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.