On the Disappearance of Depth in Modern Meditation Culture
We’ve made meditation marketable.
And in doing so, we’ve made it smaller.
What was once a sacred practice—an intimate return to the self, the divine, or the mystery beyond thought—
has now been trimmed, filtered, and fed into the algorithm.
On social media, meditation is sold like an elixir:
Just five minutes a day to cure anxiety, manifest abundance, raise your vibration, and optimize your morning.
It’s spiritual snake oil.
A rebrand of something ancient into something easy.
Not to sit with your soul—
but to boost your mood between notifications.
It reminds me of the prosperity gospel.
What began as a message of inner freedom and divine grace became a tool for control—
preaching that peace, wealth, and health were all signs of spiritual success.
If you weren’t healed or thriving, well… maybe you just weren’t believing hard enough.
Now we’ve done the same with meditation.
Sold it as a shortcut.
A life hack.
A self-improvement pill dressed in soft lighting and incense.
But real meditation doesn’t flatter your ego.
It doesn’t sell success.
It invites surrender.
Not performance, but presence.
In my latest musing, A Meditation Beyond Thought, I return to that deeper current.
It’s not a guide.
Not a technique.
Not a list of steps.
It’s a reflection.
On the difference between clearing the mind and opening it.
On the space between stillness and communion.
On the quiet truth that comes—
not when we master silence,
but when we finally stop trying to earn it.
If you’ve ever felt like the way meditation is taught today feels thin—
if the apps and aesthetics leave you feeling like something sacred got stripped—
this piece is a remembering.
A return.
Not to be, but to become.