Meditation is the most important skill

Would you argue that?

 

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Important for what?

 

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Why would I? I dont meditate.

 

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Well meditation is really helpful...I mean its great to slience the chaos in the mind.....but it really depends on what you meditate on...to me meditating on true knowledge is the most liberating thing of all...

 

Without meditation how can you know yourself?

What is life without knowing yourself?

 

People have got meditation all wrong (that is if we're talking about transcendental meditation as opposed to just relaxation techniques).
You dont get to know yourself via meditation, you get to un-know yourself, its all about the disconnection from the 'you' inside your head.
If you want to know yourself youre far more likely to learn valuable lessons and gain insights into yourself and others simply by performing your day to day seemingly 'mundane' tasks.
For example:
A descion at work as to whether you go against something that you have an ethical problem with or mearly tow the line and 'do your job' could tell you more about yourself than 10 years spent in meditation ever could.

This is all imo of course, but i came to the conclusion several years ago that enlightenment isnt about ego-death its about examining the ego through daily interaction, work and play.
This is how you learn and become enlightened.

 

Meditation is too much like hard work.

I prefer to do nothing.

They already tried that.

The reported result of meditating about the self is that there is no self to meditate about; the more you try to find it, the more elusive it gets to be.

Unless then you hope to catch the tail of the devil which nobody else yet managed to....

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Meditation has too many advantages to simply say that is the cause of only one thing.

Meditation can be used for relaxation, knowing the Self, observing the origin of your thoughts, etc.

 

there are however different gradations in aṣṭāńga-yoga, which are divisible into an eightfold procedure referred to as
yama (following rules that give guidance what shoul dnot be done), niyama (following rules that give guidance what should be done) , āsana (sitting postures), prāṇāyāma (breath control), pratyāhāra (driving out sense objects), dhāraṇā (concentration), dhyāna (meditation) and samādhi (trance).

in otherwords in the advanced rungs of meditation, it gets honed to a an object of meditation - if one thinks the pinnacle of meditation is relaxing/good health, then it appears that one is accepting the body and its senses as the object of meditation, which makes it difficult to understand how a practioner with such a view could move into the practices of pratyahara

in fact erring in the object of one's meditation explains why even big yogis like visvamitra's meditation was broken my menaka

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lightgigantic -

I am not exactly sure why you responded the way you did.
Meditation can be used for relaxation, which we agree on, but apparently you went on to explain how one cannot progress in their meditation if they do not meditate on something higher, which I did not mention at all. I did not say that meditation has to progress in any manner, but simply that it can be used to achieve different goals.

However, I disagree that you must meditate on something. The goal of meditation is to unlearn everything to the point of non-duality. Meditating on something automatically creates duality because there is that, which you are meditating on, and everything else. Ultimately, you want a mind unaffected by your thoughts.

 

my point was that relaxation (ie relief from the mind meditating on the sense objects of the body or kama) is only a side effect of meditation, and it is not the goal, at least in terms of the originators of the system

therefore one must meditate on something that is beyond duality or the three modes of nature (one must meditate on something transcendental) - if one fails to do this, then like visvamitra (and who is as proficient in meditation, materially speaking, as visvamitra these days ?) one will be forced to meditate on something other than a transcendental object (ie something in the modes of nature) - anything done artificially will fail

and

 

I agree with Ayodhya, to meditate on something is missing the point - to mediate on a 'thing' involves conceptualising, these are the exact cognitive mechanisms that you seek to shut down if you wish to experience some form of non-duality.

 

In response to Sanaka Kumar's q to Lord Brahma

SB 11.13.17: The sages headed by Sanaka said: O Lord, people's minds are naturally attracted to material sense objects, and similarly the sense objects in the form of desire enter within the mind. Therefore, how can a person who desires liberation, who desires to cross over activities of sense gratification, destroy this mutual relationship between the sense objects and the mind? Please explain this to us.

he gets the answer

SB 11.13.25: My dear sons, the mind has a natural proclivity to enter into the material sense objects, and similarly the sense objects enter into the mind; but both this material mind and the sense objects are merely designations that cover the spirit soul, who is part and parcel of Me.

SB 11.13.26: A person who has thus achieved Me by understanding that he is not different from Me realizes that the material mind is lodged within the sense objects because of constant sense gratification, and that the material objects are existing prominently within the material mind. Having understood My transcendental nature, he gives up both the material mind and its objects.

in other words one surmounts the dualities of the three gunas (sattva, rajas, tamas) by perceiving the nature of transcendence, rather than trying to default oneself into transcendence by conceptualizing about nothing. The result of such attempts of conceptualizing are indicated by the narrative of visvamitra

 

As i read it hes not talking meditation or the process of transcendence, hes talking about the post practicalities of applying a transcendal experience to everyday life in terms of desire/attainment.
Anyway thats besides the point, if you believe that conceptualising about nothing (.i.e conceptualising your 'idea' of nothingness) is a flawed way to go about meditating then we're in agreement. Conceptualising anything is simply going to fire up the neo-cortex and the high functioning cognitive processes which is exactly what you dont want.

So yeah, im not quite sure what youre taking issue with here to be honest, although i have a feeling youre unhappy with either God (as an external entity) or the soul being left out of the equation somewhere.

 

If there is no SELF, what is this "you" that is trying to find it?

 

Mediation is not relaxation. Sleep is relaxation.

In Japanese Zen temples, head monks walk around with big sticks for whacking meditators who fall into relaxation.

 

In the West, people do not smack meditators with sticks.
As I have been trying to establish, meditation can be used for several different reasons, not just simply relaxation, not just simply Enlightenment, etc.

 

What passes for 'meditation' in the west is certaintly not up to the standards of its defintions in Asia.

Nowadays, people sit dozing in slumped postures and call it meditation. This nonsense would be tossed out the nearest window in any self-repecting Ashram or Buddhist temple.

 

While I might agree with you, this has nothing to do with the point that meditation can be used to accomplish several tasks. Do you not agree that meditation allows for a depressed heart rate, lower blood pressure, etc.? If meditation can easily lead to sleep, then what is the problem. People use meditation to achieve different tasks.

Or are you arguing that "Western" meditation achieves nothing?

 

Important for what?