Let's be honest, for meditation to be a useful tool with practical uses on a global scale, it will require the same disciplined and organized effort that any global effort would take. Try running an international organization. Not easy. Any tool is only as useful as the person using it is skilled with it, and that counts for group-based use of tools even more. There aren't easy answers to anything - simple ones maybe, but not easy. I think daniel is just pointing out that we need to have a realistic approach in whatever way we want to contribute to humanity.RLC wrote: So does this mean you don't believe in meditation? or don't believe in meditation on a global scale, unless it was level 3 people who have an ability to meditate at a level that would provide a specific outcome?
I'm curious, as I personally have found meditation to be extremely beneficial in understanding who I am, and to help seed and grow thoughts, which I try to carry out in my actions every day. What's the saying, "neurons that fire together wire together." It's my belief that If I hold these ideas long enough that my mind, body and spirit will manifest them and it will no longer be a matter of holding it. I can actually see a significant difference now in little every day things. For example, before when my wife would ask me, "will you go to the store for me?" I would go, but I would hate it. Now I find myself wanting to go for her, because I love her. That's not something I've felt for a long time.
I've found meditation useful personally as well. Very very useful. I've also found prayer useful, which is different from meditation, and personally sometimes scares me in how well it works. But meditation doesn't work for everyone, neither does prayer. The usefulness of these is currently limited by our understanding and discipline in them. Through using meditation, you can have the most amazing impacting experiences like interacting with the earth's spirit (i would highly recommend this special encounter), and you can escape the weight of unconscious influences on your mind in order to gradually transform your mind.
But meditation represents only one part of what we need to change the world. We can't without spiritual awareness, neither without discipline. But let me ask you an unfair and controversial question:
Monks have been meditating for centuries. These are disciplined people. They are taught how to do it right. We don't really have a way of knowing what impact they have had on the world through meditation, but we would think that if meditation was so potent, wouldn't it have made a bigger difference over a course of centuries?
But what influences do ideas that were made practical have? Think about electricity. Think about the telephone, or radio. Think about fireworks and its alleged influence on military technology. These things changed the world, but they started as a thought. They didn't change the world through meditation, but through a combination of a few things. They required faith at some stages when everyone would laugh at it, they required diligence to be made fruitful, they required vision from beginning to end. These are "spiritual" ingredients. But the result is not the product of purely spiritual activity.
To change the world, a thought must be made manifest, practical, proven, usable, reproduce-able. Meditation alone is only a step or a tool in this process. It can be mastered, and with mastery, its potential can be "miracle"-working. But there are other ways to make a difference too, that don't require decades of training and mastery or international leadership and organizational abilities.
One of the quickest ways to make a difference without having secrets of the universe or tons of money or power, is to build relationships with the right people and only focus on what you love and uplifting them in what they love. The networking potential and the inherent supportive nature of such a perpetually expanding structure is a foundation for either a centralized or a decentralized initiative of realizing a common vision or goal - but without having to force one method on everyone for accomplishing it.