Some Notes on Zen Meditation with Reference to the Founder of Quietism, Miguel Molinos.

 

From my new book. Coming very soon.

The ROAD TO ELEUSIS

                                                      The journey into mystery.

Stage 0 I would say is when you first sit down to meditate. The mind is cluttered with thoughts and impulses initially, distractions appear in the mind once you try to meditate. You feel hungry, perhaps worry that you haven’t turned off a tap somewhere in the house, or that you would be better off doing this at another time. If you persist with focussing on nothing you will reach stage 1.

 

Stage 1 is when you start to feel a little more relaxed, the mind has calmed a little and there are no immediate pressing thoughts trying to dissuade you from meditating like this. If you continue to meditate you will reach stage 2.

 

The next stage signals a tangible inner focus, whereas before you were aware of the outside world you now are becoming aware of the inner world. The world outside is now taking second place to an increasingly widening inner world which your mind appears to be filling. Thoughts will be significantly reduced and it is easy not to engage with them or wish to act on them. There is a tangible sense of a decrease in mental activity as you can almost start to count the neurons in the brain firing off with stray thoughts and impulsions which are becoming increasingly dampened down.

 

This is fittingly described by Molinos:

“By the way of Nothing thou must come to lose thy self in God (which is the last degree of perfection) and happy wilt thou be, if thou canst so lose thy self; then thou wilt get thy self again, and find thy self most certainly. In this same Shop of Nothing, Simplicity is made; interior and infused recollection is possessed, quiet is obtained, and the heart is cleansed from all manner of imperfections.”

 

The third stage of transcendental meditation would be what I call, approaching the Abyss. What I term the abyss and perhaps more in common with Molinos and less so with Crowley, is the sense that the focus of the mind is now wholly engaged inward and a large empty darkness approaches the mind. A friend of mine I spoke to about meditation said this actually scared him and made him leave off meditation altogether.

 

Molinos notes:

“Know then that the streightest, most perfect and secure way of proficients, is the way of darkness: because in them the Lord placed his own Throne; And (Psalm 18.) He made darkness his secret place. By them the supernatural light which God infuses into the Soul, grow and increases. Amidst them wisdom and strong love are begotten, by darkness the soul is annihilated, and the species, which hinder the right view of the divine truth, are consumed. By this means God introduces the Soul by the inward way into the Prayer of Rest, and of perfect contemplation, which so few have the experience of. Finally; by darkness the Lord purgest the senses and sensibility, which hinder the mystical progress…See now if darkness be not to be esteemed and embraced.”

 

I would hasten to add that here I assume that Molinos is speaking of the literal darkness of the mind in meditation and not in terms of a sort of Luciferian allegory for the forces of darkness. 

 

This darkness seems to move closer to your mind and it is something tangible, not an absence perhaps but more a solid kind of emptiness. It moves closer and starts to fill the mind, like a rapidly incoming tide threatening to wash you, your mind and everything away into nothingness. Allow yourself to move into this darkness or it to move into you until it actually fills your whole mind, again Molinos has already been there and left a fitting description:

 

“O what infinite room is there in a Soul that is arrived at this divine Solitude! O what inward, what retired, what secret, what spacious, what vast distances are there within a happy Soul that is once come to be truly Solitary! There the Lord converses and communicates himself, inwardly with the Soul: there he fills it with himself, because it is empty; cloaths it with Light, and with his Love, because it is naked; lifts it up, because ‘tis low; and unites it with himself, and transforms it, because it is alone.”

 

Stage four is breaking through this darkness to the other side and what you thought was nothingness and negation and a total loss of the self turns out to be an infinite boundless space within yourself and total peace. Your mind has now left the physical world altogether and your mind is now operating wholly in, and exploring a higher realm of reality. Here you will feel interesting effects like a spinning around, as if your whole being is turning as if on a merry go round; this I believe is experiencing our electro-magnetic soul and its natural oscillation. You will also have a feeling of moving through this inner realm at great speed, as you explore this inner world which seems to be full of the whole universe and all past and present realities.

 

Some of these experiences Molinos describes thus:

“The fourth step, which is Illumination, is an infused knowledge, whereby the Soul contemplates sweetly the divine truth, rising still from one clearness to another, from one light to another, from knowledge to knowledge, begin guided by the Spirit Divine. The fifth is a Savoury Pleasure of the divine sweetness, issuing forth from the plentiful and precious fountain of the Holy Ghost. The sixth is a sweet and Admirable tranquillity, arising from the conquest of Fightings within, and frequent Prayer; and this, very, very few have Experience of. Here the abundance of Joy, and Peace is so great, that the soul seems to be in a sweet sleep, solacing and reposing it self in the Divine breast of Love. Many other steps of Contemplation there are, as Extasies, Raptures, Melting, Delinquium’s, Glee, Kisses, Embraces, Exultation, Union, Transformation, Expousing, and Matrimony, which I omit to explain, to give no occasion to Speculation…”

 

Aside from the inner peace and the exploration of what could be considered an antechamber to the Kingdom of Heaven one takes away many benefits from this kind of meditation into our daily lives in the physical realm. Such practise allows us to control the mind and emotions much better and remain calm and detached from events which would previously have had a negative impact on our mental well-being. We will also take this focus into our dreams which will become much more coherent and less chaotic as we will better be able to navigate and order the inner dreamscape.

Stay Happy!

This is us.

I've been really down recently and have started letting things get to me to the extent that I feel like giving up. Not that you can really give up. We've all got to get through this. But lately the unending death and carnage in the Middle East, the dead children, the tide of refugees trudging through Europe, the endless school shootings, the fear the uncertainty for the future.

It has all been seeping into me like a poison and darkening my soul to the extent that the light of positivity and human love inside me, has been going out in my mind, leaving just sad negative thoughts, self criticism, criticism of others, fears, all bounce around my mind like unwelcome parasites. It has been making me feel utterly helpless.

This is them.

Then a couple of hours ago I just got up and said to myself 'I've got to do something about this' I got down and I prayed and I meditated. I prayed first to be able clear my mind of the darkness and negativity that had settled in it and which I had fed with negative thoughts, and as my mind settled I realised I needed to meditate and find the clear space within myself.

So I sat down and tried to find in myself some instruction and some explanation for all the pain inside me, I totally calmed my mind and stopped all thought, but occasionally a negative thought or fear would flash up in my mind and I actually felt it as a surge of electricity. So I redoubled my focus on totally quietening all my thoughts and got the sense that I was no longer a consciousness operating from a physical brain, but that my consciousness had become a field which was focussed on wherever my will took it.

I found that if I focussed my will just above my head, I could reconnect with a dim light which just shone through. This I know of as God. God is the Light and all consciousness is part of an electro-magnetic field with the upper frequency reaches being the invisible energy source which powers the universe.

I asked a question in the light, it wasn't a question from my brain, it was from my true self, the consciousness field which can be accessed through Zen meditation; when all of the electrical activity has ceased and you achieve clarity. The question was about myself and what I consider my weaknesses and perceived failures. I then saw some key moments from my life and I realised why they had happened, they happened because events which had started before I was even born were in play that created a particular problem or weakness in myself. I saw my childhood and my parents and saw that my negative and confused behaviour in some instances was a direct result of some negative and inescapable parental influence and moulding. I saw that my life wasn't a series of mistakes, just a series of choices which I was always bound to make, since we are more or less, tied and constrained to a certain mental pattern and inherited behaviours.

I asked 'What can I do?'. And the answer was 'Just survive'.

Now, although 'Just survive' doesn't sound like much of an encouragement, it did encourage me and it made me realise that we are all constantly trying to do just that, but we forget it. We forget that at a primal level, we don't need possessions and job security, we are living beings in a semi-hostile environment and we just have to survive while behind these enemy lines. And that is what we must realise, forget about the fears, the horror and the misery, SURVIVE IT! Stay Happy.

This is a subtle war on the human spirit and while real wars are being fought in the Middle East psychological wars are being fought on all of us here at home.

They come from a million different directions too. It isn't just the media and politicians trying to darken our lights and make us weak and helpless and unable to defend ourselves against the many threats from society which is constantly trying to trip us up or exploit us. We no longer live in a peaceful civilised world, we live in an artificial jungle of created threats and predators introduced into our cages.

Don't know who this is.

Life has changed so fast and in such a surprising way. When I was young the world felt relatively sane and perhaps it was. Nowadays everything has reached such a frenzy of discord and negativity. From Feminism being rammed down everyone's throats like never before, to the music, entertainment and celebrities which have all reached some kind of ritualised peak of obscenity.

It is clear we are all under attack, and it's no use banging your head against all the pain fear and horror in the world, you will never win, it will devour your soul in the end. So we have to transcend it. We have to stay happy.

No matter what happens, the worse the avalanche of shit gets, the more confusion and lies which reign, the more you will have to make a conscious willful effort to be happy and hang onto it. You have to realise, its purpose is to BRING YOU DOWN. To crush your spirit! This is probably the real reason why there is all this horror in the world, the human agents call it politics and feel they have to play these war-games, but the demonic beings know the true purpose.

They have to degrade and exploit the people of planet Earth to the point that they can make people fall into despair. Once in despair you become like them, full of misery confusion, sadness and loneliness and your vision of inner happiness and the light of peace and understanding will go out leaving you a prey to the predators.

Zen meditation. Clear your mind, even in the darkest of times you can still find the inner light.

Inside your mind you can make a clearing for your true self, reconnect to the light, find it with your mind and you will be armed for whatever this dirty old world can throw at you.

The Real Enemy.....The Little Voice.

The Illuminati and all the nefarious little sub-sects and organised gangs of men in suits looking to steal your money and freedom or deranged street lurking weirdos with knives looking to steal your wallet or your life are one of the dangers which the unwary can fall foul of, but a much more powerful enemy doesn't wander the streets or plot in darkened rooms, your ultimate enemy is already inside you.

Question is.... how much power do you give this enemy?

I won't pretend this information is new. It isn't. But it isn't something which is made readily public because it's a little too metaphysical, possibly religiously flavoured and frankly, a bit too close to home for most people to be willing to even think about.

It requires total honesty, humilty and self awareness and frankly most people cannot achieve that. I know I for one cannot. Though by admitting this I am getting closer to the goal. But this boast is also enough to move me further from the goal. Such is the difficulty and subtlety involved in this struggle.

Were this information to be made public knoweldge then the dominance of the nefarious rulers of the world who play on our fears and insecurities to secure their power-base, would crumble very quickly.

The enemy is you, or at least, part of you that you think is you, but is in fact a left over relic from our primitive days as violent semi-animals incapable of communicating subtle nuances of meaning which make cooperation and the larger network of human society possible.

The enemy is the little-voice in your head,

I don't mean this in a schizophrenic way, simply that we all have little voices in our heads as a constant companion. Only perhaps the Zen Master has managed to quiet this dangerous little trickster who leads us to disaster as he plays us against each other to our confusion and destruction.

This is the little voice in your head that judges others, despite you knowing nothing about the world they're living in. We are hungry and in a sort of biological need to judge others quickly and often entirely erroneously, because in the earliest days of our animal existence we need to think and act fast to avoid predators or to capitalise on a perceived weakness of an enemy or opponent.

But we are no longer animals: we do not spend our lives on all fours scampering about, climbing trees when we judge a threat from another animal, or planning an attack. However the ability to do that is still completely present within us, and if anything, has become even more developed with the millennia of its entrenchment within the human mind without anyone questioning its presence and no-one has ever taught us to transcend or to outgrow this, except perhaps certain prophets and smart people who generally find themselves being persecuted by the collective reptilian animal consciousness which fears itself getting found out and rouses its human agents to persecute and kill the dissenter who would show us our true hidden enemy.

The little voice tells us to be offended; tells us that our feelings are hurt and that we must punish, exact revenge or persecute the person who offended us. The chances are, the person who offended us was ALSO operating under the compulsions, instructions and suggestions of 'the little voice'. The little voice tells us to get angry and shout at people when we consider they have made an error, and at the same time, if we find out that it was our error after all then the SAME voice is the one which persecutes us with feelings of guilt. We cannot win against the voice. It plays all sides against the other and takes no final responsibility for the things it whispers to us.

The little voice leads us to misunderstand each other. To react with instinct which then develops into thoughts which then become acts or words. All on the basis of a misunderstanding.

This is also the voice, and this is its greatest trick: he also tells us that we are already perfect, that we don't need to change ourselves and improve, and seek to consciously evolve. That there is 'nothing wrong with me'. He makes us blind to our faults or at least, makes us turn a blind indulgent eye to them, because after all, it's 'us' and we understand ourselves and know what we really meant, and that we had the best motives at heart. He makes us careless and complacent; satisfied and insensitive to the 'reality' of other people's feelings and the possibility that deep within themselves, they really are trying to be the best they can be.

This little voice is animal in nature and also 4 dimensional, that is, it transcends physical limitations. It's only interest is creating conflict and seeking personal security, but it does this with no wider social goal. It doesn't care about destruction, right and wrong or ethics because it is reptilian. It cares only about self protection which also means projecting oppression, coercion and violence, whether physical or verbal, outwards.

But it is a web and we are all caught deep inside it, blindly banging against each other as we all jostle for some superiority over others, whether actual physical and material superiority or mental and emotional.

How to beat the little voice? How to beat Sam Gold?

I don't know. And by admitting that I don't know, I am closer to knowing how to.

And sometimes, just when I think I'm getting somewhere is precisely when I am most at the mercy and the least defended against the total destruction and chaos which the little voice can wreak with just the merest whisper into my ear.

The only thing to truly fear is 'yourself'.