Dzyan Theosophy The Path of Meditation

FOUNDATIONS

FOR THE

PRACTICE

OF

MEDITATION

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I- What is Meditation?
1. Meditation is often advocated as a relaxation technique or a method of
reducing stress, and it can be very helpful in these ways. But it has much
deeper aspects. Its greatest potential benefit lies in the fact that it offers the
possibility of access to dimensions of consciousness which lie beyond the
personal self.
Meditation may be said to have a twofold purpose. It is a way of relating to the
deeper aspects of ones own nature, but it is not only that. It is also a way of
relating oneself to a much greater reality which we can think of under different
guises: as the unity underlying nature, or the spiritual dimension, or God, or the
Divine Milieu. Dora van Gelder Kunz
II- Why Meditate?
2. "The ultimate object of yoga", Dr. Taimni once wrote, "is to reverse the
process of centralization of consciousness". Yet many people imagine that they
can use what they call yoga to confirm and enhance the centralization of
consciousness for the purpose of strengthening and endowing the "me" with
powers and immunities. Such an attempt . . . leads to conflict and failure. Hugh
Shearman
3. Meditation means this opening out of the soul to the Divine and letting the
Divine shine in without obstruction from the personal self. Therefore it means
renunciation. It means throwing away everything that one has, and waiting
empty for the light to come in. Annie Besant
4. You cannot meditate if you are ambitious you may play with the idea of
meditation. If your mind is authority-ridden, bound by tradition, accepting,
following, you will never know what it is to meditate on this extraordinary
beauty. J. Krishnamurti
5. The question is not what technique of meditation is being used but who is
using it, what motivating selfhood has activated this process. Hugh Shearman
III- Is Meditation All we Need to Lead a Spiritual Life?
6. Some say that, in order to attain Raja Yoga, one should investigate
Mahavakhya [spiritual aphorisms]; others that the mind must be concentrated
on a point and the Yogi must contemplate Parabrahman [the Absolute]; some
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Dzyan Theosophy The Path of Meditation

says one's own Guru is the true subject of contemplation, and it is enough to
lead a good life; some say the repetition of Pranava [OM] is in itself Raja Yoga,
and others say you must cultivate will-power; which of these is the true one? All
these are necessary and much moreread Light on the Path. T. Subba Row
7. What we can do in meditation depends upon what we are doing all day long.
If we have built up prejudices in ordinary life we cannot escape from them
during the time of meditation. C. W. Leadbeater
8. Many Sadhakas [spiritual seekers] not realizing sufficiently the disturbing
influence of desire try to practise meditation without giving sufficient attention
to the problem of controlling desires with the result that they do not succeed to
any considerable extent in freeing the mind from disturbances at the time of
meditation. Trying to render the mind calm without eliminating desire is like
trying to stop the movement of a boat on a surface of water which is being
violently agitated by a strong wind. I. K. Taimni
9. Many sit down for meditation and wonder why they do not succeed. How can
you suppose that half an hour of meditation and twenty-three and a half hours
of scattering of thought throughout the day and night, will enable you to
concentrate during the half hour? Annie Besant
IV- Effects of Meditation
10. Although the man in his daily meditation may see but little progress, and it
may seem to him that his efforts are altogether unsatisfactory and without
result, a clairvoyant watching him will see exactly how the astral and mental
bodies are slowly coming out of chaos into order, slowly expanding and
gradually learning to respond to higher and higher vibrations. C. W. Leadbeater
11. A mistake that many people make is to suppose that a meditation which is
unsatisfactory to them is therefore ineffectual . . . They sometimes think that
because they do not feel happy and uplifted after a meditation it is therefore a
failure and entirely useless, or they find themselves dull and heavy and
incapable of meditation. . . . In the work of our meditation sometimes we feel
happy and uplifted, and sometimes not; but in both cases alike it has been
acting for our higher bodies as do the exercises of physical culture or training
for our physical body. It is pleasanter when you have what you call a good
meditation; but the only difference between what seems a good one and a bad
one lies in its effect upon the feelings, and not in the real work which it does
towards our evolution. C. W. Leadbeater
12. People are apt to think that meditation to be successful must be
accompanied by some astral phenomenonseeing forms, colors, hearing
sounds, bells, etc. Even some purely physical sensationsa shiver along the
spine, a tingling in the finger tips. . . .
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Dzyan Theosophy The Path of Meditation

Surely, such trivial and often foolish manifestations do not constitute a

successful meditation. They are rather an obstacle because they draw the
attention away from the inner realities. It is better to see nothing, hear nothing
on the psychic planes, so that the consciousness, wholly turned inwards, may
reach communion with the Divine and gradually unify the personal self with the
[Higher] Ego consciousness. Marie Poutz

Dzyan Theosophy The Path of Meditation

THE PROCESS

OF

MEDITATION

13. In the broad exercise of meditation, concentration fixes the mind on the
subject, meditation leads the mind around the subject to understand it, and
contemplation takes consciousness beyond the mind. Wallace Slater
I- Concentration and Meditation
14. Concentration produces a very wide-awake consciousness, consciousness
at its best, and in meditation this wide-awakeness is preserved and applied to
full reflection upon a chosen subject. Ernest Wood
15. When he succeeds in eliminating the distractions completely and can
continue the concentration on the object without any interruptions for as long
as he decides to do so he reaches the stage of Dhyana [meditation]. I. K.
Taimni
16. This state [of concentration] cannot be brought about by the mere exertion
of will-power as some people suppose, for the exertion of will-power on a mind
agitated by even sub-conscious desires is bound to produce mental strain. I. K.
Taimni
17. Every little unsatisfied desire, every unthought-out problem, will present a
hungry mouth calling aside your attention. . . . To clear away these obstructions
it is little use trying to repress and suppress them. A better plan is to give them
their due, appoint them a time and think them out. A mind that cannot
overcome such vacillation as leaves its problems perpetually unsettled cannot
succeed in meditation. Ernest Wood
18. The student should also remember that concentration is not a matter of
physical effort . . . Concentration is less a matter of forcibly holding the mind on
a certain thought than of letting the mind continue to rest on that thought in
perfect stillness and quietude. J.I. Wedgwood
19. For a long time you will find, when you try to meditate, that your thoughts
are continually going off at a tangent, and you do not know it till suddenly you
start to find how far away they have gone. You must not let this dishearten you,
for it is the common experience; you must simply bring the errant mind back
again to its duty, a hundred or a thousand times if necessary. C.W. Leadbeater
20. Stop yourself suddenly . . . and see what you are thinking and why. Try to
follow the thought back to its genesis, and you will probably be surprised to
find how many desultory thoughts have wandered through your brain during
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Dzyan Theosophy The Path of Meditation

the previous five minutes, just dropping in and dropping out again, and leaving
almost no impression. C.W. Leadbeater
21. Never concentrate to the point of making a feeling of dulness and
heaviness of the brain; never concentrate to the point of pain; dulness and pain
are danger-signals of nature, that you are trying to change matter more rapidly
in its arrangements than is possible consisting with health. Annie Besant
22. Perfect balance is needed, neither resistance nor non-resistance [to
distractions], but a steady quietude so strong that waves [of thought] from
outside will not produce any result, not even the secondary result of the
consciousness of something to be resisted. Annie Besant
II- Contemplation
23. The old teachers of meditation held that there is a two-fold contemplation
at the top end of our line of thought, one which gives intuition about the object,
whereby the mind obtains its closest touch with that object, receiving its
highest lesson, while the second leads to the beyond of the mind. Ernest Wood
24. Our ideal is perfect consciousness on the highest level we can reach. We do
not propose to rest satisfied at any level whatever. But on the other hand, we
decline to give up our consciousness and go into trance, as some people do for
the purpose of reaching a level beyond the scope of their waking
consciousness. People talk sometimes about passing into samdhi . . .
Samdhi for anyone is the point which is just beyond that at which it is possible
for him to retain his clear consciousness . . . to pass into a sort of trance from
which one emerges with all sorts of glorified and beautiful feeling, but not
generally with clear consciousness. People should not go into samdhi when
they meditate; they should retain their consciousness, so that when they come
back they can remember what they have seen. I know that many have passed
into samdhi and have experienced a great feeling of happiness and beatitude.
That, however, does not mean progress, because they lose hold and do not
know clearly what they have been doing. C. W. Leadbeater
i) Passive Contemplation
25. When the mind is well trained in concentrating on an object, and can
maintain its one-pointednessas this state is calledfor some little time, the
next stage is to drop the object, and to maintain the mind in this attitude of
fixed attention without the attention being directed to anything. . . . Keep the
mind poised, in steadiness and strenuous quiet, waiting for what may come.
After a while, you will be able to maintain this attitude for a considerable time.
Annie Besant
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Dzyan Theosophy The Path of Meditation

26. Don't try to do it too vigorously for the first time, because it tends to bring
about a headache. It is better not to persist against that; a headache means
that you are straining the nervous mechanism of the brain, which you must not
do. Annie Besant
27. When the consciousness of the Yogi leaves one plane and the Pratyaya
[object of meditation] of that plane disappears he finds himself in a void and
must remain in that void until his consciousness automatically emerges into the
next plane with its new and characteristic Pratyaya. He cannot do anything but
wait patiently, with mind concentrated and alert, for the darkness to disperse
and the light of the higher plane to dawn in his mind. I. K. Taimni
ii) Active Contemplation
28. When it is able to hold itself thus with comparative ease it is ready for a
further step, and by a strong but calm effort of the will it can throw itself
beyond the highest thought it can reach while working in the physical brain,
and in the effort will rise and unite itself with the higher consciousness. Annie
Besant
29. And then, putting forth all the strength which his long practice of
concentration had given him, let him make a determined effort to raise his
consciousness to that ideal, to merge himself in it, to become one with it. C. W.
Leadbeater
30. In fact, the process really only becomes intelligible to you as you practise it.
This is so often the case in the instructions for meditation. If you try to make
out what they mean, you never get very much further, because you are
keeping in the questioning stage of what is meant by it, which does not help
you at all. Try to begin to do it and, as you do it, if clears itself, because the
power is in you and you are calling it out. You call it out by doing it. In this
case the "doing it" is the process of thinking, the definite activity of the plane
upon which you are working. Annie Besant
iii) Inspiration
31. Quite apart from the possibility of going out into a higher plane in full
consciousness, we have here a means of raising the consciousness so that it
may feel the influences of a superior world and receive impressions from
above. C.W. Leadbeater
32. In that moment of absorption there may come a stillness of the mind, which
is not negative or passive, but is dynamic and alert. . . . The mind is now
emptied of images and forms, and in that moment it is free and open to receive
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Dzyan Theosophy The Path of Meditation

intimations from the inner world of the Self, to experience intuition, buddhi. . . .
In that state of contemplation, which is a state of consciousness beyond form,
the individual can have spiritual insight which, however brief, can transform his
understanding, can expand his awareness, lifting him out of his usually limited
field into a new vision and a realization of the deeper reality which exists
within. It may not happen for a long time. Helen V. Zahara