Reflections of a contemporary yogi

Julian Walker writes:

...My young man insistence that everything could be cured by meditation or yoga or just dropping the ego was being slowly replaced by not only a full spectrum model that acknowledged that different practices and therapies were appropriate to different issues, but that there was also a series of developmental stages that had to be traversed by every human being AND that all of this could be situated on a four quadrant map of reality that made extraordinary sense. I understood now (for example) that some kinds of meditation would make trauma survivors dissociate from their felt experience even further rather than actually providing an opportunity to heal and integrate. Also, spiritual experiences were available to all - regardless of their stage of development, but that those experiences would be interpreted in predictable ways depending on that stage of development and the cultural context within which it was occurring. Wow. I understood that the Upper Right empirical perspective on depression was of great importance and that some people really did benefit from medication - that there needn't be a war between Prozac and practice, between medication and meditation...

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