Disclaimer: I may not be fully objective but have been personally harmed by meditation and heard of very credible cases of people being harmed.
Some objections to some traditional advice:
What if the tradition or teacher you got into was abusive/manipulative and you didn’t know it, and it turns out you don’t have the strength or skills to navigate it? (too many to list here)
Alternatively, what if you want to practice alone and cannot accept fully traditional teachings because of fear of abuse/ideological differences (like if you don’t want to lose rationality, don’t want to see mundane life as meaningless without religion, etc)?
What if you are/will be at risk of mental illnesses and didn’t know it before getting into a habit of meditation? (Maybe you came from a background where mental diagnosis and therapy were uncommon, stigmatized or inaccessible, some unfamiliar or estranged extended family member had some undiagnosed issues before some modern diagnosis was a thing, or you or a relative has always been kind of weird but appears normal enough and you never though too much about it, or you had a change in life circumstances or health that increases stress, maybe your career/circumstances would require higher standards of functioning which is incompatible with some meditation effects like lack of motivation that might have been fine in a typical person, or you had a new condition—long covid anyone? - or decided/needed to take some medication or substances that affect the brain in some ways that could interact with meditation… )
What if, even if you were not at particularly high risk, you had some concerning/risky experiences, and were too accustomed/addicted to meditation to stop it in time? Or your teacher/peers didn’t recognize your symptoms as concerning because of their past experiences of successfully navigating it with more/different meditation, given individual differences? Or they were just being intentionally or unconsciously manipulative due to selection bias, as more devoted students make them look more successful and more credible to you in the first place (would you seek out/have sought out as a beginner, an unknown teacher with little fame and influence, whose students are all seemingly normal mundane people who don’t devote lots of time to meditation/their spiritual tradition)? Or the issues that came up were too personal/vulnerable/traumatic, and you didn’t dare to share it honestly with any teacher figure, because you were not that personally close to them/afraid of abuse/feel the group was somewhat culty or high-demand and don’t want it to be used against you in some way? Or your teacher wasn’t sure what to do about your issues, as you (as a possibly rationalist kind of person) are not like their typical student, or your issue was idiosyncratic enough that they misjudged? What if instead of/in addition to recommending that you stop meditation immediately, the teacher recommends that you change something about your beliefs/values/lifestyle (or less charitably, blame your negative experience on your not being spiritually mature enough/not fully devoted to their religion or guru), and you (as a possibly rationalist kind of person or someone with beliefs and values not typical in a certain spiritual meditation community) cannot understand/accept/internalize/execute their advice? Or your teacher didn’t have time for you, or you didn’t think to mention it or didn’t insist on emergency exit before it’s too late, because of fear of losing community support or some spiritual/ritual goals were on the line?
What if, even though you or your teacher immediately stopped your potentially harmful meditation practice, the harm didn’t stop? Maybe you had some serious acute symptoms that simply happened too quickly with little signs beforehand. Maybe you had some physical/psychosomatic symptoms that don’t disappear on its own after you stop the offending meditation and turned out hard to treat. Maybe you would have been fine if you had let yourself stabilize and recover on your own, but you couldn’t (because you were institutionalized and/or misdiagnosed—in some anecdotes, spiritual or meditation psychosis may react atypically and negatively to psychiatric medications like certain antipsychotics—and given medications that didn’t help and had confusing side effects and actively made it harder for you to stabilize and think through what had happened; or because you had financial/personal/relational/familial difficulties as a result and lost your support and safety net and reality check etc). Maybe you eventually stabilized and were as competent as before and maybe even became stronger as a person, but a critical opportunity in relationships/family/health/finance/career etc had already been missed permanently.
What if, you are lucky to never have these issues above, but you simply enjoy meditation so much (or find a mundane career much less attractive in comparison, or just lose ambition and motivation) and decided to devote your life or most of your free time to it, neglecting your job/relationships/financial security etc in ways you would not endorse or would regret? What if, like someone else commented, it turned out you had some hidden internal conflict or suppressed desire to have a different life/career (that you wouldn’t have known was there without intensive therapy/self-analysis - and you might not have had access to that), one that is infeasible, less likely to succeed, or less able to contribute to your life goals, your loved ones or society? (It’s suspicious how many intensive meditators end up wanting to have a meditation or spirituality/religion-related career. Also, the human environment has changed so quickly that any built-in instincts about career or lifestyle motivations that end up surfacing has a chance of being mismatched or even self-destructive in the modern world.)
Disclaimer: I may not be fully objective but have been personally harmed by meditation and heard of very credible cases of people being harmed.
Some objections to some traditional advice:
What if the tradition or teacher you got into was abusive/manipulative and you didn’t know it, and it turns out you don’t have the strength or skills to navigate it? (too many to list here)
Alternatively, what if you want to practice alone and cannot accept fully traditional teachings because of fear of abuse/ideological differences (like if you don’t want to lose rationality, don’t want to see mundane life as meaningless without religion, etc)?
What if you are/will be at risk of mental illnesses and didn’t know it before getting into a habit of meditation? (Maybe you came from a background where mental diagnosis and therapy were uncommon, stigmatized or inaccessible, some unfamiliar or estranged extended family member had some undiagnosed issues before some modern diagnosis was a thing, or you or a relative has always been kind of weird but appears normal enough and you never though too much about it, or you had a change in life circumstances or health that increases stress, maybe your career/circumstances would require higher standards of functioning which is incompatible with some meditation effects like lack of motivation that might have been fine in a typical person, or you had a new condition—long covid anyone? - or decided/needed to take some medication or substances that affect the brain in some ways that could interact with meditation… )
What if, even if you were not at particularly high risk, you had some concerning/risky experiences, and were too accustomed/addicted to meditation to stop it in time? Or your teacher/peers didn’t recognize your symptoms as concerning because of their past experiences of successfully navigating it with more/different meditation, given individual differences? Or they were just being intentionally or unconsciously manipulative due to selection bias, as more devoted students make them look more successful and more credible to you in the first place (would you seek out/have sought out as a beginner, an unknown teacher with little fame and influence, whose students are all seemingly normal mundane people who don’t devote lots of time to meditation/their spiritual tradition)? Or the issues that came up were too personal/vulnerable/traumatic, and you didn’t dare to share it honestly with any teacher figure, because you were not that personally close to them/afraid of abuse/feel the group was somewhat culty or high-demand and don’t want it to be used against you in some way? Or your teacher wasn’t sure what to do about your issues, as you (as a possibly rationalist kind of person) are not like their typical student, or your issue was idiosyncratic enough that they misjudged? What if instead of/in addition to recommending that you stop meditation immediately, the teacher recommends that you change something about your beliefs/values/lifestyle (or less charitably, blame your negative experience on your not being spiritually mature enough/not fully devoted to their religion or guru), and you (as a possibly rationalist kind of person or someone with beliefs and values not typical in a certain spiritual meditation community) cannot understand/accept/internalize/execute their advice? Or your teacher didn’t have time for you, or you didn’t think to mention it or didn’t insist on emergency exit before it’s too late, because of fear of losing community support or some spiritual/ritual goals were on the line?
What if, even though you or your teacher immediately stopped your potentially harmful meditation practice, the harm didn’t stop? Maybe you had some serious acute symptoms that simply happened too quickly with little signs beforehand. Maybe you had some physical/psychosomatic symptoms that don’t disappear on its own after you stop the offending meditation and turned out hard to treat. Maybe you would have been fine if you had let yourself stabilize and recover on your own, but you couldn’t (because you were institutionalized and/or misdiagnosed—in some anecdotes, spiritual or meditation psychosis may react atypically and negatively to psychiatric medications like certain antipsychotics—and given medications that didn’t help and had confusing side effects and actively made it harder for you to stabilize and think through what had happened; or because you had financial/personal/relational/familial difficulties as a result and lost your support and safety net and reality check etc). Maybe you eventually stabilized and were as competent as before and maybe even became stronger as a person, but a critical opportunity in relationships/family/health/finance/career etc had already been missed permanently.
What if, you are lucky to never have these issues above, but you simply enjoy meditation so much (or find a mundane career much less attractive in comparison, or just lose ambition and motivation) and decided to devote your life or most of your free time to it, neglecting your job/relationships/financial security etc in ways you would not endorse or would regret? What if, like someone else commented, it turned out you had some hidden internal conflict or suppressed desire to have a different life/career (that you wouldn’t have known was there without intensive therapy/self-analysis - and you might not have had access to that), one that is infeasible, less likely to succeed, or less able to contribute to your life goals, your loved ones or society? (It’s suspicious how many intensive meditators end up wanting to have a meditation or spirituality/religion-related career. Also, the human environment has changed so quickly that any built-in instincts about career or lifestyle motivations that end up surfacing has a chance of being mismatched or even self-destructive in the modern world.)