Posted by arora on September 9, 2007, at 10:38:11
In reply to Major crisis of faith with my therapist, posted by widget on September 9, 2007, at 8:12:46
Widget-
I've had a look to see if I could find any useful sites for you.This one gives brief descriptions of the most commonly used meditations, (TM, Zen, Buddhist, etc.)
http://www.project-meditation.org/a_mt4/meditation_types.html
and this meditation site highlights some of the criticisms of TM... down the left of the page it also explains about other ways of meditating as well:
http://meditationforce.com/transcendental.htmlBasically, the primary focus of TM is on chanting a mantra for 20 minutes every day, which acts to calm and de-stress you. (the two main ways of meditating are either to chant a mantra, or focus on your breath... saying the rosary could be seen as a Christian-type meditation, in fact).
TM courses make their money by convincing people that a mantra must be 'given' to the student by the teacher, and must be kept secret... so: to get your personalised mantra, you have to take their (often very expensive!) course.
I find TM doesn't work for me- the idea of chanting a phrase over and over is just boring. When I meditate, I do visualisations- either of energy flowing into me from the earth and the universe, or sending healing to the chakras- something like that.
I don't believe TM is a harmful way of meditating- it's just that because it has become trendy it gives self-styled gurus or organisations the opportunity to exploit and control others for profit. There is NO WAY it should cost that much to meditate... if I was you I'd have a look around on notice boards or in holistic shops for other classes that are available... the shops usually have leaflets for that kind of thing.
I found a really good book on meditation, called
"Teach Yourself to Meditate; 20 simple exercises for Peace, Health and Clarity of Mind" by Eric Harrison, if you want to give it a go on your own so you can decide which method works best for you.arora
poster:arora
thread:781757
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20070904/msgs/781776.html