2.2 Samadhi

To achieve the unparalleled and unlimited freedom from all burdens which is the natural experience of mind in its fully enlightened state, you must learn how to rid your mind gradually of the ignorance of its own nature accumulated throughout your previous incarnations. Chapters 3 to 6 of this book teach you, step by step, how to shed the layers of ignorance obscuring direct experience of the mind in its natural state. This process of shaking off ignorance of the true nature of reality and of abiding, at first with great effort but eventually effortlessly, in direct experience of that, is known in most Eastern implicate technology systems as samadhi.

Samadhi begins spontaneously with the most intense period of concentration you will have encountered to date. Chapters 3 to 6 of this book will guide you from that raw and unstructured first experience of samadhi through a detailed set of yoga exercises which will awaken you to the true nature of your mind. At the end of your practice of these exercises, provided that you work within the guidelines given, you will realise the full, final and absolute stage of enlightenment. Regardless of the conditions of your life, your experience will be of limitless freedom and effortless activity.

This chapter teaches you how to live your life in such a way that samadhi begins spontaneously. You cannot force the beginning of samadhi. Samadhi will only occur spontaneously and in a mind which has been prepared for the experience through a life lived in harmony with the moral purpose inherent in karma.

If it is your natural inclination to work within a religious model of reality, rather than this secular Implicate Technology model, you can readily adapt these exercises to devotional purposes. The practice of the exercises remains the same for religious or secular purposes. The goal, if you are religious by nature, is not realisation of the Godhead-mind in its unconditioned state-rather, to the religiously inclined person, the goal is achieved through realising one’s inherent unity with God. In Implicate Technology terms, this is the realisation that all of this is one and inseparable.

The distinction between realising the unconditioned state and dwelling in the love of God is simply one of individual preference and perspective. Chapter 5, The path to the final stage of enlightenment, teaches where the meditations end if your goal is full realisation of your devotion to God. Appendix 1, How to recognise a fully developed model of reality, clarifies the differences between the devotional path to understanding reality and the path to knowledge of reality.

All the conditions of life – including birth, ageing, suffering and death – can be transcended through the practice of samadhi, the clear setting face to face with reality. The capacity to experience samadhi, and so to be able to rise above and transform the conditions of life, is only given to a person who is in harmony with the evolutionary purpose of karma. This chapter teaches you how to live an ordinary life, in the midst of conditions, which takes you towards the priceless gift of samadhi – a still, clear mind perceiving this in its true nature as that.

2.4 How do you gain freedom from the constraints of conditioned existence, this?

The teachings in this chapter follow on from chapter 5 of The beginner’s guide to enlightenment. That is to say, you are equipped to work with this chapter if you have realised the first or psychological stage of enlightenment. But you will not be equipped to deal with this chapter unless you have made a start on the transpersonal meditations in chapter 5 of that book.

In The beginner’s guide to enlightenment, you were taught, step by practical step, how to develop your understanding through experience. As you developed in your practice of the meditation, your experience unfolded. Your experience was always used as the basis to draw you further along the path.

In this chapter, an apparently different approach will be used. First, you will be taught what may seem to be an entirely theoretical structure. Then you will be taught how to prepare yourself to realise the theory in practice.

This technique is essentially the same as in the preparatory teachings. Before you can have the necessary experiences, you must develop your understanding. The understanding provided by meditating on the meaning of this chapter will prepare your mind for the expansions of consciousness to come.

The aim or goal of this chapter is to guide you towards a way of living which operates in harmony with the inherent implicate laws governing and informing our lives. This way of living does not impose any moral structure or expected pattern of behaviour on you. It is simply a way of living in harmony with the moral purpose inherent in reality.

2.6 How do you live your life in such a way that you receive the priceless gift of samadhi?

Reality is a process structured to purge you of your ignorance, accumulated through time, of the nature of this. Reality is a process structured to purge you of your ignorance, accumulated through time, of the nature of that. You can only understand that this is that through the experience of samadhi.

Samadhi only occurs in a mind adequately prepared for the experience. This Implicate Technology teaching of the clear setting face to face with reality prepares you in a twofold manner. Firstly, by teaching you how to live a life in harmony with the moral purpose of reality, and secondly by teaching you yogic techniques which you can use in your everyday environment.

To live a life in harmony with the flow of reality you need a context which adequately describes and supports life as you live it. Other implicate technology systems [see glossary for the distinction between implicate technology and Implicate Technology] normally provide this through a culturally accepted moral code. This Implicate Technology teaching provides the context you need in terms of a description of the role of the individual in the process that is reality.

Our Western cultures place great importance on the rights and needs of the individual. Our governments talk freely of these rights but the reality varies according to the political needs and pressures of the moment. As taught in The beginner’s guide to enlightenment, each one of us learns to deal with the world through the limits of our personality, insofar as the prevailing conditions will allow.

It is in accordance with the flow of reality, the nature of this, that the individual is treated as having such importance. Each one of us is a unique and essential source of experiencing this as it unfolds through time. To treat others with consideration for their needs and respect for their rights is to act in such a way as to incur positive karmic consequences; failure to help someone when it is within your gift, or to push aside the rights of another, invariably incurs negative karmic consequences.

It is in accordance with the flow of reality, the manifest nature of that, that the sense of ‘I’, the awareness of specific individuality, should be understood as being merely relative and so illusory. In the final analysis of the mind trained in the advanced meditative techniques taught in this book, the sense of ‘I’ is part of the illusion binding the mind to unenlightened behaviour. All individuality is merely an illusion appearing in the midst of conditions – the simple and absolute truth, insofar as it can be conveyed in words, is that we are all that alone, and nothing else.

At this stage in your travels along the path towards realisation of the final stage of enlightenment, having realised the psychological stage of enlightenment and not yet having spontaneously started samadhi, you need to learn how to act as an enlightened person. That is to say, to assist you in your inner development, you need a framework to guide and accustom you to enlightened forms of behaviour. It will be exactly as with the practices to raise the sexual energy described in chapter 5 of The beginner’s guide to enlightenment: at first, compliance with these practices will be an act of determination and possibly imagination only; as your determination and practice improve, your inner experience will prepare you for the spontaneous beginning of samadhi.

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.