The outcome of Acem Meditation in the shorter and longer term may vary according to a person’s starting point and personality, readiness to change, environment and willingness to work with the issue of meditation. Even so, there are several common characteristics in the results from meditating.
The following classification of the effects has been found useful:
Each of the categories will be dealt with in more detail below.
The term ‘direct effects’ refers to fairly immediate changes that are directly related to the repetition of the meditation sound with a free mental attitude; they manifest themselves during meditation. Such effects may be quantitative and qualitative.
Quantitative effects manifest themselves every time a person meditates, whether sporadically, or regularly; the neuro-psycho-physiological relaxation response is released. The quantitative effects include bodily and mental relaxation. The term ‘quantitative’ is used because the changes are measurable or quantifiable. The meditator becomes (quantitatively) more relaxed, less restless, etc.
In Acem Meditation, the meditator does not try to relax; he repeats the meditation sound effortlessly, without force, and in response, both physical and mental relaxation follows spontaneously. Tense muscles relax. Physiological investigations have demonstrated several quantitative effects during meditation – in the breath, the heart, the blood pressure, and the stress hormones – that move towards deeper relaxation. In the brain, activity has been identified in relation to cognitive and emotional regulation and the processing of recent or remote episodic memories. The level of alpha waves increases, and the default network of the brain is activated in several regions showing that the brain is at rest. In brief, scientific studies demonstrate that meditation provides good and deep relaxation in the body, and it also contributes to psychological processing. Peace of mind is experienced in relation to the stream of thoughts, images and emotions.
If the direct, quantitative effects do not appear during meditation or they are not felt after meditation – not even to a minor degree – the meditation will not have been done right, and guidance is recommended. Relaxation is primary and essential in Acem Meditation. This contrasts with several schools of meditation that do not emphasize relaxation as relevant or important, but rather awareness, self-observation and mindfulness.
Qualitative effects require regular meditation over time, often months and years. They are seminal developments in meditation skills that provide a freer mental attitude to subtler aspects of spontaneous activity. This expanded inner freedom is gained incrementally, but sometimes also suddenly, like an ‘aha’-experience. In both cases, a qualitative shift in the way a person is meditating has taken place and that enables new levels of processing of the interferences during meditation. Qualitative effects stem from fundamental changes in relation to the three essential elements of Acem Meditation: the repetition of the sound, the free mental attitude and spontaneous activity. The first two are created by the acting self, and the latter by the spontaneous self. Structural changes in the collaboration between the two selves can be characterized by the word ‘seminal’ as they are the beginning of generalizations that later can translate into expanded patterns of perception, decision-making and action.
Deep bodily relaxation and a freer mental attitude may temporarily bring about restlessness, physical unease, etc., referred to as the paradoxical effects. This phenomenon often arises when qualitative changes are imminent. This discomfort is without risk and should preferably be worked through. In times of paradoxical effects, guidance, long meditation and retreats can be most helpful; usually, they aid in making the situation easier to deal with and to understand. Also, during such phases, the foundations are often laid for subsequent deeper relaxations, more access to mental resources and personality development.
There are links between, on the one hand, who we are, how we think, act and live, and on the other, how we meditate. Essentially, the two are expressions of the same underlying structures. Qualitative changes in life influence meditation, but even more so, the other way around: qualitative changes in meditation translate into the external aspects of life. The qualitative changes activate resources, broaden perspectives, and realize potentials that allow more freedom to perceptions, decisions and actions. Qualitative changes usually lead to a degree of personality development and maturation. In addition, the qualitative effects may initiate new quantitative effects.
Times of actualization are often accompanied by resistance and incorrect meditating, or loss of regularity in meditating, often ensue. Some people stop meditating entirely in these phases. If so, the working through of the unresolved issues quickly grinds to a halt. Even so, partial actualization may not be a complete waste; a person may be closer to achieving some of this growth by other activities in life, but far more slowly - if at all. In addition, it should be noted that when and if such a person picks up regular meditation again, he or she is likely to move forward in meditation with more ease; something usually remains in the long run from even partial, aborted actualizations.
Unaffected by the hassles of actualization, many continue to work through their hurdles. Gradually, they overcome the actualized interference in their meditation, but usually not by remembering the episodes that shaped them in the past, though sometimes those memories may emerge later. The inner changes are organic and behavioural, rather than cognitive or emotional. The quantitative effects of meditation appear in every sitting provided the technique is adequately practised, but the qualitative changes only manifest themselves over time.
At first, a qualitative leap is a rickety achievement; the meditator may easily fall back into past patterns. If the meditator continues to meditate regularly after a qualitative leap, a consolidation phase will follow in which the mind works through details that will eventually establish a firm basis to retain what has been gained. The longer the meditator has been practising, the deeper the activated issues are and the longer the consolidation phases tend to last.
The concept of indirect effects denotes the results of meditation that manifest themselves in people’s daily lives due to regular meditation over a prolonged period. Mostly, they stem from reiterated deep relaxations during meditation. Some of them presuppose qualitative leaps, as already discussed. Examples of indirect effects may be better sleep, more bodily flexibility and coordination, lower levels of stress, higher stress tolerance, more energy for work and social interaction, a better ability to concentrate, more perseverance, perhaps increased empathy and change in how one relates to others.
Thus, the indirect effects come over time from daily muscular relaxation and from other inner changes in mental regulation. They are built up from lasting and persistent regular practice. Research has demonstrated that the regular lowering of body activity and alterations of activity in the brain towards rest are far deeper in some types of meditation, such as Acem Meditation, than when simply resting with closed eyes or when sleeping. The indirect effects are not always noticed and attributed to meditation, as they manifest themselves in daily life in relation to tasks or challenges that are managed with more ease and strength than before. Thus, they are expressed in improved abilities to interact with the environment – in work skills and in social relationships; new resources are utilized.
Relaxation may be obtained in several ways, e.g., from massage, tranquilizing drugs, alcoholic drinks, etc. These ways of relaxing are, however, fundamentally different from what can be achieved in Acem Meditation. Relaxation and mental tranquility obtained by, e.g., benzos or opium may momentarily seem stronger than that obtained through Acem Meditation. The regular use of opium has, however, some rather unfortunate consequences: addiction that may break down a person - both psychologically and physically. Massage gives a short-lived muscular relaxation and well-being. However, it does not provide personality development or maturation. Such methods depend on an external agency, the masseur, the drug, etc., to ensure the result.
However, in Acem Meditation, the capacity to achieve results is gradually built into the self, and it may develop into a lasting quality expressed in the skill to relax, renew, recreate, grow and mature. The indirect effects of Acem Meditation are not restricted to meditation alone. In contrast, the direct effects only happen during meditation and are related to the practice itself.
To allow oneself deep physical and mental relaxation daily may help in finding more constructive directions in life, as well as in finding new ways of being in the body. More could be said on this point, but the aim here is to give a brief overview. The contents are summarized in the table towards the end of this chapter. Mental residues related to illicit drug use can also be worked on, and this topic will be covered briefly in the following section.
Based on clear observations quite early in the history of Acem, instructors took a definite stance against the use of marijuana and stronger drugs, including party dope. This stance is not dogmatic or moralistic, but experience-based. Meditators who have used such substances often display strong counterforces and limitations in their personal growth. For this reason, some have referred to drug use as ‘chemical traumatization’ that prolong actualizations, occasionally with heightened intensity, but also with a propensity towards laxity in the meditation practice. The amount and duration of drug use plays a role. Few self-administered methods or psychotherapies have directly identified the negative effects from drugs.
In the teaching of Acem Meditation, it has been a repeated experience that drugs are more harmful than alcohol. Temporarily, drug experience tends to limit the meditation process. On the other hand, regular meditation has helped several people to get over the negative influences of drugs – such as lack of energy and low motivation, reticence towards commitments and simple duties. Nobody is denied access to learn Acem Meditation due to drug experiences, but users will be informed that parallel intake of drugs will impede the benefits from meditation, and that it may be more helpful to delay taking up meditation until one is prepared to stop taking drugs. Alcohol is in no way good for meditation, but the negative effects are far more modest and not that profound – as long as consumption is not excessive.
In many cases, the effects of meditation have motivated people to terminate the use of drugs; their actualizations have convincingly demonstrated its negative consequences. Regular meditation has helped people to cope with the after-effects of drugs, and to get on with their lives, starting or completing their education, pursuing their work and career, as well as fostering new dimensions of social relationships. Essential has been the disengagement from lethargy, oppositional response to society and authority, and occasionally, a paranoid perspective that may result from the use of drugs.
The experiences referred to above relate to people who have been able to maintain a degree of stability in their lives despite the use of drugs. The Acem experience is limited when it comes to meditation as a remedy for people with a history of heavy drug use who have withdrawn from society and, for example, find it hard to establish most kinds of regular habits. Acem Meditation is not suggested as a viable alternative to professional treatment in the health care system for addictions. Rather, the value of Acem Meditation lies in its capacity to serve as a method for growth for people without major psychiatric or drug-related problems.
To sum up, the preconditions for obtaining results include: (1) to meditate correctly – i.e., to adhere to the basic instruction; (2) to meditate regularly daily; and (3) to deal with the meditation process, i.e., to learn and develop adequate ways of dealing with interference, such as dissonance, resistance, actualization and other challenges in process related to conscious and unconscious issues.
If meditation is not done properly and regularly, several results cannot be expected. To be able to meditate correctly, it is essential to complete the beginner’s course and to learn to apply the basic instruction and central principles to the arising inner challenges from spontaneous activity. How best to do that is not always obvious, not because the person is simple-minded, has misunderstood or forgotten the essentials, but because discovering and disengaging from twisted perceptions require time and recognition.
After some weeks or months of regular meditation, unresolved issues may start to manifest themselves through the spontaneous activity as paradoxical effects. Dissonance may emerge. Interference always implies some degree of skewed perception that sways the way a person is seeing and interpreting issues with meditation – without fully realizing what is going on; parts of the unconscious knot or unresolved issues are activated. Resistance comes first, resources later on. Good advice can be helpful, but not sufficient; only the person alone can solve the matter. This is probably one of the reasons why textbooks on meditation have never resulted in large numbers of regular meditators; some interaction with an instructor or a meditation teacher is required from time to time.
At the outset, new meditators tend to be state-, experience- or goal-oriented in their approach. Often, this reflects a passive-receptive instead of an active-creative approach to meditation. In most cases, this kind of orientation breeds a distance to the challenges in the here-and-now in life; it may even include a streak of a narcissistic orientation. In contrast, process orientation is more sophisticated and, therefore, harder to grasp; in it, the self is seen as responsible both in the meditation and in all other parts of existence.
The skills in handling process issues in meditation need to be worked on and developed to avoid unnecessary fixation on experience-oriented goals. Adequate teaching and setting of goals when learning to meditate facilitate the outcome. However, some schools of meditation emphasize the value of meditative states – samadhi, satori, special experiences, pure being, a blue light, altered states of consciousness, etc. Gradually, they may run the risk of inflating secret compensatory and grandiose parts of the self – an ordinary person in society, but a major pillar in the inner, secret world, not due to life achievements, but due to inner experiences that nobody can control the value of.
Religious or guru-inspired meditation groups often have doctrines about ideal states of mind and higher levels of consciousness. From the perspective of Acem Meditation, such orientations may limit the free mental attitude, stimulate futile, even infantile dreams and hopes and restrict deeper maturation of personality. Sooner or later, a state- or goal-oriented understanding of Acem Meditation will collide with the meditative process. The outcome may be that a person adheres to the hopes and dreams and thus pursues experience goals to little or no avail, or even seek environments which will endorse those hopes and dreams. Fortunately, the opposite may also happen; the meditator continues to meditate, but gives up his or her experience or goal orientation. In this case, the result is more likely to be growth in life, and better interpersonal relationships and work experiences.
The next chapter is about Acem Meditation and health. Personality development is the topic of the following chapter; it addresses aspects of the psychological processes behind the qualitative effects and the indirect manifestations of meditation.