Alexander Filmer-Lorch - Inside Meditation: April 2012

Tuesday 24 April 2012

Rumi - reading between the lines

There is a channel between voice and presence,

a way where information flows.

Disciplined silence the channel opens.

With wondering talk it closes.

'...between voice and presence' - The moment you not only think about the meaning of this succession of words, but contemplate on them through your feeling faculty, you instantly will be drawn into the deeper meaning of this teaching. You will discover, that the term 'voice' stands for our mind and it's activity that manifests as a constant thought process to which we usually attach our sense of self or feeling of 'I'. Furthermore, you might realise that the term 'Presence' refers to our state of being or awareness and its inherent capacity to simply perceive the 'Isness' of things. If you start looking at both terms from a neutral state of mind point of view you will understand that together they create a state in which both oppose each other, whilst being completely unaware of each others individual existence. This subsequently will take you to the idea that within their silent dynamic they manifest a horizontal scale in which the 'voice' stands for past and future and the 'presence' for the actual 'now' or a given present moment in time. 'Voice' and 'Presence' in their linear or two-dimensional interaction contain the whole range of manifestations of consciousness in man's ordinary waking state of everyday life that unfolds along this horizontal scale.

'...there is a channel' - a window or gateway leading to unprecedented opportunities that might transcend that state of friction and frees us from this two-dimensional state of perception. Nothing much can happen or change within a two-dimensional interaction that consists of two opposing forces, as long as there is a third quality that carries the potential to neutralise this static state. This third quality or force lies dormant in form of a channel between voice and presence. The channel has to be understood as an opening, an opening of possibilities or potentialities that can be accessed via '...a way where information flows'- 'a way' can be symbolising a process, path, approach or an environment within which there is the potential to evolve, to transform or change. '...where information flows' - symbolises 'Great Ideas' or 'Universal Teachings' that are not produced by mind created life, but are constantly surrounding us unrecognised. This flow of information or stream of 'Great Ideas' is freely available in abundance, yet is rarely recognised as such. It's specific scent only can be appreciated by the one that has refined his sense of perception that is not entirely based on giving attention to the incoming impressions of life but can look beyond this linear view of perception.

'...Disciplined silence the channel opens' is the key that opens the door to 'a way where information flows'. '...disciplined...' stands for conscious effort and regular practice without expectations. '...silence...' describes the method that tames the voice. Sitting motionless in silence by means of conscious effort while being drawn into the gaps between our thoughts, will open the channel i.e. consciousness will expand the moment the 'voice' and the 'presence' are in perfect balance, an opening or spaciousness in which both are equally content in their existence. Then this channel will open and connect us to a vertical scale under which we are in-formation, hence a process of change or transformation that is graciously facilitated by the meaning of 'Great Ideas' and Grace that reach us through this vertical scale that manifests within the spaciousness of our thought patterns, hence a state of absence of thoughts in which simply nothing happens.

'...with wondering talk it closes' - the moment the voice in our head becomes active our consciousness will diminish again and will be confined and caught within the linear dynamic of opposing forces '...voice and presence'.

Copyright © Alexander Filmer-Lorch April 2012 all rights reserved

Thursday 12 April 2012

Thoughts on Identification

There are two different kinds of identification. We can identify an object like a tree, a person or a chair without attaching any connotations to it, as well as identification can be seen as a psychological process whereby the subject imitates and assimilates an aspect, a property or an attribute of the other and transforms wholly or partially after the model the other provides. The initial development of personality is constituted and specified by means of a series of identifications. That is I repeatedly identify myself with a characteristic of my father and gradually assimilate this particular characteristic into my personality by means of reinforcing the particular information into the mental makeup through repeated association and imitation.

Simultaneously with the acquirement of personality our history develops as well as that the identification with our physical body increases to such an extend, that the physical body becomes un-separable from our actual sense of self. The trinity that is comprised of our individual personality, the history it can reflect on and the identification with our physical body is the ideal foundation for the growth of imagination. This is that external influences are not perceived by us as such as they actually appear or what they truly represent, but are more or less enveloped in the story we attach to them or imagine them to be, i.e. we more and more will perceive the world and others through our own lenses that are subjective opposed to objective lenses that would be more conducive for establishing a realistic orientation and objective in life.

In most circumstances identification leads to loss of true sense of self and the connection with our centre of gravitas, that is we become what we associate most with. Hence we are caught in a two dimensional interaction between sense of self as subject and external impression or what we do as the object that particular dynamic creates a so-called binary condition or state. The moment we identify with pure awareness within, which is without structure, shape, form or motion - identification annihilates itself due to the fact that there is no concept, idea or connotation attached to pure awareness. How can one possibly identify with something formless that simply only perceives the ‘Isness’ of things.

This brings us back to the great philosophical idea of placing ones sense of ‘I’ or placing ones voice. Wherever we place our sense of ‘I’ or our voice most mechanically that is what we will identify with and become. So we have to step out of the binary state by further removing ourselves from what we have become to be able to see what lays in front of us. This takes us into a three dimensional dynamic, or a so-called ternary condition or state. The ternary state puts us under a much better condition in which we can consciously place our sense of ‘I’ or our voice. This cant be done mechanically or in a state of identification. Consciously placing ones sense of ‘I’ or voice into our true sense of self or centre of gravitas evokes a transformative process that is manifesting as an active potential or so called quaternary condition or state, in which something magical can happen.

We only need to be attentive as well as remember where we have placed or are placing our sense of ‘I’ right now and we instantly will gain more freedom of choice. Hence we choose to identify with our true sense of self or with a multitude of possibilities in form of external impressions and events that surround us and meet us.

First published: 29 March 2012

The necessity of a Teacher

There is a strong preconceived idea - deeply engrained in our western way of thinking - which triggers our imagination due to our lack of knowledge, which has largely been fed by what we have read in the press or what we might have observed in friends or colleagues who are followers of different far eastern belief systems.

The sixties with the hippy movement and the seventies with the so called “Eco’s”, played a vital part in the creation of a somewhat negative image regarding the new wave of spirituality which had started to spill over into the West. Most of these people were categorised as lunatics or airy-fairies, treated as outcasts in our society and not taken seriously. It took about half a century and a lot of effort and patience on behalf of the highly respected Dalai Lama, along with the endorsement of celebrities such as Richard Gere who openly lived a Buddhist life, for Buddhism to find acceptance and respect in our society.

As mentioned in the introduction of this book, meditation and mystic teachings have never been a natural part of our modern culture, our upbringing and our conditioning in the West. The words such as guru or master have different connotations attached to them. Unfortunately, many gurus and masters themselves played a role in feeding a negative image by abusing their charismatic powers over their followers, which, in some cases, led to shocking revelations and scandals. In most people’s opinion, the words guru or master describes someone who has absolute control over another.

Once yoga found acceptance and became the latest fashion in the lives of celebrities – soon to be followed by the average person - it was only a question of time before yoga turned into a profitable global business.

Today, most people have a very positive attitude towards yoga; they enjoy attending classes and can experience the benefits of practicing yoga on a personal level. However, in this new world of yoga practice, there is little understanding that yoga was actually originally developed to channel our body’s energies and our minds towards meditation. Few regular yoga classes include refined meditation techniques, largely because most yoga teacher training courses typically only touch on meditation at a very superficial level. Therefore, most yoga teachers have not received any real training in the science of meditation themselves.

It requires a lot of effort and practice to establish a neutral or objective state of mind. We are usually too close to ourselves or we are standing in our own way to be able to relate things to a greater perspective

Additionally, without the support and facilitation of a teacher, the attraction and gravitational pull of our meditation practice in itself, might not be strong enough to sustain the initial interest and fascination of our mind over a longer period of time. Soon the mind will become distracted by other more powerful attractions and temptations in life, the mind will then happily allow you to sacrifice the idea of meditation in order to replace it with something more satisfying. That’s part of the nature of our mind.

The majority of people who chooses to follow a path of meditation does so to find a different meaning in their lives. Some might have reached a particular turning point and started asking different questions, whist others may be attracted by the science and psychology behind meditation, which offers a promising tool to further, evolve themselves within.

Others want to meditate in order to come to terms with upsetting experiences from their past, dealing with conflict or grief. Many people choose to learn meditation to help balance their mood swings, control their emotions or simply because they want a break from the busy chatter in their head.

Before committing to learn from a new teacher. People are advised to ask as many questions as they may have - just for their own peace of mind. If a yoga or meditation teacher were asked how he has developed his teachings, the appropriate answer would be that he hasn’t developed any of what he teaches himself. Instead he should attribute all his acquired knowledge and experience to his own teachers and sources of inspiration.

So in the beginning there may be no need to start with a teacher. But when one reaches a point where one wants to deepen ones meditation practice, a series of lessons or classes with a teacher are highly recommended. If one wants to explore, study and practice what the whole field of meditation has to offer, then working with a teacher becomes necessary and unavoidable.

Abstract: 'Inside Meditation - in search of the unchanging nature within'

First published: 05 March 2012

Back at work with a thought on Identification

Finally, the manuscript of the book is completed and has found its way to the editor who will have a go with it, before it will be back on my desk for further improvements, which takes us to the theme of identification. Identification can be defined in two ways; on the one hand we can identify an object such as a chair, a tree or a person, like I became thoroughly identified with the process to completing the manuscript. On the other hand we can identify with the characteristics of an object, such as the characteristics of ones mother or father.

This second kind of identification is a psychological process whereby the subject assimilates an aspect of the other, like a property or attitude, wholly or partially and makes it part of its mental makeup. hence it is by means of a long series of identifications that the personality is constituted, specified and established. In other words we are an accumulation of bits and peaces of characteristics of others around and close to us that we non-consciously have acquired and assimilated by means of identification., i.e. we are a bit of each of them.

So the process of identification more or less can be seen as wherever we externally place our feeling of 'I' non-consciously and by means of habit - is where we will identify with. The moment we fully place our feeling of 'I' into our internal sense of 'Self', identification disappears. This is called 'consciously placing ones sense of 'I' wherever we intent to, and no one can do that non-consciously. And what we need to be able to do that, is the faculties of awareness and attention. The moment we are completely identified with a mood or inner state like anger or fear, the moment we have become this state - our feeling of 'I' and our state has fused and become the same, i.e. we have placed our sense of 'I' in one of our randomly occurring and fluctuating moods. The moment we are aware and more attentive, we will be able to observe this different moods or states and have become more conscious and are less prone to identification.

So if your objective is to change and become a more conscious person, what you always have to take into consideration and remember is where you have placed your feeling of 'I'.

First published: 19 January 2012

Ideas

There are two different kinds of ideas. Common ideas and great ideas. Common ideas are produced by ordinary life to serve our way of life well and are freely available to everybody in large quantities.

Great ideas, which are extremely rare to find, reach us from a different source that lies above ordinary life. Under the right circumstances they catch our attention and might make us think differently i.e.they help us think out of the box. If we treat them and handle them with respect, patience and care they might change us and take us beyond our imagination.

Unfortunately most of us in our relative state of consciousness are too busy shopping and assimilating common ideas until we are so full of them that there is no space left anymore for any great idea to possibly enter.

First published: 21 November 2011

Thoughts on Change

We all know that everything in this creation is subject to change. The whole universe including organic life on earth is constantly changing and evolving under the laws of nature and the different universal laws. Yet when it comes to actual change regarding our own personal dynamics in life or true change in our own state of being, we are dealing with a different matter.

If you are not used to be sitting in meditation at all, try to sit in meditation for 30 minutes every day for a whole month at precisely 5.30am in the morning and you will discover resisting force in action. You will be forced to surrender to this force within a couple of weeks, and you will discover a lot about yourself and the way you usually function and how little you actually can do, even if you intent to do so. You will realise that the way you usually function or go about things in life hasn't come up into the field of your awareness before, and you will recognise that not all of those functions are conducive to formulating and achieve your objective.

That aha effect, that realisation will instantly shift you onto a higher level of consciousness, by simply acknowledging what kind of forces within yourself are preventing you from achieving your objective. The more aha's you accumulate through conscious effort and work on yourself, the more realistic it becomes that you permanently change your state of being and the way you interact in life.

Why not start right now?

First published: 08 November 2011

A note on silence

The most powerful teachings take place in silence. Sitting in the presence of a silent mind awakens ones own inner silence. This inner silence produces a very distinct and recognisable sound. The sound of spaciousness. Only the sound of spaciousness brings stillness into being and being into consciousness. That is how true knowledge is transmitted, by means of direct perception in the presence of a silent mind.

First published: 24 October 2011

Thoughts on Consciousness

The most honest expression of oneself as a conscious being is through the sum-total of ones actual experience. At a particular moment in time the amalgamation of that will form a substance called Gravitas. "Substance of Gravitas" is free of any artificial flavour and does not require any glitter to shine. In due course it humbly radiates the light of true knowledge and only can be perceived by the one who is attracted by its scent - deeply longing to taste its nectar. Everybody else keeps on pretending - creating lots of noise for a much greater audience.

First published: 17 October 2011

Facing the unknown

To be faced with the unknown is a powerful, yet challenging place to be in. Each day when I sit in front of a blank page and am just about to start writing, the unknown meets me. I feel its presence when it has entered the room. That very moment my mind becomes as blank as the page in front of me, while something deep inside myself becomes highly awake. No idea how long it takes until the first word I am patiently waiting for appears on the blank document. The sound of that very first word holds all the other words which are supposed to follow in its reverberation.

I know that "I" can't produce a word or sound like that - it has to be given from somewhere beyond. And only my belief in the work keeps me glued to my desk while keeping company with the unknown.

First published: 12 September 2011

Gravitational pull of Meditation

There is something you want to come into contact with, something every ancient tradition talks about: An internal inspiration - Something, which is objectively teaching you from within. Something, which does not fluctuate as much as your ordinary mind does - something inspiring & illuminating, which is not as much subject to change as your random thought patterns, but is utterly conscious in its ability to objectively perceive all that is in its entirety & true state of being and its relation to the whole.

Once you have established a more permanent experience of absence of thought via the practice of regular Meditation, that kind of inspiration will become more and more available to you; it will be given from within because you earned it via conscious effort.

At the end its down to your own effort and objective, and that you put things into action. So just ask yourself - is there any reason why you shouldn't start the action right now? Why not Meditate right now?

Once you have eliminated all those external reasons, nothing can stand in the way between you and Meditation. Its gravitational pull will draw you in, and never worry if you loose your "self" in it.

First published: 05 September 2011

Rumi Poem

"Listen to presence inside poems.

Let them take you where they will.

Follow those private hints,

And never leave the premises."

Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī

'Rumi poems have always touched me on a deeper level, even when I was much younger. Later it was revealed to me that they are supposed to transmit a certain kind of knowledge, which awakened my curiosity - so I started to enquire.

Decades later they have taught me how to read between the lines - Today they make me Self-remember.

So just Listen to the presence inside poems."*

First published: 31 August 2011

Thought for contemplation

Each day this week I observed that…

…People are identified with thousands of useless things both in life and in themselves during the day

But one fact is far more striking, that they identify with their negative emotions more than with anything else.

It became so obvious that so much around us teaches us that we have the right to be negative.

yet the Mystics teach the opposite, they teach that you have the right to be positive...

...which reminds me that we are not born with a negative part within our mental makeup. We simply have acquired this negative part from others and a lot of external influences acting on us.

You may feel negative because of this, but you must feel that it is not you which is negative - but “It”.

If one only could remember that often enough...

...which reminds me of an ancient story:

"Three hundred years ago a disciple asked his Master how he can come to the super-sensual life and hear god speak. The master replies: When you can throw yourself into “THAT”, where no creature dwells though it be but for a moment, than you hear what God speaks. The disciple asks him if the place where no creature or nothing created dwells is near or far away. The master answered: It is in you and it is to be reached by ceasing, even for a moment, from all thinking and willing – when you stand still from self-thinking and self-willing and can stop the wheel of the imagination and the senses. This has to be done at least once a day."

Trust me its worth trying

First published: 26 August 2011

Meditation

Most people struggle with a great divide between the internal and the external, which frequently seem to oppose each other, creating a variety of different frictions. The main objective of Meditation is to manifest balance internally and externally so that the external world is nourished by the internal world and visa versa. It has to work both ways, otherwise a lasting harmony and centeredness can’t be sustained, and as long as the deeply engrained concept of duality manifesting by the notion of me as subject and everything else as the object holds the upper hand, that sense of friction won’t case to exist.

First published: 21 August 2011