7.1.1 What are the roots of Implicate Technology?

The unified, coherent and structured system of meditation which forms the body of Implicate Technology meditative practice had its origin long before our earliest recorded history. In the West, a generally accessible description of these intuitively-based meditative disciplines has not been available. Conversely, in the East, the history of yoga has been traced back much farther than is possible when using the tools and methodologies of explicate, intellectually – based disciplines.

Up to the attainment of the first stage of enlightenment, the Implicate Technology meditative system is based on Chinese Taoist teachings [See chapter 1, Beyond the personality: the beginner’s guide to enlightenment]. The teaching on the second to the fourth stages of enlightenment is based on Tibetan Buddhist yoga [Evans-Wentz W. Y.; Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines; Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1967, pages 101-153]. The modes of expression used in Implicate Technology to describe the experience of enlightenment owe a strong debt to Indian Hinduism [Godman, David; Be As You Are: the Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi; London, Arkana, l985].

Implicate Technology clearly acknowledges its debt to the practices and experience of these earlier models of reality. Equally, it should be clearly understood that Implicate Technology is not simply an amalgam of pre-existing Eastern meditative techniques. Yoga transcends all cultural barriers and histories, being the exclusive preserve of none.

The experience and lessons of the highly developed Eastern implicate technology systems are utilised and expressed by Implicate Technology in a context adapted to the demands of late-twentieth century Western secular culture. These Implicate Technology teachings are the systematic and coherent record of contemporary experience on the path to the final stage of enlightenment. Their purpose is to guide and assist others on the far journey along the path to enlightenment.

The Eastern models of reality reflect an awareness that the journey to enlightenment can take many, many lifetimes. Implicate Technology acknowledges the truth of this, and recognises the novelty of such a perspective in our materialistic Western culture. Up to the late-twentieth century we in the West have lacked the generally accessible cultural perspective necessary to be at ease with the idea of an evolutionary journey across many lifetimes. However, we have been prepared by the evolutionary pattern of karma for a sudden, widespread quantum leap in spiritual development in this generation of incarnations.

Be assured: from the day you start meditating until the day you realise the final stage of enlightenment, the total time elapsed can be as little as eighteen months. To travel this path, from ordinary consciousness to realisation of the unity of reality, in such a short time requires wholehearted dedication and commitment to the practice of these teachings. By meditating as instructed, and so releasing the experience of previous incarnations, you will spontaneously find out how far along the path you have already travailed in previous incarnations.

As well as having roots in Eastern meditative systems, this Western model of reality is also rooted in the Jewish mystical tradition. Developing separately from the mainstream of Jewish culture, the Kabbalah has flowered over the centuries. Splendid in its vision, the Kabbalah has evolved into a fully developed model of reality.

The Kabbalah’s greatest achievement has been to identify, in Jewish mystical terminology, “the ten energy-essences that are …………..in constant interplay and underlie all of the universe” [Hoffman, Edward; The Way of Splendour: Jewish Mysticism and Modern Psychology, Boulder, Shambhala, 1981; page 234]. These energy essences, known as the ten sefirot, can be diagrammatically represented in the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. By means of this diagrammatic technique, the Kabbalah is able to model, analyse and understand any situation in terms of the interactions of the ten sefirot.

The ten conditions of Implicate Technology, which are in constant interplay and underlie all of everyday experience, are, simply, the ten sefirot writ large. The ten conditions are an articulation of the same vision which developed the ten sefirot, expressed in terms more generally accessible. The ten conditions are the ten sefirot translated from the framework and language of Jewish mysticism into the language used by ordinary, intelligent people in the context of their everyday lives.

Rooted in direct experience of the true, final and absolute nature of reality, Implicate Technology clearly acknowledges the similarity of its structure to other models of reality. Apart from personal preference and cultural relevance, there is no inherent advantage of any one fully developed model of reality over another. The ultimate truth is inexpressible, and any model of its nature must necessarily be conditioned and relative.

7.1.3 What are the primary points of similarity between Implicate Technology and the existing Eastern models of reality?

Implicate Technology is a Western-originated model of reality, reflecting the experiences, and adapted to the needs, of everyday Western life. The language of Implicate Technology largely comprises words used in ordinary life. There are, however, three exceptions – three Sanskrit terms imported from Eastern implicate technology systems and used freely in Implicate Technology.

This sparse use of the rich and fruitful language of the Eastern implicate technologies is deliberate. Implicate Technology is not a hybrid of various Eastern systems, relying for its authority on the ancient authority of the venerable Eastern technologies. Rather, Implicate Technology is a spontaneous evolution of Western spiritual understanding, relying for its authority on the depth of spiritual experience it provides for those who practise its meditative techniques.

We in the West are subject to a form of spiritual imperialism, which is the analogue of the commercial imperialism through which the West still exploits and ransacks the East. Sensing the failure of the currently available Western religious and spiritual systems, many in the West have adopted wholeheartedly the methods and beliefs of Eastern systems. This transportation of the spiritual products of one culture to another is rarely harmonious or successful.

The East has sensed this deep need in the West, and we have seen an influx of representatives of Eastern models of reality seeking to persuade us of the value of their systems. Aware of the authority and accuracy of the various systems they represent, they come to the West in genuine humility to try to bring us the benefits of spiritual civilisation. Quite unconsciously they also condescend to us, as they treat us like the spiritually backward peoples we actually are.

Much thoughtfulness, consideration and caution is necessary when attempts are made to introduce products of implicate or explicate technologies from a culture developed in the use of these products into a culture unused to and unprepared for them. Just as the villager in a less developed part of India has no application for cheap mass-produced personal computers, so, too, the average spiritually impoverished Western city-dweller has no appetite for highly sophisticated meditative systems. Economically impoverished and subject to disease from unsanitary conditions, the Indian villager needs a clean fresh supply of water, a simple reliable means of producing cheap electricity and an understanding of basic health care and nutrition. Spiritually impoverished and subject to disease from an environment polluted by ignorance of the organic unity of reality, the Western city-dweller needs pure and simple meditative exercises to deal with Western experiences and perceptions of reality.

Without a sense of equality and shared responsibility, cultures simply exploit and damage each other as they barter the products of implicate and explicate technologies. The poorly paid worker in the East spends relatively large amounts of money on useless products of Western explicate technology such as heavily advertised, manufactured, soft drinks, instead of consuming the traditional, cheaper and more nutritious local alternatives. The spiritually ignorant Westerner, desperate for fulfilment and meaning in life, has a tendency to become absorbed into wholly inappropriate Eastern-based spiritual systems, resulting in much unhappiness both to the seeker and to his or her family and friends, from whom there can soon be estrangement.

If such destructive imbalances in cultural trading patterns are to be effectively dealt with, we need to develop ways to discuss, analyse and understand the interactions between the various dominant models of reality. Such a politics of transcendence requires a basic understanding of the elements and practices common to all fully developed models of reality. With a knowledge and understanding of the roots common to all implicate technologies, it becomes possible to recognise and respect cultural differences on the basis of a shared sense of fundamental equality.

Implicate Technology imports only three fundamental Sanskrit terms from Eastern models of reality – karma, yoga and samadhi. A term for the fundamental implicate law known as karma, for the practical implicate disciplines known collectively as yoga, and for the state of undistracted alertness known as samadhi, in which the implicate nature of reality is consciously and continuously experienced, must exist in any fully developed model of reality. Implicate Technology uses the ancient and well suited language of Sanskrit for these terms in order to emphasise the common ground between this Western model of reality and the older Eastern paths to understanding the spiritual truths underlying material reality.

7.1.4.2 The path of knowledge of the nature of reality, known in the East as jnana yoga, is the foundation of this Implicate Technology meditative system. Calling on the inherent desire to understand the nature of reality and the true nature of one’s experience of life, the way of knowledge leads to enlightenment through unremitting dedication to understanding every aspect of one’s life as a meaningful part of a unified whole. The unified whole which is reality can be understood from one viewpoint as a process apparent only to the transcendentally realised mind, and from another viewpoint as the manifest form of God.

Possessed by the desire to understand and integrate into reality, the individual mind first analyses itself and then analyses the nature of the external world. As the mind’s capacity to function at transcendental levels of consciousness awakens, the underlying nature of mind and matter becomes apparent. Both the individual mind which experiences and the apparently objective world which is experienced are understood in their true nature as relative manifestations of the one absolute mind which alone is.

The way of devotion and the way of knowledge are two different approaches to the same goal: both paths lead to transcendental realisation of the unified and integrated nature of perceptible reality. Once the illusory sense of specific individuality has been transcended, it a only a matter of personal taste whether reality is experienced as unity with God or as an inherently unified process. To the transcendentally realised mind, capable of experiencing reality simultaneously from relative and absolute viewpoints, the difference between the way of knowledge and the way of devotion is simply one of individual temperament and perspective.

7.1.4.4 The fourth path to enlightenment is the way of the body, known in the East as hatha yoga. This way utilises a profound understanding of the body’s inherent implicate energy systems to bring about progress towards the final stage of enlightenment. By combining physical postures and exercises with an understanding of the relationship between breathing and states of consciousness, progress can be made along the path to realising the absolute nature of reality.

We in the West have not yet developed a sufficient understanding of the implicate nature of reality to be capable of producing a fully realised form of hatha yoga. The yoga of sexual energy taught in chapter 5 of The beginner’s guide to enlightenment bears the same relationship to a fully developed hatha yoga as gunpowder does to a nuclear warhead. The yoga of sexual energy taught in Implicate Technology is only a starting point for the understanding of the body’s inherent implicate energy systems.

7.1.6 What are the limitations of contemporary Christianity as a fully developed model of reality?

Over millennia, the East has had a proliferation of models of reality – that is to say, there exist in the East extensive oral and written records of the systemised experiences of individuals on the path to enlightenment. When a fresh experience of the absolute nature of reality arises in the East, as a result of the evolutionary activity of karma, the newly enlightened person, if empowered and made articulate by karma to speak directly and clearly to the surrounding culture, can relate the new teaching to the existing spiritual systems. For much of the East, the ancient Sanskrit language forms the basis of the culturally accepted models of the implicate structure of reality, against which any new experience and articulation of the absolute will be measured and tested.

From the point of view of the aspirant struggling against the mind’s accumulated ignorance to attain enlightenment, the pre-existing models of reality serve as a map. These systematic and structured records of previous spiritual journeys help the traveller in consciousness to identify the major experiences, and provide sound advice on how to understand and transcend each stage until the final goal is reached and the journey ceases. Properly and wisely used, such guidance enables the traveller to journey with greater safety and speed towards realisation of the absolute through direct experience.

From the point of view of the newly enlightened person struggling to articulate experiences which can only crudely be put into words, the existing models of reality enable the realised mind to compare and contrast contemporarily relevant ways of expressing the experiences encountered along the path. The availability of comparable models of reality is of great importance in providing a stabilising perspective on a newly emerging spiritual system. Fresh and culturally stimulating visions of reality only arise occasionally in history, as part of the fall and rise in a culture’s spiritual development.

Consider carefully the origins of Christianity, in terms of the availability of comparable spiritual systems. Jesus had only the study of Jewish scriptures, for a comparative experiential map, to guide him and assist him in articulating his inner experience of the absolute in terms accessible to his contemporaries. The scriptures indicated clearly and unequivocally the terrible role which the awaited Messiah would have to fulfil.

The gospels abound with examples of Jesus’s concern to comply with the authority of the Jewish scriptures, so that the ancient prophecies might be fulfilled. The events of his ministry had been foretold in detail, that is to say, his actions were culturally expected and predetermined. Jesus carefully and deliberately set out on the path to crucifixion, so that the words of the prophets would come true.

The Jewish spiritual system, as discussed in chapter 2 of this book, marked the first culture-wide attempt in Western consciousness to express the experience of reality as a unified whole. From the vantage point of later millennia, the Jewish model can be seen as a first attempt by Western consciousness to produce a fully developed model of reality. Jesus’s task was to refine and develop that map. His task was to show in greater detail the path to the goal and the nature of the goal itself.

Lacking the extensive range of comparative teachings which we in the West have had available to us in the twentieth century, Jesus had to rely for guidance on the available teachings based on the Jewish scriptures, and on his own experiences on the path to enlightenment. As a result of this, key aspects of his teaching were formulated in the limited terms of Jewish Palestinian culture of two thousand years ago. Jesus taught that the kingdom of heaven was to be gained solely through belief in him and his teaching. Central to the difficulties facing contemporary Christianity is the unwillingness of many ordinary people to accept Jesus as the sole authority and means of access to God.

The situation of profound and widespread ignorance of comparative spiritual systems which existed at the time of the origins of Christianity is at the root of the misconception distorting Jesus’s original teaching. Jesus taught that he was the sole source of access to God because, quite simply, in the limited context of his time and place, he really was the sole point of access. In the overall context of humanity’s progressive development of models of reality, Jesus can clearly be seen as one enlightened teacher among many.

The next major area of difficulty for contemporary Christianity is its insistence on belief in Jesus as a prerequisite for experience of the kingdom of God. Jesus had undoubtedly travelled along the path to the final stage of enlightenment; but it is clear from the evidence in the gospels that he was unable to teach, except privately to his disciples, the direct experience of the kingdom of heaven [Matthew 13, 10-11; Mark 4, 10-11, 34]. This does not suggest a limitation in Jesus’s ability as a teacher; rather, it indicates a limitation in the culture he was working in at that place and time.

Belief in spiritual matters is only necessary, for an individual or a culture, when direct intuitive experience is not possible. In that culture of two thousand years ago, which was taking the first steps in the lengthy transition of Western civilisation into an ethically-based civilisation, widespread direct experience of the absolute nature of reality was not possible. Where a society has not yet evolved sufficiently to have produced a fully developed model of reality, the only way for most individuals to access spiritual truths is through belief in another person’s direct intuitive experience.

Jesus taught that he was the sole source of access to God and that salvation lay in belief in him, because in the limited terms of his relatively unevolved culture that was the literal truth. The need for belief in Jesus remained strong for as long as Christianity fulfilled its karmic function of evolving Western civilisation into an ethically-based culture. The capacity of individuals to be satisfied, through belief, about the truth behind Jesus’s teachings, waned correspondingly as the civilising effect of his message achieved the necessary moral evolution in Western consciousness.

This process of Western culture evolving spontaneously towards a spiritually-based civilisation has as its inevitable consequence the growing realisation that, for increasing numbers of individuals, belief of itself is no longer sufficient to satisfy their spiritual aspirations. Fully developed spiritual understanding is not possible if it is based merely on belief. Direct intuitive experience of the nature of reality is the key to a mature spiritual understanding.

As all who have such intuitive knowledge agree, the direct experience of the absolute nature of reality is inexpressible. The absolute is pure experience of being, transcending any conditioned modes of expression. Any teacher must articulate the inexpressible in fresh, contemporary terms, in order to help others along the path.

It is impossible for any teacher to describe a detailed and systematic path leading to direct experience of the absolute without incorporating both an individual and a cultural bias into the descriptive system. That bias may not be apparent to the teacher’s contemporaries, since they share the cultural bias, and the teaching will seem new and revelatory to them. As the relevance of a teaching fades with the passage of time, its limitations become apparent. As a spiritual system becomes less relevant to the way people live their lives, and less able to address and satisfy their need for inner growth, so do its limitations become clear.

The individual bias shows in the choice of theistic or purely transcendental modes of description of the absolute. The true, final and absolute nature of reality can be accurately described both as God, and as mind in its unconditioned state, devoid of qualities. God is the first reflex in conditioned existence of mind in its unconditioned form – God and mind in its unconditioned state are one and inseparable.

The cultural bias shows in the structural detail of the system of expression. The language and concepts used, and the experiences discussed, all reflect the need for development in consciousness of a particular culture over a particular time. The only unshakeable absolute in any spiritual system is the inexpressible, pure and all-embracing goal, knowable only by direct intuitive experience; all else in any model of reality is only relative in nature and has only temporary cultural validity.

Jesus taught his understanding of the absolute nature of reality in theistic terms, because it suited both his nature and the needs of his contemporaries. Why did Jesus choose to represent his experience of the absolute in the male imagery of God the Father? The answer is certainly not because God, the first reflex of the one mind in its unconditioned state, is male.

It makes as much sense to talk of God the Mother as it does to talk of God the Father. Neither view is more true than the other, although one view may be more relevant in particular circumstances to particular people.

Teaching in terms of God the Father was the natural extension of the traditional Jewish patriarchal symbolism which existed in the male-dominated culture of Palestine two thousand years ago. By adopting and expressing anew the existing cultural points of reference, Jesus was able to reach the greatest number of people with his teaching. To teach of God the Mother would have been meaningless in that particular historical context.

The male-orientated, early Christian model of reality was also characterized by an aversion to woman’s sexuality, which was to be contained and controlled inside an allegedly God-ordained marriage (children, for the procreation of). The Christian notions of God as male and of marriage sanctified by religion as the sole legitimate arena for sexual experience, have been treated as absolute products of divine wisdom, although only based on the relative authority of Jesus and the disciples. In this way views relevant to and originated in a particular culture two thousand years ago, have been passed down to our profoundly different culture as unshakeable holy writ.

As such rigid religious attitudes become increasingly irrelevant to the way the majority of people live their lives, the inevitable reaction sets in. The power and influence of the Christian Church is waning where it fails to adapt to the rapid changes in people’s thinking. Generally speaking, Christian Churches have lost sight of the freshness and vitality of Jesus’s original teaching.

7.1.8 How can committed Christians re-establish the freshness and vitality of Jesus’s original teachings?

Seeking God’s grace and love, the committed Christian can find direct experience of God through practice of these Implicate Technology meditations from a religious perspective. In due course, God willing, practice of meditation will bring direct, intuitive experience of the divine nature underlying the world of everyday experience. The committed Christian will naturally seek to interpret and understand such experience in terms of Christ’s teachings.

The way for the committed Christian to understand the experiences encountered along the path to unity with God is to go back to Jesus’s original teachings in the gospels. First, pare away all accretions on Jesus’s original teaching, leaving only the record of his sayings. Then, re-interpret the original sayings in the light of what you have learned, through your own experience of meditation within the fully developed framework of Implicate Technology, of the nature and structure of perceptible reality.

The primary purpose of the Implicate Technology meditative system is to teach direct intuitive realisation of the absolute subjectivity of the Godhead. The committed Christian who has attained unity with God through practice of these meditations is capable of producing specifically Christian devotional meditations to help and guide other Christians along the path to God. Implicate Technology is only one of many paths to enlightenment – Christianity will be able to reach out to, and help, far greater numbers of seekers of God’s love when its advocates recognise that, like every other model of reality, Christianity is only one of many paths to the eternal truth.

The committed and dedicated Christian, who has experienced the reality of God’s all-pervading love and who wishes to express that understanding within the officially approved structures of the Christian hierarchy, can expect severe opposition and obstruction from those in power. As with all bureaucracies which institutionalize an original and great idea, the maintaining of the current power balance within the institution becomes more important than the founding vision. The Christian Church is much more interested in maintaining its social, moral, political and economic influence than it is concerned to spread Jesus’s message of universal love.

As well as being preoccupied with maintaining its temporal power base, the Christian Church has a long history of alienating itself from elements essential to any fully developed model of reality. The Second Council of Constantinople, meeting in A. D. 553, anathematized the supporters of reincarnation and karma [Evans-Wentz, W. Y.; The Tibetan Book of the Dead; Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1960; pp 4, 185n, 234-5, 239]. The Christian Church officially upholds an incomplete model of reality which cannot, of itself lead the committed Christian to direct intuitive experience of the unity of humanity and God.

It follows that the committed and dedicated Christian who has direct transcendental experience of the love of God faces an uphill and difficult struggle in attempting to re-introduce the full breadth of Jesus’s original vision into the contemporary Church. The Catholic Church has a long history of isolating and excommunicating Christians whose views fall outside of acceptable official norms. The Christian who attempts to breathe relevance and vitality into the temporal power base of Christianity, perhaps by working for the ordination of women in a male-dominated system, will need to move slowly, carefully and cautiously.

Careful study and practice of the power discipline, as taught in chapter 3 of The beginner’s guide to enlightenment, will enable the Christian seeking to transform the Church from within to deal with obstruction from those in authority. Reality will inevitably unfold in its own way; your task is always to Act in harmony with the flow of reality. The perfect vehicle for God’s love knows that all obstructions to unity with God are the will of God, and it is God alone who will deal with those who obstruct across endless lifetimes.