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From Intellect to Intuition - Chapter Four - The Objectives in Meditation
Finally, meditation brings about illumination. Meister Eckhart in his book of Sermons, written in the fourteenth century, says: "Three kinds of men see God. The first see him in faith; they know no more of Him than they can make out through a partition. The second behold God in the light of grace but only as the answer to their longings, as giving them sweetness, devotion, inwardness and other such-like things... The third kind see him in the divine light." - Pfeiffer, Franz, Meister Eckhart, page 191. [84] It is this light that the process of meditation reveals and with which we learn to work. The heart of the world is light and in that light shall we see God. In that light we find ourselves. In that light all things are revealed. Patanjali tells us that "when the means to union have been steadily practiced and when impurity has been overcome, enlightenment takes place, leading up to full illumination." "The mind then tends towards increasing illumination as to the true nature of the Self." - Bailey, Alice, The Light of the Soul, II, 27-28, IV, 26. As a result of meditation comes the shining forth of the light. This "illumination is gradual and is developed stage by stage." - Bailey, Alice, The Light of the Soul, III, 5-6. This we shall take up in greater detail later on. Through meditation, as a consequence of all the preceding factors, the powers of the soul are unfolded. Each vehicle through which the soul expresses itself carries latent within itself certain inherent potencies, but the soul, which is the source of them all, has them in their purest and most sublimated form. The physical eye, for instance, is the organ of physical vision. Clairvoyance is the same potency demonstrating in what is regarded as the psychical world - the world of illusion, of feeling and of emotion. But in the soul, this same power shows forth as pure perception, and infallible spiritual vision. The higher correspondences of the lower physical and psychical powers are brought [85] into functioning activity through meditation, and so supersede their lower expressions. These powers unfold normally and naturally. This they do, not because they are desired and consciously developed, but because as the inner God assumes control and dominates His bodies, His powers become apparent upon the physical plane and potentialities will then demonstrate forth as known realities. The true mystic does not concern himself with the powers and faculties, but only with the Possessor of those powers. He concentrates upon the Self, and not upon the potencies of that Self. As he merges himself more and more in the Reality who is himself, the powers of the soul will begin to demonstrate normally, safely and usefully. The process is summed up for us by Meister Eckhart in these words: "The soul's lower powers should be ordered to her higher and her higher ones to God; her outward senses to her inward, and her inward ones to reason; thought to intuition and intuition to the will and all to unity..." - Pfeiffer, Franz, Meister Eckhart, page 40. The words of Dr. Charles Whitby, the translator of René Guénon's book, Man and His Becoming, are pertinent to this chapter on the objectives of the meditation process. He refers to the "...overwhelming testimony to the mutually-confirmatory agreement, on all essential points, of the Western, Hindu, Moslem and Far-Eastern esoteric traditions. The Truth we so rashly term unattainable awaits' us there in [86] unchanged and changeless majesty, veiled indeed from hasty and scornful eyes, but ever increasingly apparent to earnest unbiased seekers. According to Plotinus, the act of contemplation which essentially constitutes the life of every individual and that of mankind as a whole, ascends gradually and by a natural and inevitable progression from Nature to Soul, from Soul to pure Intellect, from Intellect to the supreme 'One'. If this be so, the present preoccupation with psychic or quasi-psychic matters of the more advanced representative of Western thought and science, may or rather must sooner or later be succeeded by an equally serious attention to matters of higher and even of highest import." - Guénon, René, Man and His Becoming, page X. Thus it will be seen that the claims made for meditation are very high, and the weight of the testimony of the mystics and initiates of all the ages can be brought in corroboration of them. The fact that others have achieved may encourage and interest us but does no more unless we ourselves take some definite action. That there is a technique and a science of union, based on the right handling of the mental body and its correct use may be profoundly true, but this knowledge serves no purpose unless each educated thinker faces the issue. He must decide upon the values involved and set himself to demonstrate the fact of the mind, its relation in the two directions (to the soul on the one hand and to the outer environment on the other) and finally his ability to use that mind at will as he may choose. This involves the development of the mind as a synthesized, or common sense, and governs its use [87] in relation to the world of the earthly life, of the emotions and of thought. It involves also its orientation at will to the world of the soul, and its capacity to act as an intermediary between the soul and the physical brain. The first relation is developed and fostered through sound methods of exoteric education and of training; the second is made possible through meditation, a higher form of the educational process. [91]
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