New technology raises new questions - also in a meditative context.
Perhaps you have also tried ChatGPT? It is a website with a robot based on artificial intelligence, to which you can write questions. You get detailed answers written in natural language.
I have a colleague who is an engineer. He made a test by asking the robot a question that could have been a physics problem in high school: A block is pushed and slides up an inclined plane; how high does it get? It is a question where there is only one correct answer. A convincing and comprehensive answer came from the robot within a few seconds. The answer went through physical principles and derived formulas.
My colleague was first impressed, but then became depressed. If a computer can solve a technical problem so quickly, is there any work for me? After recovering a little, he spent ten minutes solving the problem himself. It turned out that the robot's answer was not correct. Quite ordinary rules of calculation had not been followed. My colleague felt deceived, but also a little relieved.
This story says something both about people and about robots. My colleague is at first almost paralyzed by a low self-image: "Is there any need for me as an engineer when the robot is so clever?" The robot, on the other hand, behaves like a person with a very high and inflated self-image. It answers questions with conviction and without any indication that it may be wrong. Many will probably recognize my colleague's reaction. One can be overwhelmed when meeting a person who speaks with great conviction.
Acem Meditation can help in handling this type of situation. When you close your eyes to meditate, you meet spontaneous thoughts, images and impressions from your everyday life. What you do is to seek an open and free repetition of the meditation sound. This stimulates meeting the spontaneous content in an open and neutral way. Sometimes the spontaneous content is complicated. It may be thoughts about a situation where you were overwhelmed by a person who spoke in a way that made you feel small. Perhaps it is the conversation itself that you experience again; perhaps you only remember an uncomfortable mood or feeling. If over time in meditation you are able to be with this spontaneous activity with an open repetition of the meditation sound, you gain freedom of action and better self-confidence for the next time you meet a similar situation in everyday life. You become more robust.
My colleague is fortunately a fairly robust person who has good self-confidence: "I can calculate this problem myself - let us see whether the robot is right." The healthy starting point is to have contact with both higher and lower self-images, that is, both to have self-confidence and self-criticism. Self-criticism can motivate us to learn something new and provide a humility that helps us listen to other people's viewpoints.
Self-confidence helps us dare to ask new questions, come up with ideas and motivate others to join your ideas. Both are necessary in order to solve a task well. In meditation you may meet high self-images, among other things in daydreams. A daydream may be a spontaneous escape from a low self-image. Open repetition of the meditation sound can also here, over time, create the possibility of containing the dream's high self-image at the same time as the critical attitude of the low self-image.
Knud Erik Meyer