| Titel: | States of Meditation: A Qualitative Inquiry into the Practices of Fifteen Meditators |
|---|---|
| Autor: | Abbott, Emily Ruth |
| Mediengruppe: | --- |
| Herausgeber: | --- |
| Zeitschrift: | Dissertation Abstracts International Section A: Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Jahr: | 1997 |
| Band: | 57 |
| Heft: | 8 |
| Seiten: | 3533 |
| Sprache: | English; englisch |
| Abstract: | The goal of this research is to document how fifteen Americans who have lived and studied at the same Indian yoga ashram described their practice of meditation. The philosophical background of the ashram is explored looking at the primary belief system of Kashmir Savism. The meditation practices are examined using qualitative interview procedures and methodology. The goal of qualitative research in general is to document some aspect of human experience. It does this by identifying the concepts and categories that people use to characterize and describe their own experiences. In this study, fifteen meditators are interviewed on two separate occasions with the purpose of identifying common concepts that they use to describe their meditation practice. Reconstruction of this interview data uses grounded theory. Validity and reliability are discussed in terms of Lincoln and Guba's (1989) concept of trustworthiness of data and its three axioms of credibility, transferability and dependability. The Results chapter identifies 11 distinctly recognizable categories of experience that occur during this type of Indian yoga meditation. Five of these categories appear primarily in the early stages of meditation, while five categories appear primarily in more advanced meditation. The latter are considered to be attributes of the altered state of consciousness called turiya or samadhi. The 11 categories of experience are discussed in terms of the psychological literature on meditation and in terms of the ashram philosophy of Kashmir Savism. The literature review examines the subject of meditation as it has evolved in the psychological journals over the past twenty years. Much of this literature on meditation has struggled with the issue of how best to approach the scientific study of meditation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved) |