In this excerpt from the podcast "Awakening in the Age of Algorithms" (Episode 5), Speaker A voices deep concern that moving meditation and other spiritual practices to digital platforms may strip them of their experiential richness. The anxiety stems from having shifted to online teaching during the COVID‑19 pandemic to keep the sangha connected, and the lingering doubt about whether the essence of the practice has been compromised. Speaker A hopes the core benefits remain intact for seekers on the path of awakening, but remains unsettled. Speaker B acknowledges this as a defining dilemma of our era and validates the legitimacy of not having definitive answers, emphasizing that accepting uncertainty is permissible.
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My worry is that the digital world will drain us all of the experiential richness of what these practices are. It's one of the reasons why I was reluctant to begin teaching meditation to my sangha online, but we did it during COVID because otherwise we couldn't be together. And we have stayed online in part. And I still worry about it because I still don't know how much we have robbed the practice of its richness. My hope is that we haven't. My hope is that there's enough there to help people in this project of awakening. But I worry about it. And so your comments about the guru tradition, are very much in line with my own worries about Zen and what's happening if we move to online practice.
So this is the problem of our times, and this is where it's all right to not know.
Yeah, to not know. Exactly. Not knowing.
Like when I read my scriptures, there's always this problem, and then the yogis would overcome that problem. So they would represent it as an asura, as a, as this demon entity that would manifest. So collective consciousness, yeah, all its negativity will manifest as this asura, as this demon that would have this superpowers and vulnerabilities. So the yogis would meditate to then exploit the vulnerability with their intelligence and let there be peace once again. And I realized that yes, we were reading those scriptures to bring glory to the past accomplishments of the yogis on how they overcame the past asuras, but In the same manner, we are the yogis of today, and there are asuras that we are battling right now, including the digital revolution as an asura. Precisely. And this is a challenge. And we can't just step away from society and go back to the mountains for the simplest reason. The mountains don't exist anymore. The way population and civilization is growing, Exactly. You know, I have been to the Maasai Mara in Kenya and I can still get Coca-Cola. And I've been to the remotest villages in, uh, Himalayas and I can still get Cadbury's chocolate. So there is no untouched, virgin, pristine place where a person can have a monastery anymore. Civilization is reaching a precipice of no return. So this is now our new battleground, and this is where we will have to even evolve our practice. Because people like Buddha were revolutionaries of their time who challenged the past and created a system that was able to, uh, help the changing society. And that's why I love everyone of the great saints, like even you mentioned Gurudev, you know, like when they were working, world was different. And now the present generation, the world is different. So that has even forced us to look at the practice and make it evolve even more so that it can somehow stand the test of time and help people. And yes, you are absolutely right. Technology will grow even more, and we will have to find out ways on how we can have that same benefit and beauty of 1,000 years ago while we are sitting in the classrooms of today. And that is where the research comes into play. That is where the constant, um, follow-up comes into play. Because in mental health, you know, that, that's where this, this golden word— follow-up, follow-up, follow-up. You can't implement something and let it be. Then you follow up, then you change what needs to be changed, you tweak what needs to be tweaked, and then one day there is the eureka. And then coming back to your thing of how can we make people taste it, and that's where, you know, we have to somehow get people in a room, motivate them, make it culturally relevant, because that is where I have realized that we can't chase people. No, force them to— the more we force, the more they run away.
