You clearly do not understand what is being said if you conclude that the practice is self-centered. It is 100% the exact opposite for me, in every word I describe. However, that said, I know that SOME are narcissists when they practice meditation, just like many are narcissists in becoming Christians and looking to God to take away all their problems in life so they can be happy and rewarded with a wealth in the world and an mansion in the sky when they die. Me, me, me, Christians. Me and my salvation, happy to see the end of the world come so they can leave this awful bad world and go to heaven to be with Jesus. Narcissists.
So, yes, SOME, approach meditation as a ME! experience. But I certainly do not. My desire is to surrender to God to allow God to live in my life in the world, for the sake of God alone. Yes, I am concerned with Christ alone, and THAT is why I meditate.
I read that 'book' you shared sometime ago trying to dissuade others from engaging in a practice that is proven to bring them closer to God, where it was written by this ex-New Ager turned uber-fundamentalist anti-meditation person. What you had was someone who in fact was a narcissist. He was seeking experiences, not seeking God. He build New Age contraptions, a pyramid he sat inside of to help "channel cosmic energies", and such other flights of fantasy in his ungrounded mind. And experience after experience, jumping from one peak experience to another continued on until he met the face of evil. That scared the living hell out of him, and he turned away and ran into throwing himself from ungrounded New Age fanaticism, into ungrounded Christian fundamentalism! There is a pattern of behaviors and personality here.
As I said elsewhere, some are not ready to face the devil. Yes, he opened the door. Yes, indeed he did. You will when you move to stand before God! I have said this all along in my posts. As you move closer to that Light, all will be exposed. Your deep hidden parts you have hidden from yourself will present themselves to you, and you need to be prepared for this. This is exactly what
@sojourner is talking about with
intention. You have to face your shame, your fear, your guilt, you doubts, and when they surface, coming out of those dark hidden places in ourselves we have tucked them away into, they present themselves to us with the faces of FEAR we place upon them. They terrify us, but rather than turning tail and running into another escape, such as religious fundamentalism, through faith, through intention, we do not fear them by we "do battle" with them, so to speak. But that battle is not one where in your own power you choke and throttle them. Not at all! But it is "through Christ", literally, that you essentially dissolve them because they are products of your own fear. "Perfect love casts out all fear". That is how. Through perfected love, and that love is Christ. And then, you stand before God, before the Throne, unashamed, and unafraid.
So your person you cited is an example of someone who was foolish child who was a narcissist who walked into these spaces unprepared, and he met his own demons which freaked him out! It was his own hatreds, all his repressed images of himself he had denied light in his life, and he met himself and ran to another escape from himself. He ran from himself seeking New Age highs with his experience-seeking fanaticism, and then he ran from himself even further into Christian fundamentalism where he slammed the door to his subconscious mind, bolting and locking it hard in shutting himself off from the spiritual in his life. Escapism from the outset, escapism in the end.
So yes, there are people who have bad experiences, but some emerge through the fire into the Light of God, and others retreat into themselves further, away from God, in forms of self-deceptions, burying themselves into religious covers, hiding themselves from the inner Light that shines into all the dark corners within us. He denied the Light. He serves the Fear, and the Fear is his master. That is not 'victory', by any means.
Therefore, meditation is not bad. It's effective at exposing that which is hidden. If you want to hide, then don't meditate. If you want to unite with God, then face that which is hidden and emerge into the Light. "Every idle word that men speak will they give account of in the day of judgment". There it is. I believe it is better to face that now so we can live as that Light in the world, just as Jesus taught we should.
It appears you do not understand the words I am saying.
Christ is the Silence. But if your brain is busy filling your mind with noise, like blaring TVs on in every room in the house, how do you hear that Silence? All of a Christian path is a discipline. Quieting the mind from busy and anxious thoughts is not different. It serves God in you. Therefore to not do so is negligent.
Just as you feel the need to initiate from abstaining from various sins of the body. What's the point. You choose to do these things because it serves the greater good which is God. What method do you use to quiet the mind? Any?
Ah, there's your problem with it! You are afraid to have your perspectives on things changed!
Yes, there is reason to fear if you fear change. But is that growth then? No, it's not.
What evidence? A change in how one thinks and understands the reality of God? That's demonic? Then when Paul speaks of the transformation of ourselves into the image of Christ through the renewing of our mind (which is precisely what meditation does), he must have been mistaken that this renewing of the mind and transformation is demonic. No, it's demonic to YOU. You fear what lays beyond as you let go of your tight grip on your own thoughts as you inject them into the Biblical texts. I hear fear.
