The New York Times, in one of its recent articles, tells us that meditation is exploding in popularity. There are classes to learn meditation in all forms: mindfulness-based stress reduction, transcendental meditation, Zen and more. There are meditation events with power-networking opportunities built in. Drop by the Port Authority Trans-Hudson (commonly called PATH) in New York, and you can mingle with people in tech, film, fashion and the arts. Pay a visit to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and you get to do an early morning guided meditation with global leaders. As the editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post Arianna Huffington said, CEOs are increasingly coming out of closet as meditators. Another newspaper reported that researchers mapping the brain activity of tango dancers suggest that tango has the capacity to transport a person to the same mental state as people who meditate. One experiment, presented by the US National Library of Medicine, established that Argentine tango could be as effective as mindful meditation in reducing stress, anxiety and depression.
The notion that meditation can reduce stress, anxiety and depression exists all over the world. And it is a fact. But in ancient times, this was not the purpose of meditation. When the sages were practising meditation, they were not thinking of freedom from stress. They were meditating to attain self-realisation. Now meditation is being sold on a very large scale to the corporate world by modern gurus with temptations like increasing the productivity of workers, etc. Meditation is being exploited for mundane achievements. People are being misled on a very large scale. For example, Patanjali yoga has been reduced to mere physical asanas and the same is being done to meditation.
All kinds of new methods are being invented as short-cuts to happiness by those who want to turn it into a business. These teachers are flourishing in the West as well as in India and Japan. Kabir had warned about them: “Andha andham thelia dono koop padant (The blind led the blind and both have fallen into the well)”. Describing this, Osho says: “The ordinary man is living an abnormal life. Money is more important than meditation; logic is important than love; mind is more important than heart; power over others is more important than power over one’s own being. Mundane things are more important than finding some treasures which death cannot destroy.”
Swami Chaitanya Keerti, editor of Osho World, is the author of Osho Fragrance
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