These two articles refer to the author's observations of affer effects suffered from
long time practice of AOL techniques.
Stupid or Relaxed? Part One
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(Exerpt)A few years into the AoL, myself a teacher then, I started noticing my mind was not as clear and sharp as it used to be. It was as if a part of my brain was dead and the rest, slowly deteriorating. I had always been a brilliant A student, with perfect memory, excellent health.
'I was slowly noticing I had trouble eating, swallowing food, sleeping, suffering of massive hair loss, loosing my memory, incapable of following a debate. I had lost critical thinking and the ability to discriminate or make decisions on my own without the need to ask Ravishankar first for blessings or approval. For the AoL, the intellect was my greatest enemy, thus, whatever I described as “losses” were seen as my “spiritual evolution.”
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artoflivingfree.blogspot.com]
Stupid or Relaxed? Part Two
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(Exerpt)I know someone who still dissociates today, as if they were still in a Part 2 but in real life - his mind tilts, freezes, checks out, even several years after having left the organization. In fact, he does not remember anything that ever happened in these courses. And believe me, he’s done tens and tens of Part 2 and 3!
an article on the dangers of meditation, recognized by teachers from valid traditions, but not mentioned by the more untrained or commercial minded types.
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www.thehumanist.org]
(tiny excerpt at the end of a longer article.
But are questionnaires enough? They can hardly screen those people who have undiagnosed psychiatric disorders. They also rely on people telling the truth. People may feel reluctant to fill them out honestly in case they are barred from participating in a retreat. The Icarus Project, a web community supporting those with mental illnesses, regards questionnaires as "arbitrary, intrusive, and discriminatory" and claims that retreat applicants "simply hide their psychiatric history on the application to avoid stigmatization." They also write that people with schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, or bipolar disorder have not only completed meditation retreats, but discovered that meditation is a valuable recovery tool.
Richard, a former meditator who gave only his first name, offers the following observations:
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Those who play the "mental illness" defense card seem to have a vested interest in Eastern philosophy. Meditation appears to create mental imbalance by messing with the brain's chemistry. For all we know, the mentally ill might be better equipped to deal with such alterations since they're used to them. In other words, the mental illness defense doesn't appear to be based on fact, but as a knee-jerk excuse for why we see negative occurrences related to meditation--"he or she was crazy to begin with, it wasn't the meditation, it was their problem."
If one isn't after enlightenment or spiritual experiences, then I can't help thinking that exercise may be better for physical and mental well being than meditation. I just love my morning swims in the local pool.
Mary Garden finishes the article:
'After my Indian odyssey and my return to worldly life in 1979, I've found being back in the world not such a bad thing after all. I no longer regard the world as a place from which to escape or detach myself. My mind is no longer something to conquer or to cleanse of impurities. In fact, my life is immeasurably richer without meditation, as wasthat of India's great poet Rabindranath Tagore, exemplified in his poem "
Against Meditative Knowledge":Those who wish to sit, shut their eyes,
and meditate to know if the world's true or lies,
may do so. It's their choice. But I meanwhile
with hungry eyes that can't be satisfied
shall take a look at the world in broad daylight. (1896)
Mary Gardens book, Serpant Rising, is a nightmarish description of how she was recruited (by a western devotee!) into the ashram of a cruelly abusive guru, who got her pregnant, reacted viciously when told of this, informed her an ashram 'was no place for a screaming baby'..and ordered her to go get an abortion. This was in the 1970s, when so very many went trustfully to India, unaware of the hazards that awaited them.)
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artoflivingfree.blogspot.com]
My note about the mental illness issue:
A psychotherapist I know who has a lot of expertise counseling persons with bipolar, told me that if one is genetically loaded for this condition, it is essential to obtain at least 7 to 8 hours of high quality sleep.
This professional also told me that some persons with this condition, even when they get that amount of sleep, may still risk destablization if they try to adhere to schedules where they must get up before sunrise. This is often the case in ashrams or monasteries where the day begins before dawn. Even with 8 hours of sleep, plus medication, some persons with bipolar may still risk severe mood swings if they try to get up before sunrise. Another person who had bipolar has informed me that she learned this same thing--get up with the sun, not before--in her support group.
I have myself (corboy) attended vipassana and zen retreats. I am not genetically loaded for bipolar and it is a good thing, because I noticed that as the days passed, I and many other persons on the retreat, woke up earlier and earlier in the morning.
This too may be sufficient to destablize the mood of someone geneticaly loaded for bipolar or schizophrenia.
If a person has travelled through several time zones in order to attend a retreat, with a particular teacher, this in itself may also put a person with bipolar at risk--someone on Craigslist health forum reported that he or she had had their very first bipolar swing in their twenties, after flying from the US to Australia--enough to upset their sleep wake
cycle!
The kicker is many persons may even not know beforehand whether they are genetically predisposed for bipolar and may have the misfortune of being triggered for the first time during a retreat.
All I can suggest is that if you have family members already diagnosed with bipolar, exercise extreme caution when embarking upon a meditation practice and never allow yourself into a situation where your sleep wake cycle will be disrupted.