Rather it emerges, intuitively, from the depths of our being, a whispering from the soul. A culture that condemns introspection, says Jung, is incapable of producing a meditative tradition. And in any case, he adds, Westerners have too much unconscious material, which has been too ferociously repressed. Yet Steiner's experience refutes Jung's position. There is a Western meditation tradition, and that tradition is the tradition explored by Steiner, the tradition of contemplation.
Contemplation is Western meditation and is a powerful technique because it liberates.
Once you can contemplate something, Schiller wrote, it no longer has the power to control you. Steiner was no isolated instance. Yet unlike Steiner, Merton held that the ability to contemplate could not, and should not, be taught. The Western contemplative tradition even predates Christianity. The aphorisms in the Meditations were evidently jotted down in response to contemplation.