More Wisdom of Ramadahn by Ursula Roberts

CHAPTER FIVE

Meditation

 In the following chapter readers will observe that Ramadahn supplies guidance on varying levels:- (a) suggestions for the comfort and deportment of the physical body, (b) guidance for necessary spiritual preparation, (c) various symbols of visualisation or focal images to assist in the control of the mind.

 This will enable the sitter to choose the method and focal image which accords with his present stage of development.

 Can you give us some advice on the best method of meditation?

 The best approach unto meditation must always be threefold. Firstly, the seating place should be one which will give ease unto the physical body, where the senses of the body are not disturbed either by the hearing of outside sounds or the smelling of odours, for in this first stage of meditation the search should be for the forgetting of the body. Secondly, the hands should be folded within the lap with the fingers intertwined and the thumbs, if not touching each other, at least in a line with each other so that the natural magnetic currents of the body may be inheld and wisely directed. The head should be held calm and erect, and the attention concentrated within the point which lies at the junction of the eyes or the eyebrows. You should then breathe slowly, gently and deeply, with the thought that as you breathe in, you are inbreathing life and love, and as you breathe out, so you are breathing out all tension, all disharmony, all disease and frustration. As this breathing is continued so there will come a gradual sense of lightness and of peace. Thirdly, the mind should be concentrated upon one thought (without tension), upon one idea, or one symbol, for the habit of the mortal mind is to wander from thing to thing, from idea unto idea. All straying thoughts must be brought gently back again unto the central thought. Then the person may say: “Who is it that says: ‘Think this, do this and feel this’? ‘Surely it is my spirit, for my spirit is not the mind, and my spirit is not the body, so it is the spirit which is the source of the meditation’”.

 You should try to discover your reasons for wanting to meditate, otherwise your meditation becomes a negative and fruitless thing.

 Begin, by a little self-examination, asking yourself: “Do I desire to meditate to understand myself more completely, to unfold within my being my spiritual capacities, or do I desire to meditate because this is what people say I should do, or do I desire to meditate because I think that by doing so I shall become a great and successful person?”

 Each time ask yourself these questions, because you must understand that when you really begin to develop the peace of meditation your thought power will become exceedingly potent and creative. If, therefore, in your meditative quiet you find yourself remembering your quarrels with your brothers or your sisters, or you remember the bitterness of ancient experiences and you feel a desire to retaliate to those, then indeed through your meditation your thought power becomes creative and you may create retaliation, or you may create hurt for yourself or for others. Therefore your reason has to be a very pure, very spiritual one if you are to progress into the more advanced conditions of your meditative understanding.

 There are some who desire to meditate because they think that by doing so they will discover a relationship with their God. Therefore I say to you: Do you still hold within your consciousness the thought of God as the ancient Jehovah, ruling the world with a rod of iron and punishing people for wrong-doing? Or, do you think of your God in the vision of your childhood, as a benevolent father who will pat you and say you are good when you remember Him? Or, do you understand your God as a great universal power of good, or do you visualise your God as embodied in the teacher Jesus Christ, or Buddha Gautama? So you must first of all discover what aspect of God you are trying to establish a relationship with, as you enter into your meditations.

 So, as you go into your meditation, you need to go inward, inward, deeper and deeper, so that you may discover your own source of spiritual strength that lies at the very centre of your outward personality. Go back beloved ones, in your recollection into the times of your childhood, the times of your youthfulness, and remember the manner in which you reacted unto the environment that was pressed against you. Did you react with fear? Did you react with tears, or did you simply react with a gentle acquiescence? It is possible that when you look back you will discover a raging anger within yourself, or anger against your parents, or anger against your companions who withstood your little will, or would not allow you to have those things that you considered to be your right. Therefore, if you are to find your real self you have firstly to release yourself from the suppressed anger and the suppressed fears which are part of your personality and may still linger around you, as part of the person whom you are. Remember the manner in which you had reacted unto such experiences and then let the memories go, let them be washed away in the river of peace which flows into your inner soul in your times of meditation.

 Slowly, but surely, in this fashion you will begin to rediscover that inner, essential spark of divine life, the inner spark of Divine Love, which is the light that lies at the centre of your person. And when you discover that, then indeed most easily and quickly you may begin to expand yourself and come into the fullness of the peace that you are seeking.

 KNOW that within your heart is the centre of love, and within your heart is the centre of perfect circulation, for from your heart life-giving energy is imparted unto the flowing stream of life, which you know as your blood. As your blood is continuously passing through your heart, if the thoughts of your heart are true and correct, you will be imparting to the bloodstream a life-giving energy and renewing force that will flow in such a perfect circulation that every living blood-cell will be able to carry the right kind of nutrient unto every other living part of your bodily being. And, through the energising force of the spiritual power, that which is unneeded within the bodily system will be swept away in the pure stream of life giving fluid; also, that which is diseased will be broken down and replaced by newer, cleaner and healthier tissue, because it is not possible for the ever-creative energy not to recreate all that it may contact.

 Therefore, in your healing meditation hold the thought of the ever creative life in your heart, and then see it flowing through the arteries, visualise it recreating the eyes, energising the brain, giving fresh strength unto the nerves, rebuilding the tissues of the bones and of the skin, bringing flexibility unto the limbs and unto the whole living texture of the body.

 How long should one spend in meditation?

 This must always depend upon the strength of your own bodily being and upon the conditions in which you may find yourself, and also upon the activities which may exhaust your energy in the daily life. In the beginning it is good to start with a short period of a few minutes and then as the mind and the body becomes accustomed to the discipline lengthen it slowly, slowly, but when the brain is wearied and the body is tired, it is useless to sit in meditation for sixty minutes, or even for thirty minutes, but it may be good to try to sit for five or ten minutes until you are conscious of the ease and the peace coming through from spirit to body.

 I have been told to think of light, how should I do that?

 First of all, you must know that spirit is light, that God is light, as otherwise how shall light exist within the Universe? There cannot be light unless it has already been brought into being by the Creative Energy. Continue then by thinking of the myriad manifestations of light or of radiance. Then think how light is within yourself which makes your eye able to perceive these things. Your meditation could continue endlessly through days and through weeks as you try to meditate upon the many, manifestations of light that fills your world. And having completed your meditation realise what a beautiful thing it is to know that you yourself are light, and that you are shedding light and revealing light unto all the world round and about you.

 Some of us are very busy with the demands and the things of the earth, and cannot always find the time, or the energy, to regularly meditate?

 Even if you cannot spend any length of time in meditation, it would be good if you could spend just a moment or two each morning in quiet recollection, that you may draw upon the strength of the Eternal, with the thought that It may inspire your actions and lead you in the right ways during the moments of your business and your many activities. But for those who are very busy, I would say it is sufficient, if, in the morning you ask for strength, and at the close of the day you give thanks for the strength that has been given, for in so doing, there is the linking up in remembrance unto the source of power.

 How would you advise us to live with mind, body and spirit in harmony?

 Try to focus your energies, or your thoughts, into the heart centre. Spend a little time each day in bringing your attention into this centre. Then let the light begin to shine out from the heart centre so that it may illumine the mind, energise the body and maintain all in the perfection of harmony; then will a silvery radiance slowly but surely outspread throughout the whole area of the soul body, illuminating and energising it, and as the cells of the mortal body are influenced by the energies of the ethereal body, so you will maintain harmony and youthfulness in the physical envelope, as well as energies focussing and flowing through the whole of the ethereal being.

 As I watch earth's dwellers, it seems as if their thoughts of meditation are always focussed into the area of the brain and the mind, with the idea that if they can stop the processes of thinking then they can bring themselves into harmony.  But if the concentration can be focussed into the region of the heart, which is the centre of feeling, then automatically through this centre peace and harmony can be established in the mind  and so you can get a complete balance and harmonisation of the whole. Some in the mortal life have discovered it is an easy way to try to focus the centre of light within them by visualising starlight, or a little cross, or a rose, or a lotus, developing within the heart and sending forth its radiance, so that mind, heart and emotions may all flow together, because as this is visualised so the thoughts of the mind are quietened and brought into harmony with the energies which are hidden within the heart.

 Does meditation have the effect of reversing age upon the physical body?

 Truly, because if it is properly cultivated and completely understood, when the third stage of meditation is reached and the great calm is experienced, then spiritual energies are released which energise the nervous system and the cell system of the physical body, as well as bringing calm to the mind and emotions. The ageing processes of the physical body are often caused by the stressful thoughts and feelings that are imposed upon the structures of the body - therefore, if there is a renewing energy given to it, or through it, then the ageing process need not continue.

 Sometimes meditate upon the beautiful symbol of the ever-blooming lotus blossom. Think how the blossom floats in peace and in harmony upon the still, gleaming pool of water. Remember how the stem of the lotus comes down beneath the waters that its root may rest in the mud and clay which lies below. As you contemplate this, so you will come to know that in yourself you are as a lotus blossom - your experience is rooted in the clay of the mortal and daily life, and the stern of your aspiration is as the stem of the lotus reaching up to the light, and the bud of the beautiful blossom is as the symbol of your own prayer, your desire for truth, your own soul unfolding in the secrecy and in the beauty of the silence.

 Might a person who sits alone in meditation be in danger from a bad influence - or is it necessary to sit in a group?

 It is safe for you to be seated by yourself and to enter into quiet meditation, so long as you have your awareness fixed upon a certain desire to radiate light and feelings of goodness into the world about you. But it is not good to sit alone with the idea that spirits may come to a person and enter into the aura, or cause entrancement. Such mediumistic endeavour should always be accomplished in a group of harmonious people, because then there is an interblending of the auric energies between the members of that group, which will strengthen your own, allowing those who wish to contact your consciousness or to entrance you, to do so in security and in peace. True meditation does not consist of having a mind which is devoid of all thoughts and all intentions. Meditation means bringing the thoughts together so that you are controlling them, teaching the mind to think about a chosen subject, so that you are gaining greater control over your energies, over the mind, over the self. This is the real purpose of meditation. But in mediumship, you let go that strong control over the mind and let yourself sink into peace, so that some of the spirits may come, and impart to you spiritual light.

 Can spirits in the realms of light meditate?

 Most assuredly, for how may we learn unless we learn to be still, and in the stillness to absorb. In the regions of spirit life we do not learn by listening to spoken words and do not always learn by reading words, as you do in your earthly world - we go into the great temples and sit there in peace and in utter tranquillity, that we may absorb from the other teachers and their radiations that which is needful for our ministry, for our task of illuminating earth's dwellers.

 Is it easier to meditate in silence or with quiet music?

 In the religious orders of the Buddhists often their meditation is undertaken within the sound of moving waters, the water fountaining across the rocks and falling in a symphony of sound below; also many like to meditate with the sound of a distant bell chiming; and in your own English land many like to meditate with a sound of music beside them, because the sound form engages the purely material mind and holds it, as it were, so that the material mind does not need to be involved in the actual depth of meditation, But there are others who need only silence. It is simply a discovery for each individual.

 Is it better for a person to make his own mantra, which would be more individual?

 ‘Mantra’ is simply another word for a prayer form. In its original form it was the very subtle vibration of the Sanskrit sound forms, but as it has moved on through time it is now embodied into many words and sounds. Therefore, you may use your own especial mantra or prayer words for your own purpose. I would say that the English word ‘tranquillity’ is a good word to take as a mantra form, because it contains within it many good syllables which, when murmured one after the other, form - as it were - a spinning wheel.

 What is the importance of the chakras, or spiritual centres of energy?

 There  are  energy  centres,  which  are  important  in  the understanding and unfolding of psychic sensitiveness, but it is those which are above the heart that are important. If you undertake a meditation in the region of the heart, thinking about love, sending forth feelings of love, then the heart centre is animated and the energies which are flowing through the ethereal body become concentrated into that centre. Then when there is the wish to develop the faculty of seeing or hearing, the energies may move easily upwards into these regions of the body. It would seem to us in the spirit that many of earth's children become too troubled about this idea of what you call “chakras” or spiritual centres. If the individual is unfolding harmoniously through meditation, through love, through prayer, then these energies rise automatically into the right centres and bring about the desired results.

 Is the saying “The peace that passes all understanding” the same as the third degree of meditation?

 This is true, for this peace, or third degree of tranquility, is above the activity of the mind and therefore it is beyond the mind to interpret it. Some seers and mystics endeavour to interpret it in their own fashion through words or music, but when it is experienced it is above the activity of the mind, and therefore it surpasses the understanding. Remember that not always are you able to enter into that greater tranquility for long periods of time, maybe for an instant or two you will experience it, but when you do experience it then you understand the truth of what we say. I would also say that, in the process of dying, the spirit withdraws through the emotions and through the mind, and if the death is (as you would term it) a good death, then there will be this experience of entering into the great peace.