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Working in a bookstore can give you a unique viewpoint of the trends that define public consciousness. For example, the popularity in the 1980s of the book Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth, by James Lovelock, helped solidify the emerging ecological movement as a mainstream concern by giving it a deeper philosophical underpinning. In the 1960s and '70s, Alan Watts did much to popularize Eastern philosophy -- similar to what Deepak Chopra has done in today's spirituality market -- and continues to do so with the recent publications of What is Tao? and What is Zen?.

Watts, using clear and accessible language, as well as clever examples and analogies, was able to make obtuse and foreign concepts come alive, but his was often a philosophical viewpoint. In contrast, the trend in today's spirituality movement is to focus on its relevance and actualization in the day-to-day experience of living. To illustrate: The meditation section at East West Bookshop of Seattle has more than doubled during the past five years, and the sale of meditation supplies has more than tripled! This spate of books on meditation (one of the best being Awaken to Superconsciousness: How to Use Meditation for Inner Peace, Intuitive Guidance, and Greater Awareness by J. Donald Walters) has contributed to clearing up a number of misconceptions about the practice of that spiritual discipline. For instance, rather than inducing a hypnogogic state in which one is susceptible to suggestion, meditation effects a clarity of mind, which only increases discernment.

Meditation refers to a state of consciousness in which the mind is crystal clear and thoughts are still, allowing one to experience a sense of spontaneity, calmness, and well-being. This induced state is not some fanciful creation of the subconscious mind but a direct perception of reality without the mediation (some would say "static") of thought. Direct perception is what differentiates philosophy and experience. A person can read all about oranges, know their chemical composition, and argue about their nutritional merits and still not know their essence until he actually bites into one.

Meditation has been taught as a practice to reduce stress and promote physical well-being, but these are merely side effects. Meditation is essentially a spiritual practice because the energy that usually goes out through the senses, connecting us to the physical world, gets redirected inward to the spinal nerves and the brain. We begin to experience ourselves as a consciousness that is a part of an even greater consciousness, rather than as a bag of bones and flesh that is conscious. And then, eventually, as Sri Yukteswar says in The Holy Science, we give up the "vain idea of a separate existence."

Because of the profound effect meditation has on the lives of its practitioners, as more and more people meditate and it becomes part of the mainstream, one can expect great changes in our culture, and indeed the world.

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