Solitary vs. Group Meditation

(Brief quotes from "The Notebooks of Paul Brunton" - Category 4: Meditation)

"The next point is whether he should practise alone or in a congregation. The answer depends on the stage of progress. Absolute beginners often find group meditation is helpful to them, but those who are somewhat proficient often find it a hindrance to them."

"The student should try to be alone when he practises. The presence of other people may disturb him by the noise of their movements or their speech, even by the impact of their gaze upon him. For this gaze carries their magnetic aura and their thought-currents and, if preoccupied with him in a personal, emotional, or inquisitive way, will cause him to make more effort in overcoming the distractions to concentration than would otherwise have been necessary."

"The notion that meditating in an assembly is easier or better or stronger than meditating alone, can only have been fostered by someone who has never experienced the deep penetration which Hindu yogis call "nirvikalpa samadhi.""

"Self-interested organizations may assert otherwise, but it is neither proper nor helpful to meditate with a group. There are risks of being disturbed by fidgety or noisy members of the group. Meditation is in the end a solitary process, an attempt to realize the relationship between a man and his Overself, not with other men. Group work is only allowable when there is no other opportunity to practise with a guru."

"It is so essentially private a practice that it is better done alone than in a group, better followed in one's own room than in a crowded church."

"Meditation is best done alone. Group work and team work - so helpful in other occupations - is a hindrance here. For its very purpose is to probe the "I." If a man seeks to get to know his own first person singular, being surrounded by an assembly of other men can only distract him from his purpose."

"It is much easier to practise meditation in solitude than in a crowd. But the aspirant who would rise from the grade of neophyte to that of proficient must learn to find the inner silence amid the crowd."

"Those who have to go to a group meeting for meditation or for inner support are in the very early stage of the quest. This is well so long as it helps them. But if they stay too long it will hinder them. A man may then find it better to stay at home and meditate there."

"To sit with so many varied people is simply to disturb mentally or even disrupt the meditation of more sensitive or more advanced members. Why expose them to this risk?"

"It is better for some persons to meditate in individual isolation, but for others in like-minded groups. The advisability of one or the other method must depend upon the person's temperament, his spiritual status, and the presence or absence of an expert during the meditation."

"In the privacy of his own room, he need not look around to observe the other sitters, that is, to fix his mind upon them, which is what often happens at group meetings. He can go straight to the business of centering himself."

"Is there any value in community meditation? Is it better to sit in the silence with a group rather than by oneself? The value of each kind of meditation largely depends on the degree of evolution of the individuals concerned. For most beginners, a communal meditation is often encouraging and inspiring; but to advanced meditators it is often a hindrance and an obstacle. They can practise better in solitude than in society; group meditation only hinders them. If they join an assembly or society, it will not be to better their own meditations but to better the meditations of others, that is, to render service."

"In the end, and after he has long tried group or community work, he will find that meditation is easier, more quickly arrived at, with no other companion than Nature or Art - that is, alone. There is of course the obvious exception to this truth: if the companion is himself a competent meditator, or better still but rarer, an enlightened person. But personal weakness, circumstances, usually make solitary work seem undesirable."

"It is better for the beginner perhaps to work with others in a group if he wants to learn meditation, provided the group has members or leaders more advanced than himself. But for the person who has made sufficient progress, this presence of a community around him only brings distractions. He ought not to divide his attention between his theme and these presences; his mind should be free, as his surroundings should be, from every possible sort of distraction."