Meditation E-Book

Niels Brønsted

• Herausgeber: BoD - Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 180

Beschreibung

"We do not hear the sun rise. So too, the greatest moments in a man's life come quietly." With this beautiful quotation, the author begins his introduction to meditation. He draws from an esoteric tradition where meditation is called occult meditation, because it aims at uncovering the hidden laws of nature and showing the way to unification with our own inner source, the soul, through contemplation and illumination. Niels Brønsted (1938-2020) combines theory and practical use in a clear and thought-through way. By means of practical exercises he leads his reader safely through the phases and technique of occult meditation. This makes Meditation - The Royal Road to the Soul a much needed handbook for the person who wants to make meditation a significant part of his or her life.

Leseprobe

Content

Foreword

Introduction

Esoteric Man

The "Self" or "I"

The Dimensions of the Self

Illumination

Qualities

Aspiration

Perseverance

Concentration

The Mind – an Independent Being

Visualization

Meditation

Alignment

Dedication

Meditation

Meditation with Seed Thought

Meditation without Seed Thought

Creative Meditation

The Method of Meditation

Contemplation

Illumination

Realization and Service

Invocation and Evocation

The Creative Word

The Practical Work

Place

Time

Rhythm

Posture

Breath

Evening Review

The Review Itself

Group Meditation

Introduction

Group Consciousness

Group Meditation

Full Moon Meditation

Elements of Danger

Dangers Inherent in the Personality

Dangers Arising from Karma and Surroundings

Dangers from Beings on the Inner Planes

Conclusion

The Great Invocation

Bibliography

Esoteric Literature for "Beginners"

Meditations

Meditation – Disidentification

Exercise in Concentration

Exercise in Visualization

Meditation – Alignment

Meditation with Seed Thought

Meditation without Seed Thought

Creative Meditation

Occult Meditation

Evening Review

Group Meditation

Full Moon Meditation

Illustrations

Figure 1 – The Planes and the Structure of Man

Figure 2 – The Bodies of Man

Figure 3 – The Carriage – drawing by Britta Bronsted

Figure 4 – Map of Consciousness

Figure 5 – Meditation – Ascent and Descent

Foreword

The concept of meditation has been known all over the world for many years, and today there are plenty of inviting offers to active and potential "consumers". But at the same time, meditation is an integral part of the modern esoteric teaching, as it is expressed in sources like classical theosophical literature and the works of Alice A. Bailey, Lucille Cedercrans, and others.

In this context, the concept of meditation is somewhat narrowed down, because here are certain requirements as to the intention and motivation behind the meditation work. That is why this form of activity is often termed "occult meditation". The word "occult" means something like "concealed", and when it is used in combination with meditation it is implied that this activity is aiming at revealing hidden or latent qualities in a human being – that is, the inherent ability in all individuals to develop conscious contact with their own souls.

But not many people are aware of this aspect of meditation, and that may be due to the fact that there are not so many books in the world focusing on that aspect. That is why I have written this book. My primary intention is to inspire as many people as possible to make meditation part of their everyday life pattern. If they have a natural affinity to modern esotericism,1 this book may give them the rationale of meditation. If they are unfamiliar with esoteric words and concepts they merely have to accept that scattered throughout the book will be pages and passages which may not be easily understandable. But this does not in any way prevent them from learning to meditate, for all the necessary information is easily accessible.

One of the consequences of the close connection between meditation and the esoteric teaching is that a book of this type necessarily has certain limitations. It is not possible to develop the meditation work beyond a certain limit without a closer study of the laws and principles governing the processes and expansions of consciousness, which are the natural outcome of prolonged exercise of the esoteric form of meditation. These studies will lead the practitioner toward far more advanced forms of meditation, which are entirely beyond the scope of this book, and which it would be futile to describe.

These aspects of meditation are hinted at in the last chapter of the book – the Conclusion – where I suggest a way of dealing with the inherent limitations of the book.

But before we begin our study of meditation, I want to point out that I have chosen Michal Eastcott's book The Silent Path2 as my structural starting point, and even if the present book is entirely different in its final presentation I want to acknowledge the kinship with the above work, which, in my opinion, still is a unique contribution to the literature about meditation. At the same time, I thank The Sundial House Group for permission to quote from the mentioned book, and Lucis Trust and Wisdom Impressions for granting me a general permission to use the works of Alice A. Bailey and Lucille Cedercrans, respectively, in my esoteric work.

1 Esotericism: Concerning the esoteric teaching.

2 Rider 1969.

Introduction

Michal Eastcott begins her book by quoting the English journalist and writer Paul Brunton. He says, "We do not hear the sun rise"even if it is the most essential event in nature. "So too, the greatest moments in a man's life come quietly".3 This image, Michael Eastcott expands in a very poetic and at the same time extremely realistic way:

"The path of meditation can well be compared with the long stillness before day-break. There is frequently nothing to mark it but a quietly increasing light. The gradual dawning of a new world in our consciousness comes silently. It is a secret, inner thing which we can never fully share with others"...4

In this stillness, we may contact inner dimensions of consciousness which are not normally at the disposal of our physical consciousness. But we do not doubt for a minute that they exist, for we have all tried to drift about in the realms of the imagination and seen how real they are.

These are what much literature and poetry are about, and their reality are confirmed by our dreams. When we wake up after a night's sleep we often have the impression that we have been somewhere else, and that we brought all of our "person" with us – except for the physical body, of course.

In the East, it has been known for thousands of years that meditation is a way of contacting the inner dimensions. In the West, we have not really known meditation. The closest we get is probably prayer or religious reflection while walking about in fragrant flower gardens, reading the books of the mystics.

That meditation has been known in the East is due to the fact that this activity really is an integral part of a spiritual teaching which has been present in that part of the world for thousands of years. We find it in Hinduism, Taoism, and later also in Buddhism.

But in the East, the teaching had only very little social effect. As in the West, there has always been enormous differences between rich and poor people, but in the East the situation even developed so far as to allow people to die in the streets before the very eyes of their fellow beings, and that rarely happens among the populations of the West.

Naturally, this is a controversial statement, so let us see what one of the absolute key figures of the esoteric teaching has to say about this question. It is the Tibetan Master Djwhal Khul, D.K. or just "the Tibetan" who employed the English esotericist and writer Alice A. Bailey as his secretary or amanuensis. Her influence today is so wide-spread that many esotericists all over the world consider her "blue" books as the most comprehensive and profound spiritual impulse humanity has ever received. She (or maybe we should say he) makes the following statement:

"The East has had this teaching for ages and has produced numerous commentaries upon it – the work of the finest analytical minds that the world has ever seen – but it has made no mass use of the knowledge, and the people in the Orient do not profit by it, as a whole. It will be different in the West and is already modifying and influencing human thought on a large scale; it is permeating the structure of our civilisation and will eventually salvage it".5

The spiritual teaching is made available for humanity by those individuals who have passed through the path of human evolution before us, and who therefore call themselves our "elder brothers." They are "Masters", in the same way as a carpenter or a mason becomes a master when he masters his profession. They have solved all human problems, they master everything which is human, and they are now in the possession of the collective repertoire of perfected human qualities.

Some of these qualities are lying dormant in our spiritual nature for millions of years and do not surface until we, on our own initiative, are making a conscious effort to unfold them. But that this is at all possible to do in a relatively concentrated manner, within a span of time which is far shorter than that nature would have spent if it were left to itself, is due to the fact that some of these Masters have been kind enough to tell us how they made it themselves. This is really one of the core concepts of the esoteric teaching, and it is beautifully expressed by the Tibetan:

"He who faces the light and stands within its radiance is blinded to the issues of the world of men; he passes on the lighted way to the great Centre of Absorption. But he who feels the urge to pass that way, yet loves his brother on the darkened path, revolves upon the pedestal of light and turns the other way. He faces towards the dark and then the seven points of light within himself transmit the outward streaming light, and lo! the face of those upon the darkened way receives that light. For them, the way is not so dark"...6

That the teaching comes from the Masters implies that its primary purpose is to "persuade" or "manipulate" people to transform themselves and the society they live in, for those Masters serve the whole of humanity and not just a "selected" band of pilgrims. That is why, in their eyes, it is disastrous when the teaching does not have noticeable social effects, for it means that it is merely perceived theoretically and does not result in the unfoldment of that love and wisdom which is the inevitable outcome, when its message is transformed into practical usefulness and compassionate service by those who study it.

Therefore, at some appropriate time, the Spiritual Hierarchy7 of our world decided to move the focal point of the spiritual teaching from the East to the West where it finds today expression in the modem scientific, esoteric teaching – scientific because it is empirical, that is, based on experience.

The peoples of the West have a somewhat different psychological profile compared to that of the eastern populations. We are primarily characterized by the psychological aspect which esoterically is called "active intelligence", while the peoples of the East are more inward-looking and known for their intuitive wisdom.

But the transference of the focus of the spiritual teaching also means that meditation is rapidly becoming part of Western culture. And according to our psychological profile, we have started right away to seek for our inner sources by the aid of meditation- carried out with scientific precision and care. When this happens in the life and evolution of individual man is specified clearly by the Tibetan, for he says:

"As long as the polarisation is purely physical or purely emotional, no need for meditation is ever felt. Even when the mental body is active, no urge arises until the man has run through many changes and many lives, has tasted the cup of pleasure and of pain through many incarnations, has sounded the depths of the life lived entirely for the lower self and found it unsatisfying. Then he begins to turn his thought to other things, to aspire to that which is unknown, to realize and sense within himself the pairs of opposites, and to contact within his consciousness possibilities and ideals undreamt of hitherto. He has come to a point where success, popularity and diverse gifts are his, and yet from their use he derives no content; always the urge within persists until the pain is so severe that the desire to reach out and up, to ascertain something and someone beyond, overcomes all obstacles. The man begins to turn within and to seek the source from whence he came. Then he begins to meditate, to ponder, to intensify vibration until in process of time he gamers the fruits of meditation".8

That the teaching has its primary focal point in the West also means that it will be disseminated to a far higher degree than it was in the East. Today, by way of the Internet, we may order any book which is not out of print – including esoteric books.

Moreover, we see that the "thought climate" which the esoteric teaching has been establishing during the last 125 years, combined with the impulse of Christianity, is gradually beginning to influence the social functions of society. A social legislation as for instance that of Denmark is a clear expression of that process, for it has involved a political majority which has "voted" it into our system. This implies a certain degree of sympathy and compassion for the weakest in society – the poor, the diseased, and the unemployed – who have greater difficulty in supporting themselves than other people. They are certainly not allowed to die in the streets.

3 Michael Eastcott: The Silent Path, p. 3.

4 Ibid., p. 3.

5 Alice A. Bailey: Esoteric Psychology 11, p. 511.

6 Alice A. Bailey: Discipleship in the New Age II, p. 15.

7 The Hierarchy: The group of Masters that is present on earth as responsible for the planetary evolution and is therefore, by some, called "The Inner Government of the World".

8 Alice A. Bailey: Letters on Occult Meditation, pp. 9-10.

Esoteric Man

The esoteric teaching tells us that there are other dimensions of substance than the physical – which most people still believe to be the only one. It also tells us that man is a spiritual being who incarnates in those dimensions in order to develop his potential. Fundamentally, he is a "spark" or "quantum" of pure life energy which is esoterically termed a "monad",9 and when this energy is anchored in substance or matter a third factor arises – a factor called "consciousness". We see a parallel to that phenomenon in the fact that when en electric current passes through a wire it develops a magnetic field around the wire.

This means that man incarnates in order to develop consciousness, but it takes a long series of lives or incarnations to reach the final stage we have previously described as "Master". So, the esoteric teaching claims that there is an evolution on earth but that it is primarily an evolution of consciousness and only secondarily a form evolution.

The dimensions of substance into which the monads incarnate are also termed "worlds" or "planes". Each plane is an energy field with a definite range of frequencies representing definite types of consciousness. There are 7 of these planes, and during their evolution human beings have developed a "body" or "vehicle" in the 3 "lowest" dimensions – that is, those with the lowest frequencies. This is best illustrated by a drawing – Figure 1.

So, the bodies are organs in which the soul develops consciousness, and the body which is the most advanced in its evolution is the double physical vehicle consisting of a biological cell body and a so-called "etheric" or "vital" body. This is in the nature of an energy field which permeates the dense body and stretches a few centimetres outside of it.

At his present level of evolution, man is fully conscious in the dimension of the dense physical body and has the ability to perceive his surroundings in a clear and concise way. This physical awareness we may term the "outer" or "objective" part of our consciousness, because it is anchored in the brain and nervous systems and is measurable by electrodes.

Figure 1

In the next world, man has a vehicle termed the "astral body". When substance in this dimension vibrates he experiences emotions, and therefore the vehicle is also termed the "emotional body". These emotional states are transferred to the brain and nervous systems where he perceives a reflection of them in his physical consciousness. But in their own world, emotions include all of the astral plane, for modern man has an extensive repertoire of emotions at his disposal. What is lacking in his evolution is a general refinement which will gradually elevate the whole of the emotional aspect into a higher level.

In the mental dimension, man has 2 bodies: the "mental body", which is the vehicle of ordinary analytical thought processes, and the "causal body" being the vehicle of the soul itself and holding the focal point of the soul consciousness in the shape of a "golden lotus",10 as it is called in esoteric terminology. It represents the "I" or "self", and its activities are first of all characterized by abstract thinking, love, and will.

The mental development of man has just begun. Only a few people – if any – have the full potential of the mental body at their disposal, while even fewer have contact with the soul in the upper region of the mental plane. This is illustrated by the fact that most people only use some 5-10 per cent of their brain capacity which reflects the thought processes of the mental body in the physical consciousness.

These two types of processes – thoughts and emotions – may be termed the "inner" or "subjective" part of our consciousness, because it cannot be measured but only experienced. The physical, emotional, and lower mental aspects together are usually called the personality (see Figure 1, p. 9).

The higher regions of consciousness, from the buddhic plane and upwards, represent latent spiritual possibilities which at present are beyond the range of most people. They can only be brought into being when we initiate a process of systematic spiritual unfoldment, as it is described by the esoteric teaching. Then we develop a buddhic and atmic body as vehicles for spiritual intuition and will, respectively, and together with the causal body they manifest the higher self (see Figure 1).

Figure 2

But as this phase of evolution lies ahead of most people, we are able to depict man's total esoteric structure as shown on Figure 2.11 Here we see that our bodies are not piled on top of each other – as might be inferred from Figure 1 – but interpenetrate the dense physical body and stretching beyond. The higher the frequency of a body the greater its extension, and at the same time it pervades the other vehicles without interfering with their processes of consciousness.

It may be disappointing to some people that what is normally called "spiritual development" is in the future for them, but here it is wise to remember that the term "spiritual development" is very wide, and that all development is really "spiritual." The Tibetan says:

"It could be proved that the word "spiritual"covered every phase of living experience... That is spiritual which lies beyond the point of present achievement; it is that which embodies the vision and which urges the man on towards a goal higher than the one attained".12

9Monad: Greek, "unity".

10 Golden lotus: See cover illustration

11 The colours shown are merely illustrative and in no way represent the real appearance of the bodies (this note applies to colour print versions of the book only).

12 Alice A. Bailey: Discipleship in the New Age II, p. 234.

The "Self" or "I"

As we can see on Figure 1, page 9, the evolution of man consists in developing consciousness in the "higher" mental and spiritual spheres and connecting these states with those of the personality so that they may be expressed in family life and the social relations of society.

But if we want to understand this process of evolution, we should be aware of the fact that there is a common denominator for all processes of consciousness – whether they are inner and psychical13 or outer and physical. This is the "self" or "I" who is behind and participates in these processes.

We may not always be aware of that because we tend to identify with the processes of the bodies and think we are our thoughts, emotions, and actions. If we observe ourselves, we are often surprised to see how many currents our consciousness really consist of. Different parts of our being sort of live their own lives and may even oppose each other. One part may be afraid, while another tries to calm that emotion, one part is over-active, while another is tired and lazy, one part is rebellious, and another quiet and accepting.

But an observation of these processes helps us to distinguish between the self and the various states of consciousness, for these do not represent the "self" or "I" and hardly influence it. The currents come and go, but if we look back at ourselves through a longer period of time, we will find that there is a permanent core which is unchangeable all through life. Maybe the best expression is "pure being".