2 The self-help technology

2.1 Meditation: its uses and benefits (below contents)

2.2 What being set face to face with reality brings to your life.

2.3 The simple meditative technique:

2.3.1 the role of intuition in meditation

2.3.2 the practice of meditation

2.3.3.1 the framework within which meditation unfolds:

the link between thought and breathing

2.3.3.2 how to concentrate the thoughts on the flow of breath

2.3.3.3 the problems of distraction, and their cure

2.3.4 how to measure success in meditation

2.3.5 the transformation of consciousness

2.3.6 the key to enlightenment.

2 The self-help technology

2.1 Why should anyone bother to practice meditation?

The practice of meditation has been a prime feature of many models of reality. In Eastern cosmologies or worldviews it is a practice of paramount importance; in our Western models of reality it features either directly as meditative practices or indirectly as a highly focused form of prayer. In both Eastern and Western models, meditation and what we in the West know as prayer are often closely intertwined.

Clearly, in the past, meditation and prayer have been highly significant and valuable forms of activity when operating within the context of a given model of reality. The committed Muslim or Hindu or Buddhist or Christian has had meditative or prayer practices to turn to as a support in the difficulties of living. Our late-twentieth-century Western culture, however, is primarily secular in nature.

The vast majority no longer acknowledge the power and authority of the mainstream religious models of reality, yet a phenomenon of recent years has been the successful import into our Western cultures of meditative systems from the Eastern models of reality. Many have turned to meditation seeking simple benefits such as release from the stress which is such a major feature of our lives, or as a form of self-healing. Many turn to meditation within the context of a specific model of reality in an effort to understand the meaning of their lives.

All of this is a testament to the enduring power of meditation or prayer in people’s lives, but it does not explain why, in a secular culture, one should bother to practise meditation.

The majority of people in our culture do not accept the comfort of the existing models of reality. That is to say, most people cannot relate the teachings of the major religions to the deep and unarticulated core of their lives. In general, our lives are lived and understood within the impoverished framework of our mechanistic worldview.

To provide purpose and meaning in our lives, a way must be found to learn to understand the true nature of how we each interact with reality. This is the purpose and function of implicate technology. It is a practical self-help technology, available to anyone in any circumstances.

To ask why one should bother to practice meditation is to ask: what is the relevance of implicate technology for me?

We live in a culture which places us increasingly under stress. The forces which shape our lives are moving increasingly out of the individual’s control. We are all, to a greater or lesser extent according to our individual life circumstances, subject to the power and influence of politicians, unions, corporate and state institutions, terrorists, etc., a vast complex of social, economic, political, moral and personal pressures. We each need to learn to accept, to endure, to change and to effect change according to our circumstances.

In addition to these forces, we are subject to natural laws. Some of these laws, such as the law of gravity, are well understood by our explicate science; others, although well understood and expressed in Eastern models of reality, are barely glimpsed by our explicate sciences. Each of us must live our lives subject also to these forces.

Within this vast network of implicate and explicate forces, we each must act out our lives. None is exempt from this. These are the forces which comprise both our day-to-day lives and the deeper context which many of us intuitively sense is reality.

Within this context, we each must live out our lives and face our deaths. How does one make sense of one’s individual life? How does one gain sufficient independence from these apparently overwhelming forces to live out one’s life with a sense of freedom?

The purpose of implicate technology is to equip the individual with the skills necessary to attain this degree of freedom, and the understanding of how to use them. This is a state of freedom in which one has the capacity to remain clear, serene and quietly joyous regardless of external circumstances. This is the state of mind in which one is set face to face with reality.

pp

4 The time of testing 

4.1 The unifying power of karma (below contents).

4.2 Intuition and karma.

4.3 How karma operates.

4.4 Why you are tested.

4.5 The successful outcome of the tests.

4.6 The unconditioned state.

4.1 In what way is reality a unity?

We can only understand and live our lives fully when we experience reality as a unity. No one is exempt from this. Anything less is a life unfulfilled, except by illusory satisfaction in transient attainments.

It is beyond the scope of this book on implicate technology to guide you along the path to the final stage of enlightenment, the understanding through experience of the unity that is reality. But although this book is primarily aimed at guiding you towards the first stage of enlightenment, the basic skills it teaches, when fully developed under careful guidance, will take you all the way to the final stage of enlightenment. This chapter teaches the unity of reality from a perspective accessible to an ordinary intelligent person.

In reality, everything which happens to you, every set of circumstances you experience, forms an infinitesimal part of an inconceivable, unified whole. From the viewpoint of ordinary, everyday awareness, the conditions of life are not experienced as part of an organically unified and meaningful whole. The first step in going beyond the relatively illusory sense of individual separateness is to understand the all-embracing and unifying power of karma.

In our late-twentieth-century secular culture, we are well used to analysing everyday situations in terms of seven of the ten conditions already mentioned – physical, emotional, intellectual, moral, social, political and economic. The full teachings on space and time, understood through experience as inseparable parts of a unified whole, lie outside the scope of this book. When you understand through your everyday experience these teachings on karma, you will have gained a new way of realising the inherent richness and unity of your ordinary life.

The unified process that is reality, always unfolding now, configures each circumstance of your life with absolute love and compassion. At every moment, you are tested by karma to aid you in your development along the path towards the final enlightenment. Through these tests, karma guides you towards the next step on the path ahead.

From the perspective of ordinary day-to-day awareness, reality cannot be experienced as a coherent unity. The machine that is reality devours the works of the component personalities. These personalities operate together, according to the inherent, implacable, implicate laws, to experience the process that is reality. Within each personality this is experienced as the suffering caused by life’s difficulties.

In reality, there is only, ever, the here and now. Life is, and each moment contains infinite potential. In reality, your life is infinite in its potential for fulness.

6 The all-pervasive influence of the emotions

6.1 The need for detachment (see below contents).

6.2 Why me?

6.3 Detached, yet sensitive.

6.4 Fear and desire.

6.5 Anger.

6.6 Forgiveness.

6.7 Giving.

6.1 What is the all-pervasive influence of the emotions?

Every situation you experience can be analysed and understood as a specific arrangement of the ten conditions. The goal of the process of enlightenment is to free you, progressively, from the constraints of the ten conditions. The first stage of enlightenment gives you the capacity to sustain freedom from emotional and intellectual limitations.

This teaching emphasises the crucial importance of breaking free from the emotional constraints of your personality. Until you do this, you cannot begin to see the world as it is. As long as you operate within the emotional conditions of your personality you will have a distorted view of reality.

Prior to the first stage of enlightenment, one seeks satisfaction of emotional needs and desires; afterwards, emotional satisfaction is not such a priority. Before the first enlightenment, one’s view of the world is coloured by one’s own attitudes; afterwards, you see that the emotional difficulties you experienced were primarily caused by your own emotions, by yourself and none other. Before the first stage of enlightenment, you are driven to attain emotional satisfaction and fulfilment; afterwards, you learn to deal with your life freely and spontaneously.

Through your emotional projections, a process you only gradually become aware of, you create the specific aspects of reality which you experience. The purpose of this period of your life is to test your capacity to recognise, and break free from, your unconscious emotional projections. These tests are karmic in nature, and are designed to establish the extent to which you are detached from your emotions, the extent to which you understand your own nature.

Remember, reality can be understood as a unified, organic machine, and each of us is an essential component. Part of the functioning of the process is a constant testing of your capacity to remain detached and clear. By becoming detached from your deep-seated emotional responses, you will attain the psychological stage of enlightenment.

nbsp;

8 Conclusion – the far journey

8.1 The far journey.

8.2 Embrace everyday life.

8.3 Relationships with others.

8.4 The process of cultural evolution.

8.5 The role of the enlightened person.

8.6 The goal of the teaching.

10 Glossary (BTP)

Centred in the midst of conditions: the state of mind, achieved through the daily practice of meditation, which marks the start of the process of learning to understand the true nature of reality.

Clear setting face to face with reality: the experience of understanding the true nature of reality.

Conditions: the ten conditions which interact spontaneously to create each moment.

Enlightenment: the progressive states of awareness which, stage by stage, sweep aside ignorance of the nature of reality. Enlightenment culminates in the complete integration of the individual with all of reality.

Explicate: referring to aspects of reality which can be understood by the five senses.

Implicate: referring to aspects of reality which can only be understood by the sixth sense, or intuition.

Implicate technology: 1) The generic name for the underlying structure and practical techniques for expanding awareness, common to all fully-developed, spiritually based models of reality.

2) A practical technique, the correct use of which enables the individual to understand and integrate with the implicate aspects of reality.

Implicate Technology: 1) A Western-originated, structured meditative system, incorporating meditative techniques which work in a secular, everyday context.

2) A fully-developed, spiritually based Western model of reality.

Karma: 1 ) An inherent, implacable, implicate law of reality.

2) The process whereby reality structures the circumstances of your life, to guide you in understanding your own nature.

3) The law whereby your current thoughts and actions determine your future experience.

Meaning of life: 1) The ultimate experience, impossible to convey in words.

2) The understanding which arises when the final stage of enlightenment is realised. Meditation: 1 ) The practical process of stilling the mind.

2) The self-help technique enabling you to reach enlightenment.

3) A practical technique which awakens the sixth sense, or intuition.

Model of reality: A structured, coherent description of reality, which uses practical techniques enabling the individual to experience the unity of reality.

Personality: the complex of views, opinions, ideas, emotions and attitudes comprising ordinary, everyday awareness. This complex is experienced as real to ordinary, everyday consciousness, relatively real once the first stage of enlightenment has been attained and relatively illusory once the final stage of enlightenment has been realised.

Power discipline: 1) A smooth, harmonious action in three steps: Input, Pivot then Act.

2) A mental tool to aid in the process of finding a harmonious and unselfish resolution to any difficult situation.

Power structure: 1) A way of describing how power is structured in any situation.

2) A way of understanding who controls, what is controlled, how it is controlled and why.

Purpose of life: I ) To understand the meaning of life.

2) The process of attaining enlightenment.

Reality: the total of what can be known and experienced. The true nature of reality can only be understood once the final stage of enlightenment has been realised.

Sexual energy: 1) The body’s spontaneously generated implicate power source. Sexual energy is squandered in unenlightened sexual activity.

2) The power inherent in the psycho-physiological system which is refined and transmuted, consciously or unconsciously, in advanced meditative activity.