2.8 Freedom from attachment to stimuli

The enlightened person has learnt through experience to become detached from all things, from all of this, yet to look on this and its suffering people with infinite compassion. Even after enlightenment, you will still experience happiness and sorrow, success and failure, life and death – all the everyday experiences of ordinary life. To the enlightened mind, these are understood in their true nature – as stimuli which are experienced as part of this, and simultaneously known to be the manifest form of that.

Mind in its ever present nature is still, like an ocean without a wave, observing all things, including the thought process of each apparently individual mind. That manifests itself, experiences itself and witnesses itself as this. The enlightened person learns to experience this, all the variety of conditioned existence, with detached uninvolvement through freedom from attachment to stimuli.

As an unenlightened person struggling to attain enlightenment, you will have to learn to become detached from the constant stimuli bombarding your mind through your senses. Chapter 3 of this book teaches practical exercises which lead to enduring freedom from the urge to respond to stimuli. Committed daily practice of these meditative techniques will assist and guide you in your progress along the path.

Meditate long and hard on what it might mean to understand your individual experience as only being relatively real. Try to understand, through meditation, how you would behave if you no longer responded to the effects on your mind of the ten conditions. Try to understand that the bird flying free in the sky, the person in life who causes you the most aggravation and yourself, are equally important parts of a harmonious and integrated unity.

These Implicate Technology practical techniques for learning detachment from the influence of stimuli, offer the possibility for our Western cultures to make a significant advance. In the late-twentieth century, we in the West are poised to make the cultural leap from an ethically-based to a spiritually-based civilization. To grasp the implications of this you will need to meditate on the evolutionary purpose of karma.

2.10 The evolutionary development of Western models of reality.

A clear, purposeful, evolutionary pattern can be seen in the development of Western spiritual models of reality. This pattern can at last be perceived clearly, because of the unique conditions shaping our general Western cultural consciousness in the late-twentieth century. We in the West can look back with clarity on our spiritual history, because we are on the verge of an evolutionary leap forward in our spiritual development.

In comparison with the spiritual development of the Eastern cultures we in the West have been developing, until now, at a much slower rate. For many thousands of years, great, spiritually-based cultures have risen, flowered and decayed in the East. These vastly different cultures – predominantly, but not exclusively, based on the Hindu, Buddhist and Taoist models of reality, have all reflected a profound understanding of the true nature of reality, variously expressed in terms appropriate to their several moral, social, political and economic environments.

In contrast, we in the West have developed more slowly from a primitive base of tribal religions, through the civilising influences of the Egyptian and Graeco-Roman cultures, past the unitive vision of Judaism to the great, ethically-based teachings of Christianity and Islam. This pattern of slow and steady growth reflects the sustained karmic conditioning and preparation of countless individuals, including you who are reading these words, across the experiences of many lifetimes. You have been carefully prepared, through the evolutionary purpose inherent in karma, for the role you will have to play in this lifetime, as our Western culture makes its transition from an ethically-based to a spiritually-based civilization.

You have lived and gained experience, however slowly and unwillingly, and died many times in many different cultures. Evidence for the truth of this is contained in your own memory. Committed daily practice of the Implicate Technology meditative techniques taught in this book will release from your memory the skills, the experience and the inherent knowledge you will need to enable you to fulfil your role in the transformation of our culture, and will simultaneously assist you to progress towards achieving your full spiritual potential.

The Graeco-Roman cultural model of reality expressed a fragmented and relatively underdeveloped view of reality. The various gods and goddesses gave expression to the discrete and warring components of the individual mind. Only in the ancient Mystery model of reality did Graeco-Roman culture offer the committed individual the opportunity for a complete synthesis of the various aspects of mind, transcending the divisive schema of gods, goddesses and titans.

The fulfilment of individual and selfish aims was the end-product of the Graeco-Roman model of reality. The gods were offered sacrifices so that their powers might be invoked for human benefit. Without the benefit of an all-embracing and unifying vision of life, reality is experienced as devoid of coherent and purposeful meaning, subject to the chance whims of powers outside the control of the individual.

The unifying vision in general Western culture was introduced through the Jewish Old Testament model of reality. The Shema, the great Jewish prayer invoking the essential unity of reality, the first Western vision of monotheism, is expressed with succinctness and clarity: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One.’ The experience of the inherent unity of all that exists which underlies the Shema is expressed in Implicate Technology terms as: ‘There is only one reality. Reality is one.’

The Old Testament model of reality embodied the merciless face of karma: an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. The Western European scientific model of reality, produced over two thousand years later, reflected an equivalent level of understanding: to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The Jewish model of reality interprets the law of karma in a moral sense, and the scientific model interprets karma in a mechanistic sense – from the Implicate Technology perspective of a fully developed model of reality, these different formulations of a universal law merely reflect varied cultural approaches to the same level of understanding.

The Old Testament model of reality offers a coherent, if unforgiving, context in which to understand the experiences of life. Thousands of years later, the scientific model of reality is unable to offer even that much. The understanding which was once brilliant and clear becomes faded and obscure.

2.12 How do you become detached from stimuli in the midst of conditions?

Unlike the majority of its Eastern counterparts, this Western Implicate Technology model of reality teaches a coherent meditative system based entirely on the experiences of ordinary, everyday life. This chapter teaches you the overall context and chapter 3 teaches the practical techniques necessary to achieve detachment from the stimuli received by your mind at every moment. Once your mind has experienced its inherent stillness, witnessing each moment with detached serenity as it unfolds, you will be ready to begin the meditative practices leading to the final stage of enlightenment, as taught in chapters 4 to 6.

In general, Eastern implicate technology systems direct the mind to explore its nature through renouncing the stimuli of ordinary, day-today life. Out of a profound withdrawal from the attractions and distractions of everyday living, Eastern meditative systems develop an equally profound awareness of the true, final and absolute nature of reality. In this way, the Eastern implicate technologies have brought uncounted and uncountable numbers of seekers to the final stage of enlightenment.

Implicate Technology, a Western-originated, structured system of meditative disciplines, leads to an equivalent realisation of the nature of reality through embracing the stimuli of ordinary, day-to-day life. Out of profound absorption in, and then detachment from, the attractions and distractions of everyday life, Implicate Technology develops an equally profound awareness of the true, final and absolute nature of reality. In this way, this Western implicate technology can bring uncounted and uncountable numbers of seekers to the final stage of enlightenment.

Eastern and Western implicate technologies are simply two sides of the same coin. They approach the same goal from opposite perspectives. The differences merely reflect variations in cultural requirements according to the demands of place and time.

Chapter 3 of this book introduces the meditative practices leading to realisation of the mind’s inherent stillness. You may be tempted to rush into these practices and to regard this chapter as interesting theory. That would be an error of judgement incurring compensating karmic consequences.

This chapter teaches you how to begin integrating every aspect of your life into the harmonious flow of reality. You will experience the compensating activity of karma as endless difficulties unless your mind and your life are in harmony with the way reality is moving. Meditate carefully on this chapter before proceeding with the practical exercises.

Reality is a unified, integrated process – every thought and every action incurs appropriate karmic responses. The way to transcend the karmically reactive system is to realise that the sense of ‘I’, the feeling and knowledge of your own individuality, is a relative perception and so lacks absolute reality. Chapter 3 begins the practical teaching which results in a shift in perception, from the relative and self-oriented sense of ‘I’ to the absolute awareness of that.

Unless you adjust your thoughts and actions to harmonise with the nature of reality, your efforts to practise the meditative techniques in chapter 3 will prove fruitless. You can only receive the gift of samadhi if you act in harmony with the flow of reality. That is to say, if you think and behave in genuinely selfless and unselfish ways and you practice these meditative techniques, then you will spontaneously experience samadhi.

This is an all-embracing, integrated unity – if you live selfishly, seeking to protect and enhance your own interests, you operate within the karmically reactive level of reality. Learn to accept what happens, regardless of your personal needs and desires. Learn to accept success and failure, gain and loss, praise and blame, with equal detachment. It is not you who lives, but that which lives you – learn to accept that the unchanging reality is that you can truly own nothing.

3.1 Why should you gain detachment from the endless stimuli of this?

That in its conditioned form, embodied in you who are reading these words, is entirely, and without possibility of exception, enmeshed in illusory perceptions of reality. The experience and understanding of reality gained through the five senses is only valid relative to the focus of perception. That is to say, your understanding of experience, based only on your five senses, is specific to yourself and so illusory. In the final analysis of the enlightened mind, all experience based only on sensual information is known to lead inevitably to suffering.

This understanding – that your experience of perceptible reality is an illusion – will only come once the illusion has been transcended, once you have awaken from your long sleep of ignorance of the nature of reality. The illusion can only be broken through attaining detachment from the incessant stimuli of perceptible reality. This chapter teaches the meditative practices which lead to detachment from stimuli and to the freedom and release of the mind in its enlightened state.

In its unenlightened form, your mind is continuously distracted from its inherent stillness by the apparently external and apparently objective nature of sensual stimuli. The unenlightened mind is deceived by the apparently external and objective nature of physical reality. You will transcend the illusion that reality consists of objective material phenomenon only when you have realised your mind’s inherent stillness and quiescence.

Until this detachment from stimuli is realised, and you transcend the illusory nature of both the individual sense of ‘I’ and of objective reality, you will remain locked in the karmically reactive level of reality. That is to say, through the activity created by the interaction of karma with your thoughts and actions, you will remain bound to the endless cycle of birth, ageing, suffering and death. You will realise the final stage of enlightenment, from either a secular or a religious point of view, through practice, with unwavering determination, of the meditative techniques taught in this book. This will enable you to transcend stress, fear and suffering, and will bring, in their place, a genuine and lasting peace of mind transcending all conditions.

3.3 How do I make the transition from the basic meditation to the advanced meditative practices?

Your experience in the periods before and after attaining the first stage of enlightenment was one of ever deepening understanding. To every question, it seemed you were given an answer. It was a time filled with wonder and meaning – a time when your inner awareness seemed to go through a total transformation.

Then, as the days and weeks became months, gradually and imperceptibly, at first, the rush of understanding slowed down. The days began to drag a little. One day you looked back and realised that somehow, without your quite noticing how or when, the sense of excitement, wonder and immanent, pulsating meaning had become dull, a faint echo of its original power.

Be comforted: this is all an important part of the process. Although it is unsatisfying to experience, your loss is more apparent than real. What has been happening is that the whole process, both your psycho-physiological organism and conditioned existence, is delicately, and without overt indicators, re-aligning itself for the enormous transformations to come.

Accept as necessary this slow, unfulfilling period in your life. Realise that you still have the power to transform your understanding and your life. Then you are ready to begin the advanced meditative practices.

You have probably learnt, since attaining the first stage of enlightenment, that you are able to abandon the practice of counting the breaths during meditation. Until you gain familiarity with the advanced meditative techniques, it will be best to restrict your practice of meditation to sitting in your favourite posture. At all times, during meditation, ensure that the teeth are lightly clenched and the tongue is touching the roof of the mouth.

Be clear: the full, final and absolute function of meditation is to realise and sustain a state of undistracted alertness. This is a state of mind free of, and transcending, the apparently endless tyranny of the thought process. This is true tranquillity of mind, when the mind’s inherent stillness is realised through the mind abiding in its natural state.

From this point onwards, you must be completely committed to realising the fruits of meditation in your everyday life. Accept, without reservation or doubt, that there is no part of your life which is separate from the lessons you learn in meditation. If you forget this lesson, your spiritual efforts will prove fruitless. Remember the lessons taught in The  beginner’s guide to enlightenment, chapter 6: you cannot progress in meditation while refusing to forgive someone who has wronged you or someone you love. You cannot progress along the spiritual path while pursuing selfish aims. You cannot move towards enlightenment by taking; progress in meditation can only be made through acts of inner giving.

3.5 How do you set about inhibiting the thought process itself?

The goal of this meditative exercise is to develop the skills enabling you to cut off a thought at the root, the very instant it rises up. This is a simple, but vital, skill. It is the first in a series of exercises leading to the development of a still mind.

The meditation is carried out as follows: you are sitting comfortably in your chosen position, alone, with your chosen stimulus. At every moment, thoughts arise as a result of stimuli. Your task is to cut off each thought in the very moment it arises.

Your mind is constantly exposed, through your five senses, to stimuli. As a result of these constant stimuli, thoughts occur continuously and endlessly. The purpose of this exercise is to give you the capacity to end, albeit temporarily, this apparently unceasing process.

Mind, in its conditioned state, is constantly distracted from its inherent stillness by the endless stimuli of this. This process of distraction is the root of the unenlightened mind’s mistaken understanding that this is an objective reality. By learning to cut off a thought in its moment of formation, you begin the process of cleansing your mind of its accumulated ignorance of the true nature of this.

Before you realised the first stage of enlightenment, noise, sights and all forms of sensual experience were a severe form of distraction during your meditation. Now, as you move towards the second stage of enlightenment, the attainment of a still mind, what was once a source of difficulty, will become an aid, as you travel along the path. This is an experience you will find repeated many times.

The purpose of your chosen stimulus is to provide you with a simple and repetitive framework, against which you can test your progress. Whether you choose the ticking of a mechanical clock, or the passage of seconds on a digital clock, or any other simple and repetitive stimulus, your goal is to witness your chosen stimulus with a state of mind both transcending and embracing thought. The awareness of this transcending the limitations of thought is mind in its natural state.

To witness this from the qualityless and unconditioned perspective of that, or to witness this with the all-embracing compassion and love of God, requires the ability to transcend the thought process. To realise the final stage of enlightenment, the birth of even a single thought must be prevented. To achieve the necessary inhibiting of the thought process itself requires considerable exercise of mental alertness.

Through the practice of these meditation exercises you will become trained in yogic disciplines to such a degree of alertness that you will be aware of the rise and fall of each thought. In time, you will be able to witness the flow of thoughts, rather than simply experience each thought as you do now. From that position of undistracted alertness you will learn to transcend the thought process.

First exercise

Begin your meditation practice: as soon as each thought crops up, try to cut it off at the root. Always try to bring your mind back to simply witnessing your chosen stimulus. When the next thought arises, repeat the process.

At first, this exercise will be very difficult to do, but with committed daily practice, it gradually becomes easier. All you are learning from this first exercise is that it is possible to cut off a thought at the root, at the very moment it arises.

This simple, but difficult, exercise should be continued outside of your formal practice of meditation. While engaged in any of your normal, everyday activities – at work, while travelling or eating, walking or watching television – continue your practice of cutting off thoughts as they arise. In this way, you will bring the fruits of meditation into every aspect of your life.

Through committed daily practice, you will become able to prolong the period of time during which you are able to make the effort to prevent thoughts arising. As a result of your efforts, you will become sensitised to one of the primary characteristics of the thought process. You will become aware that thoughts arise spontaneously, in a continuous and apparently endless stream.

Continue with this exercise until you feel adept at the instantaneous cutting off of a thought. A reasonable minimum length of time for this practice would be 2-4 weeks. You will gain nothing by attempting to hurry the process; become sensitive to your psycho-physiological system’s capacity to learn, develop and unfold.

The purpose of this meditative exercise is achieved when you become aware of the stream of thoughts as both spontaneous and interminable. You will not have achieved this awareness until you are able to observe the flow of thoughts with a tranquil detachment. This is an awareness in which you both experience and witness the flow of thoughts.

Once you have attained this tranquil detachment, even for the briefest of moments, you are ready to move on to the next exercise. As a result of this exercise, you will feel more aware than ever of the pressure of thoughts in your head – this is a good sign, indicating your growing sensitivity to the workings of the thought process. Now you are ready for the next exercise, learning not to react to thoughts.

3.7 How do you develop and extend the experience of mind in its natural state?

Committed daily practice of the previous meditative exercise will have introduced you, however remotely and briefly, to the experience of mind in its natural state – serene, still and transcending the thought process. This new exercise develops and strengthens your experience of the mind’s inherent capability for inner stillness. This exercise utilises and combines the techniques learnt in the first two exercises.

These first three exercises are like an athlete’s warm-up exercises. Just as an athlete would bend, stretch and flex the body muscles prior to an exercise session, so, in the same way, these preliminary yogic exercises loosen up and prepare your mind for the advanced training to come. These meditative exercises familiarise you with the limitations of the thought process, while simultaneously preparing you for the state of pure awareness which both transcends and embraces the thought process.

With great effort, you have learnt to cut off thoughts at the root, as they spontaneously and instantaneously come into being. With great patience, you have learnt to allow thoughts to flow uninterruptedly, as they spontaneously shape your experience of conditioned existence. Too much effort put into the first exercise created tiredness, both mental and physical, and only resulted in yet more thoughts; too much relaxation during the second exercise created lethargy, both mental and physical, and only resulted in absorption in the contents of your thought process.

This third exercise teaches you to maintain evenness of mind. The aim is to avoid the pitfalls both of intense straining for results, and of over-relaxing despite the need to remain alert. The goal of this exercise is to attain a middle course which avoids over-straining and over-relaxing and produces a state of relaxed alertness.

Third exercise

Begin your meditation practice: tense your mind to cut off thoughts as they arise; as soon as strain sets in, relax the mind and allow your thoughts to flow uninterruptedly. Continue this practice repeatedly – tense your mind and then relax it; tense your mind and then relax it. As you progress with the meditation, extend the time of practice into your ordinary, everyday activities.

When you can perform this process of tensing and relaxing alternately without giving much attention to the matter, you will have reached the goal of this exercise. Then you will have developed a steady, even awareness of the thought process itself. You will still be subject to thoughts – yet, simultaneously, you will be able to witness your thought process.

Once again you should expect to spend a minimum of 2-4 weeks on this practice. Only through your own experience can you understand the point of these meditations. This understanding will come as your consciousness is expanded over a period of sustained practice.

At each stage, you can gauge, in a natural and easy way, when you are ready to move on to the next exercise. When you find your mind drawn to start the next exercise in the sequence, then you are ready to move on. Trust in your mind’s inherent ability to move through the exercises at its own relaxed pace.

3.8.2 Become Aware of your inherent power source.

As a result of your meditative practices up to this point, you will be keenly aware of the energy flowing in fits and starts around your psycho-physiological system. The cause and pattern of movement of this energy are described in the yoga of sexual energy, taught in chapter 5 of The beginner’s guide to enlightenment. Your inherent sexual energy, referred to as chi, prana or kundalini in Eastern implicate technology systems, will have started to flow spontaneously, as a result of your advanced meditative practices.

Turn back now, and spend as much time as you need re-reading chapter 5 and meditating on the yoga of sexual energy. It is not essential for you to have practised the yogic techniques as taught in the first book. Either as a result of conscious practice of those techniques, or as an unconscious by-product of other meditations, your inherent psycho-physiological power source will have begun to flow naturally and spontaneously.

You may feel this energy as a tremendous source of power, coursing through your body and your mind. Sometimes, you feel overwhelmed by the energy and excitement coursing through you. Sometimes you feel drained and exhausted by the demands and strain being placed on bath your mind and your body.

Chapter 5 of the first book in this structured, secular meditative system teaches the techniques for releasing the periodic build-up of energy. Be clear: the whole system of conditioned existence, the process involving your mind, body and the events of your life, is harmoniously and spontaneously self-balancing. Provided you set about meditating as taught in the context of a coherent, fully developed model of reality, there are no obstacles along the path to enlightenment which you cannot overcome.

3.8.4 Be aware of what is happening now.

Fourth exercise

Begin your meditation practice: keep your mind uncoupled from the thought process through unwavering determination to maintain undistracted alertness. Mind in its natural state transcends and witnesses the thought process, as being merely one of an infinite variety of objectified activities. Samadhi is the sustained experience of witnessing this from a state of mind transcending the limitations of the thought process.

The uncoupling of the mind from its thought process comes as a result of the mental strain caused by the previous meditative exercises. The extra effort demanded by this exercise creates the necessary tension and, with a sudden snap, so to speak, the mind becomes aware of its thought process as apparently separate and external. The mind just experiences thoughts as things of which it is aware – like the sound and feel of rain, voices near or in the distance, or the emotions felt on seeing a loved one.

The previous efforts to inhibit the thought process merely resulted in more thoughts. This fundamental experience of uncoupling the mind from the thought process resolves the problem by transcending it, by experiencing reality in a wider, more harmonious context. As you will learn in the remaining exercises, this initially raw, unstructured experience is gradually explored and refined to form the basis for enlightened understanding.

At first, your experience of the mind snapping free from all mental activity will be accompanied by the most intense period of concentration you will ever have encountered. The effort required to perform ordinary activities in a state of undistracted alertness is formidable. Be assured that the initial enormous drains of energy which are required to sustain this level of concentration will soon pass.

The essence of samadhi is undistracted awareness of what one is experiencing. In non-samadhic states of consciousness, the normal pattern of activity is the interpretation and understanding of sensual experiences by the thought process. In samadhic states of consciousness, that activity continues – but no longer as the sole or primary focus of awareness.

The task in samadhi is simply to be aware of what is happening. When you are sitting, walking or eating, in the state of samadhi, you are simply aware of sitting, walking or eating. At the same time, the thought process continues endlessly, but no longer is it the primary focus of your awareness.

If it helps you at first, simply lie down and devote all your energy to maintaining this simple degree of awareness. Equally, if it helps you, get up and walk around – your goal is to be aware, without succumbing to involvement in the contents of your thought process. What must not waver is your determination to maintain undistracted awareness; your ability to sustain undistracted awareness will undoubtedly waver at the beginning and for quite some time to come.

3.8.6 Adjust to living with undistracted awareness.

Expect to spend a minimum of several weeks in a state of undistracted, alert boredom. Just as a child does, by trial and error, you must learn to perform your ordinary, everyday activities. In a state of undistracted alertness you will rise from your bed, wash, eat your breakfast and perform your daily activities.

Trust in your intuition to guide you as you adjust to living with undistracted awareness. Rely on Act functioning automatically to guide you through each moment. If the pressure of events requires you to submit to the thought process, try to regain undistracted alertness as soon as you are able.

The reality is that with the birth of samadhic consciousness, you have entered into a fresh experience of life, entirely outside the bounds of ordinary consciousness. Working within this Implicate Technology framework, your growth will be rapid and more eventful, in terms of inner experience, than you can know at this stage. But first, your newly born samadhic awareness must become strongly rooted in your everyday experience of life.

Trust in your intuition to tell you when you are ready to move on to the next exercise. Rushing ahead too soon is foolish, and delaying too long before venturing into the unknown is wasteful. When you feel drawn to start the next exercise, and you feel relaxed and confident in your ability to sustain undistracted awareness, then move on.

Samadhi brings you the measureless benefit of being able to witness the world, detached from and transcending your own thought process. This detachment is the inherent stillness of mind in its natural state. Once you have become attuned to this inner stillness, you can explore, directly through your own experience, the full nature of reality.