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From Intellect to Intuition - Chapter Ten - The Need for Care in Meditation
CHAPTER TEN The Need for Care in Meditation "A clean life, an open mind, a pure heart, an eager intellect, an unveiled spiritual perception, a brotherliness for one's co-disciple, a readiness to give and receive advice and instruction, ...a willing obedience to the behests of Truth, ...a courageous endurance of personal injustice, a brave declaration of principles, a valiant defence of those who are unjustly attacked, and a constant eye to the ideal of human progression and perfection which the secret science depicts; these are the golden stairs up the steps of which the learner may climb to the Temple of Divine Wisdom." H.P. Blavatsky The meditation work outline in the previous chapter constitutes a good concentration exercise for the beginner and will eventually lead him - if he possesses persistence - to the genuine practice of meditation. A concentration that lasts one minute is difficult to achieve but is a real step upon the way to meditation, which is the act of prolonged concentration. The outline will help to produce the condition of active attention. Many such outlines are available, and can be drawn up, by those who know the rules and who are good psychologists, to suit the needs of differing types of people. A few such outlines will be found at the close of the book, but it is obvious that in a book of this description the more advanced practices and the more intensive work have no place. They can be wisely carried forward only when the earlier stages have been mastered. It should be noted that any thought process, followed with undeviating attention, which leads "inward" from the outer form to the energy or life aspect of that form and which enables the thinker to be identified with it, will serve a purpose similar to a technical outline. Any noun, for instance, when properly understood as the name of a thing and, [238] therefore, of a form, will serve as a seed thought in meditation. The form will be studied as to its quality and purpose, and all can in time be traced back to an idea, and all true ideas emanate from the realm of the soul. If the right attitude, therefore is assumed and the processes outlined in Chapter Five are followed, the thinker will find himself led out of the phenomenal world into the world of Divine Realities. As practice in concentration is gained, the consideration of the outer form, and of its quality and aspect can be omitted, and the act of concentration, having become (through persistence and practice) automatic and instantaneous, the student can start with the purpose aspect, or with the underlying idea which brought the outer form into being. This entire concept has been expressed for us by Plutarch in these words: "An idea is a Being incorporeal, which has no subsistence of itself, but gives figure and form unto shapeless matter and becomes the cause of the manifestation." - De Placit. Philos. These are significant words and hold much information for the student of this ancient technique of meditation. The goal of meditation, from the angle of the mind, might therefore, be stated to be the attainment of the world of ideas; from the angle of the soul, it is the identification of the individual soul with the world originator of all ideas. Through mind control, we become aware of the ideas which lie back of our [239] world evolution, and the manifestation (through matter) of the form that they take. Through meditation, we contact a part of the Plan; we see the blue prints of the Great Architect of the Universe, and are given opportunity to participate in their emergence into objective being through our contact with, and right interpretation of, the ideas we succeed in contacting in meditation.
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