The harm of meditation: myths and reality
Meditation has a strong effect on the individual. And like any therapy that aims to change the way the body works, it has side effects. But sports can also bring harm to a person if it is wrong to follow the training technique, exceed the load, or engage in a discipline that is not suitable for the body. Let’s see how real the 7 common statements about the harm of meditation are and what to do to protect yourself from negative consequences.
Negative consequences: myths and reality
Myth 1. All meditators become hermits
Some of those who meditate get so involved in the process that they begin to copy the actions of famous yogis, saints. In imitation of the great ones, a person may abandon his family and work, claiming that worldly attachments create obstacles to spiritual development.
Usually this behavior is associated with the emergence of a false enthusiasm in the meditator, which ends as quickly as it appears. Indeed, one of the main goals of the practices is to get rid of the sense of ownership. But even if you drop everything and go somewhere in the woods, there is no guarantee that the attachments will disappear.
Asceticism is the result of practice, but not the means. You cannot find your way through mere renunciation. Communicate with others, note that practice helps you interact with people.
Myth 2. Practices cause depression and mental disorders
By themselves, classes can not become a source of depression or mental disorders of the meditator. But it is not uncommon for a meditator to fall into a depressive state for a while. In this regard, meditation brings benefits through harm.
The fact is that a person who has opened the door to his subconscious mind, calls himself to a frank conversation and may face irreconcilable differences between his own desires and actions — at the same time, he does not have the opportunity to simply forget himself.
To dispel fears, it is enough to let light into the dark corners of your soul. Meditation teaches not to suppress what is inherent in a person by nature, but to study yourself, to identify and get rid of your own hidden fears.
Myth 3. Meditation becomes the cause of low desires
During the practice, low thoughts and desires arise in the mind of some people. It’s easy to convince yourself that nothing like this has ever occurred to you before. However, this is not the case.
A calm pond also seems clean at first glance. But if you start to muddy the bottom with a stick, the surface of the reservoir pops up dirt that was not visible. The impurities did not come from outside, but were always at the bottom.
This analogy also applies to our subconscious, which stores a lot of unpleasant things. If you feel sad or depressed, it is important to continue the practice so that the “dirt” comes to the surface and goes away forever, clearing the path to spiritual self- improvement.
Myth 4. Practices change lives for the worse
When a person begins to meditate, there is bound to be a change in his life. Values and worldviews change, bad habits disappear, and new useful hobbies appear. Such changes affect the whole way of life.
Such drastic changes can hardly be called harmful. On the contrary, this is the benefit of meditation. After all, now you look at your life and current problems as if from the outside and see what prevents you from maintaining mental comfort.
Drastic changes for the better benefit the person, but their environment may
not
like them. True friends and like-minded people will definitely support positive changes.
Myth 5. Meditators consider themselves better than others
By engaging in spiritual practices, a person learns new knowledge. For some, this really causes a sense of superiority over other people — they become arrogant, intolerant of others.
Do you feel that you have a sense of superiority? As soon as possible, work out this quality, because such a state is harmful: it leads to a stop in spiritual development and further decline.
Remember: meditation is a way to develop divine love and compassion, not a way to encourage a sense of being “chosen.” Instead of aggressively imposing your point of view on another person or arrogantly turning away, accept the person’s weakness and help them.
Myth 6. During meditation, the soul flies out of the body
It is not uncommon for people who come to meditation to ask such questions: “Do you work as a guide, so that when the soul leaves the body, it can then return? ”
This is a description of astral exits from the body-meditation has nothing to do with them. It is extremely dangerous to practice astral exits, as well as to contact the astral world in general. While meditating, no one goes anywhere and does not go away-on the contrary, there is a concentration of consciousness on oneself, all consciousness returns to itself, which was dispersed outside on unnecessary things and on different entities.
It returns back to the body, and the owner can already understand with this concentrated consciousness who he is, why, what is his true path on this Earth. At the same time, the astral is cleared: various hysterical states, depressions, and bad moods go away — this becomes much less in life. Because all the hysteria is due to the fact that we do not understand ourselves and our true desires, run after the false, go the wrong way, do not see ourselves, do not understand ourselves, do not hear the voice of the soul, and because of this we are depressed, nervous.
Myth 7. You can go crazy with practice!
What does “go crazy” mean? It means giving your consciousness to someone else. Here, for example, the thoughts “I want an iPhone”, “I want to go to Dubai”, “I want a fur coat” – examples of how we give our consciousness to egregors: this is going crazy.
If you think and think about it all the time, a certain energy clot is formed, to which a part of our consciousness is given, and it begins to guide us. People with entities occasionally drop in for meditations. But since such an entity will be discovered by the meditating person, it immediately takes him away from the practice. And at the same time allows her to go to places that are safe for her.
Wanting something strongly and just setting an intention and letting go are two different things.
In order not to go mad, and not to create such an entity for yourself, you need to concentrate your consciousness on yourself — that is, to return your consciousness from different egregors and thought forms. This is what a meditating person does: where our attention is, there is our energy. As soon as the attention is focused on itself, so immediately all the light that was intended for the realization of our path comes to us.
The purpose of meditation is to free you from your inner problems: you focus on yourself, and take away the energy from the problems. And they, deprived of your energy, fall away — you become free.
The goal of the practice is to restore your will, your interest in life, and your understanding of where to go and what to do.
Basic safety precautions
It is important not only to know what is useful for meditation and what is its possible harm, but also to be able to follow simple precautions to avoid or reduce dangerous consequences:
- Don’t go overboard. Do not start meditating for several hours a day at once. Give classes at first for 10-15 minutes a day, only gradually increasing the time.
- Select the appropriate techniques. There are many meditative techniques: if one does not suit you, give it up, choose another that benefits you.
- Watch yourself. Possible harm can be reduced or even prevented if you notice undesirable manifestations in time.
If you neglect it, meditation can be harmful. Therefore, practice wisely, listen to yourself and do not overload the body.
