quote:
Originally posted by Yuri
Really, I am for practicing meditation from the very beginning. Then self-analyse of it's effects shall be done. If meditation brings us to more desirable state of being more peaceful, balanced and grounded - fine. If however meditation increases anger or depression - then it shall be stopped and other practices (medicine and psychotherapy in the last resort) tried instead, or at least in parallel. It may bring harm in practising meditation for months with the hope that it will finally "go right".
Yuri,
Thanks for your clarification. My ideas about these things change from time to time. I totally agree with your statement,
"If however meditation increases anger or depression - then it shall be stopped and other practices (medicine and psychotherapy in the last resort) tried instead, or at least in parallel."When I said that my ideas change, the results that I derive from the practices are confusing sometimes. For a while I thought pranayama, japa, meditation etc, helped with anger or depression. It even seemed to work for a while before I added the Deep Meditation. Later I started feeling that meditation increases the anger-depression-anger cycles. In my case, whenever there is an excess of energy like anger, it is immediately followed by a low (depression), and vice versa. In-between these oscillating states, I remain centered also (many times). I want to increase the boundary of this 'center' where I stay balanced. Eventually the goal is to make this centered balance state a constant experience instead of oscillating between higher and lower states.
I said, "The results that I derive from the practices are confusing sometimes". This problem gets even more compounded when we see completely contradicting opinions from the great masters of yoga, that we look upon.
We know that AYP and Yogani is for meditation (In this link Yogani suggests that it is okay for people with depression to try deep meditation,
http://www.aypsite.com/plus-forum/index.php?topic=836&whichpage=3&SearchTerms=depression,iyengar,jim). AS I stated before traditional teachers, like Satguru Sivaya Subramuniya Swami, B.K.S Iyengar and many others are advising us to avoid meditation, japa, pranayama etc, if we still wobble back and forth between the lower states like anger, depression, jealousy etc.
Interestingly, Swami Sivananda encourages meditation, japa etc for controlling anger in his book, "Conquest of Anger" "http://salmun.cwahi.net/nrm/hind/dls/ang/anger.htm". I would have expected Swami Sivananda to be on the side of the traditional masters on this issue. But, to my surprise he advocates meditation, japa, etc, for anger.
Regards,
Ram.