10 Rules for Meditation

Excerpted from "Magic Runes"
by Samael Aun Weor

From: http://www.gnosticinstitute.org/lec-meditation.html

Scientific Meditation has ten basic fundamental rules. Without them, emancipation and liberation from the mortifying shackles of the mind is impossible.

1st Rule - To be completely conscious of the psychological mood in which we are situated, before the arising of any thought.

2nd Rule - Psycho-Analysis: To investigate the root and origin of each thought, remembrance, affection, emotion, feeling, resentment, etc. while they emerge from within the mind.

3rd Rule - To serenely observe our own mind; to put perfect attention on all mental forms which appear on the screen of the intellect.

4th Rule - To remember and recall the "Sensation of Contemplation" from moment to moment during the common and current course of daily life.

5th Rule - The intellect must assume a psychological, receptive, integral, uni-total, complete, tranquil and profound state.

6th Rule - A continuity of purpose, tenacity, firmness, constancy and insistence must exist in the technique of Meditation.

7th Rule - To assist any time we can in the Meditation Rooms of the Gnostic Lumisials is affable.

8th Rule - It is peremptory, urgent and necessary to convert ourselves into watchers of our own mind during any agitated or revolving activity, to stop at least for an instant in order to observe it.

9th Rule - It is indispensable and necessary to always practice with closed eyes, with the goal of avoiding the external sensorial perceptions.

10th Rule - Absolute relaxation of the entire body and the wise combination of meditation with drowsiness.

THE TEN RULES EXPLAINED

Beloved reader, the moment has arrived in order to judiciously weigh and analyze these ten scientific rules of Meditation.

1 - The principle, base and living foundation of Samadhi (ecstasy) consists of the previous introspective knowledge of oneself. To introvert ourselves is indispensable during the deepest meditation. We must start to profoundly know the psychological mood we are in before the appearance of any mental form in the intellect. It becomes urgent to comprehend that any thought which emerges from within our understanding is always preceded by pain or pleasure, happiness or sadness, like or dislike.

2 - Serene Reflection. Examine, estimate and inquire about the origin, cause, reason or fundamental motive of every thought, remembrance, image, affection, desire, etc., while they emerge from within the mind. Self-Discovery and Self-Revelation exist in this second rule.

3 - Serene Observation. Pay perfect attention to every mental form which makes its apparition on the screen of the intellect.

4 - We must convert ourselves into spies of our own mind, by contemplating it in action from instant to instant.

5 - The chitta (mind) is transformed into vrittis (vibratory waves). The mind is like a pleasant and tranquil lake. A rock falls in this lake, then bubbles emerge from the bottom. All the different thoughts are perturbed buckles upon the surface of the waters. Let the lake of the mind remain crystalline, without waves, serene and profound during the meditation.

6 - Inconstant people who are voluble, versatile, changeable, without firmness, without willpower, will never achieve Ecstasy, Satori, Samadhi.

7 - It is obvious that Scientific Meditation can be practiced individually or in an isolated way, as well as in a group of affine people.

8 - The soul must be liberated from the body, affections and the mind. It is evident, notorious and obvious that when the soul is emancipated from the intellect, it is radically liberated from the rest.

9 - To eliminate external sensorial perceptions during interior profound meditation is urgent, indispensable and necessary.

10 - It is indispensable to relax the body for meditation; no muscle must remain with tension. It is urgent to provoke and to regulate drowsiness at will. It is evident and unarguable that from the wise combination of drowsiness and meditation that which is called Illumination is the outcome.

RESULTS: Upon the mysterious threshold of the Temple of Delphi a Greek maxim was engraved in the stone and said: HOMO NOSCE TE IPSUM - "Man know thyself and thou will know the universe and the Gods." In the final instant, it is obvious, evident and clear that the study of oneself and serene reflection conclude in the quietude and in the silence of the mind. When the mind is quiet and in silence, not only in the intellectual level but in all and each one of the forty-nine subconscious departments, then the Newness emerges. The Essence, the consciousness, is unbottled, and the awakening of the soul, that is to say, Ecstasy, Samadhi, the Satori of the Saints, occurs.

The mystical experience of Reality transforms us radically. People who have never directly experienced the Truth live like butterflies fluttering from school to school. They have yet to find their center of cosmic gravitation. Therefore, they die as failures and without having achieved the so-longed for intimate Self-realization.

The awakening of the consciousness, of the Essence, of the soul or Buddhata, is only possible by liberating ourselves, emancipating ourselves, from mental dualism, from the struggle of the antithesis, from the intellectual waves.

Any subconscious, infraconscious or unconscious submerged struggle is converted into bondage for the liberation of the Essence (soul). Every antithetical battle, as insignificant and unconscious as it might appear, indicates, accuses, aims to, obscure points which are ignored and unknown within the atomic infernos of the human being.

To reflect, observe and know these infra-human aspects, these obscure points of oneself, is indispensable in order to achieve the absolute quietude and silence of the mind.

To experience that which is not of time is only possible while in absence of the "I."