[charley]

Now, personally, I must admit that originally in my own journey, I approached those who I thought and “assumed” knew more than me. As a matter of fact, I bugged loads of “experts” (that is, “authority”), and came away a little more than frustrated - with thoughts such as “g.......m m....f..... so and so’s.... However, at that time, not understanding what meditation was, I really didn’t have those words that could express the "why" of my dissatisfaction with these self-styled “specialists”, and what was wrong with their approaches.

I would say that one of the main problem with these people was their absolute lack of transparency. Also, I did spend (and waste) a bit of $... (smh)... on these bozos.

Moreover, I even tried meditation in a group... and I did sense - after a few gatherings - that there was something inherently wrong with this approach, and still didn’t have those words to say what I felt/sensed was wrong...

I must add here that when one understands something, it is only afterwards that words come.

My present understanding of why meditation in groups is problematic is that one finds oneself with a lot of people who do not necessarily understand who they are, and let alone what they are. And so, there is a quite a bit of psychic energy floating around such a group, and such energy can and does affect someone, even to the point of interfering/affecting/influencing one’s own capacity to see “what is” happening inside and without. Moreover, in this environment, this form of so-called “meditation” can make one even more susceptible to suggestion. I don’t feel like listing here the many examples of what happens in a “mob”; but, in general, people do have a tendency to be carried away by the feeling generated by being in a “mob”. Of course, such a group effort will “stimulate” meditation.

The downside of group meditation is that one may then “depend” on the group to maintain the “stimulation”. Please understand that such dependence (or any dependence on some guru) itself is counterproductive to true meditation, and it may actually thwart one’s ability to see oneself, by maintaining and even sustaining the dysfunctional tendency of the conditioning of dependence itself. Meditation must be something that is discovered alone, a word that literally means “all one”, in other words, “whole”. [As an aside, being alone does not imply isolation...]

One has also noticed that some people like to do meditation sitting alone (cross-legged in a "meditation posture" with their eyes closed) in a public area, such as park. For similar reasons as mentioned above, such as the psychic energy floating around these public areas especially by onlookers, I feel that is not a good idea.

I will also add here that only two of the many bozos that I had contacted apologized to me, and both of those two bozos did it in a sneaky manner - instead of calling me up on my phone... Moreover, they did that some time afterwards and to my utter surprise; they contacted me by coming up inside of me, and did their apology that way!!! I only accepted one of those bozo’s apologies, as I saw remorse... which I regretted later on!!! As I now understand their manner of apologizing, it constituted a real invasion of privacy. As well, it prevented me from asking questions as to the "why" of their behaviour and thereby elucidating and clearing up any misunderstandings, and also discovering their agendas then and there, which of course would have led them to having to face themselves as to their own dysfunctional behavior.

So, again, I mention how important it is to question authority. Of course, certain things have to be seen as facts - technological information, etc. [Obviously, it would be ridiculous and silly to accept the idea (and consequent belief) that the earth is flat.] So, I am saying that one must use a bit of discernment in one’s questioning of authority. In other words, one can't go around "negating" everything around you, and everything that anyone says.