Why Meditation Doesn't Directly Increase Happiness

The best definition I've been able to come up with is that spirituality is basically the relationships you have with yourself, with others, your work, the food you eat, your religious practices, etc. To me at least spirituality isn't especially vague, it's something that you could probe and measure (to some extent), not unlike the social graph on Facebook.

"You meant something like 'if I'm driving my car, and an animal runs in front of my, my body reacts before I am consciously aware of it'."

More like my legs started walking on their own without any conscious input from me.

"This is true, but I'm not sure what this has to do with spirituality."

The kinds of answers you give to the relationship questions I posed above are largely dependent on your worldview and how you think the universe works. After meditating you start to experience the world differently at the experiential level, and because of this how you view the universe naturally changes. And because of this your view on all those spirituality type questions I started to enumerate in my definition also changes.

http://www.messagefrommasters.com/Meditation/Meditation_Tech...

> I'm not interested in your opinions of why you're right, I'm interested in evidence of your claims. If you don't have that, you aren't worth my time.

You are not alone in your 'assessment', sir, and to be quite honest, I gave you what I consider to be logically sound evidence that meditation can't lead to Enlightenment, but you won't find the evidence of this statement from me since I don't meditate. Therefore I am asking you to go look at what really happens to people who practice meditation and then confirm how what they can see, how they behave, and what kind of problems they have, are different from some people in human history who really had opened their eyes completely. If you don't want to, that's your loss. But even if I show you evidence by bringing the people in front of your eyes, if you don't want to confirm the axioms I set forward nor check the results of them, if you just reject me without confirming, then how can I be sure you properly understood my meaning in the first place?

Science and philosophy are two sides of the same coin, and you can't recognize evidence until you can understand what it means. I regret that I couldn't have had a proper conversation with you.

You did no such thing. You just told me why you think that, based on nonsense woowoo about karma, rebirth, and spirits; that is not logic, and it is certainly not rational. You've given me zero reason to believe anything you say.

> but you won't find the evidence of this statement from me since I don't meditate

Then you shouldn't be speaking with authority on the matter; you clearly know nothing about it.

> the goals of meditation (no suffering, darkness/closing your eyes, stopping the flow of your mind/one-pointed concentration, letting external spirits come in or practicing compassion for them, abandoning oneself, not having any attachments, and practicing not to be reborn again).

You've clearly confused the practice of meditation with certain religions that use the practice as part of their woo woo nonsense.

Meditation isn't about any of that; meditation is simply about learning to control the tool that is your mind rather than letting it control you. It is the practice of awareness without the incessant chattering of the mind. It is about learning that you are not your thoughts, nor are you a slave to them. There's nothing mystical about it.

> Therefore I am asking you to go look at what really happens to people who practice meditation and then confirm how what they can see, how they behave, and what kind of problems they have, are different from some people in human history who really had opened their eyes completely.

I didn't ask you to give me homework, I ask for evidence that your claims about meditation are true. You've provided none. If you can't back up claims you make, don't make them.

> Science and philosophy are two sides of the same coin, and you can't recognize evidence until you can understand what it means.

No they are not. Science is a philosophy, one based on evidence and logic. None of which you have shown here.

> I regret that I couldn't have had a proper conversation with you.

I don't believe you do. I believe you regret being asked for evidence of your claims.