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As someone from India who was frequently forced to learn and apply meditation by overzealous parents in my childhood, reading this article and the explanations/

As someone from India who was frequently forced to learn and apply meditation by overzealous parents in my childhood, reading this article and the explanations/anecdotes here was positively shocking. I never really got the hang of meditating, despite receiving training from branches of several international training conglomerates (ISCKON, Art of Living, SRF). But meditation as a practice, in the society I grew in, was hailed as the Godsend ultimate technique of taming your minds, something that will definitely and positively stimulate your brain and make you healthier and more active. I didn't (and don't) understand this stuff so I simply dismissed it as a harmless placebo and went on with it. But before this I had never even thought of it being potentially harmful, and there were absolutely no warnings circulated about this anywhere - neither by the conglomerates and nor by the indie self-styled "gurus" scattered across India and the world. The fact that this is the first time I'm encountering this notion is quite surprising.

samus 6y ago
Maybe the strong cultural roots of the practice makes explicitly stating the dangers unnecessary. Most people never go deep, or practice light techniques that are quite safe. And if you advance, society pushes you to seek out a guru. Edit: Until quite recently (< 150 ago), most people were deeply integrated into family life, both in the West and elsewhere. There was simply way less opportunity for people to isolate themselves and mess around with random techniques from the internet.
mulberrybush 6y ago
In 1967 Gopi Krishna wrote about the side effects of his meditation practice and how he ended up with mental health issues and suffering for decades - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071RB1FQB https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071RB1FQB. This book became very popular around the world in the 70s and 80s. Unlike modern international meditation training institutions like Art of Living and SRF, traditional eastern systems always limited what level of practice was safe for 'lay' practitioners. The hardcode stuff was always reserved for renounced practitioners who would leave everything and go live with the teachers.

samus 6y ago

Maybe the strong cultural roots of the practice makes explicitly stating the dangers unnecessary. Most people never go deep, or practice light techniques that are quite safe. And if you advance, society pushes you to seek out a guru. Edit: Until quite recently (< 150 ago), most people were deeply integrated into family life, both in the West and elsewhere. There was simply way less opportunity for people to isolate themselves and mess around with random techniques from the internet.

mulberrybush 6y ago

In 1967 Gopi Krishna wrote about the side effects of his meditation practice and how he ended up with mental health issues and suffering for decades - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071RB1FQB https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071RB1FQB. This book became very popular around the world in the 70s and 80s. Unlike modern international meditation training institutions like Art of Living and SRF, traditional eastern systems always limited what level of practice was safe for 'lay' practitioners. The hardcode stuff was always reserved for renounced practitioners who would leave everything and go live with the teachers.