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Eastern Meditation and Its Stepchildren

The startling truth about what happens to your brain while practicing popular meditation techniques.

By Kok Tho Yip

I am Chinese and grew up in a traditional Taoist-Buddhist family. At the age of 18, I started practicing Zen Buddhist meditation and continued to do so for 20 years until my conversion to Christianity. Coming from an Asian background, I have been amazed at how Eastern meditation has garnered such gigantic interest in the West. It’s now modern and holds center stage in the transformational health movement.

Many celebrities practice and promote meditation or yoga. Sports coaches and superstars use it. Even evolutionist scientists meditate to activate what they believe is their inborn, pre-wired neural network—the “god-consciousness”—and atheists meditate to tune in to their spiritual “true self.” International Yoga Day, now in its ninth year, is supported by the United Nations.1

A common characteristic among meditators in the East is being reclusive and antisocial. Their philosophy is to renounce the world. How did a practice associated with such

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References

  1. International Day of Yoga - 21 June,” United Nations, www.un.org.

  2. What Happens to the Brain During Spiritual Experiences,” The Atlantic, www.theatlantic.com, June 5, 2014.

  3. “Address Of The Holy Father,” La Santa Sede, w2.vatican.va, Sept. 24, 2015.

  4. T. Merton, Zen and the Birds of Appetite (New Directions, 1968), pp. 11, 12.

  5. Ibid., p. 79.

  6. Prime Minister’s Address On 4th International Yoga Day,” Narendra Modi, www.narendramodi.in, June 21, 2018.

Image credits

  • © Shutterstock.com

About the author

Kok Tho Yip is a researcher and international speaker on the spiritual dangers of Eastern meditation and its Christianized hybrids.

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