Saft in the heed

It is easy to get saft in the heed about meditation. For me this happens mainly when I fall back into assuming that meditation has to do with religion as I came to think about it in my late teens.
For example, with the Church of Scotland's religion, I have the notion of a heavenly father (God) who has intentions and a purpose. From the believer’s point of view he is an externally sourced Will that must be done on earth as it is in heaven.

God has representatives here on earth – the infallible Popes and the Kings with Divine Rights. There is also holy scripture. All myth and magic. For many years the miraculous world view helped some people to avoid cognitive dissonance while it drove others further into it. No matter how bad it gets, God will provide even though he normally works in mysterious ways. Since the European enlightenment this has been called the existential cop out.

The elites that make up the church and state manage to fool most of the people most of the time. They can even justify the crusades. Holy wars to end all wars. These days the church is a marginal social force. Corporations in league with the state and its media channels are the modern pedlars of selfish dreams about using credit to consume fashionable commodities. To 'save' myself and possibly others there is need for renunciation. This involves a change of mind. Mindfulness meditation makes release more likely. But it took me some time to have experience of the grand sounding notions. This involved figuring the meaning of two key words.

Meditation is a form of prayer?

I was in the church choir in the late 60s and sat through two services each week; and I was an active member of the church Youth Club. But no one ever explained what is involved in praying. I eventually came to feel that prayer involves communication with a supernatural being (either directly or through his representatives). In essence you have needs and God will arrange that they are met ie he will answer your prayers. All you need is faith. If he does not meet your needs it is because you do not have enough faith - which by definition is blind. Non-sense.

Meditation is a form of religion?

Meditation is associated with various eastern belief systems – eg Taoism, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism. They ask that you ‘emancipate yourself from mental slavery’ and as such the systems can be usefully thought of as a psychology of perception. Blind faith is not required. If you take time to be still you will experience peace through release from your culturally conditioned monkey mind. Renunciation is then easy – in fact it is inevitable for who, having experienced the peace of mindfulness, would yearn after “the noise that men call fame, the dross that men call gold”.