Purpose of Meditation
Meditationtime Forum Post
Date: Posted 3 years before Jun 26, 2016
MiBeloved 3 years ago
From an inquiry on LinkedIn:
What is the purpose of meditation?
MiBeloved's Response:
This is an incomplete question which is premised on the principle that we all have one definition for meditation. We do not. I can give a definition that works for me. You may give something else. In the use of words unless we agree on the same meaning, the discussion is futile and disagreements arise needlessly.
Suppose you ask me: “Where is the car?”
But to me car means the fly. Then how will the conversation go?
To be fair you must first give me a definition of meditation and then I can say if I agree with that and I can tell you the purpose.
There is also the problem of standards. Are we to agree on a standard definition or not. Or should this be a free for all, where I have my definition and you have yours. Where I can change my definition and have the right to do so during the discourse whimsically or to trick you in some way. This happens in these discourses. Should we go to Webster for our definition? Should we be forced to stick to that standard? Should we stick with Patanjali or Krishna or somebody else, like Rajneesh?
So first you give me a definition. Then I agree to it, then a fair discussion can begin.
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Inquiry:
How meditation can influence our way of life, is the meditation only when we are meditating say for an hour or so or one can be in meditation for twenty fours or say the whole life.
MiBeloved's Response:
This question I can answer because regardless of the definition of meditation, whatever the person does for meditation will more than likely feed into his or her way of life. In the Bhagavad Gita we learn that Arjuna had some difficulty feeding the effects of yoga practice into his life as a political warrior. Krishna said he would teach Arjuna how to do that. That learning is called karma yoga in the Gita and Krishna said it was taught to ancient rulers in India like Manu. They learnt how to use the psychological skills gained while doing yoga to help them to execute their duties as rulers. That is karma yoga. So from that the answer is that one really requires special training to consistently transfer the effects of meditation into one social life.
Krishna said that the ruler lineages lost the teachings of karma yoga. He declared a fresh introduction of the teachings to Arjuna, explaining that it was a confidential teacher which only he knew. At least that was the conclusion I drew after reading the Gita discourse and also reading the Mahabharata.
Bhishma and Drona were both political, military and meditation seniors of Arjuna. They failed to properly apply their advanced meditation practice to their social activities, so I do not see how lesser people will be able to do it.
Drona fell in for a good job and for political status and took resentment on Drupad to seize territory even though he should have used his meditation expertise to control his mental proclivities for status.
Bhishma could not stand up firmly against his nephew Duryodhana which means that he failed to control his affections for family members. So his yoga expertise and he was a maha yogi, way beyond any of the yogis who are on the planet today, did not carry over into his family relationships properly.
I conclude that to make meditation work in our day to day life is very difficult. It is a very hard achievement for any of us.
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Inquiry:
Take Sant Kabir, when he was weaving was he not meditating, is not the purpose of Meditation to change our Consciousness or influence our Consciousness, what happens in Samadhi.
MiBeloved's Response:
Since this question begins with an unfair comparison, I cannot deal with it. Sant Kabir in my view was a unique and very exceptional yogi. He is like recently where a guy from Jamaica named Bolt again won the races at the Olympics. These people are born with special abilities.
It has become out trend now to compare any average person with the geniuses and exceptional freaks of nature but that sort of comparison does not in any way make everyone into an Einstein.
There is no comparison between Sant Kabir and other average yogis and meditators and therefore the statement is superficial. I can’t deal with it.
