10: Synopsis of Meditation

Meditation is the esoteric discipline of the Gnostics.

Meditation has three steps: concentration, meditation, and samadhi.

Concentration means to fix the mind on only one object. Meditation means to reflect upon the substantial contents of that one object. Samadhi is ecstasy, mystical joy.

A master of samadhi penetrates all the planes of consciousness, and with the Eye of Dangma he investigates all the secrets of the wisdom of the fire.

It is urgent for our Gnostic disciples to learn how to function without any type of material vehicles so that they can perceive all the marvels of the universe with the Eye of Dangma.

This is how our disciples will convert themselves into masters of samadhi.

– Samael Aun Weor, Igneous Rose

Meditation is the science and technology to experience the very nature of our own Being.

We must go very far beyond relaxation, concentration, and mindfulness.

Nevertheless, it would be absurd to believe we could obtain wisdom without becoming extremely ethical, and obtain mastery of relaxation and concentration.

Can you relax? Sit in a comfortable chair or in a meditation posture.

The point of a good posture is to be able “park” the body. When you want to get out of your car, you first park it.

Deep meditations occur outside of the vehicle of external sensory input (the physical body).

With good posture, the practitioner settles the body for a minute, and then does not move until the meditation is completed.

The spine must be straight.

Some prefer to cross their legs while sitting. In such case, it is critical that the buttocks be elevated above the floor, to allow the hips to align the spine and shoulders properly. Therefore sitting on a cushion is preferable.

Some prefer to kneel on the floor, sitting atop their ankles. To aid this posture, a kneeling bench or cushion can be used.

Many find sitting or kneeling on the floor to be extremely challenging. Sitting in a chair is in no way inferior – and for many Westerners this is the best position. The Lord Maitreya is often portrayed seated in a western style chair.

In all cases the spine must be straight to allow the flow of air, blood, and lymph throughout the body.

The head should rest with balance atop the spine, like a ball balanced at the end of a stick.

Good posture takes a lot of practice. Pain in the knees, back, shoulders, etc., often occurs in the beginning. The practitioner must develop the right muscles and flexibility, which takes effort.

Aching joints are never a real obstacle to deep meditation. The real problem is the mind. People will pay money to sit for two hours at a show, or to stand in line for a new gadget, and at the end, their body has some soreness. What occurs is their attention is not upon the pain, so it is not a problem. It all just comes down to how much you want to progress in these practices. Willpower and tenacity are needed (mostly in the beginning).

Those who have a serious injury to their body should not partake in a posture that would re-injure it. However, just recall how many movies you have watched while your leg or foot falls asleep, while your body aches, and you do not realize until the end of the movie.

Every time the body moves, the mind is shaken up, thus preventing deeper meditation.

When meditation is deep, the body is forgotten.

On the way, the body will have an itch, the body will have a pain, the body will complain. So? Just relax and introvert your attention with buoyant affection…

Once the practitioner has settled into their posture, he or she does well to not move. Every move is a setback in this regard.

As the posture is taken, the mind immediately looks for sensations to grasp upon. The mind is like a greedy miser that always wants to collect sensations.

Foundational practices ask the practitioner to gaze at an object, like a religious figure or symbol, or a candle flame. This gives something for the mind to grasp upon, and to train the attentional qualities of the mind. This object is a ‘sign’ and its goal is tranquility (shamata).

The practitioner, in such cases, must experience the qualities of the object of concentration, without using any thought or concept.

Direct contact, without any artifice or conditioning factor, is necessary.

Whenever a distraction appears, the practitioner can make a note about the type of distraction that occurred, and then return to the practice.

Every return to the practice after a distraction tends to place the practitioner in a more concentrated state of mind so long as the body has not moved.

Although helpful for developing initial concentration, the ‘labeling’ technique is extremely limiting for deep insights. The real problem occurs when the meditator refuses to abandon it for deeper waters. We only learn to swim when we remove the flotation device. We must go deep into the waters, yet every ‘noting’ or ‘labeling’ is a return to the surface, again and again.

The practitioner should close their eyes to engage the inner senses.

Keeping the eyes open for a short period can be helpful to steady the coarser levels of the mind, yet, it prevents the development of attention within the subtler levels of mind.

Although it may sound unbelievable, the body will produce itches and pain which are nothing more than somatizations of the agitated mind.

If the itch is not itched, it disappears. No itch lasts forever. The practitioner relaxes and discovers the nature of the sensation of the itch. The itch dissolves if the practitioner can observe it integrally, without the struggle of opposites. If the practitioner fails to observe it, instead he or she avoids it, tries to suppress it, this struggle in fact reinforces the itch.

Alternatively, practitioner relaxes and draws the attention inward, totally away from the sense organs. Certainly, an itch or pain cannot exist if there is no one to pay any attention to it.

This is not a question of concepts, but of actual methods of paying attention. Attention is a quality which one can and must become a skillful at using.

Can you place your attention inwardly? Can you drop your interest in all external sensations and maintain attention on the flow of inner content?

Some students need more training in foundational exercises.

Some students become stagnant because they never leave the foundational exercises.

Some students become stagnant because they mistake profound concentration for basic relaxation, some concentration, and a dull mind. Thus, believing that they have achieved everything, they become lazy as well as dull.

Deep meditation is not dull. It is as sharp and brilliant as Manjurshi’s crimson sword.

Some students remain stagnant because they ‘space out’ when attempting to meditate.

The instant the eyes close, there is a great danger to begin dreaming and falling deeply unconscious.

It is a depressing form of self-deception to say that one is meditating when in fact all that has occurred is a nap.

To solve the problem of immediately falling into dreams, the practitioner can begin with foundational exercises, perhaps keeping the eyes partly open, to develop a basic concentration. Then, once a foundation is established, the practitioner may shift their attention exclusively inside.

A compromise between an external object of concentration and internal object of concentration is paying attention to the breath. The breath is a physical manifestation of the flow of vital energy or prana. The prana has roots with very subtle states of mind.

The practitioner can, at any time, return to the breath as a method of concentration and stabilization. There are many useful variations of this. One may count the inhalations and exhalations. One may notice the sensations of air going through the nose and lungs. One may notice how some breaths are long, some are short. One may notice that the breath becomes slower and deeper in relationship to one’s level of concentration.

All of this is noted well in the Philokalia and the Pali cannon.

These techniques are good, yet, none of them will give profound wisdom into the nature of your own Being.

Meditation is impossible without concentration. Nevertheless, concentration alone does not automatically lead to wisdom or insight.

To abandon all ‘methods’ of concentration is the expedient method to the deepest levels of concentration.

Concentration on an ‘object’ is a good foundational exercise. Yet, since all objects are conceptually designated, the only authentic concentration is of a non-exclusionary form.

In the expedient method, shamata without a sign, the pathway to deeper concentration is the direct recognition of, and liberation from, the obstacles of concentration.

The obstacles of concentration are the afflictions, or emotional obscurations. This can also be called: negative emotions, skandhas, passions, unconscious activity, automatic thoughts, etc.

In the superior and expedient method, the concentration itself does not return from anything and it never goes away.

The practitioner draws all their attention within.

The practitioner pays attention to the appearance of their own mind.

Every appearance of the mind is like a mirage. When the attention arrives within the appearance, the appearance dissolves.

The practitioner experiences the appearances as they condense from and dissolve into empty space.

The empty space is awareness itself. Empty, luminous, spontaneous.

The practitioner notices an emotion – this is an appearance of the mind. It is like a bird which has flown into the view of someone looking at the sky.

The practitioner serenely attends to the emotion. Its nature, its qualia, its process, its flow, its coming and going, are all seen with unwavering attention. It is instantaneous…

What then occurs? Let us see…

No emotion remains as it is, because its own process is impacted by the very paying attention or not paying attention to it.

The practitioner that feels pulled in, hypnotized, seduced, by the emotion, is losing concentration.

The process of losing concentration is also an experience which can be serenely experienced to become attentive within.

“The mind is the great slayer of the real.” The consciousness is the slayer of the slayer.

When the consciousness misapprehends mental content as being a substantially real self, the result is identification and sleep.

The consciousness, that which possesses concentration, becomes identified with mental activity. The consciousness has a real nature, but that real nature is the not the mind.

The actions which take place within the state of identification builds the ego through many lifetimes.

That which is identified is called ‘I,’ ‘me,’ and ‘myself.’

The practitioner goes directly into serenely observing the process of the appearances of the mind.

The appearances must be observed without identification, but this is not enough. The origin and process of the appearances must be understood.

No movie can be understood in a single frame, one must watch it as it moves. Watch the mind: what is the actual, factual content.

Any police officer must write a report on all official duties. Brother and sister, you must be able to report all the activities of your mind, like a sentry on guard in war.

Fanciful students pretend to meditate but they just get lost in ‘good vibes’ and some vague incoherence. Often, they can only meditate in a group after a teacher has made them feel good about themselves. They are lazy, and dull, and therefore, remain stuck in the same suffering as yesterday. They always complain but do not want to be serious.

The best time to meditate is when you are the most miserable. People who only meditate when they already feel good are just playing games with their emotions.

Don’t be lazy, and don’t lie to yourself about the meditation. You must know the facts. What is happening when you meditate?

A good teacher can help you with this, yet, what can be superior is a journal. In this way, you record what themes are causing you trouble: what thoughts, what emotions, did you get identified with. Why, exactly, did you not do well in your meditation? And, if it went well, what arose, what occurred?

Soon, the skill will come automatically without needing to externally write it down. Then, you can perform an ‘inner review’ of your mediation at the end of every meditation.

When the student can meditate for 30, 45, and 60 minutes without forgetting they are practicing, this indicates progress. Nevertheless, the student is advised to start with only five to 15-minute intervals, perhaps three times each, instead of one longer session.

When the student spends more time in concentration, by not identified with anything arriving in the space of the attention, the type of obstacles that appear shift from negative emotions and thought, to something subtler.

This point is important. Many students, experiencing the lack of negative emotions, and the mind relatively free of thoughts, believe they have achieved a profound state of concentration. Actually they have only achieved one of many intermediate stages concentration.

Indeed, the experience of this level of concentration is very pleasant. Few in the world know how to dispel their negative mental states and experience — even if it is only temporarily — to experience a state of mind which is very pleasant and relaxed, without the use of intoxicants.

How much better this world would be, if instead of a beer or glass of wine, men and women would learn how to relax and achieve an intermediate state of concentration?

The problem is, too many superficial students and charlatan teachers know nothing about real meditation. It is a grave mistake to think that this state of concentration has anything to do with transcendent wisdom, or progressing towards the elimination of the ego (kleshas, skandhas, etc.).

The point of meditation is not to feel good, yet we should not avoid the pleasantness or blissful experience either.

The point of meditation is to gain direct experience of our reality, and the reality of existence.

Therefore, the point of concentration is to empower the imaginative and insightful qualities of the consciousness.

Only the consciousness, never the mind or intellect, can produce new action, new comprehensions, new understandings.

Unfortunately, these receptive qualities (imagination and insight) are either trapped and misused by the ego, or dormant and mostly unused.

Some aspect of imagination is always being used. Even to look at an external object requires imagination to ‘make sense’ of it. When we see a coiled rope in the shadows, perhaps we react as if it is a snake. This is the imagination at work. Yet, if we correctly apprehend that it is indeed a rope, it was still imagination that did it.

The rope-snake quandary plays out in the shadows of our mind, moment by moment.

The first level of observing the mind is to stabilize concentration within the appearances of the mind. Yet, the appearances are contingent upon the nature of its producer, which is the imagination itself.

How do we know if the imagination is producing appearances in accordance with the actual ‘state of affairs’ of our mental processes?

Nothing about the appearances of the mind is the ultimate truth. Yet, we still need to work with the fact that such appearances are occurring. We need to acknowledge what is going on even if we also know that such appearances are ultimately empty of true existence.

By not becoming identified with any of the appearances, we reach an intermediate level of concentration. Then, it may appear as if the mind is silent.

However, what is occurring is not actual silence, but the appearance or unconscious imagining of silence.

A blank canvas is still a canvas. We must dissolve the canvas into space itself.

When first starting a meditation session, the mind is active in the ‘positive’ sense: appearances of thoughts and emotions torment the mind and tempt the practitioner into daydreams.

Later, the mind is active in the ‘negative’ sense: the appearance of silence, which is the temptation of sweetness. This second type of appearance is very pleasant compared to the bitterness of the coarsely agitated mind.

The dullness, although subtle, allows the imagination to ‘make sense’ of the experience as if the mind were totally silent. This is a false silence, a belief the student is often desperate to be attached to. This is no different than seeing a rope (dullness) as a snake (profound meditation).

There are always qualities to experience. Thought is not needed to recognize qualities. Look a sunset in silence. Thought is entirely too superficial and ineffectual. The student must not inquire with thought, yet, the student must separate the wheat from the chaff.

That which moves, and that which is still. What is moving? What is still? What is it that apprehends this? Examine closely.

The student instantaneously discovers the subtle forms of laziness which inhibit the examination of the qualities.

Remember, sister and brother: that which is instantaneous is also effortless. Nevertheless: every instant is contingent upon causes and conditions.

Students which do not discover the false silence can be stuck for decades without progressing towards more profound levels of mediation.

The limit of the mind is difficult to cross.

Pranayama moves the vital energies which helps support equilibrium.

There is the power of the sun within the generative organs. There is consciousness in the sexual energy. Those who ignore this are terribly ignorant.

Passionate types, adulterers, masturbators, and unethical people are like a house without electricity. The light will never go on until the circuit is maintained.

Every orgasm is like a great explosion of an electrical voltage transformer. Certainly, some type of temporary experience occurs, related to the consciousness, which the ignorant one wants to repeat continually. Yet, they destroy their own transformer (physical body) until it cannot maintain any energy (impotence).

People mistake the dullness experienced after orgasm as contentment. In truth, this temporary anesthetization later produces a chaotic, fearful, dull, anxious, depressed and confused state of mind.

Vivekananda’s Raja Yoga is an excellent book. He speaks of ojas extensively. Ojas is spiritual force. It is the nectar of the soul. It arrives from the basis, which is the sexual energy. To produce ojas, chastity is required.

Those who can separate the wheat from the chaff liberate the consciousness.

A special magnetic environment gives birth to light. The magnetic environment is produced through the fluidic nature of the sexual hormones, and cerebrospinal fluid. When the energy moves, sparks of light flash before the student’s experience.

The most powerful method to burst through the obstacle of superficial silence is to directly employ imagination within the state of intermediate concentration.

Nevertheless, without the creative-electrical potential within the subtle currents of energy of our very precious human body, imagination remains feeble and impotent.

Every emission of sexual energy deprives and disturbs the subtle currents. Fornicators, passionate types, unethical people, masturbators, adulterers, liars, deceivers, etc., lose their potency for creative acts, for new ideas, for experiencing vividly, and for awakening their consciousness. Of this type who are nevertheless successful, they do so before 40 (before creative-sexual depletion), and then they just repeat themselves for the remainder of their life (with small variations), because they always throw away their creative potential in every sexual emission of energy. They are incapable of anything truly new emerging from the consciousness.

The one who awakens consciousness constantly sparkles anew. Their mind is revolutionized with the creative sexual energy. They are unmistakable.

Profound meditation needs the subtle currents of energy. The ‘heart’ must control the currents of energy which are pooled in the sex. The most powerful energy is sexual. The ‘heart’ separates the wheat from the chaff, and then, the inner eyes see.

Love is manifested when certain very subtle currents of energy are available in the energy channels of the body.

The ‘drop’ or ‘atom’ of love in the heart then can resonate with the cosmic currents.

The mind is escaped like a vile cage of bitter suffering. When combined with insight, the consciousness is illuminated in the void.

Instinctual terror must be overcome to withstand the terrible hurricane of the void.

The consciousness becomes lost in the harmonic waves of geometric forms.

“Form is voidness; voidness is form.” Form-voidness is voidness-form.

The experience of the illuminated void allows the student to have firm conviction in life.

Nevertheless, it is not correct to believe that just because the consciousness has experienced the illuminated void, that one shall experience this state when the physical body expires.

Only when the ego is dead will the consciousness stop suffering. Only when the psychological aggregates are destroyed will suffering cease. Only when karma is exhausted will conditions change.

After one experience, people don robes and tell the world to follow them. They deify their ego and naïve people follow them. Much suffering occurs.

The one that experiences the void is not the aggregates. The aggregates will continue so long as the karma has not been extinguished.

The karmic aggregates (the ego) must be eliminated for true progress on the path. The aggregates, however, continue to make more karma.

Only wisdom, wise vision, can produce action which unmakes the aggregates.

Wisdom occurs through meditation.

It is stated that very far beyond the illuminated void is shunyata as a state of being.

Resting in the space of alaya-vijnana, psychology must be abandoned for the illuminated void. Going far beyond, the ontological reality of shunyata is obtained. However, ultimate telesis still is yet further…

Only those who have achieved innumerable radical annihilations can experience Dharmakaya as their ontological reality.

The Paramarthasattayas are transparent waves which do not have a single atom of difference between Being and Not-Being. That is Tality, the ultimate Telesis.

Meditation is a beautiful science and art of the human being.

Do not sell yourself short. Joyfully discover your true nature and practice always, every day.