Social creatures v Meditation

[rush]

Hi guys,

How do you reconcile having a meditation habbit and it's associated benefits with the fact that we are social creatures and should socialise with others ? It seems as if these are at odds with eachother and don't necessarily intersect. For e.g surely meditating all day means you are lacking that social contact needed?

[Guest SirVladimir]

What is meditation? What if its introspective tranquil practice could be performed in what we consider 'public?' What if you looked so deep inwards that everyone else was seen as your fragment? Surely then, you could practice meditation in a social circle, and yet remain unitive, introspective. 

[Moksha]

There are many forms of meditation, including one form (Karma yoga) that is essentially social. Yoga literally means “integration of the spirit”. It is the practice of becoming whole at the deepest spiritual level. Some of the traditional paths:

•  Jnana yoga (the yoga of knowledge, use will and discrimination to disidentify from the body, mind, and senses until knowing we are nothing but the Self)
• Bhakti yoga (the yoga of devotion, achieve the same goal by identifying completely with the Lord in love; mostly taken by the mystics of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam)
• Karma yoga (the yoga of selfless action, dissolve identification with body and mind by identifying with the whole of life, forgetting the finite self in the service of others)
• Raja yoga (the yoga of meditation, discipline the mind and senses until the mind-process is suspended in a healing stillness and we merge in the Self)
• Hatha yoga (“the yoga of force”, the physical postures and exercises of yoga; the Gita regards undue emphasis on this practice as outside the scope of spiritual development

I recently came across this passage from the Bhagavad Gita, which references both Raja yoga (renunciation of action) and Karma yoga (selfless performance of action). Krishna recommends Karma yoga as the easier path to alignment, comparing it to climbing the mountain of self-knowledge; Raja yoga is discussed as the practice best suited after you have reached the summit. Ultimately you can arrive at the same destination through either path. Hopefully this is helpful:

“Both renunciation of action and the selfless performance of action lead to the supreme goal. But the path of action is better than renunciation. Those who have attained perfect renunciation are free from any sense of duality; they are unaffected by likes and dislikes, Arjuna, and are free from the bondage of self-will. The immature think that knowledge and action are different, but the wise see them as the same. The person who is established in one path will attain the rewards of both.” (5:2-4)

Edited September 25, 2020 by Moksha

[everythingisnothing]

@rush What‘s your screen time on your phone? Are you socialising while on your phone? Everyone has time to do a few minutes of meditation on a daily basis without any interference with your everyday life. So, just do it??‍♂️