Meditation Time Part III

Eagle eyed readers will no doubt have spotted I've not mentioned my meditation classes for a while. It's mainly been because nothing worth reporting has occurred. That all changed a week back, I would have blogged about it already but I've been too preoccupied with my nature photography shenanigans.

Anyway, for the past few weeks we've been doing a guided meditation called Damo's Cave. It's enjoyable although I'm pretty bad at visualising completely imaginary things. The basic concept is that you imagine you are climbing up a mountain to a cave (which I suppose represents your mind) and inside the cave are all sorts of rooms, like a control room which you can go and explore. There are also various other rooms with doorways to what are essentially elemental realms (as in Earth, Water, Fire, Air not Gold, Lead, Mercury and Uranium) which you can also go into and explore. Later on you're supposed to explore the environs. No idea what you're supposed to see then. All very relaxing and fun - so relaxing that I actually fell asleep during the second part, which I'm sure isn't conducive to the shamanic journey we were supposed to be undertaking.

But here's where things started to get a little silly. There are supposed to be other rooms too, like a bedroom, a room of knowledge, a room for practicing martial arts in, stuff like that. I know, I know, it's all meant to be symbolic, but, and here's where it got really silly, the course leader suggested that if we did things in the cave they would happen in real life. He gave an example of when he fancied some girl, slept with her in the bedroom of his cave and lo and behold they got together and had a real relationship after. I find this a little unlikely, to say the least. Not the fact that he got together with the girl, but the fact that it was his imaginary spelological adventure that caused it.

But there's more. After that it got really, really, silly. The class was over and some people were asking a few questions. One guy asked what use the whole imaginary cave thing was. The instructor launched into what I can only describe as a major paranoid rant. I don't have the exact words to hand unfortunately but it was something to the effect that people who run the world (presumably not the figureheads like mere prime ministers but the shadowy people who are really in charge) use this technique to control the world and we could too. In fact we should to try and bend the world back again. "They" do this, "They" do that. It went on for quite a while.

I was shocked and not a little stunned. I am of course aware that some people think like this but I've never had direct exposure before. I'll try and remember to check my chat history and post some of the best bits.