is brushing your teeth fun? No, it is a means to an end.

Not so.

Until this is understood, meditation is underpinned by a tension-yearning that not only will not help one’s psychology, but which may actually worsen it.

Beware, and do your cleaning thoroughly via other methods as well, to ensure that you are feeding the desirable and moral character trais while meditating.