Meditation

Uranda  1952  Class

The importance of Meditation should be emphasized. I have noticed that some of you are utilizing the principle to some extent and that others not give too much evidence of really meditating. I have pointed out that our time in class work and in services, etc., is really a process of meditation—the development of a picture, or word, or thought portrayal, of Truth, and we have emphasized that we are here learning to portray Truth in our lives, learning to let the patterns life be brought under the control of Truth; and we have emphasized the fact that the first point where we perceive Truth is through the mind, intellect. Even if we consider inspiration, or in its limited sense what is called intuition, the first point of receiving it is in the mind. Only to degree that you do perceive it in the mind can it have meaning to you. Sometimes you have a feeling of having perceived Truth through feeling, to some degree, but it does not mean anything because the perception is not complete. Sometimes you may feel a little troubled about it because it is not clear, because even though you can feel the Truth it can have no meaning until you perceive it with the mind.

Meditation is a process of allowing perception, or the avenues of perception, to come to point in a manner which allows the revelation of Truth to your own consciousness, so that there is a picture of Truth developed; or the design of Truth, the beauty Truth, is allowed to come out so that you can see it and examine it. Only the degree that you, individually, learn to meditate in the true sense can you hold steady under the control of Truth when you are responsible for carrying the focalization of the life patterns in circumstance where you are—there is a very great need for Meditation.

It is all right to have regular time for meditation, but in the practical expression of living, the ability to utilize the time that comes to hand in a profitable way is one of the things which makes for success. So there is a great need for increased effectiveness in meditation, but meditation must be centered to a pattern of known Truth. It can take a course, working out in any number of avenues from a centering in known Truth, and as that process of unfolding takes place each part of the picture is examined to see that it is accurately correlated with that centering in known Truth—basically the One Law, and then the operation of the One Law, and the other basic principles and Truths which you have come to know.

It does not make any difference what line of thought you may choose or that may come naturally to the moment, there is a need to allow a process of unfolding in the current of the Spirit. If you ignore the opportunities that are afforded during the day, in relationship to true meditation, you will not reach a point where your life in all of its aspects is an unfolding manifestation of that pattern of Truth. Truth has dominion only as it controls the manifestation of the patterns of your life, and if there is no true process of unfolding in true meditation in your minds, in your consciousness, how is it going to reach the rest of your life? It will not govern everything else if it does not unfold in your mind, so it is important that you develop the habit of letting it unfold.

I do not mean that you have to be, every minute of the time, centered in what we might call a basic process of meditation, and yet there should be a process of meditation involved even in the periods of relaxation, correlating the patterns at hand with the patterns of Truth or utilizing the factors at hand in radiation or analysis. Any situation that develops, or anything that might appear in our range of perception, gives a certain amount of opportunity for allowing meditation, at least a brief examination of the pattern involved as it relates to people: a radio program, for instance, or the news, or anything else that may for the moment be occupying the attention, which affords the opportunity to allow a recognition of the basic factors and a process of setting aside as meaningless those factors which do not conform to the Truth. We may see them, but we pick out of the circumstances those factors which have a correlation to Truth, a correlation to the principles of reality.

Just picking them out and bringing them into the field, if we are functioning correctly, allows automatically a process of radiation, but if we are in the habit of being subject to our feelings or becoming subject to the things that we feel, then those things that are not in harmony with the Truth which appear in daily circumstance or are observed in some fashion will tend to occupy attention. They will tend to take over, and there will be muddled thinking or reaction with respect to them, and the points of Truth are ignored. The points of discord, the points of distortion, if they come bobbing up and command your attention and produce a reaction in you, cause you to be meditating on distortion. Meditation on distortion does no one any good. It brings you under subjection to it and you are giving your life force to the maintenance of that distortion. But if, in any circumstance, viewing it whether through feeling, or the vision of the eyes, or the vision of the ears, or the vision of any of the senses, you are allowing the process of separation to take place, anything that does not fit with reality, does not square with the Truth, does not have a correlating point with the One Law, is caused to go past, as one might sit on a river bank and let the river flow by. We just see it, and that is all. But those things that do correlate, we observe.

It is not a forced thing, but must become a perfectly natural process in you all the time, something that is just naturally working. You are alert to the things of reality, the points of Truth that are involved, and upon those you meditate. You do not react to the things that are not. You are not too much concerned about them. We stop giving our life force to the maintenance of the unreal patterns, ignore them and let our processes of meditation be centered in the patterns of Truth. Then, if we are alert in this matter of perceiving Truth wherever it is, by all the avenues of perception, it is a perfectly natural process to see the correlation, to meditate upon the principles involved as they apply in the whole. Sometimes a particular point requires only a few seconds and is not worthy of anything more. We are not to take some point of Truth and make something out of it. When people get in the habit of feeling that every little statement of Truth must somehow be taken apart and rolled around and chewed, as a puppy would a rag doll, that is not meditation and it is not of any value. Meditation is a process by which the patterns of Truth, in their correlated meanings, unfold in the range of consciousness, so that through the intellect they can be recognized and seen intellectually.

We  need  more  Meditation

Every time I have appeared before you and expressed, as in this moment, I have been giving you an example of the processes of meditation. You have noticed that no matter how many points are brought into the pattern, there is always a central theme. It always comes back to that central theme. It never goes off on scattered tangents. There is a completion of the cycle, whether the meditation be short or long, or whatever the subject, and that procedure by which I have served you in the expression of Truth is simply a manifest example of meditation. More and more you will learn how to let the Spirit of God flowing through the capacities you have in mind and heart work naturally in bringing about the development of the consciousness of those phases of Truth which properly relate to the present moment.

You always have to start where you are. Let yourself have a chance to move naturally, easily, from one point to another. If you see a point out there where you feel you should have a better understanding, do not mentally leap out to that point and try to meditate upon it; you will not get a clear picture—trying does not fit in meditation. The moment you start trying you are distorting. No matter how good your intentions or how sincere, the moment you try you are distorting. So, begin where you are.

If you see something over there, and see it with any true recognition, you see a correlation with it to what is here, to where you are. Always start where you are, and before you make a start always check your meditation compass, the One Law, so that you know where you are going, so that you are squared up with that basic pattern of Truth, and then let the processes of meditation unfold, moving out in that general direction. But if your mind arbitrarily says, “I am going to go out there and meditate on this, and get that Truth, so that I know,” then who is dictating? Your mind is usurping control, trying to be as God, trying to order God to deliver to you a certain Truth according to your concept, your desire, etc. And what happens? The whole thing breaks down; and it is not meditation, no matter how hard you try. It will be a distortion, and the results of that distorted effort will not be a revelation of Truth. Let it unfold.

What is it that is going to allow this flowing out of the cistern, out of the fountain of your own inner Being? There has to be a release point, the point of response. If you are anticipating that today after dinner you are going to need to express on such and such a subject, to fill what you conceive to be such and such a need, and you try to get it all expressed ahead of time, you are ignoring your release points now; and while your mind may grind out something that you imagine will fill that need, you are trying to be a prophet in the sense of attempting to foretell what the circumstance will be and what the Lord wants you to express into that circumstance. That is asking your mind to do something which it simply cannot do. If you imagine you can determine in advance just exactly what the circumstance is going to be and what the Lord wants you to do in relationship to that circumstance, you are asking yourself to be something pretty remarkable: to be as God; and it will not work.

That which is to appear in circumstance, and expression in relationship to that circumstance, the day after tomorrow, will be taken care of if you function correctly in relationship to that which is the circumstance today. If you are letting the flow appear through you according to the points of receptivity, the points of response, or the points of release, today, and you are alert to those, so that it flows naturally and easily, then when the day after tomorrow comes and that circumstance appears, you will be in position to express correctly. In the meantime you will not be trying to determine in advance just what that circumstance is going to be, figuring it all out and then figuring how the Lord is going to ask you to fill the need in that circumstance.

If you try to predetermine what the circumstance is, that is a big order; but the biggest order is that you are going to figure out from your imagination of the circumstance what the Lord wants; you are going to read the Lord’s mind in advance. Do you not see how foolish it is? Yet human beings waste so much time trying to do that and accomplishing nothing, wasting the opportunities of meditation in this hour. There are natural points of release. Learn to see them, recognize them and use them.

Do not use your effort in trying to make the water flow uphill. Work with the points where there is a true point of release. Let it flow where there is an opening for the flowing, and in that you will have the natural process of meditation. Use the opportunities of the present moment. Let them express through you now, and then you will have the whole process or the machinery working, and moment by moment as you go along you will perceive this working; and then something else arrives; it moves into the pattern. It is all so easy, natural; nothing of turmoil or chaos or disturbance in it.

You have the absolute conviction that, because the machinery is working and you are alert to all the factors, as the invisible becomes visible you are ready for it. You have not wasted time trying to imagine what the circumstance is going to be and, above all, you are not guilty of the presumption that you can read the Lord’s mind in advance. You let it unfold. You may say, “What about the things that are going to happen someday? I have to look into the future and be prepared for it so that I am ready to do something about it.” Do you? Oh, no. All you have to do is recognize the unfolding factors of the future that are present in the moment. For instance, it is a factor that is present in the moment that on the twenty-first and twenty-second of June we will have a Conference. That is not a future thing. That is a factor in the present moment. There are factors relating to that which are not factors of the present moment, but those factors which we see are here; they are not out there. They are already here, and it is as they fit into this day that we act in relationship to them. They are a part of the pattern. This pattern is not all broken up and segregated into little pieces. It is one pattern, and the thread of that design, the beauty of it, is already here. It is already a part of this picture. It is not something altogether separate from this moment.

It is that which is here which must be seen, and when we see it we act in relationship to it without trying to read God’s mind and saying, “God’s will, when that time comes, will be for me to do thus and so.” Oh, no. Do not do any such thing. You see all these factors shaping up now. Some of these things that are coming in the future have their factors present in the now, and we can see them, and it is in the now that we act in relationship to the factors that are in the now, and that action is not presuming to read God’s mind. It is letting the current of the Spirit unfold in us in true meditation, so that there is a true revelation of the patterns of Truth through the consciousness into daily action.

The process, as God ordained it, utilizing the capacities which He gives, is very easy and very simple. But human beings have refused to use it, or have used it wrongly, for so long that it seems difficult and complex. It is not. But as we learn to be alert to the focalization points of Truth that are contained even within the distorted patterns around us—it is the Truth that we are interested in, not the distortions—wherever we find them, that is our starting point in relationship to that particular circumstance. If there is no point of Truth in relationship to it in its own nature, then some other element of Truth must be present if we are going to act in relationship to it; otherwise we will ignore it.

For instance, there might conceivably be a circumstance where there was no element of Truth in it that would allow me to act in relationship to it, but the presence of that circumstance endangered the development of the pattern of those who had not yet come fully to center, who were not properly strong enough to meet that situation. Then the Truth that those responding ones needed a certain amount of protection would be the basis on which I would act, and move it out of the way.

But the basis of action with respect to anything must be the Truth, and if you try to act with respect to any circumstance without basing your action on the Truth it is not going to work. And if the Truth is not unfolding in your consciousness as a natural process—meditation all the time—how are you going to know the Truth that will be the basis of the action in relationship to the situation? You either learn to meditate or you do not succeed. So let us learn to meditate.

© Emissaries of Divine Light