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The author might be more correct than he imagines. I suffer from bipolar disorder, which was “activated” during a heavy meditation period 5 years ago or so. My therapist now advises me to stay away from it. She says that meditation is a form of “self hypnosis” and that I should stay away from daily practice, which is what I had previously.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What sort of meditation practice did you do?
I was never initiated or dedicated myself to a specific practice. I can say today it was a mix of mindfulness and practical Vipassana. I think one of the things people complain about when it comes to meditation is concentration. I was not one of those people. It came extremely natural to me.
On a semi-related note, I think the movie 'Us' by Jordan Peele is about our split-minds. The protagonists are the left-hemispheres, and the clones are our right hemispheres (they cannot speak). I read a book called "Of Two Minds: The Revolutionary Science of Dual-Brain Psychology" recently and it just reinforces it. So if you break it down that way theoretically, our right-hemispheres live impoverished lives eating cold, raw rabbit and are experimented on, forced to be 'tethered' to us, listening through us to 'pop' music and the 'government' getting angrier and angrier, fantasizing about using scissors on our own corpus callosum...
Thanks for letting me know because there is a long campaign against Yoga and meditation by some sects of American Christians, who feel they are demonic and meditation is how you let demons in so they take over. These Christians have bizarre ideas of what Yoga and meditation are, treating them like some kind of ritual that gets you in touch with a hidden world.
That was my first thought when reading the title, so I'm happy the author owned up to his biases. Saying "Not everyone should meditate" is like saying not everyone should sit quietly, pay attention to their breath and see if they can quiet their thoughts.
I am bipolar and meditation along with CBT is how I stay balanced
This isn't to say that meditation doesn't work, which I highly recommend for improving focus and de-stressing. You probably actually often end up meditating without even realizing it (e.g. anytime you exercise or listen to music).
I used to feel very in-control of my own mind, but after intentionally sitting and monitoring for thoughts, labeling those thoughts, etc, I became sensitive to how thoughts can really come out of nowhere. You can't predict what you will think next. That strikes a little deeper than a nature/nurture argument where you might say "oh, I just behave a certain way I guess, its in my genes". You start to wonder if you're just being forced to watch the movie that is your own life.
I personally feel like my life is a mostly-good movie, and there's reason to predict it will continue that way, but for many people, they're stuck in a bad movie. Some people may feel imprisoned by that. But not feeling in control can also be liberating, depending how you look at it. So I definitely agree that it's a double edged sword, or that YMMV.
(Overall, I've enjoyed meditation, and I try to do it about once a week, just to remind myself that there's another mode of thinking that's available to me.)
> As a Christian, I use it to hone my focus for prayer and to increase my mindfulness so that I can better sense what God wants for me. Thanks for letting me know because there is a long campaign against Yoga and meditation by some sects of American Christians, who feel they are demonic and meditation is how you let demons in so they take over. These Christians have bizarre ideas of what Yoga and meditation are, trea…
The author might be more correct than he imagines. I suffer from bipolar disorder, which was “activated” during a heavy meditation period 5 years ago or so. My therapist now advises me to stay away from it. She says that meditation is a form of “self hypnosis” and that I should stay away from daily practice, which is what I had previously.
This obviously doesn't happen to everyone doing it, but, while my blog is very much buried now, I still get yearly mails from people saying that the same thing happened to them..
[0]. http://livingvipassana.blogspot.com/2010/02/bipolar-chronicl...