The Art of Meditation – Part II
Having learned how to relax and found a suitable location where we will not be disturbed, the next phase in meditation is the actual meditation itself. In general, there are two or perhaps three methods of meditating; • Focus on a word, phrase, image and drill down into it; • Keep the mind blank and allow images to arise; • Guided meditation – also know as ‘Pathworking’ Let’s look at each in turn. Focused Meditation In focused meditation we already know what it is we wish to meditate on. It can be a useful technique when you want to examine something and really drill down into it. An example is perhaps the better way to examine focused meditation. We have read a book and enjoyed it but it really made
Read More »The Art of Meditation – Part One
Introduction According to Wikipedia, Meditation can be defined as “a state of concentrated attention on some object of thought or awareness. It usually involves turning the attention inward to a single point of reference.” For me, meditation involves reaching a state known as ‘mind awake, body asleep.’ Several techniques may then be used to actually meditate including constant thought and attention on an object, symbol or a statement or, my favored approach, emptying of the mind to simply let images arise that are noted and then dismissed. I will discuss these two approaches in more detail in a later continuation of this dissertation. To meditate properly, that is, to reach the correct state of ‘body asleep, mind awake’ is in fact quite difficult and some students have immense problems getting
Read More »Inner Journeys ReVisited
When I wrote Inner Journeys some of the first people to read it were my family – parents and brothers. I recall being a bit worried about what they would think and say but to my surprise their comments were to correct inaccuracies as they saw them in my narrative in the book! In the book, I recount my first experience of well… something. I was perhaps 3-years old and was sleeping in my bedroom when I awoke for some reason. I saw a blue elf jump out of the mirror in the wardrobe and look at me. Of course, I screamed as a small child might. Not so said my Father. His recollection is that a blue elf jumped out of the mirror and shot me with a little
Read More »Acting The Fool
I was listening to music this morning on my phone. Somehow that music took over and I sort of went into a meditational state. It was then that it suddenly came to me. To be true to myself I must be the Fool. Now frankly, this insight is nothing new. I even discuss it in my book – Inner Journeys. But, it was a powerful reminder and it came with a real sense of understanding. The type of understanding that makes sense at the time but it difficult to actually pinpoint later. But my thoughts gravitated to the description of the Fool tarot on a website that I use as a resource… http://www.ata-tarot.com/resource/cards/ Here it is…. The Fool Without the notion of Zero, our system of mathematics becomes meaningless. Similarly,
Read More »Madonna & Child – Thoughts
Any church or art museum is full of paintings of the Madonna and child. But is there an occult meaning or symbolism behind these religiously inspired images and what is the meaning of the black Madonna? In recent meditations focused on the anima or inner female, the image of the Madonna and child has continually come to mind. Could it be that the Madonna represents the anima, the inner female, the soul? And is the child she bears proudly in her arms the fruit of a union between the outer self of the artist and his inner female. The solar child? Most of these images were painted in a male dominated society – at a time when males were dominant in society. If it were the other way round, would
Read More »Thoughts On Meditation
When I first started out on this path, I was very concerned about whether I was doing it right. What was meditation and visualization? Eventually, I seemed to stumble into it though and despite occasionally questioning my version of meditation and visualization against what I read as other people’s experience, I began to realize that what I do works for me and gained confidence. I now realize that I have in fact spent many innumerable hours meditating without even realizing that I was doing it. As a child growing up in England, I had quite a distance to walk everyday back and forth to school. To kill the boredom of the walk, I would imagine that I was a pop star with my own band and a song in the
Read More »Love As Acceptance
Today, Asteroth told me write about love. I asked for more detail and she said ‘love as acceptance’. I didn’t need anymore words because the words themselves conveyed the entirety of the suggestion. This is a difficult concept to explain but it seemed as if the words themselves conveyed the feeling and understanding of love as acceptance. It’s as if the words are only a key to a packet of understanding which opens up and engulfs me. What those words conveyed to me was along the lines that when we are told to ‘love one another’, we are told to accept one another for what we are and what we have the potential to be. It’s a surrendering of one’s own ego and viewpoint. A letting go of our own
Read More »Relationships As A Mirror To Your Soul
What you see in someone else is often a projection of yourself and it can be self-revealing to examine your relationships periodically. This is particularly so in relationships with the opposite sex for in those relationships there is something revealed about your own inner polarity too. All souls have receptive female aspects and active male aspects and these are reflected in the anima/animus concept. I have found through periodic reflection that my anima or inner female is very active often pointing the way or waking me up to possibilities and experiences that perhaps otherwise I would miss. In fact, should I forget to meditate or find I am seemingly unable to find the time then there she is in my dreams again! Rarely, we can meet someone of the opposite
Read More »Waking From The Great Sleep
Looking around, I think that most people are totally unaware of what and who they truly are. Occultists have referred to this as ‘sleeping’. The vast majority of us are sleeping through life pursuing some materialistic dream like children distracted by shiny new toys. I can feel myself being sucked in to this quite often now that I am aware of it. Glued to the TV, or lusting after a new and faster sports car, our attention gets sharply focused on the outer world around us and that inner voice that speaks quietly to us gets drowned out by the noise of the world. WE Butler, a famous occultist and founder of the Servants of the Light, discusses this at great length in his lectures to the Ibis society*. The
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