Bishop Black
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- Oct 19, 2019
- 24
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I dabbled in "extreme" meditation based on some books I read - in which I attempted to Isolate myself from my surroundings as much as possible, and these are my thoughts on it.
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*I believe that it does allow one to access "higher states" of consciousness, however the effects could be unpredictable, and at times I felt dissociated from the world around me, and had some paranoid or grandiose thoughts which were disturbing.
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*I believe it does reveal that a lot of our "needs and wants" are psychological and driven by underlying emotions such as pride (we can "survive" on a very small amount of basic material needs, and "9-5" jobs I worked didn't bother me because of "back breaking labour", but because of ease and boredom). But our overall sense of purpose in life goes beyond that.
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*However the full fledged "ascetic" worldview in which all wants are viewed as worthless, I never totally bought on to. My conclusion is that being "addicted" to wants, like a drug that is "controlling" you, rather than earnest motivation by a higher sense of purpose and satisfaction is the key. If there are "some" people who could live a fully ascetic life and be completely content, I'm not sure that this is true for the average person. (I won't get into religion, however my belief is that individuals like Jesus and St. Paul were attempting to promote a worldview of self-discipline and being above and beyond "banal" pleasures and drives which bring misery for a lot of people - even if so, Jesus only had 12 disciples out of his multitude of followers).
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*In some cases, I am skeptical that some of the gurus are "enlightened", and in some cases may be a little "insane", cult-like, or fanatical (as an example, on Youtube I watched a video of a guru who threatened to kill the interviewer for "talking too much"; that didn't seem like the kind of behavior I'd expect from an "enlightened" individual).
-
*I believe that it does allow one to access "higher states" of consciousness, however the effects could be unpredictable, and at times I felt dissociated from the world around me, and had some paranoid or grandiose thoughts which were disturbing.
-
*I believe it does reveal that a lot of our "needs and wants" are psychological and driven by underlying emotions such as pride (we can "survive" on a very small amount of basic material needs, and "9-5" jobs I worked didn't bother me because of "back breaking labour", but because of ease and boredom). But our overall sense of purpose in life goes beyond that.
-
*However the full fledged "ascetic" worldview in which all wants are viewed as worthless, I never totally bought on to. My conclusion is that being "addicted" to wants, like a drug that is "controlling" you, rather than earnest motivation by a higher sense of purpose and satisfaction is the key. If there are "some" people who could live a fully ascetic life and be completely content, I'm not sure that this is true for the average person. (I won't get into religion, however my belief is that individuals like Jesus and St. Paul were attempting to promote a worldview of self-discipline and being above and beyond "banal" pleasures and drives which bring misery for a lot of people - even if so, Jesus only had 12 disciples out of his multitude of followers).
-
*In some cases, I am skeptical that some of the gurus are "enlightened", and in some cases may be a little "insane", cult-like, or fanatical (as an example, on Youtube I watched a video of a guru who threatened to kill the interviewer for "talking too much"; that didn't seem like the kind of behavior I'd expect from an "enlightened" individual).
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