Session time and Acem Meditation

John P,

Yes, Acem Meditation certainly sounds quite a bit like NSR Meditation. It probably sprang from the same source as NSR, namely TM, which reached Norway in the 1960's.

The only problem I see is their recommendation of long meditation times. 45 minutes would most likely trigger an uncomfortable release of stress due to the depth of transcending. This may be why the Acem Meditation website talks so much about "periods of resistance".

NSR Meditation emphasizes balance, based on the actual experience of the hundreds of thousands of TM meditators and over one thousand NSR meditators. We dive within for just 15 minutes, then live our daily life, repeating this cycle twice each day. This is the optimum strategy, which avoid the "periods of resistance" in most NSR practitioners.

NSR also differs from Acem Meditation in another important way: we acknowledge the contribution of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, instead of dismissing him as a cult leader. We make use of what works from TM (the knowledge of teaching transcending) while discarding what makes little sense (the high prices, the esoteric and mystical excesses).

Now let me address your question about experiencing inner quiet only at the very end of a meditation session. Doesn't that mean that we should meditate for a longer time, so we can experience that silence? It would mean this if the goal of NSR were merely relaxation, the experience of inner silence. But this is actually not the goal of NSR at all. The goal of NSR is the dissolving of stress, which is sometimes very different from relaxation.

In NSR (unlike many other systems of meditation), we know that when a stress dissolves, some activity associated with the creation of that stress is experienced. This may be a thought, a mood, a feeling, a dream, a bodily movement, or an experience of any of the senses of perception. Thus, a meditation session may be filled with any of these kinds of activity (rather than silence), yet we are in fact releasing stress, and feel refreshed afterward. What is important is to dissolve the stresses, strengthening the nervous system so we can resist acquiring further stresses.

In summary, don't worry about how you feel when you practice NSR. All that matters is how your life improves afterward.

Thanks for bringing up these important points.

David Spector
NSR Meditation/USA