MEDITATIONSPart IV - Chapter24Time, place and posture.The following chapters are not intended as a step-by-step guide to meditation, but rather to help the reader deal with some of the practical issues that arise in the course of meditation. But first a few words on getting started….Whenshould one meditate? In principle, anytime – but in practice [...]

MEDITATIONSPart III - Chapter23Practice non-attachment.As previously implied,sufferingis a negative personal response to sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touch sensations, or feelings or emotions of any sort, that have been, are now or are anticipated to be experienced (for whatever reason) as painful or as loss of pleasure. It is anattitudinal or volitionalresponseof the soul to certain [...]

MEDITATIONSPart III - Chapter22On "sexual liberation".Contrary to what popular psychology teaches, so-called sexual liberation is in fact enslavement to passions. Sexual indulgences of various sorts may give one a momentary feeling of relief from the pressure of sexual urges, but their longer term spiritual (and indeed physical and psychological) effects are mostly devastating.Masturbationis not a [...]

MEDITATIONSPart III - Chapter21Give up sensuality.A certain level of spiritual realization is required to overcome another weakness common in this day and age – sensuality, by which we shall here meanthe yearning for and pursuit of sexual sensations. Sensuality includes sexual fantasies, reminiscences and anticipations, since all such mental rehearsing of sex causes sexual sensations, [...]

MEDITATIONSPart III - Chapter20Forget your face.We live in an age of utter narcissism. Many multi-billion dollar enterprises, such as the clothing and cosmetic industries[1], depend on making egotists out of us and keeping us that way. Of course, one should look decent and smell nice; but there are reasonable limits to such external concerns. At [...]

MEDITATIONSPart III - Chapter19Limit input from the media.It is nowadays nearly impossible for most of us to avoid influence in one form or another from the various media of communication among human beings. Whereas in times past many people could pass most of their lives in relative isolation and freedom from external influences, today this [...]

MEDITATIONSPart III - Chapter18Don't stuff yourself silly.The use of drugs is but one aspect of a larger vice – that of pursuing sensations. Our bodies and minds are constantly hungering for sensory inputs and outputs – that is their ‘nature’. It is their way of self-assertion, their expression of existence. Such sensationalism, let loose unchecked, [...]

MEDITATIONSPart III - Chapter17Stop substance addictions.Meditation is all about getting to “know yourself” – your body, mind and soul. Almost as soon as you start meditating, you realize that you want to know yourself as you basically are – andnotyourself as modified by various substances.In this matter, there is no difference between substance use and [...]

MEDITATIONSPart III - Chapter16Facing facts with equanimity.A first step in spiritual work is to look upon one’s present “life situation” as a given – i.e. to accept it as stands, without whining and complaining as to how “the cards were dealt out”. This is not an attitude of fatalism, because the intent is to improve [...]

MEDITATIONSPart III - Chapter15Taking up the challenge.People without a spiritual life are comparable to walking dead; they are like busy empty shells. They have a body and mind, for which they work in many ways; but it is as if they have no soul, since they devote almost no energy to it. It is only [...]