Time Magazine cover story on meditation

[David Orange]

so a favorite evil global corporation, time/warner/aol/whatever else they own these days have as the cover story of the new issue of "Time" magazine not the continuing war in Iraq, or the situation in Liberia, or the latest O.J./Monica-type national psychodrama, but an article about meditation. part of the subtext i got from the article was, well, hillary clinton, al gore, and various celebrities meditate, so now it's okay for middle america (excepting republicans, perhaps??) to get down with meditation. (& besides the celebs, the Great God Science approves as well). the author also makes it clear that meditation is now being practiced with any unseemly un-american trappings removed from it. for example, there is a part of the article mentioning how the "creepy mantra bit" is no longer necessary for meditators.

so i feel good on the one hand, as i'm sure the article will induce many people to be more open-minded regarding meditation and embrace it as part of a path to a healthier lifestyle (and i didn't think i'd ever see the day when the word 'dzogchen' would appear in a major american newsweekly)...but on the other hand i feel there are disturbing/irritating subtexts to the article: some subtle (or not-so-subtle) racism/xenophobia in the article's emphatic reporting that all of the non-american cultural trappings have been discarded by the meditators of today, and the historical revisionism (according to the article, meditation in america seems to have begun (and ended) with the beatles and t.m.), and lastly, the pandering to celebrity endorsements reminds me of a book by the great kids'/young adults' author daniel pinkwater called 'the last guru'
check out this website if you've never heard of his books...pretty much all kids' books are psychedelic, but his are extremely so.
http://www.greenmanreview.com/book/book_pinkwater_fivenovels.html

err, sorry if my critique of the article sounds harsh and not particularly well thought-out. just venting!

anyhoo, so now that yoga and meditation are back in the american equation, apparently on a large scale, what of entheogens? terence mckenna never became tim leary, the ravers and their chemicals have been condemned...but might we someday see a cover story detailing john kerry's ayahuasca retreat experiences, and about how 5-meo-dmt is not just for eccentric grad students anymore? during the nineties i recall some worthwhile articles in some men's magazines like esquire, details, etc. about mckenna and about silicon valley visionaries using compounds from shulgin's lab for inspiration...but i recall nothing in the major newsweeklies other than alarmist stories about 'designer drugs'. do y'all think entheogens by their nature will always be 'underground'? did leary's shenanigans in the sixties pique and then subsequently permanently wreck mainstream america's interest in these matters?

[Nicole]

I just read the article on-line.

Wow. I didn't think "creepy mantra bit" was an actual quote, but so it is.

I know exactly what you mean. While it's somewhat refreshing to see these subjects in the mainstream media, it's always a bland, watered-down version (xenophobic subtext aside) that's made palatable to the average consumer. In the article, meditation is referred to as "the smart person's bubble bath"; in that sense, it's less of a spiritual path, and more a method of unwinding after a particularly difficult day at the office.

I'm reminded of a quote from Ken Wilber:
"Transformative spirituality, authentic spirituality, is therefore revolutionary. It does not legitimate the world, it breaks the world; it does not console the world, it shatters it. And it does not render the self content, it renders it undone."

As for your question about the future of entheogens, I have no idea. With the recent media furor over salvia (have you heard about the DEA's new warning?), I can't say I'm very hopeful.

[David Orange]

i should have posted the url for the time article...but i am sometimes too lazy (or maybe a little paranoid?)

anyway, n., your reply nicely expressed what i was rather clumsily trying to say; thankfully you are more articulate than i am.

my bit at the end speculating about the possibility of entheogens receiving mainstream (non-negative) attention i threw in as a bit of an afterthought. it's such a huge & complex question that i reckon it deserves it's own seperate thread.

regarding the dea warning about salvia, i find it to be, like most of these cases, simultaneously absurd and alarming...in this particular instance it is somewhat surprising, though, as for years people speculated that because of the nature of salvia, its use would remain far enough underground that it would not end up being scheduled. at any rate, it goes without saying that 'banning' plants or the states of consciousness associated with them is absurd and criminal.

huffing gas can bring on some pretty intense hallucinations; maybe they'll ban fossil fuels next... or rem stage sleep.

[sidecross]

The Kiss of Death.

Time magazine for those on their cell phone in traffic checking their face in the rear view mirror.

[Woodpecker]

Salvia.. salvia... that rings a bell... isn't it kind of like a bubble bath for smart people?

Ban REM sleep for Jesus,

Wpkr

[David Orange]

woodpecker,
cheers, your post is very funny! i'll get to work printing up some "ban rem sleep for jesus" bumper stickers & start up a petition.

[Charlie]

Future homogenous treatments of what is sacred or meaningful:

Cosmopolitan
Meditating for Better Spiritual Climaxes

World Weekly News
Aliens abducted my Ohm

Consumer Reports
We Compare Features of latest Meditation Methods, or Meditations for under $200

Outback
Mental Relaxation Extreme Goretex Gear

Sport Illustrated
The Spring Meditation Swimsuit Issue

Car and Driver
Revv up and Relax: Porsche Boxer 9000

[Gyuri]

I think there is both a good side and a bad side... The bad side is that Time is presenting a "watered down" version of meditiation, and avoids some of the reasons behind it, such as gaining sprituality and calming the mind for introspection. And probably many people that read about meditation and try it will say, "this is bs; this doesn't do anything for me. Back to the pills and tv for my quick fix".

On the other hand, some percentage of people will try meditation (after reading the article) and it will start them down a certain path that they probably never imagined! Its like planting a seed. It may awaken enough curiosity for them to go on the net and find many related things such as entheogens, buddhism, reiki/energy healing, yoga, sufism, gurdjieff, etc...

[daniel]

Somebody asked about "the future" of entheogens. The future of entheogens is nothing to worry about: Humans have used them for tens or hundreds of thousands of years and will continue to use them. In fact, my guess is the future of entheogens is much brighter than the future of our current social order and economic system, which will only last a few more years.

As for meditation, there are many ways to do it and many kinds of practice. Without incorporating more transformative techniques such as dream yoga, which are almost never taught, people may learn techniques which "chill them out" or make them feel more "spiritual," but few will achieve anything more transformative. The Ken Wilber quote above seems very accurate.

[David Orange]

Daniel,
actually in my post i wasn't asking about the "future of entheogens" per se; rather i was inviting speculation over whether they will someday again achieve the level of media saturation and presence in the popular conciousness that they did in the sixties...as yoga and meditation seem to have experienced a revival (with the help of celebrity boosterism and attendant media coverage), will entheogens ever experience a similar revival/acceptance? will dmt become a household word, as lsd did some 35 years ago? will a famous movie director be quoted regarding her/his semi-annual ayahuasca retreats?

your stark appraisal of the future leads me to wonder if there will be any humans left to work with entheogens...but i guess you are envisioning an ultimately positive outcome for the species, after a painful birthing/transformation?

as for meditation, i think everyone would agree that simply "chilling out" is an essential early step on any path to transformation. goodness knows, this world would benefit enormously from everyone chilling out, so i'm not one to knock any person's baby steps in this area. i think a greater concern is that people will learn risky/unsafe meditation techniques. unfortunately, people sometimes become a tad too spiritually ambitious. it's relatively easy to manifest/get in touch with "spiritual" energies and phenomena; but the difficulty lies in being grounded (in all senses of the word) enough to deal with them.

i think when people get all tangled up about feeling "spiritual" and so forth then trouble can set in; the "shadow" side of spirituality may manifest in cultic tendencies and other undesireable manners.

i never quite fully understood why terence mckenna seemed to be so down on traditional spiritual paths...telling people "why waste all your time sweeping up in an ashram when you can have what you're seeking right now...just take that heroic dose of mushrooms in complete darkness or smoke the dmt" (liberal paraphrase of his rap)...in one of his last interviews, given when he had the knowledge that he in all likelyhood didn't have much time left due to his cancer, he takes a strikingly sober turn at one point, (i use the phrase "strikingly sober", because in spite of his tragic illness he retained his wonderful sense of humor) remarking how "the buddhists are right, nothing lasts, this life goes by in a flash" (more paraphrasing, sorry) . as someone remarked elsewhere on this board you can't bring your favorite substances with you across the threshold of death. of course, profound entheogenic experiences can be fantastic for helping to prepare you for what lies after death, but still these experiences need to be properly integrated, and i reckon that it is invaluable to have some sort of substantial framework and furthermore a well-traveled one for dealing with these states.

please forgive me if i come off here sounding at all inappropriately argumentative/pedantic/annoying. i imagine we see things in much the same way, anyhow. i am undoubtedly creating rifts where there are none (not that there's anything wrong with a hearty argument or disagreeing, of course). okay...enough of my blabbing.

incidentally, charlie, your "magazine bit" was fantastic!

[imported_saoirse]

i think the time magazine piece was great, for a mainstream magazine piece, and i've emailed it to a bunch of 'meat and potato' type friends and relatives. obviously the author was pitching the article to such an average 'middle america' type reader, and this is why he downplayed the more esoteric connotations to meditation [e.g. the mantra comment], and included the celebrity endorsements. also, what's so bad about citing the scientific evidence re meditations benefits? you need to engage people at the level of consciousnesss they are at, and i think the article did that well. as gyuri put it, it's like planting a seed. as to the wilber quote about transformative spirituality - i totallly agree, but we should keep in mind that the 'translative' type of spirituality that merely legitimates and consoles is a a necessary predicate to emerging into this next stage. the thing is not to get stuck in the merely translative stage, but to transcend it. speaking of wilber, i recently found this website www.integralnaked.org (http://www.integralnaked.org) which some of you may be intersted in - it's a regularly updated archive of converstions between wilber and various others. however, its 10 bucks a month to subscribe. all the best, kevin

[daniel]

David,

Sorry - I must've been in a negative kind of mood when I wrote that last email. I get like that sometimes. The future of entheogens, in your sense, it seems likely the government will continue to repress them, yet the current situation with ayahuasca and the UdV is interesting. I don't think there will be a mass wave of interest - people are too deeply comatose and distracted. I think McKenna was right with the idea of deeper commitment for the few. I would encourage those few to go deeper into the shamanic path and out of the entheogenic realm of "tripping" for its own sake.

The interest in meditation is of course part of a process: the integration of Eastern and older modes into Western modern life. Yoga, herbalism, midwifery, etc., are all part of the process - shamanism as well.

I do feel that a violent birth process is on the way - and 2012 may be a key date. The more people who awaken faster, the less violent it will be. But people have to be forced out of their comfort zones before they can really start to wake up. I see signs of this, but not enough. We are in a race against time.

[Halfglass]

Daniel: You metioned ESP before when talking about 2012. I saw a show about the Scorpion King (not the movie jazz, the real one--the first king it is now supposed, to have united the upper and lower regions of Egypt). It seems he might have single handedly invented writting by ordering his brighter underlings to make it so (with the two kindoms united he needed a way to know who had paid their taxes). This idea came from stone or bone tags inscibed with words of a sort that were found in Egypt and date to a few hundred years earlier than what was thought to be the oldest written language in what is now modern day Iraq. The kicker is the writting just appeared suddenly fully developed with no more "primative" styles anywhere to be found. What I'm getting at is: Can it be that we need to force our hand? Should we not only look to shamanism and the like, but stay on the edge with psychedelics (at least every few months say) and Astral projection?--What about the New Western Way that might include making serious and unabashed attempts to break into ESP (and I mean "talking" by mind) with synchronized trip/trances?

[ August 01, 2003, 05:18 PM: Message edited by: Halfglass ]

[David Orange]

Daniel,
you get in negative moods sometimes? what on earth's wrong with you? why can't you be permanently blissful like me? tongue.gif :rolleyes: hee..

i agree with you that though are signs that people are "waking up", it unfortunately does not seem to be happening in time to avert some terrible disasters; both ones that are presently occuring and ones that threaten our future. i'm sure most on this board feel pretty dang pessimistic about the human enterprise. sometimes it looks rather hopeless, to say the least; and it sometimes looks as though humanity will be another failed experiment (didn't gurdjieff say that there were many other similar failed experiments on other planets at other times?...)

i personally don't feel comfortable taking entheogens at this particular point in my life, for several reasons which i won't go into now...but looking at the tv last night & watching bill moyers' show "now" (which is always great; but last night was particularly excellent, devoting the entire program to an interview with an ex-pentagon analyst who talked revealingly and at length about all the sinister machinations and ramifications of the military-industrial-congressional complex) ...and then watching the local news, and a little "junk tv" (sort of a tautology; i know) i found myself yearning to make that connection again with the intelligent and healing resources of the (soul) medicine plants. we need them so badly!!

saoirse,
i am partly glad that the "Time" article appeared; i'm sure it may bring benefit to many people...but i still felt the need to vent. where you see "Time" helpfully engaging people at the level of consciousness that they are at, i see something more disturbing: the magazine perpetuates the pathological aspects of our culture by making sure the text of the article conforms to the rigid standards and unhealthy sensibilities of present day america. i think the mantra comment was very insulting and fear-based; the celebrity pandering feeds further into that particular bullsh*t machine of distraction and superficiality; and the science bits irked me because "Time" and its ilk must always genuflect to the extreme scientific materialist worldview of "if we can't measure it with our instruments; it's not happening/it doesn't exist". isn't it sufficient for people to say "gee, i feel calmer during and after meditation..." as they have for thousands of years? no, peoples' subjective reports are not trustworthy enough; instead we must hook them up to machines and take pictures of their brain. we must always rely on and await on the approval of the Authorities: the scientists, celebrities, our political "leaders"...it just really aggravates me; hence my beef.

[Woodpecker]

David,

Re: failed experiments, there's a story I encountered in my brief ramblings through Jewish mysticism which said that God created 18,000 worlds before he finally "got it right" with this one. Possible grounds for optimism.

Back on the subject of how to reduce meditation to a trinket of popular culture through putting it out in the media: how about a show called "Ultimate Mediation," where practitioners from various traditions mediatate competitively, to see who can advance furthest spiritually in the time allotted?

OK, the joke's probably been done to death now. tongue.gif

[David Orange]

w.,
there are so many cool stories in the jewish mystical tradition...

unfortunately, that one just brings to my mind the whole gnostic idea of this world being a completed f*cked up one made by a less-than perfect god. i do prefer to be optimistic, though. it's tough to figure; this world is so screwed up, but at the same time there is so much beauty and potential for beauty...and of course, there is beauty in imperfection!

your 'ultimate meditation' joke reminds me of this tv show; i think it's called 'dragon star' and is a saturday morning kids' show. it's sort of like a live action version of a martial arts- themed video game. there is also some pro-wrestling type-shtick thrown in. i'm sure ten-year olds are crazy about it, but i could imagine very serious-minded traditionalist martial artists cringing over it...something about it strikes me as being an even greater insult to martial arts traditions than even the worst of the worst ever kung fu movie.

[daniel]

Halfglass,

Sure, try to reach telepathy through trips/trances, but I suspect it will never happen in exactly the way one predicts -- all this type of phenomena happens in its own playful way, at an oblique angle to our expectations and ideas. Steiner said that scientific attempts to "prove" spiritism through designed experiments with psychics and mediums would only ever work if the spirits felt like making it work - and usually they seem to have much more fun evading and thwarting our always-too-linear expectations.

Interesting tales of people intentionally communicating from beyond the grave include Huxley's first wife and Huxley himself - can't go into the details but look up the stories if you are curious.

But my question for you: What is your goal with your work in this field? Where would you like to be with it five years down the line? Even if your experiments succeed to your satisfaction, in some way, what then?

[sire_012]

daniel:
I do feel that a violent birth process is on the way - and 2012 may be a key date. The more people who awaken faster, the less violent it will be. But people have to be forced out of their comfort zones before they can really start to wake up. I see signs of this, but not enough. We are in a race against time. this is a paradox i wrestle with daily.. preparing for a mass or personal opening and relaxing into it but learning to breathe into "in time". doesn't this apparent 'race against time' further our belief in that concept of time as linear structure and act as an obstacle from actually releasing into eternity, that sentient understanding of the infinite in the immediate being perhaps what we need to survive? this trust in the breathing and passing of the organism strikes my meat conciousness as pretty flighty and impractical in 'the real world' of angry, opulent apes, but feels intuitively as the only preparation worth its salt. but perhaps, as humans, in a distinctly curious and apparently advantageous point in time where we are performing the 'eternal return' of mixing ancient knowledge with futuristic technology our answer lies somewhere between the two. trust in god, but tie up your camel.

aight, morning ramblings, just wondering.

peace

[sidecross]

"…But my question for you: What is your goal with your work in this field? Where would you like to be with it five years down the line? Even if your experiments succeed to your satisfaction, in some way, what then?"

Obviously, the cover of Time magazine!

[Rob P]

Hey
I just remembered this Onion story
from a few years back, and I thought you'd
all enjoy a good laugh...
Rob


MONK GLOATS OVER YOGA CHAMPIONSHIP

'I am the serenest!' he says.

LHASA, TIBET - Employing the brash style that first brought him to prominence, Sri Dhananjai Bikram won the fifth annual International Yogi Competition yesterday with a world-record point total of 873.6.

"I am the serenest!" Bikram shouted to the estimated crowd of 20,000 yoga fans, vigorously pumping his fists. "No one is serener than Sri Dhananjai Bikram; I am the greatest monk of all time!"

Bikram averaged 1.89 breaths a minute during the two-hour competition, nearly .3 fewer than his nearest competitor, second-place finisher and two-time champion Sri Salil "The Hammer" Gupta.

The heavily favored Gupta was upset after the loss. "I should be able to beat that guy with one lung tied," Gupta said. "I'm beside myself right now, and I don't mean trans-bodily."

Bikram got off to a fast start at the Lhasa meet, which like most major competitions, is a six-event affair. In the first event, he attained total consciousness (TC) in just 2 minutes, 34 seconds, and set the tone for the rest of the meet by repeatedly shouting, "I'm blissful! You blissful?! I'm blissful!" to the other yogis.

Bikram, 33, burst onto the international yoga scene with a gold-mandala performance at the 1994 Bhutan Invitational. At that competition he premiered his aggressive style, at one point in the flexibility event sticking his middle toes out at the other yogis. While no prohibition exists against such behavior, according to Yoga League Commissioner Swami Prabhupada, such behavior is generally considered "unBuddha-like."

"I don't care what the critics say," Bikram said. "Sri Bikram is just gonna go out there and do Sri Bikram's own yoga thing."

Before the Bhutan meet, Bikram had never placed better than fourth. Many said he had forsaken rigorous training for the celebrity status accorded by his Bhutan win, endorsing Nike's new line of prayer mats and supposedly dating the Hindu goddess Shakti. But his performance this week will regain for him the number one computer ranking and earn him new respect, as well as for his coach Mahananda Vasti, the controversial guru some have called Bikram's "guru."

"My special training diet for Bikram of *one* super-charged, carbo-loaded grain of rice per day was essential to his win," Vasti said.

The defeated Gupta denied that Bikram's taunting was a factor in his inability to attain TC. "I just wasn't myself today," Gupta commented. "I wasn't any self today. I was an egoless particle of the universal no-soul."

In the second event, flexibility, Bikram maintained the lead by supporting himself on his index fingers for the entire 15 minutes while touching the back of his skull to his lower spine. The feat was matched by Gupta, who first used the position at the 1990 Tokyo Zen-Off.

"That's my meditative position of spiritual ecstasy, not his," remarked Gupta. "He stole my thunder."

Bikram denied the charge, saying, "Gupta's been talking like that ever since he was a 3rd century Egyptian slave-owner."

Nevertheless, a strong showing by Gupta in the third event, the shotput, placed him within a lotus petal of the lead at the competition's halfway point.

But event number four, the contemplation of unanswerable riddles known as koans, proved the key to victory for Bikram.

The koan had long been thought the weak point of his spiritual arsenal, but his response to today's riddle-"Show me the face you had before you were born"-was reportedly "extremely illuminative," according to Commissioner Prabhupada.

While koan answers are kept secret from the public for fear of exposing the uninitiated multitudes to the terror of universal truth, insiders claim his answer had Prabhupada and the two other judges "highly enlightened."

With the event victory, Bikram built himself a nearly insurmountable lead, one he sustained through the yak-milk churn and breathing events to come away with the upset victory.

-thanks to John Danskin
(WORLD NEWS) Reprinted without permission from TheOnion.Com

[Halfglass]

Daniel: Perhaps we're ment to try. This all feels like a game, like it has already happened. What drama! The world crumbling and the Awakening.... If we're "spun on Their looms" (and it's all an impossible paradox as Sire mentions) maybe we will be given a pat on the back and a seat at the grownups' table for making the attempt.

[Woodpecker]

Rob, that's a hilarious article. ROTFLMSHO.
Halfglass, yeah, we're still just kids. smile.gif