The Dark Side Of Dharma
Meditation, Madness and Other Maladies on the Contemplative Path
Anna Lutkajtis
Aeon Books 2021
Pb, 161pp, £18.55, ISBN 9781913504595
This important study addresses the elephant that has lurked within the New Age’s flirtation with Eastern mysticism and meditation in particular. It begins with Lutkajtis’s postgraduate research into the widespread teaching of “mindfulness” and meditation, the basic principles of which have been derived from the spiritual and religious traditions of India’s ancient Vedic culture.
Her research discovered that while such practices are generally regarded as “overwhelmingly positive”, some meditators however – including the author – have met with problems that were “completely unexpected and psychologically harmful”. These included “destabilising insights, spiritual emergencies and exacerbated preexisting conditions”.
Historically, meditation-associated difficulties have indeed been acknowledged and regarded as a “normal” part of the path to enlightenment. Some regard them as “welcome signs of progress”, others “the result of improper practice”. In either case, Eastern teachers are, by tradition, assumed to be capable of correcting any adverse effects. In the Western context, however, she writes, such “negative effects have been overlooked or ignored both in the literature and in the media”. Her academic research was inspired by the question “Why?”
Significantly, part of the underlying problem is that in the West, the teacher-pupil relationship has been adapted from the Vedic model of “guru-yoga”. For hundreds, if not thousands of years, this has functioned smoothly in the context of Eastern culture, in which pupils “worship” their master as an avatar and accept his actions and declarations in strict obedience to authority. Western students who, for the most part, value their personal rights and freedoms, inevitably find it difficult to adapt, unless the teacher is trained or gifted in this respect.
Lutkajtis points to several factors that shape this issue. First, and fundamental, is the widespread lack of understanding of the ancient cultures out of which meditation emerged. Some meditation practices, she writes, “have been appropriated from religious traditions, ‘secularised’, and incorporated into Western psychology and medicine.” They have also been monetised as a commercial product. All the more reason for less scrupulous teachers to suppress questions and ignore complaints. Another factor is the way, in the West, “the meditation has shifted from a religious goal (enlightenment) to a secular goal (physical and psychological wellbeing)”, leading to an assumption that it is harmless and “good for everyone”. Further, having been effectively “decontextualised from the religious literature”, it has lost access to “the contemplative practitioners” who might have more experience at dealing with any inherent difficulties for novices.
Lutkajtis’s presentation is thorough, fair and clearly written for anyone who has a genuine interest in “the Contemplative Path”, teachers and students alike. This anthology of her papers on this subject asks important questions and, as she concludes, finds that “there are no quick and easy answers”. Bob Rickard
★★★★