3.5.1 What does it mean, to be centred in the midst of conditions?

This is a very fine phrase: centred in the midst of conditions. It should be thought about carefully. When you understand this as a continuous experience, and not just intellectually or emotionally, you will have attained the psychological stage of enlightenment.

The conditions which constrain our lives are common to each of us, but the specific details vary according to individual circumstances. These conditions are imposed both internally within the personality, and externally upon the personality. They operate on both the material and non-material levels of reality.

There are ten conditions which interweave, waxing and waning endlessly, to form each moment you experience. The circumstances of your life are shaped by these conditions: karma; space and time; physical, emotional and intellectual limiting factors; moral and social constraints, and political and economic pressures. The purpose of the power discipline taught later in this chapter is to empower you to deal effectively with and to transform the conditions of your life.

The condition of karma is discussed in detailed contemporary terms in chapter 4. In our spiritually barren, late-twentieth-century Western cultures, we have only a slight degree of understanding of the crucially important nature of karma. Unless you are responsive to the promptings of karma in your life, you can have no hope or prospect of a genuinely fulfilling life.

Birth and death punctuate our lives. As we age, our lives unfold through understanding and experience. Time is the medium through which all things occur.

Each of our bodies requires space to exist. The things which exist through space constrain and limit us, through our needs and desires for them. Space is the medium through which all things occur.

Time and space are inextricably woven together. They are the basic conditions of existence. Every being with any form of awareness, and every thing, is subject to these dual forces.

The conditions of space and time are discussed more fully in the transpersonal meditations of chapter 5. The full teachings on the nature of space and time are beyond the scope of this book. The final stage of enlightenment, the union of self with reality, only occurs when the unified nature of space and time has been fully realised through experience.

In our cultures, we are familiar with discussing and analysing our lives in terms of the seven remaining conditions. This chapter discusses them within the context of Implicate Technology disciplines. Practice of these disciplines will empower you to understand and break free from the oppressive forces dominating your life.

Be clear: every unenlightened person lives a life hemmed in and limited by the ten conditions – just because you are unaware of your own limitations doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. The purpose of these teachings is to provide you with the skills to triumph over the conditions of your life. If you confuse this with vain dreams of triumph over your opponents, then reality, through the workings of karma, will deal with such unenlightened behaviour in its own way.

In the midst of these conditions is yourself, experiencing life through action and reaction to things and people. Through practice of these teachings you will learn to focus your awareness of reality through the still, calm centre of your self. This is what it means to be ‘centred in the midst of conditions’.