Contrary to popular belief, meditation isn’t merely an Eastern import. While India has given us many contemplative practices, the West has its rich history of meditative traditions stretching back at least twenty-five centuries. What’s truly fascinating is how this practice emerged independently across diverse cultures, each with its unique approach yet sharing remarkable commonalities. The Plains tribes developed sitting practices that mirror Japanese zazen in form and function. Throughout Africa, some communities incorporate meditative states into their ceremonial dances, describing an awakening of energy from the base of the spine that induces ecstatic states—a phenomenon strikingly similar to what yogic philosophy terms “kundalini.”
Indigenous spiritual leaders worldwide—from shamans to medicine men—have long practiced what we now recognize as meditation. These practices were invariably woven into their religious ceremonies and cultural rituals, which explains why meditation often carries associations with mystical experiences and seemingly exotic perspectives.
Yet meditation extends far beyond Eastern philosophies and indigenous practices. Throughout Christian history, contemplative traditions have flourished. Saint Augustine himself described how, through meditation, he “transcends even the power of memory in himself; passes around it so he can approach… the light of God.”
Revered Christian mystics such as St. Francis of Assisi and Hildegard von Bingen urged their followers to complement prayer with inward contemplation—what we now recognize as meditation. Christian meditative practices have a rich documented history, exemplified by the anonymous 14th-century text “The Cloud of Unknowing,” which guides practitioners toward experiencing the “unknowing” state where one encounters the divine beyond conceptual understanding. This tradition extends back even further: the Desert Fathers, among Christianity’s earliest monastic communities, sought purification through states where “non-existence and non-thinking purifies the soul.” In the fifth century, Hesychius advocated his “prayer of the heart” as a pathway to “reliable knowledge about God Almighty.” These ancient practices found renewed expression in modern Christianity when Father Basil Pennington reintroduced them as “Centering Prayer” in 1982, sparking meditation groups across numerous Christian denominations today.
When we consider the growing interest in meditation and other personal development practices, it’s clear that this is not a trend to be sidelined in our culture. Nowadays, meditation is firmly embedded in people’s lives. What’s new, however, is that in recent decades, individuals have been “discovering” meditation through mass media.
Today, meditation permeates our world in countless forms. In a single city, a Buddhist monk sits cross-legged on a worn cushion, seeking pure awareness beyond thought, while across town, a bank executive closes her office door and sets a timer for fifteen minutes, desperate to quiet the day’s chaos. In a sunlit studio apartment, the executive’s wife, a painter, meditates to access creative flow, while their son, hunched over law textbooks in his dorm room, practices mindfulness to improve his focus. Though they all engage in what appears to be the same practice, their intentions create entirely different experiences. The monk seeks enlightenment, the executive seeks relief, the artist seeks inspiration, and the student seeks concentration—same techniques, perhaps, but vastly different intentions.
The key distinction between modern and traditional views of meditation lies in the motivation behind its practice. Originally, meditation techniques emerged within spiritual and religious contexts. In the past, people used meditation to draw closer to God, and many continue to do so today. However, modern society, including the scientific community, approaches meditation from another perspective. If proper meditation results in a calm mind, then it’s precisely what we need! Our lives are filled with stress, tension, worries, and problems. Isn’t inner peace the remedy for such a state? Indeed, it is. So, how can we attain inner peace? The answer might be: meditation.
Once exclusively a religious practice, meditation has transformed into a modern stress-management tool—a shift that traditionalists often resisted. Eastern meditation teachers frequently clashed with orthodox authorities from their native traditions, accused of commodifying sacred knowledge. Osho Rajneesh, though rejected by many Indians, found a devoted Western following. Similarly, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi built a substantial Western organization around Transcendental Meditation while facing skepticism from traditional practitioners—though they readily accepted his financial contributions to their institutions.
Beyond questions of financial impropriety, these teachers’ true “transgression” was distilling practical techniques from their cultural and religious contexts, making them accessible to outsiders. While traditionalists mourned this extraction, humanity benefited immensely. Eastern and indigenous cultures developed profound insights into human consciousness that complement Western civilization’s outward focus. Just as science uncovered natural laws that serve everyone regardless of belief, these spiritual traditions revealed principles of consciousness equally valuable to the faithful and secular alike.
The acceptance of meditation wasn’t the first instance of one culture valuing another’s practices. During the Middle Ages, amidst the plague, some physicians like Paracelsus and Nostradamus advised people to maintain personal hygiene, recommending handwashing before meals and bathing at least once a week. This approach to hygiene was revolutionary at the time, as cleanliness was largely unfamiliar in the Western world. Conversely, Eastern cultures had long incorporated practices like religious bathing. Paracelsus, Nostradamus, and others never aimed to alter Christian traditions or introduce Eastern religious practices, yet they faced accusations of precisely that. The Church persecuted them for their hygiene recommendations, labeling them heretical.
This historical resistance stemmed from a fundamental misunderstanding about what constitutes religious practice versus practical human behavior. While bathing might occur within religious ceremonies, cleanliness itself isn’t inherently religious. Modern readers would find it absurd to reject personal hygiene merely because Eastern cultures embraced it earlier. We intuitively recognize that washing one’s hands before dinner carries no theological implications.
Yet meditation faces similar resistance today. Though developed extensively within Eastern spiritual traditions, many Westerners still avoid this valuable practice due to unfounded fears that meditation necessarily imports foreign religious beliefs—as if quieting one’s mind somehow requires adopting an entire philosophical system.
Recent decades have decisively settled this question. Meditation has emerged as a universal tool for relaxation and stress reduction, divorced mainly from religious contexts. Religious practitioners indeed incorporate meditation into their spiritual lives, but they, too, recognize its practical benefits. The devout Catholic executive, the orthodox Jewish teacher, and the secular scientist all share a common vulnerability to modern stress—and increasingly, they share this common remedy.
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Chapter from the book “Synchronicity – The Wholeness Awakening”.
Read previous chapter: “The Liberating Experience of Timelessness”.
Read next chapter: “What is meditation?”
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