How Science Fiction Gets Meditation Right

Category: Self-Improvement

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Sahaja Online

Science Fiction and meditation

Have you ever noticed how Science Fiction leads the way in modern thinking? Fahrenheit 451 published in 1953 talked about portable audio—well before today’s earbuds that weren’t popular until 2000. And Jules Verne had revolutionary ideas in the 1800’s like From The Earth to the Moon, which in many ways predicted Apollo 11’s 1969 lunar landing.

 

One thing you may not have noticed is the Sci-Fi books and movies that embrace meditation as a means to tap into the energy-based plane to reach a higher level of existence.

 

Examples of meditation in Science Fiction

 

Frank Herbert, in his book Dune, writes about various factions that use meditation practices for several reasons. The characters in his series of novels use meditation to enhance the mind/body connection. Other characters use a form of meditation to enhance their highly computer-like mental abilities.

 

Do you remember the Babylon 5 television series back in the 1990’s? It was full of various species that used meditation as part of their customs and religious rituals. Meditation was commonplace, even in one of the series’ last episodes before the show was cut.

 

Another popular Science Fiction television series, Stargate SG-1, had Jaffa warriors meditating to relax and focus their minds. Meditation also helped to enhance the regenerative capabilities of their Goa’uld symbiotes.

 

What Science Fiction gets right

 

Meditation is embraced in Science Fiction as a means for humans and other species to ascend to a higher-energy-based plane of existence. Consider how the Jedi and Sith of Star Wars use meditation to relax and control their body, while focusing their Force abilities. Other Sci-Fi books, movies, and television series focus on quieting the mind of thoughts, similar to Sahaja’s Thoughtless Awareness.

 

As early as the 1990’s the U.S. National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) mentioned meditation in their reports, albeit not as forward-thinking as Sci-Fi used it. Today, NCCAM states,

 

Meditation refers to a group of techniques…[whereby] a person learns to focus his or her attention and suspend the stream of thoughts that normally occupy the mind.

 

And yet Science Fiction accepted and embraced that way of thinking decades ago.

 

To say Sci-Fi is ahead of its time is stating the obvious. Science Fiction writers saw the value in how meditation could take their characters to a higher plane, not merely relax and rejuvenate them. Well before meditation became mainstream in Western cultures, Sci-Fi writers latched onto this practice that’s been around for millennia.

 

Where you need to be careful with Sci-Fi meditation

 

While Science Fiction movies, books, and television series depict meditation in a variety of forms, know that writers take real-world meditation traditions and bend them to fit their narratives. So when a character uses his mind in a novel to affect the temperature of a room and the flight path of a bullet, you can easily see where a writer has taken creative license in describing the power of meditation.

 

This is not to say that meditation isn’t powerful. What needs pointing out, however, is that it’s not magic. Meditation won’t cure all your ills and magically fix the leak in your roof. Nor will it allow you to use mind control like a Jedi. What it will do is help you achieve a state of self-introspection and awareness that enhances and improves every part of your life.

 

Hardly anyone tells you that Meditation is hard work

 

Sahaja meditation can change your personal and professional life. But there’s a lot of hard work that goes into attaining a level of Thoughtless Awareness. To awaken your inner energy, you need to spend the time in meditation, beginning at the introductory level, and working your way up through the advanced techniques. This takes patience, diligence, and consistency. Without doing the hard work to get there, you’ll only hear about others who have activated their subtle energy system.

 

For those of you who haven’t attained consistency yet in meditating every day, read our fun article, “My Top 7 Excuses for Not Meditating.”