People practising mindfulness (Vipassana) meditation appear to describe pure consciousness as a result as much as those practising TM, though, from what I have read of peoples' experiences, perhaps not quite so soon after starting meditation as TM practitioners. Perhaps part of the difficulty in discerning 'pure consciousness' is traditions other than TM do not seem to regard 'pure consciousness' as something separate from waking experience, they regard it as simultaneous with waking (as in CC) or as the essential aspect of waking experience (unity), while TM philosophy tends to separate it out as a sequential development of experiences.
People learning mindfulness do seem to take a bit longer to experience settled meditations than those practising TM, but if we look at end results (enlightenment — Brahman in TM-speak) there does not seem to be a great distinguishing factor between them. There does not seem to be useful research allowing us to tell more specifically. If meditation is a valuable resource for life, perhaps the focus could be on what works best for people on an individual basis rather than on the particular system one is enamoured of because it is the only one that was tried. For improving life, I have heard people say of psychological non-meditative systems that 'It's the only way' to get out of problems. Success has been observed with people practising many different systems. Research on TM and Other Forms of Meditation Stinks March 8, 2013 | By John Horgan | Scientific American In response to my last post, which proposed that Transcendental Meditation and other cults might be exploiting the placebo effect, some readers cited studies supposedly showing that TM has therapeutic benefits. Well, sure. There are lots of studies showing that lots of forms of meditation can yield lots of benefits. But the research is unimpressive, to say the least, and is corrupted by the 'allegiance effect,' the tendency of proponents of a treatment to find evidence that it works. (The term was coined by a Lester Luborsky, a prominent psychotherapy researcher.) For a critical overview of meditation research, see a 2000 article in the Journal of Consciousness Studies, 'Meditation Meets Behavioral Medicine,' which I discussed in my 2003 book Rational Mysticism. Author Jensine Andresen, now a religious scholar at Columbia, reviewed more than 500 papers and books on meditation published over the last half century. Andresen cautioned that there are thousands of techniques that could be categorized as meditation; it is virtually impossible to define the term in a way that does justice to this vast diversity. Not surprisingly, she said, attempts to measure meditation's neurological effects with brain-wave monitors, positron emission tomography, and other techniques have yielded widely divergent findings. Meditation has been 'prodded and poked by a variety of technological apparati, with inconclusive results,' Andresen commented. For every report of increased activity in the frontal cortex or decreased activity in the amygdala, there is a conflicting finding. Investigations of meditation's therapeutic benefits have been equally inconclusive. Meditation has been linked to a dizzying array of benefits, including the alleviation of stress, anxiety, high blood pressure, substance abuse, hostility, pain, depression, asthma, premenstrual syndrome, infertility, insomnia, substance abuse and the side effects of chemotherapy. But many of these studies have been poorly designed, Andresen remarked, carried out with inadequate controls or no controls at all. Andresen noted that meditation has been linked to adverse side effects, too, including suggestibility, neuroticism, depression, suicidal impulses, insomnia, nightmares, anxiety, psychosis and dysphoria. In an implicit reference to the cultish context within which meditation is often taught, Andresen added that meditators may become vulnerable to 'manipulation and control by others,' including 'unscrupulous or delusional teachers.' A similar picture emerges from the 2007 peer-reviewed report 'Meditation practices for health: state of the research,' by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. The report analyzed 813 studies of meditation and concluded that most were of 'poor quality.' The report stated: 'Many uncertainties surround the practice of meditation. Scientific research on meditation practices does not appear to have a common theoretical perspective and is characterized by poor methodological quality. Firm conclusions on the effects of meditation practices in healthcare cannot be drawn based on the available evidence.' If your particular form of meditation makes you feel good, do it! But don't kid yourself that its medical benefits have been scientifically proven. American Heart Association 2013 | American Heart Association A 2013 statement from the American Heart Association described the evidence supporting TM as a treatment for hypertension as Level IIB, meaning that TM 'may be considered in clinical practice' but that its effectiveness is 'unknown/unclear/uncertain or not well-established'. Is Meditation Overrated? The scientific evidence is scant for many of the practice's widely touted benefits May 1, 2014 | By Melinda Wenner Moyer | Scientific American Many people who meditate believe that the practice makes them healthier and happier, and a growing number of studies suggest the same. Yet some scientists have argued that much of this research has been poorly designed. To address this issue, Johns Hopkins University researchers carefully reviewed published clinical trials and found that although meditation seems to provide modest relief for anxiety, depression and pain, more high-quality work is needed before the effect of meditation on other ailments can be judged. Madhav Goyal, an assistant professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins, and his colleagues identified 47 clinical trials published through 2012 that evaluated the effects of meditation on individuals with diagnosed health problems. They included only trials in which subjects were randomly assigned to a group that either meditated or participated in a control intervention, such as cognitive-behavior therapy or training to improve attention. More important, to make for a fair comparison, the control condition had to require a similar amount of time and focus as meditation did. Goyal and his colleagues also considered whether the researchers attending to the subjects knew what intervention they had received; ideally they should not, because this knowledge can influence how researchers interact with and assess subjects. Only 3 percent of meditation studies met these stringent criteria. Describing their results in January in JAMA Internal Medicine, the researchers found moderate evidence that mindfulness meditation alleviates pain, anxiety and depression—the latter two to a similar degree as antidepressant drug therapy. Mindfulness meditation, the most widely researched approach, requires focusing one's attention on experiencing the present moment. The scientists did not have enough data to assess other common claims of its benefits, including that it improves mood or attention, or other forms of meditation, such as mantra-based practices. Goyal argues the lackluster results simply reflect the fact that there is not enough evidence to reach other conclusions, in part because funds for high-quality meditation research are hard to come by. 'That's part of the reason why the trials that we're seeing have relatively small sample sizes, and many of them have problems with their quality,' he says. Plus, meditation may provide broad lifestyle benefits that go beyond treating disease and are thus difficult to measure. Allan Goroll, a professor of medicine at Harvard University, who published a commentary in the journal at the same time, hopes that the results—or lack thereof—'will be a stimulus for scientists to address these questions in a scientific way,' he says. 'We need to apply the scientific method to therapies both conventional and unconventional so we can find out what works.' Quotation J. Krishnamurti | (no date) When we stop fighting with ourselves, we aren't creating anymore conflict in our mind. Then our mind can for the first time relax and be still. Then for the first time our consciousness can become whole and unfragmented. Then total attention can be given to all of our thoughts and feelings. And then there will be found a gentleness and a goodness in us that can embrace all that is been given in the world. Then a deep love for everything will be the result of this deep attention. For this total attention, this soft and pure consciousness that we are, is nothing but love itself. (Note that he is talking about this while being awake and in activity) ---------------------------- ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <LEnglish5@...> wrote : You can only measure what y ou have the equipment to measure. However, it's a truism that just because two things can be described teh same way at one level, doesn't mean that they are identifical. My favorite example is what happened to some British friends many decades ago... They got a sweetheart travel package to visit Nashville. Nashville, Florida, that is. Just because you can describe a city as "Nashville" doesn't mean it is the Nashville you were hoping to visit. Unfortunately, they actually got on the plane and landed before they discovered their mistake. The moral is: a label, "pure awareness," that is described as being "without thought," might not be referring to the same thing between two different meditation traditions. A two-word phrase may not provide you enough info to make a rationale choice any more than just knowing the name of the city without knowing the state it is in is enough to make rationale travel plans. L
