Mind Games Never Stop

From the earliest writing that has survived we know there have been mind games, writers trying to influence the thinking of the reader. There are cave pictures of animals that appear to think like humans. There are inscriptions in stone obviously intended to record current and past leaders or gods in a favorable light.

We've all heard of meditation. Versions of it were very popular in the past. They were claimed to cure mental illness and prevent teenagers from getting into trouble. They would bring world peace.

A new version of this is called "mindfulness." There are books and seminars everywhere giving people an advantage over others and solving people's personal problems. One interesting observation I read from a teacher of mindfulness tells that in order to it to work religious thoughts must be expunged from a person's thinking.

We can all speculate on what this means. My speculation is that religion itself is form of mindfulness and competes with whatever other version comes along.

I wish there was some objective way the compare the mental states of people who are conversing with God and those who are experiencing transcendental meditation or mindfulness. All seem a way to leave behind the sort of reality most of us are in most of the time and enter another form of reality that is only know by in the mind of the individual.

Experiencing God and the other forms of reality of the mind has this one big weakness, it is something that cannot be seen or tested objectively by others. For example, many people say they experienced "death" and saw heavenly images or heard voices of a god. While we can believe or not believe such experiences we cannot deny there is no independent way to determine these things happened.

So far as I can tell, transcendental meditation, mindfulness and religion are the same thing.