1.2 Place your faith and trust in these teachings.

This book is written to assist those who have reached the first stage of enlightened understanding, i.e., psychological enlightenment, as taught in The beginner’s guide to enlightenment, and who are committed to further progress along the path. The commitment is to yourself, and yet this Implicate Technology path will also teach you meditative skills which will enhance your inherent ability to heal and transform the lives of others. One who successfully follows this path will become empowered, through the natural process of self-development, to act as a healing agent in the development and transformation of our culture.

Those committed to proceeding along this secular path to the realisation of the final stage of enlightenment should place their faith and their trust in these teachings – a faith balanced equally with faith in their own ability fully to realise enlightenment. Accept and follow the advice in this book without making the error of thinking that the individual is, or should be, free to pick and choose as a matter of course. Where choice is given in these teachings, choose freely and wisely; where choice is limited, learn to accept the limitations as being necessary to direct you towards the absolute and priceless goal – the limitless freedom of the final stage of enlightenment.

1.4 What is the nature of the final stage of enlightenment?

To answer this question it is necessary to develop two reference points, seemingly poles apart and yet in reality an eternal and transcendent unity. To comply with Implicate Technology disciplines, the words used must be part of ordinary life. To function in a fully developed, clearly articulated model of reality, the words must direct your awareness to the two primary aspects of reality whose interaction creates all which we experience.

This refers to the totality of conditioned existence, infinitely varied through time, infinitely extended through space [see The beginner’s guide to enlightenment, chapter 3]. Every thought, every action, every person, every thing, animate or inanimate, is embraced in this. There is no aspect of your life which is not part of this, shaped and influenced by the constantly changing interactions of the ten conditions.

That refers to the natural state of the unconditioned mind. That is devoid of conditioned qualities, devoid of shape or form or feature. None of the ten conditions, which limit and constrain our lives, apply to that.

Practice of the meditation techniques taught in this book will show you, through your own experience, that this and that are an indistinguishable unity. This is simply that subject to the ten conditions. This is the content, the materialised and conditioned thought process of that, the unconditioned and all-embracing universal mind.

Conditioned existence, this, and unconditioned awareness, that, form a perfect and eternal unity- a continuous and unbroken act of transcendental delight. This and that are joined in an eternal, blissful act of union – in the words of other models’ of reality: God and the world are ever one, Siva and Sakti are ever engaged in sexual union, and Samsara and Nirvana are ever two aspects of the one, inexpressible unity. From the unenlightened point of view, this can only, because of ignorance of the real nature of that, be experienced illusorily, as life’s transient joys and sorrows, pains and pleasures.

Of necessity, all fully developed models of the one reality have certain features in common. Hinduism uses Brahman to represent the immanent transcendental reality, Buddhism uses the Void and Implicate Technology uses that. Similarly, each model presents a practical path to perceiving the threefold nature of transcendental reality.

Hinduism presents a path to realising Brahman as Sat-Chit-Ananda, as Being-Consciousness-Bliss. Buddhism presents a path to realising the Void as three dualities comprising a unity: Bliss and the Void, the Clear Light and the Void, Wisdom and the Void. This teaching of Implicate Technology presents a path to realising the nature of that as untainted clarity in perceiving what is, wisdom to accept what is, and delight in what is.

Images of reality used within the context of a fully developed model of reality will control, direct and focus your ever-growing awareness – these images will help you to make sense of this as you struggle to realise that within yourself. These root images form the basis of the Implicate Technology model of reality. These images are simply a form of words to direct your attention to the true nature of what you experience, and simultaneously to help you understand the nature of the fully enlightened mind.

1.6 How is the world experienced after enlightenment?

Before a person sets out on the long inward journey to enlightenment, the world is experienced as quite ordinary. People are understood and accepted as people, places as places and things as things. Life is constrained and conditioned by your attitude to your needs and desires, duties and responsibilities.

Once you enter, knowingly or unknowingly, on the eventful path to enlightenment, all of your apparently ordinary experience changes. You develop a tendency to interpret your life in terms of richly significant hidden meanings. Everything – people, places, events, things – becomes liable to be understood by you as, in reality, something mystical and meaningful.

Prior to realising the final and absolute stage of enlightenment, you have a tendency to distinguish between ordinary people and those extraordinary people who seem to possess and understand secret knowledge. You may feel yourself to be developing sage-like qualities; or you may find yourself seeking out someone who seems to you to have such qualities. In any event, the world will frequently seem to you an extraordinary place, full of mysterious and hidden potential.

The purpose of enlightenment is to realise, through experience, final and absolute understanding of the indivisible and unified nature of perceptible reality. This is the end result of a process entirely different in nature from the mere acquisition of intellectual knowledge. Once a person has realised the final state of enlightenment, the world is again experienced as quite ordinary.

Before setting out on the path to enlightenment, this is understood as being ordinary. While on the path, this is understood to be richly significant and filled with mysterious potential. When the goal has been realised, this is understood again as being ordinary.

For one who has realised the goal of conditioned existence, this is understood through direct experience as that. Such is the everyday experience of any enlightened person. Through clarity, wisdom and delight, everything is experienced just as it is, understood and experienced simultaneously in its manifest and unmanifest forms.

The experience of enlightenment is like waking up from a dream. What was once perceived as real is now understood to have only relative reality. In the final analysis of the enlightened mind, what once preoccupied consciousness is now understood through direct experience to be thoroughly illusory.

Included in the contents of the dream, the great web of illusion which constitutes conditioned existence, are all the everyday concerns – hopes fears, desires, ambitions and values – which comprise the individual sense of ‘I’. The awakening comes when this is experienced within the clear, tranquil, impersonal and absolute subjectivity of the unconditioned mind. The unenlightened mind, operating illusorily through the individual sense of ‘I’, sees this as separate and divisible, as people, places and things; the enlightened mind, operating clearly through the absence of the illusory sense of the individual ‘I’, sees this as people, places and things, and simultaneously sees this as that, and only as that, one and indivisible.

The unenlightened person’s experience of reality, being relative, is obscured by a fog of thoughts, emotions, needs and desires. These inner activities are the product of the relatively real individual mind; practice of the meditation techniques taught in this book will awaken you to a true and lasting understanding of the relatively illusory nature of the individual mind. The enlightened person’s experience of reality is clear and still, like a vast and motionless ocean. In the final silence of the absolute and all-embracing mind, fully conscious and devoid of all thought, reality is experienced directly as it is.

After the final stage of enlightenment, this is no longer understood or experienced as being comprised of separate elements. All of this is understood, by direct intuitive experience, to be the outward form and patterning of the all-embracing and unmanifest source, that. There is no longer a distinction to be understood between ‘self’ and ‘others’.

After the final stage of enlightenment, you continue to live in ordinary, mundane ways. The body must be fed, cared for and rested. If necessary, a source of income has to be found to maintain oneself and any dependants.

After the final stage of enlightenment, the world is just the same, and yet completely different. Being no longer compulsively pre-occupied with motives, values, needs and desires, you act as an intuitive expression of the inherent implicate laws. You no longer act from a personal source or motive.

The enlightened person perceives both individuality and separateness, recognising them as illusory products of unenlightened experience, and simultaneously experiences everything as the material manifestation of a unified, all-embracing, immanent source. Choice of action is both meaningless and effortless after enlightenment. The enlightened person, clearly set face to face with reality, has no inner experience of individual choice or action.

With the dissolution of the individual sense of ‘I’ comes the realisation of the illusory nature of personal desires. The enlightened person is not exempt from the influence of karma; it is more accurate to say that the enlightened person simply does not act in such a way as to incur either negative or positive karmic consequences. The person who has realised through experience the final stage of enlightenment floats in an endless sea of karmic neutrality, freed of choices rooted in the illusory, personal sense of  ‘I’.

For the enlightened person, the formerly objective world vanishes. The world is no longer experienced within the context of a merely illusory objectivity; instead, the world is understood in its true nature, as an experience occurring through and within the final and absolute subjectivity of mind in its unconditioned state.

1.8 How can you measure your progress along the path leading to the final stage of enlightenment?

The natural tendency of the unenlightened mind is to seek proof or confirmation of the teaching. Where a person’s mind is relatively underdeveloped, there will be a correspondingly strong desire to seek objective proof. Not only will such an attitude probably fail to lead to the desired evidence, but it will also fail to lead to enlightenment.

The reason for this is straightforward. In common with all other fully-developed models of reality, Implicate Technology teaches that the true nature of reality can only be understood through realising by direct experience the absolute, final and all-embracing subjectivity which informs and comprises perceptible reality. A dependence on mere objectivity is an essential part of the illusion preventing you from knowing directly that conditioned existence is an organic and integrated unity.

If you are to transcend the illusion binding you to non-enlightened states of mind, you must transcend your mind’s mistaken tendency to regard the world as being comprised of objective phenomena. Equally, do not make the mistake of thinking that the world somehow exists only in your imagination. Remember always, reality is this: that people and places, things and events, the individual sense of ‘I’, and even the thought passing through your mind as you read this – all of this – is the thought process of the all-embracing, unconditioned, unqualified, universal and only mind, made manifest in conditioned form.

All the contents of a dream – people, places, things and events – are known on waking to be the product of the dreaming mind. What was experienced as real during the dream is known, on waking, to be merely a product of the dreaming mind. Similarly, when the absolute and impersonal subjectivity of mind in its unconditioned state is realised, then this is truly understood in its illusory nature, like awakening from a dream.

To seek proof in a form objectively demonstrable to others is to miss the point of enlightenment. If you are to realise the freedom of the final stage of enlightenment, you must learn to lessen your dependence on merely objective ways of understanding reality. Any proof must be of a kind to cause you to develop reliance on impersonal and autonomous subjective processes if it is to lead you towards understanding the true nature of conditioned existence.

This section introduces two examples of autonomous and impersonal subjective processes. Their occurrence on the path to enlightenment is common, and, at first, dramatic and exciting. In the end, as your mind progresses in understanding through experience, you will realise the transitory and illusory nature of these experiences and leave them far behind.

Not everyone will have these specific experiences. The final stage of enlightenment can be attained without, for example, any recollection of previous lives. You will spontaneously have those experiences which are relevant to the needs of your own developing nature.

All your experiences are a function of the activity of karma: their purpose, appropriate to your needs to develop in understanding, is to collect you towards a true and clear experience of reality. Resist the temptation to be beguiled by such experiences: to become dependent on their appearing or not appearing is to seek out fool’s gold. Learn what these experiences have to teach you, then leave them behind.

1.10 Visions as an internal, autonomous form of self-tuition.

The second subjective process, commonly experienced as you progress towards the purifying and clarifying state of samadhi, is the phenomenon of visions. These are seen by the inner eye and heard by the inner ear, in a manner of speaking. The experience is startlingly realistic: it is as if, instead of watching a film as an observer, you were to suddenly find yourself in the midst of the events portrayed.

Visions are not mere imaginings of the mind: they are experienced spontaneously and autonomously. Visions can relate to past, present or future; their material can be of a personal or a general nature, encompassing any aspect of reality. Visions are a genuine reflection of significantly related aspects of reality, in, and for the benefit of, an individual consciousness.

As with memories of earlier incarnations, you are unlikely to find any objective confirmation of a vision. You should resist the temptation to rely on visions as prophecies of the future: a mind developing towards the clarity of the final stage of enlightenment must learn to live in and for the here and now, never in or for the past or the future. Visions are best understood as an internal, autonomous form of self-tuition.

Visions function as a means of drawing to the attention of a developing consciousness aspects of reality which, from the point of view of that consciousness, are significantly related. Typically, the central message you are being taught is refined through an iterative series of partially repeated, constantly developing visions. The important point is to transcend the detail of the vision, and grasp intuitively what it is trying to teach you about yourself.

At first the experience of visions, like recollecting the latent traces of past lives held in memory, is exhilarating, breathtaking and wonderful, or perhaps fearful and terrible. In time, as the practice of meditation advances and the individual consciousness becomes aware of the relatively illusory nature of individuality, the importance and relevance of all such phenomena will fade away. They are in the end no more than educational experiences along the way.

2.1 How can an ordinary person, inevitably subject to birth, ageing, suffering and death, transform and transcend the conditions which bind and limit every life?

Know this as a certainty, provable only by direct experience: there is a state of mind not subject to birth, ageing, suffering and death. That state of mind is the source from which springs all of this, the complete cycle of conditioned existence. Your destiny, sooner or later, in this life or some other, is to re-unite with the original, all-embracing, unconditioned state of being, that.

The nature of reality is such that you are free to choose whether or not to embark on a spiritual path. Be clear: if you choose, for any reason at all, not to work at your spiritual self-development, you incur an invariable compensating response from the unified process that is reality. That is to say, if you ignore your spiritual self-progress, the inevitable consequence is birth, ageing, suffering and death – repeated endlessly.

These four – birth, ageing, suffering and death – are the unvarying experience of each one of your lives. Everything else – all joys, happinesses, achievements, loves and possessions – is transient and subject to change and loss. The only escape from this endlessly repetitive cycle of conditioned existence is the triumphant freedom gained by attaining enlightenment.

2.3 What is the moral purpose inherent in karma?

Mind in its pure original unconditioned state, that, makes manifest its inherent unity and harmony through karma. The workings of karma form, shape and establish the coherent, inter-related and meaningful contexts in which every aspect and activity of your life takes place. Karma works at every moment to direct you along the path towards a full, final and absolute understanding of your own nature, that.

As you will come to realise through practice of the advanced meditative techniques taught in this book, this is simply the externalised and materialised thought process of that, the all-embracing unconditioned mind which transcends and embraces conditioned existence. Your own thoughts spring from, and return to, that. Your own thoughts and actions are woven together inextricably with karma, as this unfolds spontaneously, now, in the clear sight of that.

It is crucial to understand the link between your own thought process and karma. This can be understood as a process designed to purge you of your ignorance that this is that. Karma is the implicate law, inherent in this, which reacts to your thoughts and actions so as to guide you towards realisation of that.

The moral purpose inherent in karma is to teach you that all things are interconnected. The apparent separateness of people, places, events and things is an illusion experienced and suffered by mind in its unenlightened form. The true nature of this is an organic unity, a vast, evolving, inherently harmonious thought process, in which each part is dependent on all the others.

Just as you are a central part of this, so, in the same way, each person and all else is inseparable from the whole. A thought or an action which results in harm occurring to another part of this, acts against the harmony inherent in the process by which this unfolds through time and space. The extent and severity of the karmic compensating response depends on how much the harmonious flow of reality has been disturbed, and on the specific needs of the consciousnesses involved.

This Implicate Technology teaching on the moral purpose inherent in karma is simply a technical way of discussing the moral basis of a life lived in harmony. It is purely a matter of personal taste whether you prefer to live by this technical formulation of the compensating and educational nature of karma, or to work within a religious code of ethics, such as the teachings of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism or Buddhism. What counts is what you learn from your life’s experiences and the choices which you make concerning others, through your thought and action.

You cannot escape the consequences of your thoughts and actions. If you selfishly use or harm another part of this, you inevitably incur an appropriate and negative karmic response. If you unselfishly benefit another part of this, you inevitably incur an appropriate and positive karmic response.

Be clear: it is futile to anticipate the form of a karmic response to a particular action, either your own or another person’s. Karma does not function to suit smug moral views or desires for revenge. Indeed, any attempt to second-guess karma will of itself incur an appropriate form of karmic compensation. The morally complacent, frequently sure of their good standing in God’s eyes and filled with the illusory but deeply held conviction that they know God’s purpose, are invariably taught a lesson in humility by karma.

All moral codes merely provide guidelines for behaviour. Adherence to a culturally approved moral code may get you the recognition and approval of others, but, unless your thoughts and actions genuinely reflect the harmony inherent in this, you will continue to suffer the karmic consequences of your lack of understanding. Fixed adherence to a moral code is no substitute for spontaneous and harmonious responses to the complexities and demands of late-twentieth century life.

The key to the Implicate Technology moral teaching is Act, as discussed in The beginner’s guide to enlightenment. Act is a concise set of meditation-enhanced behavioural guidelines. Be guided by Act, and you will always react to situations in a spontaneous and harmonious manner.

The moral patterning inherent in the structure of reality is inescapable. From the religious point of view, karma is correctly understood as the expression of the will of God. From the secular Implicate Technology point of view, karma is correctly understood as the impersonal, implacable law ensuring that every thought and action incurs a compensating and balancing reaction.

You will enjoy or suffer the fruits of your thoughts and actions, whether it be in this life, in the after-death state or in any of your lives to come. Death will bring you no escape from the problems and difficulties of this life. Death simply provides you with a different set of opportunities to understand the true nature of this, a new set of conditions structured to lead you from ignorance to enlightenment.

From a devotional point of view, the primary cause of a person receiving the gift of samadhi is a life lived in accord with God’s loving will. From the viewpoint of Implicate Technology, based not on the path of devotion to God but on the path of knowledge of reality, you will gain freedom from the constraints of this when you learn to behave with due regard to the inherent harmony and unity of this. Such a life, whether lived in a religious or a secular way, is lived according to the moral purpose inherent in the law of karma.

2.5 What you will learn, stage by stage, from this book.

The premise on which you will be taught to base your way of life is this: your sense of being separate and an individual is entirely an illusion. Naturally, this premise accords neither with common sense, legal structures or your own personal experience. Nonetheless the premise is true, as you will gradually come to understand through your own experience.

Through practice of the meditations taught in this book you will come to understand the relative, and therefore illusory, nature of what seems to be individual and separate experience. These teachings form a graded series of practical exercises which will develop and strengthen your awareness and understanding of the processes of your mind. You will come to understand through experience that all of reality, no matter how tangible and apparently separate from yourself, is a product of the mental processes of the one, unified, all-embracing mind.

Firstly, in chapter 2, you will learn a way of adapting, a way of living, which sets you in harmony with the flow of reality. It is essential that you learn to understand, accept and act in accord with the flow of reality. A mind pre-occupied with its own needs and desires is incapable of receiving the gift of samadhi.

Secondly, in chapter 3, you will learn the preliminary mental exercises which will accustom you to working with the thought process itself. Your experience of samadhi will be refined and purified, until you experience the stillness and serenity at the core of your mind. Simultaneously with experiencing the mind’s natural stillness, you will develop a one-pointed mind, a mind fit to explore the true nature of reality.

Thirdly, in chapter 4, you will develop direct intuitive experience of the transcendental nature of this. You will meditate intensively on one thought at a time, for as long as you need to, until your mind develops understanding. You will experience an unshakeable shift in understanding – from experiencing everyday life as this to experiencing everyday life as that.

Fourthly, in chapter 5, you will experience through simple meditations, accessible only to the most developed of minds, the true, final and absolute nature of reality. You will come to understand that all apparently separate things are in reality one and undivided. You will also come to experience that all things unfold as the endless perfection and harmony of that.

Fifthly, in chapter 6, you will learn to explore reality from the basis of mind in its enlightened state. You will learn to explore this from a viewpoint which embraces and transcends space, time and karma. You will learn that you are an ordinary person, no different from anyone else; and the struggle to overcome your ignorance will be over.

2.7 What are enlightened forms of behaviour?

The overcoming of your ignorance of the true nature of reality is your primary duty if you are seeking enlightenment. Overcoming ignorance both of that, and of the true nature of this, are, in the final analysis, the snuffing out of ignorance of one’s own nature. Conditioned by space, time and karma, that works throughout your life to effect your freedom from the ignorance caused by self-imposed limitations.

Without exception, every thought and activity of an unenlightened person takes place in a fog of ignorance obscuring the true nature of each moment experienced. Once you have attained the fourth and final stage of enlightenment, you will have awoken from your ignorance, as you awaken from a dream realising that what passed before was only the product of the dreaming mind. Once enlightened, you will have the capacity to experience each moment just as it is, free from all burdens and free from all stress and sorrow.

Only by transcending the illusion that you have individual and separate existence can you succeed in transforming the ignorance and suffering of your mind in its conditioned state into the triumphant freedom and release from all burdens which are characteristic of mind in its fully enlightened state. This is a key feature of all fully developed Eastern or Western implicate technology systems. All models of reality which transcend the illusion of mere objectivity teach that, when understood in their true nature, the experiences, the object of experience and the act of experiencing are one.

The key distinction between the enlightened and the unenlightened person is the enlightened person’s realisation, based on direct experience, that the sense of  ‘I’, the experience of separateness and individuality, is only relatively real and so is illusory and that the true and absolute nature of reality is an indivisible unity. Chapters 3 to 6 of this book teach a step-by-step method enabling you to break out of the ignorance of your true nature which binds you to suffering. The teachings in this chapter prepare you by encouraging you to adopt enlightened forms of thought and behaviour.

An enlightened person knows from experience that reacting to the needs and desires of the individual sense of ‘I’ leads only to entrapment in  illusion. Acting on ‘I want’ and ‘I need’ brings only endless action and reaction within the self-balancing system governed by karma, which we experience as everyday life. Every activity based on an ‘I’ thought incurs either positive or negative karmic consequences and so perpetuates bondage to the illusion which sustains and underlies conditioned existence.

On the unshakeable authority of direct intuitive experience, the enlightened person knows that the obscuring fog of ignorance clears when the apparent separateness of all things is transcended. Acting from a level of being which transcends ‘I’ thoughts, the enlightened person functions as a conscious component of an inherently unified and harmonious system. All actions of a conscious component of reality are achieved without individual effort or volition and incur neutral karmic responses. The enlightened person experiences karma as a courteous and helpful guide through the unfolding of this, not as an implacable governing force dictating the events of one’s life according to one’s thoughts and actions.

The priceless benefits of enlightenment, a state of mind detached from pain, sorrow and all constraints of space and time, can only be realised through freedom from attachment. True freedom is freedom from attachment to any and all aspects of this, while accepting the inevitability of the processes of conditioned existence. Every enlightened person knows with utter certainty that only the body is born, ages, suffers and dies and only mind in its enlightened form is always free.

2.9 What is the evolutionary purpose of karma?

Karma embodies the purposive aspect of this. Karma functions as the teacher, providing balancing and correcting experiences to adjust the development of each person. The purpose of karma is to lead each person, at an appropriate pace and in appropriate circumstances, towards, and then along, a path leading to the final stage of enlightenment.

As your experience of the advanced meditative practices taught in this book unfolds, you will learn for yourself the evolutionary nature of karma. You will come to understand for yourself, through direct intuitive experience, the way your mind has been shaped to a single purpose – to break free of the illusion binding you to attachment to this. From examination of its contents, you will learn that your mind has been shaped in its development across lifetimes.

The experiences of each of us, accumulated across lifetimes, form a journey across an infinite sea of illusion. The journey ends not with death, which simply leads to another set of conditions, but with the realisation that this is that. Each incarnation you experience offers the opportunity to break out of the illusion that this is an objective reality, and to realise that in its true, final and absolute nature, this is a subjective reality.

Just as individuals grow and develop across and within lifetimes, so, too, do whole cultures. Cultures are vast aggregations of individual karma, shaped in turn by the wider karmic patterns of human history. Karma functions to offer cultures the chance to evolve, just as the same chance is constantly offered to individuals.