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.