Suicide After Goenka Meditation Retreat

[TimStr]

I want to share this article with you.
Partly just as food for thought partly to make you aware of the fact, that (from a dualistic pov) meditation and non duality work can have potentially dangerous side effects:

http://www.pennlive.com/news/2017/06/york_county_suicide_megan_vogt.html

Leo did talk about some meditation side effects in his Dark Side of Meditation Video but I think, that there is a general lack of information about this topic.

Feel free to share your own stories.

[Leo Gura]

Unraveling the self is serious business.

Then again, not unraveling the self is even more dangerous.

How many people committed suicide this year because they DIDN'T go to a meditation retreat?

All such things need to be understood in proper context.

[Toby]

Well it's nothing new or unusual that people go into psychotic breaks or episodes during retreats or during sitting with a teacher. It can bring up a lot of energy and unresolved patterns.

[TimStr]

I definately felt some adverse effects after my first retreat and experiences with psychedelics.

There was this lack of meaning in things, that were meaningful before, that left me with the feeling of desolation and lead to a general sense of unease and confusion, that took a couple of days to wear off and still comes back from time to time.

For example, I was overwhelmed with socialisation and being confrontet with the collective low consciousness.

[Natasha]

The woman was dependant on the anti-anxiety meds. I'm surprised the article didn't report the effect those kinds of drugs have on one's brain and the side-affects of stopping taking them. According to the article Megan had battled mental illness long before the retreat. At the retreat the meds were not allowed, after day 7 she started to get disoriented, but chose to continue for 3 more days. She left the place suicidal while other meditators empowered and restored. The drugs/stimulants warped and altered her mind to the degree that prolonged quiet peaceful state of being became deadly to her. The giant psych drug business is behind her suicide, not a meditation retreat, IMO. 

[Prabhaker]

3 hours ago, TimStr said:

Suicide After Goenka Meditation Retreat

To live religiously does not mean to live seriously, it means to live meditatively. And meditation has nothing to do with seriousness. Meditation is playfulness.

That’s why my insistence here is more and more on dancing, on singing. I have put vipassana and zazen in the background, because they can create seriousness in you, and you are already serious and it is dangerous. First your seriousness has to be destroyed, only then will you be able to enjoy vipassana without becoming serious.

First you have to dance, so in dance your armor drops. First you have to shout in joy, and sing, so your life becomes more vital. First you have to cathart, so all that you have repressed is thrown out and your body is purified of toxins and poisons, and your psyche also is purified from repressed traumas and wounds.

When this has happened and you have become able to laugh and you have become able to love, then vipassana. Now vipassana will not drive you serious, will not drive you in any way into some ego trip. Now you can sit silently; now sitting silently is not serious.

Unio Mystica, Vol 1 ~ Osho

[Guest Annetta]

Awww, poor baby...  

[AlwaysBeNice]

Some people get psychotic during a 10-day vip, it happens, however, as someone who has experienced psychosis for years also brought up by meditation, spiritual info and a strong mushroom trip at 15, I can tell you it's not what we've been led to belief.

It's just the ego spiraling out of control.

It's when the ego structure (created fundamentally) after we've learned to suppress emotion, that is highly unaware of it's true nature as peaceful consciousness, get shaken up by life changing experiences, but instead of dropping masks, it get's so terrified and confused it wants to create more masks and ideas.

It can easily be prevented in most cases by a good guide or even learning some basic real spiritual understanding, but in spirituality unfortunately many people themselves are still in the process of dropping the masks, so when someone else needs to drop em they too get uncomfortable and try to avoid it and many people still have a lack of understanding, are arrogant etc.

That said, dropping into a 100 hour meditation 10 day to begin with is probably not the best idea for anyone, people tend to underestimate their amount of baggage as well, given the negative ego was designed to deny the baggage.

And our attempt at medication is probably a cause as well.

Edited July 7, 2017 by AlwaysBeNice