Strange coincidence - my best friend just came back from his second Vipassana sit. He enjoys it, and uses the time to sort things out.
I went to a course in what was called "Raja Yoga" (quotes because Raja Yoga is described in many Hindu texts, but this was something different). They taught you to meditate with your eyes open. It was interesting to do, and even enjoyable. They started and ended each class with silent meditation.
The problem? In between the silent meditations were meditations with a cassette tape of someone telling you about how to meditate as well as live lectures. After the introductory sessions, the cassettes became more programming-oriented and less about meditation. It was revealed that Shiva was the only God, and he sits in the middle of this huge section of space that all souls are drawn to. As they spent more time telling me what to believe, I soured on the experience and told them I no longer wished to attend.
Nobody tells me what to believe in. I agree completely; you have to be true to yourself.
I can't believe you actually had a note for school saying you could sit on a chair hahaaha! Reminds me of the "NO NAP!" label my mother wrote on my kindergarten back pack because if I napped I wouldn't sleep in the night.
I also hate sitting on the floor, it pains my legs. Wish I had a note in school.
I went to a Network 21 meeting once. Someone wanted my friend to sign up; my friend was pretty interested in it but wasn't sure. She wanted me to come along to just check it out & possibly sign up with her.
I had a fantastic evening documenting on a notepad every single marketing tactic, pressure inducement, logical fallacy & outright lie I saw. At one point my friend nearly lost it when I sketched a copy of their current slide & added a few lines to highlight the pyramid shape. I don't think you're meant to have fun at those but I had a blast. :D Needless to say, my friend was very thankful I was there to point out how dodgy it was.
(My favourite one was the dozens of people who claimed to be earning over $500k a year, bragging to me about how the program made them rich & what an extravagant life they live. While they're holding a bad knockoff handbag, wearing fake jewellery & wearing a cheap, untailored suit)
This entry was very, erm, enlightening. And fascinating.
And I'm with you: give me all of that with no programming, and I'd be happy. But the "science" would shit me as well, especially if there's no way to confirm it.
Kudos to you for trying something different, though, and knowing when to get out, and still learning from the experience.
Sitting down for long periods is really hard. That's why they invented yoga, so they could sit down for a long time and focus on prayer instead of the pain in their legs.
Yoga, too, has its share of cult-like objects, and given that my girlfriend jumps on every new kind of yoga that comes out I get exposed to a fair few of them. They often have useful things to learn, too (which is why my girlfriend leaps at the chance, she's not stupid, just eager), which makes it all the more annoying, since I have to actually pay attention to the morass of "everyone else is doing it wrong and has been doing it wrong for centuries, but our guru (a 30-year-old guy from America (not that there's anything wrong with Americans, lovely people, knew an American once)) knows the secrets of the universe" in order to find out the useful bits. At least you had meditation figured out before you hit that difficulty!
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I wanna join a cult for ten days!
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I went to a course in what was called "Raja Yoga" (quotes because Raja Yoga is described in many Hindu texts, but this was something different). They taught you to meditate with your eyes open. It was interesting to do, and even enjoyable. They started and ended each class with silent meditation.
The problem? In between the silent meditations were meditations with a cassette tape of someone telling you about how to meditate as well as live lectures. After the introductory sessions, the cassettes became more programming-oriented and less about meditation. It was revealed that Shiva was the only God, and he sits in the middle of this huge section of space that all souls are drawn to. As they spent more time telling me what to believe, I soured on the experience and told them I no longer wished to attend.
Nobody tells me what to believe in. I agree completely; you have to be true to yourself.
Reply
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I also hate sitting on the floor, it pains my legs. Wish I had a note in school.
Reply
I had a fantastic evening documenting on a notepad every single marketing tactic, pressure inducement, logical fallacy & outright lie I saw. At one point my friend nearly lost it when I sketched a copy of their current slide & added a few lines to highlight the pyramid shape. I don't think you're meant to have fun at those but I had a blast. :D Needless to say, my friend was very thankful I was there to point out how dodgy it was.
(My favourite one was the dozens of people who claimed to be earning over $500k a year, bragging to me about how the program made them rich & what an extravagant life they live. While they're holding a bad knockoff handbag, wearing fake jewellery & wearing a cheap, untailored suit)
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And I'm with you: give me all of that with no programming, and I'd be happy. But the "science" would shit me as well, especially if there's no way to confirm it.
Kudos to you for trying something different, though, and knowing when to get out, and still learning from the experience.
Reply
Yoga, too, has its share of cult-like objects, and given that my girlfriend jumps on every new kind of yoga that comes out I get exposed to a fair few of them. They often have useful things to learn, too (which is why my girlfriend leaps at the chance, she's not stupid, just eager), which makes it all the more annoying, since I have to actually pay attention to the morass of "everyone else is doing it wrong and has been doing it wrong for centuries, but our guru (a 30-year-old guy from America (not that there's anything wrong with Americans, lovely people, knew an American once)) knows the secrets of the universe" in order to find out the useful bits. At least you had meditation figured out before you hit that difficulty!
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