The Occult Secret of Meditation

The topic of our talk for this morning is the occult secret of meditation.

Now, trying to give away a secret in some ways is really like trying to get certain high school mathematical students to understand the advanced type of mathematical calculations that are understood by the professors of mathematics.

And so it becomes a little difficult to give away a secret unless one realizes that the most complete secrets aren't given away in terms of words. They can be shared by those who are able to hear. If you remember in the New Testament, we hear rather often the idea, those who have ears to hear, let him hear. Well, we have in the idea of meditation a very similar idea, which has not been readily recognized. In other words, we have have heard a great deal about secrets. Those of us who have read much in occult literature certainly are aware of the fact that when we are initiated into this or that stage or this or that phase, then we have secrets revealed to us. And we start looking forward to having having the great secret told us.

In other words, after we go through this or that particular test, we look forward to sitting down and having someone or several someones, usually naturally, the someone is a very great being, at least certainly greater than we are, giving us the secret, that magic word, like the beautiful story in Aladdin's lamp. You know, all you do is rub the lamp and suddenly we have the genie who appears. And the genie says, what is your will, my master? Now that is the most delightful way to receive secrets or certainly the benefit of being a master. And could I get away with it? I would work it every time. But we do have such things as cosmic law we do have this very principle I was just trying to point out to you the idea that is involved and he who has ears to hear let him hear and none so blind as those who cannot or incidentally will not see so you see a secret is not necessarily necessarily what it seems to be.

Sometimes the most profound secrets are being taught to you.

And if you have not yet awakened those little buds within your subtle vehicles or within your brain vehicle, which is able to correlate it then with your self-conscious everyday thinking, you would not be aware of the fact a secret has been given you. That is not for a while.

A seed can be put into the ground, but not until it has gone through waterings, temperatures, and all the various needs that the seed requires will it start sending down roots into the earth and shoots into the sun.

So that it isn't just the planting of a seed that is involved in knowing or understanding what we can call secrets.

It has to do with the ability to register a certain level of consciousness.

And all of growth, really, all of evolution, all of occult work is aimed at helping you to be able to learn how to register these levels of knowledge and awareness that you did not or could not have before. Not because anything was wrong with you in terms of the world's idea of wrong. It's just that you cannot teach a two-year-old how to think like a professor of mathematics, can you now?

Now, what has this got to do with the secret of meditation? Everything. And I hope to help you to see this. It has to do with our reaction to time and our reaction to time no matter how old a soul we are as I pointed out still has to take a certain recapitulation in our psychological evolution on the physical plane before we're able to perceive that is have ears to hear eyes to see within a certain range of meaningfulness now this is a necessary thing and it has everything to do with the secret of occult meditation because every soul gets tied in psychically and psychologically to the levels of thinking and feeling that they have been living in from the time they were born into this incarnation.

Then they reach the age of the glandular change, which opens them to a realization, at least on an inner and unconscious level, that if they are going to find out who and what they are, they're going to have to throw away everything that has ever been taught them. Now this doesn't mean they're going to throw away only bad things or only erroneous things or only nonsense because youngsters have a tendency to throw away the baby with the bath or the bath water in other words there's need to find one's own psychological independence one's own center of soul gives younger people the tendency to rebel bell not just in the areas that one needs to test and try, but to throw out the rich with the poor, that is, in emotional content. But in actuality, the occult secret of meditation has to do with what stage of psychological spiritual growth we become arrested at. Now, true meditation has to do with the ability and capacity to go through all the various necessary stages in order to arrive at an ability to keep our mind, our heart, our consciousness focused on an idea and ideal that is not static, not arrested, but that continues to grow and and enlarge so that every single one of us, this is the thing to bear in mind, every single one of us have had a stage where mentally and emotionally, I'm talking about this incarnation, where mentally and emotionally we have been egomaniacs.

Is there an infant that isn't an egomaniac?

Think for a moment but for an infant it is good and right and so we go through the infancy stage of wanting to be petted and loved to be the center of the stage and we go through our childish childhood stage where we want to stand on our heads and scream look at me look at me look at me haven't we all done it if you don't remember it you still did it all children do it whether they remember it or not maybe your parents spanked you I said stop being so stupid or stop being so silly or this is unbecoming etc etc the point is we all still tried it whether we got away with it or not depends on many factors but we all have gone through this state whether we remember it or not not only in this incarnation in each one.

And if we continue to grow, to recapitulate, if our souls are not infantile, and if we're not just very young, very young souls, we would have grown beyond that then. And we would have gone on to the stage of adolescence where we have to rebel against everybody and everything in whatever way we choose. And if our souls are very old and very wise we would have continued on beyond the need to rebel against our parents and authority and those who teach but you see here is the thing meditation Meditation really is a spirit of humility.

And no evolving soul, see we're trying to get at the crux of the matter now, no truly evolving soul has reached a point of true humility while still caught in this adolescent I know it all. So where we think we already know we also figure no one else has anything to teach us and when we figure we know it all not only has someone else nothing to teach us but we need to blow up our own ego by making sneering remarks about other people who perhaps have something to teach us in occultism we are told that we can be taught by anything and everything there's no area or level of life in which we're not taught Jesus said come learn of me for I am meek and lowly of heart and too many of us have a need to use occultism, spiritual teachings, or whatever it is, or orthodox religion, or philosophy, or psychology as something to help ourselves into an egomania, a sort of superiority complex, instead of the true humility that Jesus of Nazareth invited us to follow come learn of me for I am meek and lowly of heart true meditation and the true secret of meditation meditation is in having reached a point where we can look into our own hearts and say to ourselves, yes, when I was a child, I thought as a child. I spake as a child, and I understood stood as a child and I am still a child in many areas true the true secret of meditation has to do with having developed the ability and the capacity to look into our own stages and to say yes when I suffered from this fantasy fantasy true the true secret of occult meditation is knowing how to accept our infantile childish and adolescent states to smile at them and to say that is the state that I recapitulated this is the growing up state this is the state of having been that immature at that time and when we can do this it isn't that we say it is good to be an egomaniac it isn't a matter of good it's a matter of seeing that evolution is growing growing from childishness to maturity.

Evolution is achieving higher and more controlled states of mind and heart, of recognition of who and what we are by virtue of becoming and developing the capacity to be what we are to be. When a child is born that child doesn't show the abilities it's going to have later, does it now a baby cannot walk, cannot talk a baby cannot feed himself a baby cannot do all the thousand and one things, appreciate music write poetry gasp with awe at the stars a baby cannot do that does that mean the baby is evil or bad or is it just the baby and so when we can train ourselves and work with the Tarot and the lessons you receive in the mail as members of BOTA helps you to do just this along with the work we do in group here in temple Thursday nights Sunday mornings pernassus cetera by being able to train ourselves to see that being a baby was right and proper yesterday last year ten years ago but that for now we work at growing up this is what frees the consciousness into true meditation that opens the gates of spiritual experience that has reality however we cannot even remotely experience the higher spiritual levels none of us until we have learned to look into our own hearts and souls not with condemnation never with condemnation but to look into our own hearts and souls and to see the difference between our infancy our childhood our adolescent and that which we aspire towards and as matured sons and daughters of God.

And we have to grow into it. But of course, growing seems like an awful slow thing to us when we are younger. And as I pointed out, only as we get older do we start realizing that we're growing like a house of fire, as a matter of fact, even too fast.

It might shock you to realize some of us want to slow it up a little bit. We say hey we're moving much too fast in this plane you get up on a jet and you start flying you don't see the gorgeous scenery we figure we're being cheated what about the delicacy of the flower how can we see the flower when we're way up there going whoosh you know with the jet and some of us figure hey I'm traveling a little too fast you know let's back up let's get back down with with our own humanity, with the livingness of others, and start seeing the richness of the day-by-day growth. The secret of occult meditation is in recognizing that every instant that goes by, whether it's going like a rushing river because of getting a more intense recapitulation within an incarnation because of the physiological age or whether it's going like a very meandering slow stream because we have not yet recapitulated our experiences whether it's going through one or the other to be able to bring in a realization Realization that every split second of every experience must be savored like eating your favorite food To roll it over the tongue to get every subtle flavor and the aroma up through the nostrils But there are some of you think that's unspiritual It becomes so spiritual that the food tastes horrible to you. I I advise you to stop being spiritual like that.

That is just casting obloquy and not recognizing the richness of the experience of God in all its aspects.

For there are some who've decided, ah, I am too spiritual perhaps to linger with my fellow man and to enjoy this empty, idle-brained gobbledygook that comes out of my fellow man. Well, I'm afraid I'll admit too much of anything can be a little trying.

But too much of a good meal gives us indigestion.

But just enough gives us the realization that we're walking through sparkling richness and we should never permit our consciousness to lose a single instant of the savoring of this ecstasy this gratitude, this love, this recognition or the reminder to our own mind and heart that we are walking in a miracle. Because what is more miraculous than the ability to experience, taste, sound, sight, aroma, aroma, all of the glorious richness that we have about us. But we can experience this richness only if our hearts are rich.

And our hearts are rich only if we have achieved an ability and a capacity to want to grasp every second of livingness as we travel through the river of life towards our greatest self to grasp every second of it experience it and then let it go as we take the next second in other words to put our full attention on the here and now and so now we come to the main point of true occult meditation. Only as we take each experience while we're in a physical body and in a so-called physical world and start trying to find deity, God, beauty, miracle richness eternity in each second whether it be joy or sorrow laughter or tear whether it be something seemingly unimportant or seemingly important only as we take and try to put our full full heart, our full mind, our full attention, our full quest for the infinite into each second, only then can we remotely be said to be learning how to meditate in its truest essence and preparing ourselves for the eternal now because what is the eternal now eternity in which I'm at home my darling is not something that is tomorrow and the day after tomorrow into a countless time sense that is not eternity eternity is where beginning present and end have no meaning because they don't exist everything is a washing living now you are a living now my My love for you isn't something I developed yesterday, nor is it something I will have tomorrow.

It is an infinite, intense, eternal now.

Eternal is not to be mixed up with time. That's where we make our mistake. Within every incarnation, we have a time of recapitulation of our evolution as we're traveling towards, you know what, towards an ability and capacity to put all of eternity into our attention of the instant.

Jesus is said to have remarked in the New Testament, if you knew who I was, you would never weep again. Remember that?

Well he wasn't talking about tomorrow nor yesterday and as I have pointed out to you at other talks you could say the same thing too if you knew who you were but you cannot know who you are nor can you get the richness of your own evolution until you have started to appreciate and savor the instant therefore when we're super young as infants children adolescents we're not satisfied with the now we're busy with the recapitulation of our evolution up to a point and trying to discover meaning in all the areas of our consciousness. And even when we become spiritual aspirants, we still don't realize what is meant by the now. Because always we're yearning for what we're to become. Always we're reaching for that which we have read or that which we've been conditioned into thinking our union with god would involve we're forever reaching for something else and so we walk along the street and we miss the eternal self don't we now our minds are occupied with yearning for something we haven't got or we're busy having a nervous breakdown down because of something we didn't get or afraid we're going to get that we don't want which is a positive meditation and being miserable and this is a necessary part of growth till we learn how not to use the our powers in this way but the point is we can live moment by moment second by second hour by hour and day by day in an ecstasy that may not be what we think it is on the conscious level at the moment but which we we will start to recognize as we work towards it.

And working with the tarot keys, with the teachings that we present to you here in BOTA, gives you the opportunity to change from this type of creature that we all are until we reach beyond it, tied to time and space.

And judging things from the time is forever you know like if I have to wait for a date with this girl or boy till tomorrow I don't know how I can live you know it's got to be right now and or whatever other things we want or as we get older going into this terror almost of the fact that we're not we haven't got time to attend to all the things we have to attend to in other words all of this is being tied to the time-space levels which is necessary but there's a portion of us that can become free and that portion that becomes free learns how to walk in a perception to hear there's no such thing as deafness on the spiritual level then to see what others miss subtleties of hue to look into the eyes of people no matter what stage they are recapitulating and to see them as our brothers and sisters to be able to recognize someone wallowing in a gutter as our brother and sister to be able to recognize a Christ or a Buddha as also our brother and and sister. In other words, to know that we are as high as the highest and as low as the lowest, all in one, and to accept this knowledge. This is meditation of the highest kind, and no complete liberation of consciousness is achieved until we have learned to bring our attention our concentration our meditation into finding deity in every moment through every person through every creature through every experience this then is just a portion of the secret of meditation in occultism which brings us a beauty a love of fulfillment that word can never tell but I hope and pray that your heart is open at the second during the second in this moment to receive what I know to share it with me because those of us who have it we have only one desire to share it because not to share is truly to perish and we know it and we cannot perish because this is our one desire we fulfill ourselves by sharing and the more we share the more need we have to share because we love it's like every parent has a need to help the child grow up to become its own so open your mind open your heart open your soul in this instant let that vast infinite love the eternal love of god enter into you not as something coming from elsewhere but as something that you are a part of through all eternity anyway but that you are waking up towards take of me and let me take of you in the same way Thank you.