This from a New Zealand reader:
Firstly let me say, your writings have been truly inspiring for me. Particularly insofar as they have freed me from the sense that I need to pursue my love of philosophy and theology from within the academy.
I am happy to have been of some help. The academic world is becoming more corrupt with every passing day, and reform, if it ever comes, will be a long time coming. Conservatives with a sense of what genuine philosophy is are well-advised to explore alternative livelihoods. After spending 5-10 economically unproductive years in a Ph. D. program, you will find it very difficult to secure a tenure-track job at a reasonably good school in a reasonably habitable place. And if you clear the first hurdle, you still have to get tenure while ingratiating yourself with left-leaning colleagues while hiding your true thoughts from them. If you clear both hurdles, congratulations! You are now stuck in a leftist seminary for the rest of your career earning peanuts and ‘teaching’ woefully unprepared students.
Secondly, I wanted to say that your posts on meditation have been enlightening, and I have chosen to take it up as a daily feature of my routine. Having said that, there is something I have found mildly frustrating.
Within the first few minutes of beginning to meditate, I get a small glimpse of what you once called the "depth component". That is, I can feel myself beginning to find that state of mental quiet. But, then I become aware of it; I think "I'm doing it! I'm getting there!" and, in that moment, I snap back into a discursive mode. Thereafter, it is as if I am shut out for the rest of the day, and I find it impossible to quiet my mind again.
The phrase I used was 'depth dimension,' not 'depth component.' It is a 'dimension' situated orthogonal to the discursive plane rather than a part of anything, which is what a component is. The following from Minimal Metaphysics for Meditation gives an idea of what I mean:
There is a certain minimal metaphysics one needs to assume if one is to pursue meditation as a spiritual practice, as opposed to, say, a relaxation technique. You have to assume that mind is not exhausted by 'surface mind,' that there are depths below the surface and that they are accessible here and now. You have to assume something like what St. Augustine assumes when he writes,
Noli foras ire, in te redi, in interiore homine habitat veritas. Do not wish to go outside, return into yourself. Truth dwells in the inner man.
The fact that you have touched upon mental silence is an encouraging sign: it shows that you have aptitude for meditation. The problem you are having is very common, and for intellectual types, very hard to solve. We intellectual types love our discursive operations: conceptualizing, judging, arguing, analyzing, and so forth. And so, when we start to slip into blissful mental quiet, we naturally want to grasp what is happening and how we got there. We want to put it into words. This is a mistake! (I have made it often.) Here, perhaps, is the major impediment to meditation. Submit humbly to the experience and analyze it only afterwards. This submission is not easy.
Besides the discursive intellect and its tendency to run on and on, there is also one's ego to contend with. The ego wants to accomplish things, meets its goals, distinguish itself, and collect unusual 'spiritual' experiences with which to aggrandize itself. "I am getting there!" "I am making progress." "I saw a pulsating white light!" "I am a recipient of divine grace." "I am achieving a status superior to that of others." I, I, I. Meditation fails of its purpose if it ends up feeding the ego. The point is rather to weaken it, subdue it, penetrate it to its core, trace it back to its source in Augustine's 'inner man' or the soul.
But now I am drifting into metaphysics, which is unavoidable if we are going to talk about this at all. On the one hand, the ego is a principle of separation, self-assertion, and self-maintenance. Without a strong ego one cannot negotiate the world. Meditation, however, is a decidedly unworldly activity: one is not trying to advance oneself, secure oneself, or assert oneself. Indeed, one of the reasons people investigate such spiritual practices as meditation is because they suspect the ultimate nullity of all self-advancement and self-assertion. They sense that true security is not to be had by any outward method.
So while the ego is necessary for worldly life, it is also a cause of division, unproductive competition, and hatred. It is the self in its competitive, finite form. A. E. Taylor hit upon a fine phrase, “competitive finite selfhood,” which well describes the self of the worldling. Not all competition between egos is unproductive; some is, some isn’t. But as the mystically inclined see it it, the ego is rooted in, and a manifestation of, a deeper reality which could be called the true self or the soul. There is much controversy as to the nature of the deeper reality, but there is widespread agreement that the ego needs to be chastened and deflated and ultimately let go. I could easily show this with respect to all of the major religions and wisdom traditions.
The ego resists meditation because in its deepest reaches meditation is a rehearsal for death. (See Plato, Phaedo, St. 64) For in letting all thoughts go, we let go of all objects of thought including material possessions, the regard of others, our pet theories, our very bodies, our self-image. In short, in deep meditation we seek the ultimate in non-attachment; we seek to let go of the ego and everything that it identifies with. (It would take a separate entry to argue that the ego just is this process of self-identIfication with what it is not.) If you get to the verge of really letting go, you may be gripped by a great fear, the fear of ego-death. I got there once, years ago, but I shrank back in fear. I may have blown the opportunity of a lifetime. One must have the trust of the little child mentioned at Matthew 18:3: "Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." (KJV)