Meditation is increasingly being marketed as a treatment for conditions such as pain, depression, stress and addiction, and while many people achieve therapeutic goals, other meditators encounter a much broader range of experiences – sometimes distressing and even impairing ones – along the way.

Meditators reported multiple unexpected experiences from across the seven domains of experience. For example, a commonly reported challenging experience in the perceptual domain was hypersensitivity to light or sound, while somatic changes such as insomnia or involuntary body movements were also reported. Challenging emotional experiences could include fear, anxiety, panic or a loss of emotions altogether. (1)

As any powerful tool, meditation can also turn against its practitioner.

Any knowledge comes with personal pain.

Remember what happened in the forest with Midas.

The abyss is not for everyone to look at.

Not just because it may stare back.

But because you might realize that you are (creating) the abyss.

Every fear, every emotion, every pain is yours. Every experience which you have lived or which you will is yours. Every life and death in this world is yours. You are the creator of life. You are the destroyer of the worlds.

Do you like you?