1.7 If I am that, if my true nature is immanent all-embracing transcendent being, how can I learn to experience this?

In common with Eastern implicate technologies such as Taoism, Buddhism and Hinduism, this Implicate Technology meditative system directs the awareness of the meditator to address one central issue during advanced meditative practices: who is it who is doing the meditation? The answer obtained from carefully following each meditative system to its natural conclusion is always the same: when sought in a rigorous and disciplined manner, the meditator simply cannot be found. This result is, of course, not at all apparent to ordinary common sense.

Advanced meditation teaches the meditator that the sense of ‘I’, the inherent sense of being an individual and separate person, has only relative reality. It has no absolute foundation in reality. At all times and in all circumstances, the sense of specific and unique individuality is a relative illusion, created by the interactions of the ten conditions.

From the unenlightened point of view, the sense of ‘I’, the natural and spontaneous feeling of specific individuality, is part of everyday life and taken for granted. From the enlightened point of view, the sense of ‘I’ is understood through direct intuitive experience, to have no more validity as a focus for experience of this than the emotional pains and joys of life are found to have after the attainment of the psychological stage of enlightenment. When the relatively illusory sense of ‘I’, the individual ego, fades away, the true nature of reality is understood.

‘The “I” casts off the illusion of “I” and yet remains as “I”. Such is the paradox of Self-Realisation. The realised do not see any contradiction in it.’ [Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi; Sri Ramanasramam, Tiruvannamalai, T. N. Venkataraman, 1984; page 29.]

With the fading of the illusory sense of individual separateness, the enlightened mind sees all as a manifestation of that. ‘I’, ‘you’, these words and the thought running through your mind at this instant, are all manifestations of that. As the thought process of the one, universal mind unfolds, so this unfolds through time and space: simultaneously that is realised as stillness, emptiness and as being devoid of qualities, and experienced as clarity, wisdom and delight.

A central image in the Implicate Technology model of reality is: reality is a process whose function is to guide you towards enlightenment, at a pace and in circumstances suitable to your own nature.

The process can be understood as the workings of an infinite organic machine, a unified and coherent whole in which each component part is meaningfully located. You are the focus of the process; you are a key element in the machine.

The beginner’s guide to enlightenment teaches that all the material you need to assist you in your journey along the path to enlightenment is to be found in your own life. Karma shapes your life to guide and direct you, through the process that is reality. Throw yourself with commitment and dedication into these Implicate Technology teachings and you will realise the final stage of enlightenment through direct intuitive experience.

Meditation, the primary tool available to you to help you to realise the enlightened state of mind, needs nothing outside of yourself and only the simplest of conditions: this is because reality is a coherent and integrated process, an entirely organic and unified machine. The goal of meditation is reached when the thought process can be switched off at will, leaving a consciousness clear about what is, wise in accepting what is and filled with delight at that. This state of mind, which involves gaining control over the very source of your own thought process through undistracted alertness, is known in Eastern implicate technology systems as samadhi.

Samadhi is a state of mind sustained over longer and longer periods until it becomes permanent, which begins spontaneously with the most strenuous and intense period of concentration possible. As your samadhi develops, you learn to analyse the processes of your mind, gradually discovering the true nature of mental processes. The conclusion of the process of samadhi is the realisation of an eternal state of mind which is serenely aware of what is, and is unsullied by the thought process.

The great literature of all religions is filled with descriptions of the state of mind which is the goal of this secular teaching. To realise this as that is to see the world as Brahman, to become at one with God, to realise the Void, to reunite with the Tao. The differences between these forms of expression are simply cultural variations of the one inexpressible truth of reality, which is knowable only through direct intuitive experience.