Theos-Talk Archives (February 2000 Message tt00001)

A Number of excellent contributions have recently appeared that
involved the subject of meditation.

Perhaps the following might prove to be of use.


As to Meditation:  Some thoughts and ideas

	------------------------------

WY IS LITTLE KNOWN ABOUT MEDITATION ?

As in most things, concerning which there seems to be little
general knowledge, we ought to seek for the definitions that are
around us.  Theosophy has a specific definition, as the
meditation technique is one that a student uses to learn about
himself and nature.

Theosophy considers every human being is a Soul (mind), and is an
"Eternal Pilgrim."  The mind principle (called Manas ) is that
which stores the thoughts of all our lives.  The total quantity
of life-thoughts makes the stream of our life's meditation --  or
that upon which our heart is set.  We do not often have this as a
precise concept, but it can be discovered.  It is not outside of
us, but an interior attitude.  Our mind links our embodied
consciousness (mind) to the inner Spiritual Root of our nature.
In turn, this places us in a position that we can choose to
activate with the Spiritual Principle of the Universe a portion
of which ( a "ray," or, "spark") is in us and forms the root-base
of our existence and gives us a sense of permanence and of
purpose in our existence.

With each one of us is associated a measure of Karma -- the fruit
of our choices and motives for decisions made in earlier lives.
This manifests in our life as character and tendency, as interest
and talent or their lack.  We also ought to include in this our
interest in "meditation."  Why do we seek to understand and use
it?  We tend to place all these things together and call it "our
nature."  But, we can also see that "our nature" reaches out to
other "natures" and we meet with such friends or enemies in this
life that we may have established in earlier ones.  One cannot
understand or practice meditation without this as a consideration
that interlinks us all.

Mme. Blavatsky says in THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY (p. 10):

Meditation ..."is silent and unuttered prayer, or, as Plato
expressed it, "the ardent turning of the soul towards the
divine…"	This divine is the Higher Self (Atma/Buddhi) or the
divine Spirit Wisdom within each of us.

"Occultism requires "physical, mental, moral and spiritual"
development to run on parallel lines...the prime factor in the
guidance of thought is the Will...The first requisite for it is
thorough purity of heart...A cultivation of the feeling of
unselfish philanthropy is the path that has to be traversed for
that purpose.  For it is that alone which will lead to Universal
Love, the realization of which constitutes the progress towards
deliverance from the chains forged by Maya around the Ego...An
Adept is intensely active and thus able to control the elemental
forces, " wrote Damodar K. Mavlankar in an article titled:
CONTEMPLATION  ["THEOSOPHIST Magazine," Vol. 5, p.  112  Feb.
1884.]

There are two possible objectives to Meditation.

One, is directed at enhancing the Personality in its selfish
acquisition of "powers."  it is selfish, and it isolates.  It
concentrates one's effort on personal results -- if persisted in,
it will produce some limited results and, at death, it leaves
nothing for Devachanic meditation.  Anything that "isolates"
is selfish and harmful to the permanent Self, which is the true
immortal aspirant and devotee.

The other is that which is aimed at understanding the Inner
HIGHER SELF and the potential that it can make available for
practical, universal and righteous action.  This kind of
meditation leads to compassion and a real effective care for
others.  It views us as one among many.  It also considers that
as an "immortal" Mind/Soul we have innately to ourselves a
mission that needs the joint cooperative assistance of others to
achieve.  We can only reach "Perfection," or the "Goal"
envisaged, by joint work.  The whole of humanity, and all Nature
is engaged in this.  "A chela's meditation should constitute the
"reasoning from the known to the unknown...Occultism does not
depend upon one method, but employs both the deductive and the
inductive.  The student must first learn the general axioms...'To
believe without knowing is weakness; to believe because one
knows, is power.' "   D. K. Mavlankar [idem.].


HOW CAN MEDITATION BE USED AND DEVELOPED ?

In considering the development of the meditative faculty we need
first to learn and then seek those applications which can be made
compassionate generously and practically.  Our perception grows
deeper and more universal as we are able to widen our
effectiveness in helping others to grow themselves.  "For others'
sake  ... " is a good phrase always to keep always in mind.  We
grow best when we give away.  But we have to give away with
discrimination and that takes sound preliminary learning.  There
is the accumulation of facts, then their arrangement in logical
relationships, and, finally, the construction in our own minds of
the structure of a universal verity to which we will always be
able to refer as a basis for understanding what appears to be
"new" concepts.


PRACTICE AND MEANING OF MEDITATION.

As to the meaning and practice of meditation:  It should never be
conspicuous, or spoken about.  And that is because it is the
normal extension of one's study of universal principles.
Everyone knows about study.  Everyone has devoted a long time to
actual study and meditation in school life. To study, we place
"facts" (or data) in our minds -- as "memory."  To meditate one
selects from among our memories a group or an area of study.  The
memories are evoked and then compared with such basic facts as we
are already sure of.  Therefore, every time that one studied a
subject, or wrote an article, or an important letter,  or
prepared for a talk the meditative aspect of study was invoked.

Even when one is not studying,  but only doing one's work, and
happen to think about some subject that is kept "in the back of
the mind," it is evidence of meditation being pursuing as an
ongoing process.  If one reflects on this then the process was:
selection, gathering information, adjusting data so that a
cohesive picture grew, identifying areas that were uncertain, and
finally looking for analogous or similar conditions.  Anything
new has to be adjusted so that it is seen to agree with basic
information already proved to ones' self.  If in the course of
meditation one is confronted with some fact that is not congruent
with already proven verities, this necessitates a most careful
review of all our earlier built conclusions.  If we should
arbitrarily accept anything without this checking and verifying
process we might be increasing an area of error in our thinking.


THE UNIVERSE IS COHESIVE AND COOPERATIVE.

Theosophy shows how the whole Universe is integrated and has a
profound cohesive and logical meaning.  Everything fits together,
and invites our scrutiny and testing.  There are no secrets as
such, nor any dogmas or beliefs that we should adopt without
understanding.  Nothing will ever be expected of us which we
cannot understand and would do willingly once we are sure of the
intention, methods and results.

So our lives are part of the Universal Life, and as we seek to
know it better, we delve deeper into our own being, trying to
find out what we are and what are the powers of our mind and our
own Spiritual Self, that we can use in the "here and now.".


VIRTUES:  BROTHERHOOD, COMPASSION, ALTRUISM.

We should discover that this leads to friendliness, brotherhood,
compassion and altruism.  And, those should be practiced with
discrimination and care for others all the time.   The interior
"WE" is really the HIGHER SELF.  It is the Lower self, the Lower
mind and the Personality (which have recognized the existence of
the HIGHER SELF), that are now disciplining themselves so that
the HIGHER SELF may "come through" with greater ease.
CONSCIOUSNESS is ONE.  It as the one attribute of the Higher
Self.  It, alone is able to pierce up and down the 7 planes of
being and retains a clear memory of experiences on each plane.
Our memories on this plane are fragmentary, until by effort we
learn to unify them.  The practice of "attention" does this, but,
it has to be attentive to grasping the operations of the One Law
and impersonal in our application of that to our personal selves.


MEDITATION and THE MONAD  (Atma-Buddhi-Manas)

It is the process of digesting, assimilation and thinking about
the matter.  By this method, one is inviting the discriminating
and Wise principle -- Buddhi --  to work actively as the
"intuition," and for insights to appear to help -- they come from
within, they are the "points of light" that come from the Higher
Self working through the lower Self (which has to make itself
"porous" to them) and then our lives become illumined by the
TRUE, and become friendly to all others, become just and
universal.

MEDITATION is serious and concentrated thought.  It is not a
ritual, or a discipline that involves anything of the physical or
the psychic.  It should not be advertised or made obvious to
others, nor should it make life more difficult.  It is
essentially a search for TRUTH.  It is a quiet and unobtrusive
mind exercise.  It is something that requires that we be fully
awake and totally concentrated in the waking state -- no
"blanking of the mind", and it is to be entirely self-controlled
and self-generated.  It is not an exercise that can be practised
with others, even when there are silent moments for the reason
that it is not passivity, but a time of most active mental
effort.

We ought to draw no attention to our practice and if we should be
interrupted, accept it as a kind of test of our equanimity and
let there be no apparent reaction.  We are immortal beings  and
have all the time we need for our future advance -- so long as we
are able to include everyone else in our progress.  That is the
real key to advance - the sharing of ourselves.  We should always
make time to assist.

It does not involve trying to get at the meaning of special words
and especially without a truly correct undemanding of what they
mean and are (potentially) able to do -- whether they be
pronounced correctly or not.  That is all physical, external and
fruitless.  The real power resides in the application of the
motive as a carefully controlled and always beneficent creative
power -- in those who aspire to assist Nature this is never
personal, and is always used (only if necessary) in a harmless,
wise and compassionate way with a Mind that is determined to be a
servant and assistant to all Nature and to the least of beings
which approaches it (us) under Karma.  We should consider all
those as being, themselves, divine MONADS, and give them the
respect and attention (as our brothers) that they claim or, we
become aware that they need.

Real meditation is a mental determination to live a totally moral
and ethical life, all the time to the extent that one is able to
do that.  It is nothing extraordinary except for this one
orientation that has to come from WITHIN.  We have to assure
ourselves first of all that our learning is not self-directed at
all, but that our motive is "to better help and teach others."


THE VOICE OF THE SILENCE --  INTUITION.

THE VOICE OF THE SILENCE and its statements ought to be
considered as one of the primary practical sources of inspiration
for true Meditation.  We ought, by reading a little every day, to
become familiar with it and the explanations contained in the
footnotes there.

As said before, it is most important to remember that we are the
HIGHER SELF in our inner-most core (and everyone else is so
also).  Every being exists because of the essential and ETERNAL
MONAD that it is.  That Monad is SPIRIT and MATTER conjoined, or
ATMA/BUDDHI -- and that is interior to all without any exception.
It is the ETERNAL PILGRIM and it is the "Real You."

Every human being (and every other type of being is also at root
a Monad )  and in the past our MONAD once occupied a position
that is comparable to that which it now seems to occupy.  We only
appear to be separated at present, because we have, each, our own
individual path.  In the end (at the end of the Manvantara) all
those 'Paths' converge. So, from that point of view, it is not
useful to seek "guidance," or any "leader" who will prescribe
some ritual or formula.  Books will not be able to tell anyone
what to do, but they can offer advice.  It is too easy to be
misled.

We must remember that the Monad is an immortal.  It cannot be
"erased" as Individuality at the end of a Manvantara, for the
economy of Nature demands that all those INDIVIDUALITIES
(experienced MONADS) be employed again, in continuation of their
present "advance" at an appropriate place in a new Manvantara
which will be the Karmic child of the present one.  (see HPB
Articles
III p. 265,  ULT Edition)

Everyone has been at this business of self-improvement for
aeons -- and it does not begin for the first time in this life.
In this life we are all renewing that age-old study that was ours
in the past.  If we could recover the "memory of past lives" the
whole process of advancing would be much easier.  If we are now
considering the study of Theosophy, it is that which, if and when
applied, will make our embodied minds (the Lower Self) clearer
and porous, so that the Higher Memories may be accessed.


PATANJALI's  YOGA-SUTRAS  -- A BASIS FOR MEDITATION.

PATANJALI's  YOGA SUTRAS translated by W. Q. Judge, is most
valuable in a study of the nature and procedures of meditation --
especially the first 3 books.  It gives a clue as to what true
meditation is.  It is the attempt of the embodied mind (the Lower
Manas) to reach up to and understand the work of the Higher Manas
within.  And from there to participate in the work of the HIGHER
SELF.

As a beginning, one might at first study, frame questions, then
begin to assemble all that one has learned or has available on a
certain subject that is selected.  This assembly gives a review
of those subjects and ideas -- then one ought to put them all
together and see if one can secure a glimpse of the inner reason
and meaning for their being there [ to do this one ought to ask
the all-important question:  WHY ?  -- that takes the
practitioner to basic principles and enables a clear perception
of their inter-relation with others and thus to the CAUSES ] --
and that is MEDITATION.


Offered in the hope that this might help.

dalval@nwc.net


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