In popular culture,
Meditation is often portrayed as a mystical experience through which people can gain understanding about the wonders of the universe.
Being relatively new to meditation,
I have not experienced anything like that.
To what extent does the Jungto movement adhere to this belief of meditation as mysticism?
When we say something is mystical,
We mean that it is mystical when we don't know the principles behind it.
So when we say something is mystical,
That's because we don't actually know the underlying principles of it.
That's why we characterize it as mystical.
For example,
Say you take a huge ship loaded with a very heavy tonnage.
And that huge metal ship can go from Korea to US over a month across this huge ocean.
And nobody thinks that's mystical.
However,
When you say somebody or human being walks across the water,
Above the surface of the water,
Then we think it's mystical.
It's because we understand the scientific principles of a ship.
However,
We don't quite understand the scientific principles underlying a person walking on water.
So there are two phenomena,
Two things that we experience when we experience something we don't know.
One is fear,
Second is mysticism.
So religions,
The huge foundational driver for religion is that religions leverage a threat perception that people feel based on the fear and mysticism in order to drive people's behavior.
So in a way,
Religion has been established upon the foundation of fear and mysticism that's based on human ignorance.
So where Buddha was,
Buddha actually was able to break down that wall of ignorance so that he didn't experience any fear or mysticism.
So that's why Buddha actually denied any mysticism in his teachings and also he declared himself free from fear.
So meditation is not mysticism.
However,
Through meditation,
He was able to free himself from fear.
Through meditation,
You may experience something new that you haven't experienced before.
However,
Those experiences are just phenomena that happen as a natural part of meditation.
So if the experience of phenomena is bad,
You don't have to fear it.
Even if it's good,
You don't have to regard it as mystical.
So if you are trying to explain away these phenomena through mysticism or as mystical experiences,
Either you don't know the underlying principle or somebody is trying to convince others of the mysticism and trying to use this law to centralize power or authority over these people.
You know,
A doctor when he's fixing a sickness,
May seem,
May appear to be mystical.
But to a witness that knows exactly the scientific principles of what's wrong and how to fix it,
Whatever doctor does is not mystical.
And this way,
Meditation is useful to us,
But it's not.
Medicine,
Medical skills are useful to us,
But it's not mystical.
In a similar vein,
Meditation is something that's useful to us.
There's nothing mystical about it.
