• Jai Paul Dudeja

The purpose of doing meditation, as perceived by us, is that it gives a lot of benefits to its practioners at the physical, psychological, emotional, cognitive, and the spiritual levels. But there is a dark side of the meditation, which is hardly highlighted, particularly by those spiritual masters who are earning a lot of money out of this spiritual business. No such master has ever claimed the adverse effects of their specific meditation technique. But it has been reported in some studies that some meditators, though in minority, suffer from bouts of depression, anxiety, confusion, disillusionment, and loss of meaning and interest for their life. A few of them have even attempted suicide. This paper is concerned about those who are going through periods of angst, disillusionment and hell due to the adverse effects or the dark side of the meditation. These spiritual travelers, suffering from spiritual depression, fortunately do not see themselves as suffering from clinical depression. Some of these souls view this phase as God given opportunity for reflecting on their lives and they treat this phase as a blessing in disguise for the beneficial change. This paper analyses the phenomenon of the dark night of soul and then attempts to show the path to those meditators passing through this serious phase and guides them how to come out of this crisis victoriously and see a brighter light at the end of this dark tunnel.

Dark Night of the Soul, Dark side of meditation, Adverse effects, Transcendental Meditation (TM), Vipassana, Mindfulness.

"Dark Side of the Meditation: How to Dispel this Darkness", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 8, page no.69-80, August-2019, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1907469.pdf

"Dark Side of the Meditation: How to Dispel this Darkness", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 8, page no. pp69-80, August-2019, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1907469.pdf