Theos-Talk Archives (August 2005 Message tt00009)

Aug 3 2005

 

Dear Friends:

 

RE: The real seership MEDITATION

 

 

This may be of some help?

 

 

As to Meditation:  

 

Some thoughts and ideas on trying to learn how to meditate

 

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

 

WHY 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.

 

 

MEDITATION IS A DAILY AND LIFE-LONG EFFORT.

 

The first consideration to employ is to consider the indwelling Monad
[Buddhi-Manas] is an immortal SPIRITUAL entity living at present in a
vesture of material flesh, blood and skin. The vesture is continually
changing, but the interior SPIRIT/SOUL is permanent and immovable. It is the
PERCEIVER.

 

Second It [the Monad] is an integral part of the eternal Universe. Its
"birth" and its "death" coincides with the birth and death of the Universe.
As such, it never "dies."

 

Third Every capacity and power inherent in the UNIVERSE resides in potency
within each Monad. But it needs to be educed and brought forward for use by
individual self-effort and assiduous practice. The Mind embodied in man's
form is the active agent for this transformation. 

 

Four These potencies and power that are universal, are invariably
cooperative and interactive as VIRTUES. [Virtues may be designated as:
charity, compassion, generosity, and a refusal to subjugate anyone for any
reason, unrevengefulness, sincerity, honesty, desirelessness, and a total
lack of lust, anger, desire for fame, or to acquire others' possessions.]

 

Five these virtues are to be understood and made the basis of our
incarnated life. This includes our thoughts and desires.

 

Six Vice and evil are distortions of the TRUE and the SPIRITUAL. An
exaggerated virtue becomes a vice. The secret lies in tolerance, self
discipline and moderation. The ideal is to be able to act for others' sake,
not selfishly in any way.

 

Seven the practical Theosophist is a "magician" who has grasped every
aspect of the operation of the Universe and understood the relation between
each Monad and all the rest, as well as of the WHOLE. This can be
accurately expressed as UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD. 

 

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. This has no physical locus in
the body. So postures, breathing and a knowledge of the psychic and
physiological "chakras" may be quite unnecessary.

 

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.]

 

"Fearlessness, sincerity, assiduity in devotion, generosity, self-restraint,
piety, and alms-givings, study, mortification, and rectitude; harmlessness,
veracity, and freedom from anger, resignation, equanimity, and not speaking
of the faults of others, universal compassion, modesty, and mildness;
patience, power, fortitude, and purity, discretion, dignity,
unrevengefulness, and freedom from conceit¯ these are the marks of him whose
virtues are of a godlike character, O son of Bharata." Thus spoke Sri
Krishna to his disciple Arjuna on the "field of battle," which is the field
of duty and of responsibility that lies within and around us all.   

 

There are two possible objectives to Meditation.

 

One, [Hatha Yoga] 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 lower Self, and distances it/us from

that permanent Higher Self, which is the true immortal aspirant 

and immortal devotee in each one of us.

 

The other [Raja Yoga] is that which is aimed at discovering and
understanding the Inner ATMA-BUDDHI by the Buddhi-Manas, or, 

The HIGHER SELF [ATMA] 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 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. Who does this? It is the Real Self, the Higher 

Mind when it works in and through the Lower (embodied) Mind 

that does this with care and deliberation.

 

 

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 has to recognized the existence of

the HIGHER SELF), that is the way in which we can invoke it, so

the HIGHER SELF may "come through" with greater ease.

 

CONSCIOUSNESS is ONE. It is the one attribute of the Higher

Self. It, alone is able to pierce up and down the 7 planes of

being, and it 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 personal life more difficult.  

 

It is in essence a search for TRUTH. It is a quiet, 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 understanding 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. Among 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 an assistant to all Nature and to the least of beings

which approaches us under Karma. We should consider all

those as being, themselves, divine MONADS, and give each of 

them the respect and attention (as our brothers) that they claim 

or, that we come aware that they need.

 

Real meditation is a mental determination to live a totally moral

and ethical life, all the time; and 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). In the past, our MONAD once occupied a position

that is comparable to that which another Monad which is apparently 

in a lower position, now seems to occupy. We only appear to be 

separated at present, because we have, each of us, 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. The TRUE Teacher is the Higher Self within.

 

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

ISIS UNVEILED AND THE VISHISTADWAITA, HPB Articles,

Vol. III, p. 265, ULT Edition, "Theosophist," Jan. 1886.)

 

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. It deals with the concept that we live in a moral Universe 

where every feeling, thought or deed carries a Karmic consequence.

 

As a beginning, one might at first study, frame questions, then

begin to assemble all that one has learned or has available on a

selected subject. This assembling is a primary need, gives a needed 

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 ? -- An answer 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.

 

Best wishes,

 

Dallas

 

=====================================

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Jerome 
Sent: Tuesday, August 02, 2005 11:55 AM
To: 

Subject: Re: The real seership

 

Our new people out here are clamoring for "how to" books on meditation, so
the A.T. has had several articles on the subject and has one comingup ---
its an article about the rccent NPR program on meditation.

 

 

jerome

 

 

On Tue, 2 Aug 2005 13:47:02 -0400 Odin writes:

 


This seems a subject generally ignored in conservative Theosophical
circles. As indicated below in her article "SPIRITUAL PROGRESS," 

HPB [HPB Articles II 112 - 114] declares a practical value inherent in
such study and applications that she recommends. Shouldn't such be
occasionally reinforced among students who desire to add practical work to
their metaphysics?
 
 
" The Theosophical Society does indeed desire to promote the spiritual
growth of every individual who comes within its influence, but its
methods are those of the ancient Rishis, its tenets those of the
oldest Esotericism; it is no dispenser of patent nostrums composed 
of violent remedies which no honest healer would dare to use.
 
In this connection we would warn all our members, and others who are
seeking spiritual knowledge, to beware of persons offering to teach
them easy methods of acquiring psychic gifts; such gifts (laukika) 
are indeed comparatively easy of acquirement by artificial means, but 
fade out as soon as the nerve-stimulus exhausts itself.
 
The real seership and adeptship which is accompanied by true psychic
development (lokothra), once reached, is never lost.
 
It appears that various societies have sprung into existence since the
foundation of the Theosophical Society, profiting by the interest the
latter has awakened in matters of psychic research, and endeavouring
to gain members by promising them easy acquirement of psychic 
powers.

 


In India we have long been familiar with the existence of hosts of
sham ascetics of all descriptions, and we fear that there is fresh
danger in this direction, here, as well as in Europe and America. We
only hope that none of our members, dazzled by brilliant promises,
will allow themselves to be taken in by self-deluded dreamers, or, 
it may be, wilful deceivers.
 
It is perfectly true that some Theosophists have been (through
nobody's fault but their own) greatly disappointed because we have
offered them no short cut to Yoga Vidya, and there are others who 
wish for practical work. And, significantly enough, those who have done
least for the Society are loudest in fault-finding. Now, why do not
these persons and all our members who are able to do so, take up the
serious study of mesmerism?
 
Mesmerism has been called the Key to the Occult Sciences, and it has
this advantage that it offers peculiar opportunities for doing good to
mankind. If in each of our branches we were able to establish a
homeopathic dispensary with the addition of mesmeric healing, such 
as has already been done with great success in Bombay, we might
contribute towards putting the science of medicine in this country 
on a sounder basis, and be the means of incalculable benefit to the
people at large.
 
There are others of our branches, besides the one at Bombay, that 
have done good work in this direction, but there is room for infinitely
more to be done than has yet been attempted. And the same is the 
case in the various other departments of the Society's work. It would be 
a good thing if the members of each branch would put their heads
together and seriously consult as to what tangible steps they can 
take to further the declared objects of the Society. In too many cases 
the members of the Theosophical Society content themselves with a 
somewhat superficial study of its books, without making any real
contribution to its active work.
 
If the Society is to be a power for good in this and other lands, it
can only bring about this result by the active co-operation of every
one of its members, and we would earnestly appeal to each of them to
consider carefully what possibilities of work are within his power,
and then to earnestly set about carrying them into effect.
 
Right thought is a good thing, but thought alone does not count for
much unless it is translated into action. There is not a single 
member in the Society who is not able to do something to aid the cause of
truth and universal brotherhood; it only depends on his own will, to
make that something an accomplished fact.
 
Above all we would reiterate the fact, that the Society is no nursery
for incipient adepts; teachers cannot be provided to go round and 
give instruction to various branches on the different subjects which come
within the Society's work of investigation; the branches must study
for themselves; books are to be had, and the knowledge there put 
forth must be practically applied by the various members thus will be
developed self-reliance, and reasoning powers.
 
We urge this strongly; for appeals have reached us that any lecturer
sent to branches must be practically versed in experimental 
psychology and clairvoyance (i.e., looking into magic mirrors and reading
the future, etc., etc.). Now we consider that such experiments should
originate amongst members themselves to be of any value in the
development of the individual or to enable him to make progress in 
his "uphill" path, and therefore earnestly recommend our members to try
for themselves." "SPIRITUAL PROGRESS," -- HPB  

[HPB Articles II 112 - 114]
 
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