Misc.

Book Announcement: Meditation without Bullshit

Here’s an announcement from Aaron S. Elias:

I have been meditating for over 20 years and benefited greatly from it. Yet, not unlike it was with picking up women, I walked my own path. In the pickup industry, you have virgin gurus who tell you nonsense like “looks don’t matter”, and they want to make you believe that “game” is all you need in order to get girls. Compared to the New Age industry, though, the pickup industry is nothing. You won’t believe the bullshit New Age gurus spout.

Just like my experience with the pickup industry about ten years later, my encounter with the New Age industry left me with a very bad taste in my mouth. I met gurus who could not sit in the lotus position, yet attempted to create a cult of personality around them. I met a lot of shady gurus who seemed to use meditation as a means for meeting naive women to hook up with, and I also encountered bullshit, lots and lots of bullshit. People spoke about the “third eye”, “chakras”, “pillars of energy”, and whatnot, as if those were not fantasies but reality.

I consequently developed my own approach to meditation, stripping it bare of New Age nonsense and dropping superfluous rituals. Not only did I practice in that style myself, I also had extensive opportunity to teach it in real life. This includes meditation seminars I have given in the context of teaching men how to really get girls. For a few years, I had a side gig as a yoga teacher, which was another opportunity to introduce people to my version of meditation without bullshit.

Soon, you will have the opportunity to learn about how and why I meditate, and why I meditate the way I do. My upcoming book “Meditation without Bullshit” will provide a concise and practical introduction to meditation, with a focus on real-world applicability. It contains relevant background, instruction, and a realistic progress plan.

The book is currently in the final editing stage, and on track to be released in late 2017 or early 2018. Further updates will follow.

33 thoughts on “Book Announcement: Meditation without Bullshit

  1. Love the title. I can definitely see a lot of sales from the general population (i.e. people who don’t know Aaron Sleazy”. With a title like that it’s bound to get attention on Amazon. And if you have this in the foreword*, it’s going to intrigue a lot of people to buy it.

    Amazon let’s people read the foreword before buying.

    1. Congratulations on finding the easter egg. Well done!

      On a related note, there is a specific term for that kind of wordplay. It is blanagram (blank + anagram): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanagram. It’s not entirely fitting, though, as two letters are different. Yet, as you rightly point out, the letters can be arranged so that they would be pronounced more or less the same. This means that the rearrangement is a homophone. (Yes, I had fun coming up with a new pseudonym.)

    2. Isn’t Aaron S. Elias also an oronym for “Aaron’s alias”?

      I’m looking forward to your book by the way. I tried meditation a couple of times, but felt it hard to concentrate on “doing nothing” as my thoughts were always drifting off.
      My preferred method of clearing my head is going for a long walk in the nature.
      However, I’ll buy your book once it’s out and give meditation a new shot.

  2. Hmmm sounds interesting.

    As I mentioned elsewhere, I am allergic to bullshit, so because of the new age angle I never really considered meditation. Really looking forward on how you develop it.

  3. I’m not entirely sure if one can teach “meditation” without bullshit. Here’s why. Because as long as we don’t have any studies, it’s like teaching about Jesus with some “scholars” arguing if he transfered water into wine or into vinegar. So people who already spent some time reading about meditation and trying it out will just be “meh, another book”. There is this book called “mindfulness in plain english”, which is supposed to do what Aaron does and it’s still written quite badly, with loads of preaching and at least 90% of the text is filler – and it gets good reviews!
    So, Aaron – your “no bullshit” approach to meditation is: A) About writing style or B) About real science on meditation?

    1. There are plenty of studies on meditation actually. Should have checked before posting the comment.

    2. Also, one doesn’t need to read 578 studies to be able to tell bullshit apart from “core foundational stuff”.

      Take Minimal Game for example. I have actually read the 578 studies on flirting and mating. Aaron didn’t read all of those, yet he wrote and shared a “no bullshit system” to getting laid.

      All you need is the ability to tell apart “stuff that makes a difference” from “nitpicky bullshit that may or may not make a difference but people teach so they can fluff up their books and courses”. You don’t need to read studies to spot bullshit, you just a sufficiently good understanding of Occham’s Razor. Aaron is a master at the occham’s razor and spotting bullshit.

      In this context “bullshit” doesn’t (necessarily) mean “scientifically inaccuarate stuff”, it means “bullshit minmaxy stuff that’s not part of the 80/20”. Some of the stuff in the “bullshit” category might actually do something, some of it might be completely hogwash… But all of them have in common that they are not part of the “80%”… That is… they’re not part of the core couple of things that make the most difference.

    3. It is as certain as the sun coming up the next day that chakra’s are bullshit. Therefore, even if benefits of meditation is not conclusive from research, it is a good place to start doing research on meditation if you start without the bullshit.

      That is why I am exited to learn about it actually. Someone to finally talk sense about it and not give me a lot of filler. Not only that I am exited, I think the vast majority of people of this world would be too. This is true even if you currently believe in chakras. That almost anybody with any interest in relieving stress or archiving high amounts of concentration would jump at the opportunity to buy a book called Meditation with out the bullshit. Especially based on how many people who are already interested in meditation.

    4. C2H5OH, are you living under a rock? We don’t have any studies? Are you familiar with the genesis of meditation (especially Zen) in the west? There are so many studies that proof the therapeutic effects of meditation.

      I read ‘Mindfulness in Plain English’, and agree with you. All the books that suppose to be the bare bones of mediation without the doctrine and ‘mysticism’ don’t sound very different from the new age literature. A few years back, I couldn’t stand my usual local Zen group anymore and decided to go to a more secular meditation group. All I found was the same bull in a different wording.

  4. Curious… what do you think of Transcendental Meditation. Seems to be a cash grab and made to be way more than it purports to be…

    1. I actually grew up within a TM-family. So I can honestly tell you: it IS a scam. The same goes for the Hare Krishna/ISKCON society btw. (even though they’ve arguably published the best Indian vegetarian cooking manual available [by Adiraja Dasa]).

      On the other hand, regular practice of some basic yoga asanas, and delicious, freshly cooked Indian vegetarian cuisine are not that bad at all…

  5. Do you have any experience with meditation retreats? Will the book addressed that?

    What do you make of the concepts of “enlightenment” or “liberation”?

  6. Assuming the no BS approach, a chair and a blank wall will be all we need for the beginning, right?

  7. Hey Aaron,
    You probably heard of Alan Watts. Basically he’s just another intrepeter of eastern philosophy, but rather eloquent and from what I can tell, intelligent. He presents these philosophies in a way that appeals to rationalists.

    One of his main points about meditation is that it is essentially superfluous if you do it to reach an end goal. Rather, one should meditate because one enjoys meditating (much like dancing and playing music). This is especially hard to truly grasp for the western mind. Would like to hear your thoughts on this view of meditation.

  8. Do you have to be physically fit first in order to successfully practice meditation? I ask because I imagine some of the “poses” (lotus position,etc.)might require some degree of fitness before implementation.

  9. Very excited for this. I’ve completed 2 10-day Vipassana meditation courses through Dhamma.org. Are you familiar with their approach of 1/3 Anapana (observation of breath) and 2/3 Vipassana (observation of sensations)? Any thoughts on it? I won’t be insulted if you regard it as bullshit.

    1. This sounds severely misguided. I’ll discuss at length why observing one’s breath is counterproductive. The same reasoning applies to observing your sensations.

    2. Yikes, I definitely don’t want to be making things worse for myself. Would you mind recommending a technique/techniques to do for say … 30 mins a day to tide me over until the book comes out?

    3. Just wait for my book. It is very close to release as there is only one more editorial pass left.

  10. I am looking forward to this book since you first mentioned it in your forum a few years back. Having spent almost a year (when it was still possible) in Antai-ji with Berlin born Muho Nölke it will be interesting to read about your take on shikantaza and zen in general without the doctrine.

    Thanks for dedicating time to this, Aaron!

    1. That is interesting! Did you write about your experience at Antai-ji somewhere? I’d be very curious to hear more about that.

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