:: meanders ::

:: Meditation vs. Visualization
I recently met a couple of bona fide "new age seekers", whose conversation was quite interesting and completely foreign to me. They traded the names of recent guru-types that have ranches or retreat centers in places like Ashland, Oregon, La Jolla, California and Sedona, Arizona. What was curious to me was the types of "spirit work" these people were involved in and which was being called meditation techniques. My intent isn't to diminish these practices per se. However, I do believe these gurus are on a side road, a detour from the path to liberation. The unconscious as a source of inspriation is a rich source for artists in any medium. But it is, in the end, a man-made construct, a mind field of the four dimensional world we inhabit. If one believes there are other dimensions, one must move beyond visualization techniques to true meditation. The older (ie, Buddhist, Sufi, or Christian) forms are not looking to tap into the unconscious for inspiration or understanding. Rather, they tend to see the unconscious as a limitless sea of possibilities, which one's life is but a small manifestation, a mere drop in that sea. Another metaphor is the karmic wheel, our life-- or string of lives to those who believe in reincarnation-- being spokes on that ever spinningm multi-colored, glittering wheel. For a meditator, the unconscious is not something one dives into, but rather learns to recognize as non-reality, detached and no longer related to the present moment. Only the present moment is real. Visualization can enhance our life and certainly make us feel good, but only meditation puts us in touch with the wisdom of living in the now moment, the knowledge that all phenomenon rise and fall, flourish and decay. This is likely important only to one who is concerned with "getting off the wheel of karma".