The Oldest History Of Meditation:
|
Let's get to it...
According to various sources of literature, the history of meditation dates back over 5,000 years and the practice of meditation has been linked to all major religions.
But the origin of meditation is far older than religious traditions.
So when did meditation originate?
Meditation means awareness. Awareness happens in the human brain. Let's trace the history of meditation back in time...
Similar to the recorded history of meditation, the invention of writing dates back over 5,000 years. But meditation is far older than the invention of writing because writing is a product of human awareness.
All of our inventions ultimately originate in our minds/brains...
Every word humans have invented, adopted, and translated has its origin in human awareness because we have to become aware of something in order to try to capture it in words, let alone try to invent an organized system for recording those words.
Words, writing, and every other human invention, is thus a result of awareness/meditation.
So what is the origin of meditation? Let's briefly look at some of our ancient ancestors' oldest inventions...
- Suddenly (in evolutionary terms), some 50,000 years ago, an abundance of standardized tools were being manufactured; weapons such as bows and arrows, spears and harpoons; art, such as paintings, statues, jewelry, and musical instruments.
- Shortly thereafter, our ancestors invented watercrafts to colonize remote Australia and New Guinea, and the rate of human colonization accelerated and spread to the rest of the world.
- Elaborate burial sites have been found dating back over 40,000 years.
How did our ancient, Cro-Magnon ancestors manage to do all this "all of a sudden," 50,000 years ago?
Jared Diamond writes in his brilliant book, Guns, Germs, and Steel, that a substantial anatomical improvement of the voice box as a human basis for language occurred between about 100,000 and 50,000 years ago. Or that a change in brain organization without a change in brain size made modern language possible.
Most likely, improvement of voice boxes and brain reorganization happened in synchrony. Natural selection doesn't plan ahead. It's unlikely that brains were capable of language but had to wait for voice boxes to catch up.
Standardizing tools and inventing watercrafts for long journeys 40-50,000 years ago are some of the earliest evidence of human creativity and inventiveness. They're evidence of concentration and goal-orientation.
This evidence relates to attachment --
mantra.
The abundance of all these tools suddenly found shows that our ancient ancestors reached a threshold in their evolution. Language was (and still is) so important to human survival and success that it at this point had turned into a "mainstream" feature of our design.
Building elaborate burial sites testifies to a human sense of love and compassion for those who passed away and for those who stayed behind. These burial sites also show that the Cro-Magnons must have been able to communicate fairly well and detach themselves from what was strictly necessary for survival.
This evidence relates to detachment --
mindfulness.
Neanderthals, the Cro-Magnon predecessors, wasted no time and simply left their dead in ditches and crevasses.
Still, even with extra time on their hands they didn't invent much or standardize any tools. And the Neanderthals were wiped out, probably by the more sophisticated Cro-Magnons capable of co-operating, planning, focusing and detaching themselves from immediate survival.
Natural selection does not have foresight, but it certainly selected for a foresighted ability in human brains because it was advantageous to human survival.
The Cro-Magnons thus gained a sharper focus and a larger perspective of themselves in relation to their environments, possible enemies, and friends.
The history of meditation should therefore be traced back and linked to the evolution of our ancient ancestors' brains/voice boxes, facilitating language and the origin of human concentration, mindfulness, and sentience -- awareness/consciousness -- going mainstream 40-50,000 years ago.
The origin of meditation thus equals the origin of modern human awareness/consciousness.
Evolution never stops. Here's how and why
the 2 types of meditation evolved
into so many techniques.
Return from History of Meditation to Learning Meditation.
Go from Origin of Meditation to Meditation Techniques Home.
