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.

3.10 What is the outcome of a sustained period of undistracted witnessing of stimuli as they occur?

Through sustained practice of samadhi, your psycho-physiological system will spontaneously re-align and re-balance its energy flows. Your body will become calmer, your sleep pattern will be less disturbed, and you will learn to recognise your thought process as simply another phenomenon occurring as part of this. You will learn to recognise that thoughts occur in the mind as a result of stimuli, and that the mind and thoughts are not identical.

For the moment, as a result of your practice of the previous exercises, you have trained your mind to a state of intense alertness. You are now so keenly aware of the relationship between thoughts and stimuli that, sometimes, this seems overwhelming. Just as you experienced an apparent instability in conditions before realising the first stage of enlightenment, you may undergo a similar experience at this stage as a temporary function of your heightened sensitivity to the effects of stimuli.

When the awareness is focused through the intrinsic emptiness and silence of samadhi, the mind experiences stimuli as the rising and falling away of thoughts. When distracted, and so absorbed in the flow of thoughts, the mind loses awareness of its inherent stillness. The key to the next exercise is to keep the mind still, by remaining unresponsive to the endless interplay of stimulus and thought-response.

Sixth exercise

During samadhi, the state of awareness transcending and encompassing the thought process, one becomes conscious of thoughts the instant they arise. Trained to an extraordinary degree of alertness by these advanced meditative practices, your mind has developed the ability to be aware instantly of the birth of a thought, and the ability to inhibit the development of any train of thought. This practice of inhibiting thoughts at birth, in the instant they arise, should be sustained until, quite naturally and spontaneously, you become indifferent and unresponsive to the rising and passing away of thoughts.

When you have been successful in this meditation, you will be able, without great effort, to maintain your mind in its natural state – still, serene and inherently devoid of thoughts. Thoughts will still occur in your mind; but now, you will be able to treat them with the same detachment with which you view the scene passing outside the windows of a train on a long journey. You will experience the thought process as an endless flow of stimuli, and you will simultaneously transcend the thought process through realising the inherent emptiness and stillness of your mind.

You will become capable of living the ordinary, everyday events of your life while both fully participating in these events, and silently, serenely witnessing the events, both inner and outer. The ability to witness this, including your own thought process, without inhibition or reaction will occur effortlessly and spontaneously. The state of still, thought-free witnessing is a continuous, unbroken consciousness that this comprises physical and mental stimuli.

In samadhi, the ability to recognise and transcend your mind’s instinctive reactions to the stimuli of this is an essential precondition for breaking free of the illusion that this is an objective reality comprising separate people, places and things. Only the mind in its natural state, calm and free of thoughts, can undertake the task of exploring and transcending the nature of space and time. Characteristic of deepest samadhi is the ability to witness this with the serene, unfailing acceptance of what is.

The remaining Implicate Technology meditative practices will bring you to realisation of the absolute truth about your original and ever-present nature. In the moment of knowing the truth, your mind will become free – beyond time, space, karma and the constraints of life and death. To achieve this, all you have to do is continue with committed daily practice of meditation as instructed.