Can Meditation Become an Addiction or a Way to Escape Life?

GAGalya

There is a series of meditations—forty-two of them now. Every so often I feel like sitting down and watching them all again, one after another. That would probably take two days, or three with breaks, devoted entirely to watching these meditations. First, if that impulse arises, what kind of impulse is it, if that question can be answered? Not about me specifically, but in general. Could it be a search for the states experienced during meditation—a form of addiction or an escape from life outside?

AVAlexander Volchek

People would usually say “an escape from reality.”

GAGalya

Or an escape from reality, yes.

AVAlexander Volchek

Yes. If you see reality as the material world and the spiritual world as something else, then of course it is an escape from reality. If you see the spiritual world as the source and foundation—or at least as something broader than the material world—how can you be escaping reality while being in its foundation? On the contrary, you are moving into reality. Expanded perception is a movement into reality, not away from it. Entirely into reality. Because when you expand your perception, you will never reach the conclusion that the material world is unnecessary. You will never conclude that it is meaningless: there is no need to live here, do anything, start a family, work, hammer a nail, plant a tree, and so on. You will never think that way. “There is no need to care for my physical body.” You will not do that. You will not do that. You will understand that it is part of the whole. It is your life. Why would you destroy your life?

It is your life. That is very important. It is your life. That is reality, actual reality. There are indeed more than forty meditations now—forty-two at the time of filming. Sitting down to watch all forty-two over several days, entering that state and isolating yourself from your surroundings, is a good practice, quite a good one. It is not the only possible practice, but it is a good thing to do. Could someone settle into watching them for a month, sitting and watching every day? I think the likelihood of that event and that energy is low. If it happens, it happens. That is also a very good event. The question is whether a person can do it. If anyone can spend a week sitting in meditation for twelve hours every day—if someone can do that—write to me. I am speaking about the meditations in this numbered series, specifically. The numbered meditations carry a particular meaning. There are different kinds of meditative immersion, and these meditations are not aimed at simply making you feel calm, for example.

Some things are aimed simply at calm, such as listening to good music. I practice the piano, for example. Whatever state I am in when I sit down to practice, my heart rate immediately drops and my heart rate variability—HRV—increases. Last week—three days ago—I had a session that lasted three hours straight. I did not get up from the chair once. Not once. Two and a half hours—two hours and forty minutes—in, I felt tired. I could really feel that I was physically tired. My brain started to shut down. It was like being knocked out: a profound mental fatigue. I think my whole physical system was tired too. But throughout that time, my pulse and HRV indicated recovery. They indicated recovery the whole time. Why? It is an action that brings you into a certain state. Obviously, that is not why I study music. But there are meditations aimed at that: at a particular state of calm.

Many people do exercises, go swimming, run, or simply walk for this purpose. They do certain things to calm down, simply to calm their system. Incidentally, it is a big question which is better: swimming in a pool to calm your system, or watching a movie on the couch to calm it. That is quite a question. What is actually better? Since I track various indicators, my main focus is on how different states of expanded consciousness affect them. When I watch a movie, just as when I play the piano, my whole body almost always rests. I relax; it does not create tension for me. I have said before that it can create a great deal of tension for some people. If they watch someone shooting or being killed, they may become more agitated and feel unwell. Some people cannot watch it; they feel really bad. It is an individual matter, partly to do with the body. Returning to addiction: is being in these states an addiction?

Can you imagine how much the world has come to revolve around the mind and society, to call something an addiction when it is something people really ought to devote a great deal of time to, but do not? These days, people who begin watching what they eat and avoiding sugar are called addicted. Addicted. If a person looks after their diet, they are addicted; if they look after their body, they are addicted; if they pay attention to their state, they are addicted. The question is why they do it. You can indeed look after your body and be addicted because you need recognition from others. Or you can look after your body to expand your perception and feel good. Can you be addicted to meditation? Yes, if you have created a social circle where it is difficult for you to go without certain practices and exercises or not talk about them. We can see this in many people's blogs, in the way they glorify particular states. You can read what a person is really talking about from that exaltation immediately, in two seconds. Another point is that professional blogging exists, and people may make videos to get views.

That is fine. But by continuing to observe a person, you can see what their various addictions are. Is travel an expansion of perception for them, or an addiction? Is meeting new people an expansion of perception, or an addiction? Is it freedom or dependence? Almost every action—not all, but a great many actions—can be described both as an addiction and as the freedom of expanded perception, depending on the person's inner impulses and states. Studying yourself is a normal, natural dependence. A person's purpose is to know themselves. If the purpose is to know yourself and arrive at truth and self-knowledge, can you be dependent on that? You already are, because it is your main task in life. Just as a person depends on their physical body and its health. People say, “They are addicted to looking after their health.” But that is normal. Completely normal, because they already depend very heavily on their physical body. Very heavily. Just as they depend on money.

Just as they depend on money. The question is the level from which we examine this. In our ordinary world, we need money to live and do certain things. You depend on it. You cannot take a flight without money. You simply cannot do it. You will not be able to. You cannot get certain food without money. But is this a natural dependence, or a dependence tied to your image, reputation, and feeding particular inner states? So with meditation, look at what the impulse is directed toward. If it is directed toward knowing yourself and truly expanding perception—

expanding perception—or toward the fact that we live in a spiritual world, if that is what the impulse is directed toward, then it cannot create any addiction. You can spend years in these states. It is a natural, healthy, normal state. Another aspect is that you have a physical body, various psychophysical programs, inherited programs, heredity, and your life as the unfolding of karma. As these intertwine with the search for truth, with the time spent searching for truth, all kinds of states may arise, including addiction. But that comes from the intertwining, not from seeking truth.

GAGalya

You always say that meditation is a connection with yourself, with your “I.” Could meditation strengthen the ego rather than dissolve it? Could there be no connection with your “I” during meditation at all?

AVAlexander Volchek

This is a very broad, very large question, and also a very general one. What do I mean by general? Imagine you are expanding your perception and have an ego. Suppose that ego scores three hundred, to describe it in material terms. You expand your perception. Previously, your awareness of your ego was at thirty. Now you begin to see that it is at three hundred. As you see it, it becomes more active; it comes to life. You have given that ego life. Can expanding perception bring it to life? Yes. But you begin to become aware of it. It was at three hundred and remains at three hundred. Are there meditations that lead to the ego growing? Of course. If you sit down to meditate to harm other people, gain power, or get more followers for your blog; if you tell people to meditate because it leads to earning money; if you show them, “Look, I have already made money, and now I will tell everyone how to develop spiritually.”

It is the same familiar theme in business communities. People have made money, and now they need to work on themselves, find calm, and so on. All of this is an expansion of ego. All of it. But where does that take us? Can sports lead to your death? Of course. If you start jumping not from ten centimeters but from six meters every second, could that happen? If you immediately take up parkour at the level you see demonstrated, you will die. You will die. You will start taking actions you should not take, actions that lead to negative development. Again, in the modern material world, meditation is treated as something overwhelmingly positive. Just like a church or a religion in each country, for each person. Someone says, “My religion is right, and theirs is not.” It is seen as something overwhelmingly positive. That is the point. But can sitting with your eyes closed and your back straight for twenty minutes a day expand your ego and cause harm? No. There is no such chain of events. It does not exist. Another aspect is that, while in that state, you may come to believe that power is a stronger force for you.

While in that state, you may receive an impulse from dark forces. I will use that phrase, though I do not like using it or making that distinction, because there are levels where the distinction does not exist. An impulse from dark forces telling you that you are a holy person and must take certain actions, which will increase your ego. Can that happen as you expand perception? It is just like the previous question about power. A person needs to understand that expanding perception gives them power, and every wrong action—every wrong action—takes them off the path. Once a person has expanded perception, what we call karmic return happens faster. The karmic system's feedback comes more quickly. Galya, do not forget the karmic feedback process. Whatever actions a person takes will still be transformed through karma in most cases. Not all, but most. There are cases in which a person goes into complete degradation. There are people on Earth today, including people with enormous power, who will no longer incarnate. They have already been destroyed spiritually as human beings. What remains is a robot, a machine, no longer a human being. There can be no question of freedom or pure human energy.

All of this is not so much complicated as additional detail, until a person arrives at the question and the impulse to search for real truth. So why not go through forty-odd meditations in a few days?