Movies/Videos Damage Meditation

Generally speaking, except for history shows, documentaries and nature shows which show animal behaviors and species development, most videos/movies are damaging to meditation practice.

The question one may ask is?

Should I not go to movies because I am practicing meditation?

The answer I would give is that one should rarely go. Whatever we have to learn from such media can be acquired by the animal shows and the various species behavior which we may see in such shows. Otherwise, to learn from history, we may check documentaries which are based on what happened previously in human civilization. We can learn about the evolutional process by archeological information and by paleontology.

Movies over all, 99% of them, are detrimental to yoga practice and should not be viewed by a serious yogi.

Why?

Because a yogi should like anyone else be concerned about the progress made, or in financial terms, the profit made. No sensible businessman will buy a product for resale if he know that the item will cause a loss of income.

There is also a danger that if a teacher associates with a student who does counterproductive behavior that teacher will find that the influence of that student causes degradation or lower progress in the practice of yoga.

Many people approach yoga but they are not ready to it. They cannot or do not stick to the guidelines and disciplines because they feel deprived of the enjoyments which they are used.

This means that a teacher has to partition himself (herself) if he (she) does not desire to behave in a certain way.

Those who cannot stick to the disciplines and who feel deprived or in need of certain former behaviors (including movie addiction) should man-up to the fact that the laws of habit are such that if one ceases a habit, one will suffer. Everyone has to deal with that in all phases of social life in this world. When one ceases a good or bad behavior there is a period of withdrawal (depression) in which one goes through a negative down-and-out mood.

To get out of that people usually return to the habit because that is the easiest way to get relief. It is for this reason that I associate with very few people. If I could safely teacher everyone yoga, I would do it but I found that I cannot do so and therefore I limit my association to a few. But even those few become liabilities from time to time, because even those few cannot take the fly back negativity which surfaced in their psyche when they try to give up undesirable habits.

The topic of this is movies.

I say that one should not go to movies but one should see videos concerning animal behaviors, species development, and previous factual human history and so on. This type of information in video media usually does not leave sharp imprints in memory which damage the meditation sessions.