Meditation as Reinforcement of the Ego

Today there are many definitions and notions of meditation. There are breathing exercises, mantrams, mandalas, prayers and many other techniques and methods. Why is meditation so popular? Modern life is the reason. People are submerged by all that seduces and stimulates the senses. They are conditioned for a competitive society. Technology forces people into patterns wherein they think more and more like a computer. It is then that the body sounds the alarm! Physical and psychic tensions appear: stress! Behind this are a variety of obsessions, fears and anxieties. On one hand we aspire to live and seek adventure. On the other hand, we are exhausted.

The techniques of modern meditation promise at one and the same time: invigoration, rest, inward assurance and also the experience and discovery of the inner spaces and whiffs of mysticism. This is what has made meditation techniques so attractive. And ... people of the twenty-first century are used to learning techniques in order to obtain results. It latches on to our known experiences and appears familiar. Experiences in the inner world exert a strong magnetic attraction and promise grander possibilities and liberation from our problems.

However, this liberation is not liberation from the wheel of birth and death, but deliverance from the forces that we have called into this world and now dwell in. Certain meditation techniques can bring relief from this dilema, as well as create a merging into a superhuman state of the personality. Many gurus and masters are living proof of the results of such a path. However, it is precisely the personality  and its desire for expansion that is the cause of our problems.

Meditation therefore is a means of escaping one's destiny. It further consolidates our connection with the personality. The personality remains tied to its karmic conditions. It remains under the the influence of the individual and collective consciousness. The true path of liberation must be aimed at victory over I-centrality. This no longer consists of exercises to reinforce the personality, but in voluntary surrender of the I so that the original, divine soul might develop that transcends the consciousness of the personality and is directed toward the divine Spirit.

Lectorium Rosicrucianum