If you believe you can help to direct spiritual energies for the upliftment of consciousness, then group meditation is an important means of service. The soul came into incarnation to be its divine self in the world, and meditation helps to realize that.
Robert: Welcome to Inner Sight. Inner sight is simply seeing that which is always present but not yet fully recognized. You have within you the ability to see yourself and the world around you in a new way, with new eyes, so stay with us, and together we’ll look at the world and ourselves with inner sight. Our topic today is meditation, and I hope that if you have started with meditation that you derive as much benefit from it as I have. Some of the side effects for me have been a calmer state of being and I think also that it’s affected my health in a positive way over the years, but we’ll talk more in depth about that in a little while. Meanwhile, here’s a thought by Alice Bailey, the founder of the Lucis Trust organization, who wrote twenty-four volumes of books, and everything that we speak about really emanates from her works, as does this thought: “Meditation is not an escape from reality but a path of discovery of the true self, the spiritual being, the soul.” Well, I think that probably one of the greatest things that we can do in our life is to know who we are. If we can go through our lives and know who we are and acquire a larger definition of ourselves, I think we will have gained a lot during our lifetime, but what is the value of meditation?
Sarah: I think meditation is a means for coming in touch with who you really are. It’s a means of retrieving the rest of oneself: that’s how I really think of it. I suppose most of us think we know who we are, but in fact we could be compared to the tip of an iceberg in the middle of an ocean. The portion that’s sticking up above the water is just the tiniest portion of the entire iceberg. That might be compared to our awareness of ourself. The part that’s most visible, the outer self, is only a tiny fragment of the real, all-encompassing identity of the Self, and of course that applies not only to ourselves, but to everyone else too. If we apply that realization to ourselves, we have to also realize that there’s a great deal about those whom we know very well, that we don’t know so well. So, meditation helps one to come in touch with who they really are. This is done by redirecting the attention, I think. It’s a process of taking the normal activity of the mind — which is normally focused outward, objectifying itself in the sense of being preoccupied with what’s going on, on an outer level of form — and turning that flow of attention inward, toward the inner dynamic that’s going on within us, and in time to the intuition. What would you say?
Dale: Well, also you would want to add to that, one valuable asset to a practice of meditation is the ability to concentrate, especially at the start. That’s the very first thing that one must practice, really, before you even get into the formal meditation work. That’s not easy to do, to concentrate and hold the mind steady on a single thought or an idea. That’s really what we should aim for in meditation, but you just try to hold your mind steady for five seconds. (laughter) Particularly here in the Western world where we have such a busy kind of mind, always analyzing things and the mind is constantly working and moving and modulating. What you have to do, first of all, is to slow down that modulating mind, to hold it steady, as we say, in the light of the soul, and that is certainly not an easy thing to do. It’s not a question of suppressing your thoughts, because that’s not good. It’s a matter of redirecting the energy in a one-pointed way towards this objective of the soul. That’s really what you should aim for. And concentration, really learning to concentrate, is a technique that will help you in your daily life, even outside of meditation. You learn to concentrate in your daily life and your activities, and you begin to organize your daily life in a better way and make it more one-pointed. So, it has a definite contribution even to the daily life.
Sarah: I don’t think that we in the West should underestimate our capacity to meditate. There is a lot of respect — rightfully so — for the Eastern attainment in meditation practice. But the Western way of life, oddly enough, also orients itself to the practice of meditation as a kind of Raja Yoga, which we’ll talk about in a while. What I’m getting at is that even the person who’s occupied with business or with a scientific problem is prepared to meditate because they have learned to mobilize and organize the faculties of the mind, and to focus that energy on the solution to a particular problem. So, we shouldn’t underestimate our readiness to learn to meditate, but it is as you say, something that you learn. You don’t just sit down one day and decide you’re going to meditate; at least not most of us. It’s like all worthy endeavors. It’s something you train and study and practice to do well.
Dale: Yes, and probably many scientists or those with a scientific orientation already do meditate in their own way, as you say; they are highly concentrated on a thought, particularly mathematicians. They work in this abstract realm of mathematics and that requires some deep one-pointed thinking, and that’s essentially what meditation is: sustained, concentrated thought.
Sarah: It reminds me of that story a few years ago of the scientist at Princeton, the mathematician who solved Fermat’s theorem. It took him years, and then one day the solution finally just dropped into his mind while he was sitting in his study. That’s a kind of meditation where you create an opening for a new realization to precipitate itself. I think the drawback of Western life is that it doesn’t create the silence that is needed for a concentrated focus of energy. You need silence and withdrawal from activity on the outer level. That’s very hard to find in our Western way of life.
Dale: Not only the silence of the outer world; you want a quiet place to meditate in, but also the silence of your thought processes. That’s the internal noise, a constant modulation and busy, busy, busy mind analyzing this and that, and that’s very noisy.
Sarah: It never stops, and if you don’t think there’s a lot of noise going on inside your head, try to meditate. That’s when you really become aware of how much activity, how much noise — it’s like the people that pass you in the street with the headphones that create the noise that spills out and you hear it — well, there’s that noise inside your head that’s even worse. You’re thinking about your grocery list, about your neighbor, about your daughter, about having to work, about what you’re going to do this evening, about what you’re going to cook for dinner and it goes on and on and on and on. To get that to stop is the beginning step in meditation.
Dale: Right. You always have to keep in mind the objective here — at least as far as the meditation work that we use and practice — the objective is alignment with the soul. The objective is to put your mind in a position where it synchronizes with that of the soul, and the soul is very one pointed and in a quiet atmosphere in its own right. That’s what you have to synchronize with.
Robert: Speaking of the soul: I just want to make sure that I understand this. When you speak about the soul you’re speaking about that spiritual essence that permeates the whole universe, that’s not only outside of us, but also within us.
Sarah: Yes, the consciousness, the consciousness aspect, the higher self that all of us have, which you acquire access to through meditation, through service, through love. That’s what Dale is referring to.
Robert: Well, I certainly don’t want it to be a program on the soul; we’ve done that. We will do it in the future, but I just wanted to clarify that. Would it be fair to say that meditation will make one a better person?
Sarah: Well, let’s see; will meditation make one a better person? Not necessarily so. I don’t think you could count on it. Maybe Dale, you would answer this differently, but I would say it will make you more of what you already are. In other words, whatever your life tendency, I think meditation will bring it to fruition and it will make you aware of what you are and what you are becoming, because we are all in a state of development; we’re not a finished project. We’re all developing and meditation will make you aware of what you are becoming if you continue to live and think and react in the way that you have typically done throughout your life.
Dale: If you build that channel, that bridge to the soul, those soul qualities will have a direct opening into your lower personality life, and if you allow those qualities — which are basically those of love and light and goodwill, sharing and cooperation and all of that — if you allow those qualities to take command of your life, then yes, you will be a better person.
Sarah: But first, I think you’ll go through a stage where you realize how much work you have to do. The light that pours in through meditation reveals the darkness. That’s the effect of light, and you start to become aware of a lot of the unredeemed aspects of your nature, which is part of the process, but it is a stage that’s not too encouraging.
Dale: Yes, as you say, light starts to pour in, and that’s one of the first reactions: how much you do not measure up, and that suddenly can be very discouraging, but it’s just a stage you have to plough through, that’s all.
Robert: I agree with you. Through meditation I found that there are so many things that I need to change, and I think meditation has caused me to face that. Even though I’ve gotten a lot of benefits from meditation — I’m doing one kind and aligning myself with your meditation — are there other different kinds of meditation?
Sarah: Yes, there are many different meditation practices. I think a lot of people today probably think of meditation as a means of stress reduction. That is one type of meditation, especially people who are very active and busy and frazzled pursue meditation for that reason. There’s another type of meditation that’s more along the Buddhist line, which is the elimination of all mental activity. The quieting down of all thinking processes so that you achieve almost a blank mind state. Another type of meditation that we work with in the Arcane School is called Raja yoga, which means the yoga of the mind—the use of the mental energies in a way that reorganizes, redirects and lifts them upward; rather than trying to quiet the thinking process, it reorients it to create that bridge that you mentioned of access to the soul.
Dale: One of the very ancient practices of meditation is, of course, hatha yoga, which is basically having to do with the development of the physical body: the postures, asanas and all of that. That’s, as I said, a very ancient technique and probably it’s one that should not be used so much today in this Western world.
Robert: It’s interesting. The words meditation and prayer are often used by people interchangeably. How is meditation different from prayer?
Sarah: Well, first of all, I would want to say that we don’t disparage the use of prayer at all. I think most of us pray at times and meditate at other times. Prayer is the emotional expression of need and an appeal for an answer or response from a higher power, from God to that need or that request. There are times when we can only summon up the energy to make such an appeal. Meditation, on the other hand, I would say is more of a cooperative relationship with God in the sense that human beings are endowed with the mind, and our mind is our means of cooperating with God in the fulfillment of His Plan for our world. The real goal of meditation is to become mentally responsive to the emerging realization of the Plan of God. I don’t know of any ordinary human being who could begin to encompass mentally the Plan of God, but I think we can, through meditation and service, become aware of our tiny little part in the Plan and how we might cooperate. Meditation can bring about that realization.
Dale: I think another way of looking at the difference is that prayer is essentially based on the concept of God transcendent: God above His creation and apart from His creation. Whereas meditation tends to appeal to those who recognize God imminent or God within His creation: the divinity within; as it says in the Bible, “Christ in you, the hope for glory,” and both of these are correct. There is God transcendent as well as the God within, and I think each technique has its place, as you said.
Sarah: Coming back to this point of different types of meditation, that also helps us to understand the difference between meditation and prayer. There is meditation with seed and meditation without seed that are interesting to consider. What I’m referring to is the focus of the mental energies upon an object, a seed, as one type of meditation. It uses the mind to reason, to judge, to weigh and evaluate, to build thought forms which are ideas or concepts about the particular subject you’re meditating upon. Whereas meditation without seed is, in a kind of very general sense, a higher expression of the impulse to pray, in that it creates of the mind a kind of negative plate — if you were thinking of photography — a receptive, receiving mechanism that receives the imprint of divine intention. That’s a stage of meditation called contemplation, in fact, and meditation without seed is a very advanced form of meditation, but it helps one to see some of the differences between meditation and prayer.
Robert: I was just dwelling on what you and Dale were saying before about God being within us, but some people might not go along with that.
Sarah: Why shouldn’t he be within us? Why would people not go along with that? He created us.
Robert: Well, you’re right. The Judaeo-Christian approach to spiritual matters is that God is ubiquitous, and yet people can say that and recite that, but then when it comes to talking about God being within themselves, sometimes people object to that.
Sarah: Well, we didn’t say we are God. That’s foolish.
Robert: No, you said God is “within us,” and if we think about God being ubiquitous, well that means within us also. How is meditation used in discipleship training, as in the Arcane School, which is part of Lucis Trust?
Sarah: Well, it’s the core, the foundation for the training of discipleship, which is the treading of the spiritual path. The reason that it’s such a foundational aspect is that the mind has to be mobilized, organized, and become responsive and receptive to the Plan of God if one is going to develop spiritual awareness. Meditation is the discipline of the mind to receive this awareness of the soul. The soul has a plan — as we’ve talked about many times on previous programs — and meditation enables one to become aware of the soul’s intention. So, the training of the Arcane School is to enable one to become mentally receptive to the soul’s plan and to begin to cooperate with it.
Dale: Yes, and there’s another aspect of that, not only the alignment with the soul, but also an aspect of the meditation process called visualization which is taught in the Arcane School. That’s a very important ability: to use the mind to visualize, because when we develop this capacity to visualize, we’re using the image making faculty of the higher astral nature. When you make a mental picture, you begin to attract mental substance around that image and by the use of the spiritual will, your own will, you begin to hold it steady. You develop the capacity to hold that image steady and thereby give it life, and this is a very creative way of service using meditation. That’s one of the features that stands out in the Arcane School work.
Sarah: Another important aspect of meditation as taught in the school is that it’s a form of service. Meditation may seem to some people almost as a kind of self-indulgent practice that would be “gazing at one’s naval,” so to speak. But meditation as taught in the school is a means of service because it’s the use of the mind to register and radiate into human consciousness spiritual energies, and particularly when people cooperate in group meditation this becomes possible. We have our group monthly meditation meetings that the public are invited to. Each of us on our own might not be terribly adept at meditation, but when we join with a group in a shared endeavor, we add our little bit of light to a group endeavour that can help to distribute light and love and the spiritual will-to-good into human consciousness. If you believe that that is possible, if you believe you can help to direct spiritual energies for the upliftment of consciousness, then group meditation is an important means of service.
Dale: It goes back to that opening thought that meditation is not an escape from reality. It’s actually a process where you are very involved in the world, and that is one of the strong emphases on the meditation work in the Arcane School. It is seen, as Sarah says, as a service, a very definite form of service, and becomes a way in which we can redirect our lives.
Sarah: After all, we were born to be present in the world. The soul came into incarnation to be its divine self in the world, and meditation helps to realize that.
Robert: That’s about all the time we have for our discussion today. You’ve been listening to Inner Sight. Now we would like to close with the world prayer called the Great Invocation. It’s a call for light and love and goodwill to flow into the world and into our hearts. Let’s listen for a moment to these powerful words.
Sarah: Closes the program by reciting the adapted version of the Great Invocation.
(This is an edited transcript of a recorded radio program called “Inner Sight.” This conversation was recorded between the host, Robert Anderson, and the then President and Vice-President of Lucis Trust, Sarah and Dale McKechnie.)
(Transcribed and edited by Carla McLeod)
(#107)