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Meditation
Meditation
Meditation is the central practice of spiritual development. Through meditation, the consciousness awakens and develops.
To commence with the study of the technique of meditation is to enter into the antechamber of the divine peace that surpasses all knowledge. - Samael Aun Weor, The Revolution of the Dialectic
There is abundant information in the Gnostic Tradition about the precise science of meditation.
Books:
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And these articles:
16: Prajna, the Wisdom of Emptiness
Prajna is the sixth paramita. The term Prajna is from the Sanskrit and is composed of two Sanskrit terms: "Pra" which refers to "that which is before," and "jna" which refers to knowledge. The compound of these terms then means "before knowledge," "root knowledge," "profound knowledge." It is often translated as "perfect knowledge, intuitive wisdom, understanding, intelligence, discrimination or judgment." When we compare this with the Initiatic Kabbalah, we see that Prajna refers to both Binah, which is Hebrew for "intelligence," and Chokmah, which is Hebrew for "wisdom." Prajna is the intelligence of the Logos, a kind of knowledge or understanding that is beyond the mind, beyond the intellect. One of the ancient schools of Buddhism had a teacher named Chandrakirti who was a great explainer of the doctrine of the Buddha, and he wrote a text that is called the Madhyamakavatara. In this...
1: Vigilance
Interdependence All phenomena of nature and all objects are found intimately and organically joined together, internally dependent upon each other and mutually conditioning each other. Indeed, no phenomena of nature can be integrally comprehended if we consider it isolated. Everything is in incessant movement. Everything changes; nothing is quiet. - Samael Aun Weor, Endocrinology and Criminology We can see that life consists of series of events, a series of factors. When we talk about Interdependence what we are describing is the relationship between events or the relationship between states. Basically this word means that no one thing exists without another. Everything is dependent on causes; nothing exists independent of everything else. A philosopher said that “No man is an island” and it perfectly expresses the understanding of...
2: Calm Abiding
Only the light of Consciousness, directed not from different angles, but fully focused and centered upon ourselves, can put an end to the contrasts, to the psychological contradictions. Only thus can we establish within ourselves true inner equilibrium. - Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion Attention means "directed awareness." We use this term Vigilance which implies a very active, very focused form of attention; like a watchman, like a soldier in time of war. A vigilant person cannot pause, cannot stop, cannot rest. Meditation depends upon that effort. There cannot be meditation if there is no vigilance. So it can be understood why there are practitioners of meditation who practice for 10 or 15 years and do not get anywhere. It is precisely because they are not learning how to be vigilant all day long. The truth is, meditation never stops. Practically speaking, there...
3: Concentration
Live from instant to instant, from moment to moment, without the painful weight of the past, without worrying about the future. Relax the mind. Empty it of all thoughts, desires, passions, etc. Surrender to your profound interior God; completely forget all worldliness. - Samael Aun Weor We have been talking about some of the preliminary steps that are required for any meditator. These steps start out first and foremost and foundational with the development of powerful attention. We have to learn to control our attention, how we pay attention. In Gnosis we call this Self-observation and Self-remembering. Any individual who is trying to learn how to meditate but is not learning how to Self-observe at all times of the day and night will spend years being frustrated. Meditation is only deeper Self-observation. That is really all it is. It is deeper, it is more profound, it is more focused. Without Self-observation there can be no meditation. There can...
4: Mental Discipline
How to Deepen Concentration Buddhist Illumination is never achieved by developing mental power nor by deifying reasoning. On the contrary, it is attained by breaking any ties which attach us to the mind. - Samael Aun Weor, The Doomed Aryan Race It is very important that every meditator understands very well the process and the development of real concentration. Without it, we cannot have a real meditation practice. There is a quote from a very famous Tibetan Lama who said this about a 100 years ago. He said, Though you may pretend you are doing a practice, you are not practicing at all if you do not know what is required to achieve single pointed concentration. You must definitely achieve single pointed concentration with two features: great clarity together with some stability, and tight image retention. - Pabongka Rinpoche, Liberation in the Palm of...
5: Vipashyana and Clairvoyance
The senses of external perception can only reach a fraction of what is perceivable. - Samael Aun Weor Many people seek to learn to meditate to have some kind of ecstatic experiences or to become better than other people - or to seek out some kind of sensation that we do not get from life normally. Many people approach meditation with these goals in mind and naturally they become frustrated. When one is seeking to have a need filled through sensation, one will always be disappointed. The reason for this is that sensation is subject to all the laws of nature. One of those primary laws is called "life and death." Every sensation is a vibration of energy that is born, it arises, and then it dies. You hear the sound of someone's voice. There is birth and death in that vibration. The sound hits you and there is a birth, there is the sensation of that sound, and then the sound stops, it dies, it goes away. That is all merely sensation. But upon receipt of...
6: Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition
Questions from the Previous Lecture Question: With trying to imagine the image of the apple and holding on to that... What happens to me is that I get glimpses of it over and over. Answer: You are doing it. That is it. You simply continue and keep returning to building the image in that space. That is why meditators use tangkas (Tibetan paintings; see example on right). The reason those were painted, all those fantastic complicated images, was to help the meditator develop visualization. It was not to put God into a form. So beginning monks will learn first how to meditate to visualize something simple like an apple or a rock, or just a simple image of the Buddha. And they will start with one part of the body, the eyes, the mouth, or the hand and they will work to...
7: The Foundation
Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes? And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder. - Matthew 21:42-44 When we read the scriptures of many religions we hear about the philosophical stone, Mercury, the rock. In the Gospels, Jesus talks about the rock (Simon Peter: Cephas Patar, the rock) upon which the temple must be built. This is the foundation stone which the builders reject; but which must be the cornerstone or the primary support of the Temple. These are Masonic and Kabbalistic terms. The Gospels of Jesus are Kabbalistic. They relate to the Mysteries of Alchemy, to the Mysteries of Kabbalah, which are not understood at all by contemporary religion. These elements were thrown out a long, long time ago. Without an understanding of Alchemy and...
8: The Technique of Meditation
The technique of meditation permits us to arrive at the heights of illumination. We should distinguish between a mind that is still and a mind that is stilled by force. We should distinguish between a mind that is in silence and a mind that is violently silenced. When the mind is stilled by force, it is really not still. It is gagged by violence and in the deeper levels of understanding there exists an entire tempest. When the mind is violently silenced, it is really not in silence. Deep within, it clamors, shouts, and despairs. It is necessary to put an end to modifications of the thinking system during meditation. When the thinking system remains under our control, illumination comes to us spontaneously. Mental control permits us to destroy the shackles created by the mind. To achieve the stillness and silence of the mind, it is necessary to know how to live from instant to instant, to know how to take advantage of each moment, to not live the...
How to Know the I (Part Two)
In our previous lecture, we discussed the purpose of these studies of Gnosticism or Gnosis. This is precisely the necessity to come to know ourselves. The self-knowledge that we seek to acquire is not theoretical or based in beliefs but is instead something experiential, something we have to know from our experience, directly. In the same way that we experience anything in life, the nature of the investigation that we conduct in ourselves, or what we call the "I", has to be approached in a very scientific manner. It cannot be approached effectively based merely on theories or dogma. A theory or belief always remains simply as that; a mere theory cannot change anything. We seek to know ourselves in order to create a better life, in order to change our experience and become better people and to help others become better. We seek true knowledge; we seek to know reality in order to uncover the causes of suffering and to change those causes for causes that produce happiness,...
Introduction to Gnostic Meditation
When the esoterist submerges himself into meditation, what he seeks is information. - Samael Aun Weor Prelude This course is a very short introduction to basic concepts and practices that exist within the Gnostic doctrine. There are hundreds of meditation techniques within the Gnostic tradition; those presented here are but a handful of the easiest ones, and are organized to give a mere taste of the practical use of the teachings. This is by no means an "authoritative" or "ultimate" approach; the needs of students are too diverse and multi-faceted for any course such as this to comprehensively address. If you find that this course is not satisfactory, please refer to the following books, which were source materials used in the creation of this course, and as such may more directly fulfill your needs. Revolutionary Psychology
Meditation
Intellectual information is not a living experience. Erudition is not experimentation. Essays, tests, demonstrations, that are exclusively tridimensional, are not unitotal, nor integral. A faculty superior to the mind has to exist that must be independent from the intellect, capable of granting us knowledge and direct experience of any phenomenon. Opinions, concepts, theories, hypotheses, do not signify verification, experimentation, and complete consciousness of this or that phenomena. Only when we liberate ourselves from the mind can we have the living experience of the Truth, of that which is the Reality, or of that which is found behind any phenomenon in a potential state. Mind exists in everything. The seven cosmos, the world, the moons, the suns, are nothing but crystallized and condensed mental substances. The mind is also matter, although more rarefied. Mental substances exist in the mineral, plant, animal, and human kingdoms. The unique...
Meditation: The Science of Awakening
Meditation is an open doorway within the human being, that opens the way to personal knowledge of any phenomenon in nature. Through the scientific and practical technique of meditation, one no longer needs to believe in anything: one can know. Physical masses exist that are above and below all of the limits of external sensory perceptions. Those masses are invisible. We can perceive them only with clairvoyance [the ability of the consciousness to see other matter, like in our imagination or dreams]. Matter is condensed energy. When its vibration is very slow, its mass is beneath the limits of external sensorial perceptions. When its vibratory movement is very fast, then the mass is above the limits of external sensory perceptions. With the telescope, we can only see worlds whose degree of vibration is active within the limits of external sensory perception. Above and below the limits of...
Profound Meditation
Question: Master Samael, what do you want to express when you say the phrase “in order to eliminate the ego it is necessary for the water to boil at 100 degrees?” Samael Aun Weor: Well… what happens is that this matter about the elimination of egos is not a matter of intellectual coldness. Obviously, if the water does not boil at 100 degrees, one does not cook what one must cook; that is, one does not disintegrate what is necessary to disintegrate… Likewise, if we do not undergo serious emotional crises, one does not crystallize what one must crystallize, and one does not eliminate what is necessary to eliminate… It is necessary to disintegrate psychic aggregates, and once they are eliminated, some faculty, some virtue, some psychic power crystallizes in replacement of each of them. When we say soul, it must be understood that we refer to a set of forces, powers, virtues, etc. For example, if one disintegrates the defect of lust, then the virtue of chastity crystallizes within us. If we...
Right Mindfulness
This is a transcription of the audio lecture Right Mindfulness, which you can download for free. Mindfulness is taught in every great religion, for mindfulness is the very basis of spiritual understanding. Without mindfulness, there can be no "religion" - re-union with the divine. Mindfulness is the activity of our very essence. When we understand what mindfulness is, then we understand what it is we are trying to awaken. What is right mindfulness? Here a bhikkhu abides contemplating the body as a body, ardent, fully aware and mindful, having put away covetousness and grief for the world. He abides contemplating feelings as feelings, ardent ... He abides contemplating consciousness as consciousness, ardent ... He abides contemplating mental objects as mental objects, ardent, fully aware and mindful, having put away covetousness and grief...
Stages of Meditative Concentration
The Nine Stages of Calm Abiding Nowhere does it say anything else but this: if you hope to develop Insight (vipashyana: comprehension), the training of wisdom, you must find Quietude (shamatha / dhyana), that of concentration. - Tsong Khapa The following information is intended to provide a very practical and simplified outline of an ancient and essential teaching on the development of meditative concentration, also called Dhyana or Shamatha. This teaching outlines nine basic states of consciousness which equate to nine qualities of concentrated attention. Anyone can learn how to improve their own meditation practice by comparing their own experience with the states described here. Moving from one state to a superior one is achieved by overcoming the obstacles present at each stage. This is precisely the value of this teaching: it allows us to immediately discover how our practice is developing and what we need to do to advance it. We ...
The Heart of Wisdom Sutra
It is said there are eighty-four thousand collections of discourses, which the Buddha taught to accord with the diverse mental dispositions and spiritual inclinations of sentient beings. The Perfection of Wisdom literature, the Prajnaparamita, is the principal genre among them. It is part of the Sanskrit Buddhist tradition and includes the Heart Sutra, also called the Heart of Wisdom Sutra... Emphasizing the Mahayana ideal of the bodhisattva who aspires to liberate all beings, these Perfection of Wisdom sutras flourished in many countries, including China - from where they were brought to Japan, Korea, and Vietnam - and Tibet, from where they were transmitted to Mongolia, to the vast expanse of the trans-Himalayan region, and to areas within the Russian federation. In the...
The Need to Change Our Way of Thinking
First of all, it is necessary to know the laws of the Gnostic Esoteric Work, if we indeed want a radical and conscientious change. In the name of truth we will state that if there is any place where we should begin to work on ourselves, it has to be in relation to our mind and sentiments. It would be absurd to begin working with the motor center, for example, which as you already know is related to the habits, customs and actions of such an organ or center; obviously this would be like beginning with absurd fakirism. Incidentally, when we speak of fakirs, there are fakirs in India who raise an arm vertically for example, and maintain it that way for an indefinite period of time until it becomes rigid. There are others who remain in the same place for twenty or thirty years until they become statues and after all this, just what is gained by these fakirs? Obviously, they develop some willpower. We cannot think however that they create the Body of Conscious Will (Causal Body), definitely...
The Revolution of Meditation
The technique of meditation permits us to arrive at the heights of illumination and the Revolution of the Dialectic. We must distinguish between a mind that is still and a mind that is stilled by force. When the mind is stilled by force, it is really not still. It is gagged by violence and in the deeper levels of understanding there exists an entire tempest. When the mind is violently silenced, it is really not in silence. Deep within, it clamours, it shouts, it is in despair. It is necessary to put an end to the modifications of the thinking system during meditation. When the thinking system remains under our control, illumination comes to us spontaneously. Mental control permits us to destroy the shackles created by the mind. To achieve the stillness and silence of the mind, it is necessary to know how to live from instant to instant, to know how to take advantage of each moment, to not live the moment in doses. Take everything from each moment bec...
The Science of Meditation
We are going to talk about the science of meditation. But first we should prepare ourselves in a positive manner in order to receive this type of superior teaching to take advantage of time. This is the moment for us to understand the need of giving more opportunity to our consciousness. Normally we live on different levels of our interior temple. There are people who always live in the lower levels; those are the ones that are concentrated exclusively in instinct and fornication, the fourth and fifth levels (instinctive and sexual centers, respectively), levels that have been used in a negative way. Others live on the third level (motor center) and never leave it; they always move following the patterns of predetermined customs, along the line of certain habits. They never ch...
