Meditation with Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

I will begin by a short quotation from a ninth century Sufi witch from Baghdad which as I mentioned before was kind of the the center of Sufism in its very early days and he said meditation is the chief possession of the mystic that whereby the sincere and the god-fearing make progress on the journey to God now what is interesting is if you study Sufism there is actually not so much mention of meditation and there isn't a description of meditation techniques as for example you find in the Upanishads or you find in Buddhism in Sufi manuals I mean I am limited because I don't read Arabic or Persian but in Sufi manuals you find descriptions of merging of the path of finale Din to baqar as I said the annihilation leading to abiding in God you do not find detailed descriptions of meditation practices and yet there is every indication that Sufis practiced meditation and this is I find quite interesting the Sufis talk a lot about the remembrance of God the remembrance of the heart about prayer about reading the Quran for example and yet there are these kind of references that suggested that they did practice meditation although the meditation techniques are not described there is a beautiful story of beyazid bastami who was as I mentioned one of these very early Sufis who went into incredible states of oneness with garden deep states of intoxication and bayazid bastami were sitting at the feet of his teacher when he was suddenly asked by acid fetch me that book from the window the window which window asked by acid why said the master you've been coming here all this time and did not see the window no replied by is it what have I got to do with the window when I am before you I close my eyes to everything else I have not come to stare about since that is so said the teacher go back to Bassam your work is completed so this kind of singleness this kind of one pointedness that doesn't look to one side or the other is an attribute of meditation as an attribute of this quality of inner focus that belongs to meditation and I should first explain my personal preferences that I am completely addicted to meditation I think meditation is the most wonderful thing that has been given to humanity that anybody could ever do I've been meditating probably two or three hours a day for forty years and I think it is extraordinary each meditation is still completely new is completely different one never knows what's going to happen yes there are periods where one just does one's practice and not much happens and then there are other times when it's taken into unexpected states of consciousness because it seems to me that in a way the purpose of meditation the reason this technique the spiritual technique which it brilliant which is what it is has been given to humanity is to give us access direct access to higher states of consciousness it's as as simple as that it is a technique it is a method of going beyond the attention of the mind which is caught up in the things of this world and the continual distractions and images that come to us in waking consciousness so that we can have direct access to not just a higher state of consciousness but higher states of consciousness and that's what I want to try and expand on today my own first experience of meditation was actually of doing a Zen practice when I was 16 and you know I was an English boarding school student and suddenly I discovered this Zen meditation practice and I closed my eyes and I went into this state of complete emptiness or nothingness that was described in this Zen handbook and suddenly I had a real experience of a completely other reality beyond the mind that was much vaster there was much emptier there was much more dynamic than anything I had ever experienced and it kind of opened the door to to a world that is actually around us all the time but from which our normal state of consciousness has banished us or keeps up separated from and in a way since then I I've never looked back because it seems that that to explore consciousness to explore states of consciousness while still living in this world is the most wonderful thing one can do because you begin to have access as far as I can see with to what it really means to be a human being and why it is that in India these techniques were documented so clearly so in such a detailed way while in Sufism they were not documented I mean but again I do not read Persian I don't read Arabic so there may be techniques hidden in a library in Cairo Alexandria but you know that give detailed instructions on Sufi meditation practices but in our particular path the Naqshbandi path to which I belong that went in the 17th century to India and as far as I can see in India it then adapted and developed some Indian meditation techniques that then we were given and that I will also explain so say it and yet if you read between the lines or if you know what you are looking for and even in these early like bayazid bastami or the quotation I just gave it is obvious that in the early days of Sufism meditation was practiced and so that is the the groundwork from which I want to develop and as I say that the first important thing is to realize it is the technique to go beyond the mind with this constant chatter that cuts one off from other levels of consciousness from other levels of reality and behind that there is the whole tradition and esoteric knowledge that human beings can function on many different levels of consciousness but one needs to have tech techniques to open one to those levels of consciousness now in Sufism unlike for example in Buddhism the central theme is this relationship of lover and beloved that is the the core the essence of Sufism Sufism is a love affair with God whether you call the beloved he/she it is irrelevant it's a love affair I often use the term he because I find it difficult to have a love affair with an it and and I might just add now because I brought up this subject there there is another very personal reason because some people have asked me know why do you use he to refer to God to refer to the beloved and there is a very personal reason which is that my first direct experiences of what I can only call the beloved I was actually in a state of feminine receptivity I was it is said the soul is always feminine before God and the beloved came to me as a masculine energy that pierced me and it is a bit like this beautiful Bernini sculpture Assante Teresa of ávila in which does this arrow piercing her heart and and that is how I experienced it and that's how I experience God in a direct form and I was a woman the soul was feminine I know I was a woman I was feminine and God was masculine and that imprint has always stayed with me a bit like the first kiss you ever had remains with you for the rest of your life and so for me even though I have experienced the beloved in a feminine quality full of tenderness full of caring in that very very tender qualities it is that first impression that has that makes me when when I close my eyes and I just go inward into my beloved that there is this imprint of a masculine presence so that's just because somebody asked that's why I usually refer to God as he is nothing to do with any patriarchal imprint or conditioning is actually the reverse it has to do with my experience of being in the state of feminine receptivity before God and experiencing that primal energy as a masculine power that pierced right through me but as I said that fundamental to Sufism is a relationship of lover and beloved and if you're going to have this relationship you need a place for this relationship to take place and you need a place that is as uncluttered as possible and it's something very very simple if you're inviting somebody you love for example in to your house you don't leave the garbage out you actually prepare a place for this meeting you prepare a place for lover and beloved go sweep out the dwelling room of your heart prepare it to be the abode and home of the beloved when you go out he will come in within you when you are free from self he will show his beauty you prepare a place for this meeting and this meeting is any mystic gnosis is the most precious thing you have because the direct experience of God and this is always the difference between the the mystic and the or the esoteric and the exoteric and the religious person is as Jami said in a wireless in two secondhand reports when you can hear the beloved speak himself mysticism is about direct experience and we all are entitled to that direct experience with God but one needs to have a place where it can take place and yes for the Sufi it is in the heart but there is a consciousness of the heart and one has to learn how to be in that consciousness of the heart and the first thing is to clear away all of those everyday thoughts all of that garbage all of that continual chatta chatta chatta chatta and all of the distractions all of the images that you really don't want getting in the way of this relationship and so in a way at the beginning meditation is creating a space where you can listen and be with God consciously we are all with God all the time that's one of the mystical truths there is nothing other than God but the path of gnosis the path of direct experience has to do with becoming conscious of that relationship so it becomes an ongoing love affair it gets deeper and deeper and and involves communication it involves talking to God and also listening to God and creating a space where you can listen to God where this extraordinary dialogue of your soul and God can take place and and it has to do with really he often doesn't speak in a loud voice he doesn't always come banging on the door often he speaks very quietly he he whispers to you about the secrets of your own soul in the secrets of love it's very beautiful when you when you are told in your heart about those secrets and you hear them but you have to learn to listen and that means learning to steal the mind learning to put away all of those everyday thoughts and this is one of the first steps in meditation you create an inward space within your heart within your mind where you can be with God where you can listen to God and it can be done we of course in our culture as you have given enormous importance to the mind this is part of we live in a mental culture we're educated to develop the mind the mind is what is valued when you really begin mystical life you begin to see another truth you begin to see that there is another form of consciousness that is not about thinking it doesn't mean you can't understand it because there is an understanding of the heart and this is one of the things one develops in Sufism this understanding of the heart but it involves receptivity it involves listening either or of course feminine qualities and maybe I should say at the beginning there are different forms of meditation there is a kind of directed meditation where you focus your attention on a word for example or on a prayer it's a more directed meditation and there there are actually very very detailed Buddhist meditations where you do visualizations but in Sufism it is really about being receptive it is about listening it's about creating an empty space in that way it's a little bit closer to certain forms of Zen meditation you just create an empty space and it's nearest equivalent in the West is probably as far as I've come across the meditation practice by some teresa of avila which was called at the time the meditation of the quiet which is has to do with divine receptivity you create a space of being receptive to God of waiting for God she had to be very careful about who she said this to because the the church at the time were were concerned that you actually just did prayers verbal prayers all the time they didn't like the idea that you might actually experience God but this was the meditation or prayer of the quiet which has to do with divine receptivity and as Sufism is about learning to make a relationship with God you learn to be receptive you learn to wait you learn to be attentive and you learn to listen you learn to listen to a very different vibration or a very different language that has to do with the vibration of the soul that has to do a say it's feminine the soul is always feminine before God it's one of the mystical secrets that a patriarchal culture kind of pushed to one side but it is about a state of divine receptivity Rumi of course put this very beautifully he said make everything in you and ear each atom of your being and you will hear at every moment what the source is whispering to you just to you and for you without any need for my words or anybody else's you are we all are the beloved of the beloved and in every moment in every event of your life the beloved is whispering to you exactly what you need to hear and know who can ever explain this miracle it simply is listen and you will discover it every passing moment listen and your whole life will become a conversation in thought and act between you and him directly wordlessly now and always that is very very beautiful learning to listen so you can engage in this continual conversation with God with the beloved you are always the beloved of the beloved and later you come to discover how it is actually going on all the time one of the the truth is that the meditation practice that you do at the beginning by when you close the door and you go in silence within that is how you begin but later after you become really grounded in that it comes with you when you open the door it stays with you when you walk down the street you don't have to just always close the door because you create a space inside of you or you learn to be with the space inside of you that is always listening always attentive to God so in a way what you practice when you meditate becomes then a walking meditation then a continual conversation with the unseen with the unknown that can take place in any moment of the day and it's one of those spiritual secrets that you then are always listening always attentive is called the ear of the heart Sufis talk about the eye of the heart and the ear of the heart you are always in wordly listening to God to the hint from God to the voice from God and that comes a time you know it is said first you do the meditation than it does you there comes a time when you can be you know standing in line at the store and suddenly you are taken out of yourself and you are with God you are just sitting in the bus and suddenly you're somewhere else you're at the feet of your beloved that's when meditation takes you into itself and it becomes not something you do but something that is done to you because it is about really learning how to be in the presence of God and you can do that with prayer yes though the real prayer is a prayer of silence is a prayer of just being receptive of listening to God and it is the prayer of the quiet it is a way to be with God as I say you you take that practice out of sitting in silence to being inwardly always in a state of receptivity in the state of listening in a state of attention so you can hear what the beloved has to say to you if he wants to say anything so you can be part of this continual conversation of lover and beloved that is really the undercurrent of life there are all the surface engagements in life which our culture has mastered so well and then there is that belonged to the ego in the mind and then there is this undercurrent in life that has to do with the soul and has to do with the purpose of the soul's incarnation and it is learning how to be present with that how to breathe with that how to listen to that how to live with that how to laugh with that and that is I think one of the initially very important aspects of a meditation practice that is maybe not so well understood it isn't just sitting in silence it is yes you learn how to be in silence at the beginning to act you know to close off the telephone to to have no outer noise so you can learn inwardly how to listen and then you find you were in this other space that is quite different to the space of waking consciousness and I can tell you when I was 16 and in boarding school and suddenly and sat down and suddenly found I was in his other space that I never even knew existed it was wonderful it was real liberation it was really waking up to and and that space then permeated the outer world and it brought into the outer world the quality of magic equality of beauty equality of light that I never knew existed it was this in breathing and out breathing that has to do with prayer that has to do with meditation that has to do with being in the presence of God so that is this learning how to be in silence so you can listen to God first in meditation and and then in daily life although you know from a very simple maybe it's a childish perspective to have some time every day when you can just go within and say to the beloved you know you have anything to say to me today is there anything I need to here today is there any way I can be of service to you today and you know maybe most of the time you get no answer you just sit there and then there are those times when this is your coming out of meditation the thought slips into your consciousness and I I always know when it comes from somewhere else because it has no relationship to any thought I was thinking or anything that had been in my mind before and maybe it just says oh that person needs your attention or this person is in trouble or you should write to this person or don't go there today or don't book that plane ticket because it's going to be a disaster so you you know just everyday you can just have a time just to say to the beloved because yes you know the does come a time when even when you are in the supermarket even when the television is on you can hear the voice of God but that's much much later and initially you need to create a time space where your whole attention is being receptive it is what do you want from me today beloved is there anything or I have this problem I don't know what to do about this please help me and you can say that in the mid beginning of your meditation and then maybe you get an answer maybe you got some help maybe your prayer is somebody looks kindly on you and gives you some help so from a very practical point of view just to have some time to be alone with the boss you know is very useful it is not highly esoteric it's just I suppose for some people you know they do it by going to church because there is nice music or there is silence and there they can but I prefer to be always in church I prefer to carry that space with me wherever I am to always have time every day I mean eventually they say you are always with God consciously but at the beginning and he just just to set some time aside this is just time for us because it's a real relationship it is I had this event I did a while ago with father Thomas Keating or some as you know was has brought contemplative practice back into Christianity and he's in his 80s now and he said that he really needed two hours a day just to be alone with God two hours a day at least just to do this inner prayer just to be alone with God and of course people have busy lives and most people don't have that amount of time but most of us can find 20 minutes just to shut off the mind just to put aside all those thoughts yes it takes a bit of time a few years I suppose to put aside that chatter that the mind is always you know one thing after another but just to have some time every day just for that that is I think the first step in meditation that is just a time to be with God now that is only one aspect of meditation now I should say that the particular meditation that we practice called a heart meditation or Dhyana meditation it came from India and Sufism adapts to the time and the place and the people in India it print our particular lineage picked up this heart meditation this way of working in meditation with the heart chakra and with this state of dianna if you actually study yoga you will know that there are eight levels in yoga and the seventh is the armour and the eighth is Samadhi super conscious state full conscious awakening on the plane of the self and the first few are right behavior right attitude right posture and which you practice in hatha yoga for example so on its journey from the Middle East into India it picked up this Dhyana meditation which is a way of really relaxing into the heart it's very simple you just relax into heart the heart because into the love within the heart because love is incredibly powerful and you allow the heart to do everything it's a practice of surrender Sufism is really about surrender and you you surrender yourself of course you surrender the ego but in meditation you surrender the mind into the heart you put your mind into the heart and eventually there is this moment where the heart absorbs the mind the Sufis have this expression of the mind is hammered into the heart but there is this moment when the heart just and the mind is gone but at the beginning you don't even know it's happened because you have no mind but it is strictly speaking the first experience in this incarnation you have ever had of the mind not functioning because even when you are asleep the mind as you know dreams and and is busy but in that moment of Dianna the mind has gone where it has gone is $10,000 question they say that the individual mind is absorbed into the universal mind all you know is that you don't know and you don't even know initially that you don't know just gone later it becomes completely intoxicating just not to be here for a moment not to be here then of course it gets deeper and deeper and you can go off for an hour you can go off for two hours and you're just gone and it's the first time in this life you have been completely free from this outer world of forms and images and you become absorbed somewhere else and Sufism is about absorption you are absorbed by love love draws you into itself remember in the first talk I gave for those of you here I talked about this place where the two seas meet this whole esoteric meaning of being in the place where the two seas meet and I said there is the sea of our human experience all of our troubles and feelings and happiness all of what we call it means to be a human human being and then there is the sea of divine consciousness of the sea of the divine and the first step really is to learn how to be at this place where the two seas meet so you can experience the divine ocean so you can experience this other see that really takes you into the ocean of oneness takes you back into love takes you into these states of absorption with God however you describe them and in the story in the Quran that is Moses who had to find the place where the to cease me to meet with Kidder who is the figure of mystical experience and I think that meditation is a way to be in that place where the two seas meet because one thing you realize once you go deep into meditation is how you are taken by God to God you don't do anything this is not a path of effort this is not a path of because how can you how can there be an effort with divine things you don't know how to get back to God you don't know how to become lost in love you don't know how to get absorbed in the ocean of divine oneness but you can be at that place where the divine sea comes crashing into conscious existence and then takes you back like the tie takes you deeper and deeper into this other ocean into this ocean of the divine into this extraordinary reality that exists beyond the mind and all these thoughts into this you can call it the ocean of love you can and that is for me really when mystical life becomes real all of your practices all of your effort you have been sitting there maybe four five six years and nothing has happened and then and then there is a sweetness within the heart when you come out of meditation then there is our moment of bliss or what is it that has touched you what is it that has taken you and then you begin to get caught by this current of love and there are currents of love because it is that that takes you back to God not your effort not your I should do this or that because that's about you but to be in a place where you can first be receptive to the voice of God but then to go deeper and to give yourself to the the tide of this ocean that comes from the beyond and takes souls back to God and this in our particular meditation begins with states of dianna when you're just lost and you come back but you don't know where you have been you've just gone and it is really the first taste of this incredible secret of what it means to be a human being because most the time we live just on the surface you know I often think how this world is a metaphor or an image of what is true because it's like in this physical world you know the topsoil it's just a very thin surface that we live on and when you begin to access mystical consciousness you realize how most of the time we live just on the very surface of this divine universe of this consciousness and then you begin to get take and deeper into it and this is where meditation becomes really a living presence you you are drawn into it it takes you not every day of course but becomes a time and it becomes I remember how it was for me in my early 20s when that became really a living reality for me and I would allow myself an hour a day and I would close the door of the room and lie down and just go off and come back and it would be you begin to breathe another oxygen you begin to breathe another air that's why for me it has become so completely addictive as I say I've been meditating two or three hours a day for over 40 years and it's completely addictive because you go somewhere and you breathe a different air you breathe this pure love you breathe this presence so and there you begin to off you begin to stretch you begin to relax because world is so cramped you know you have to behave and you have to have proper thoughts and you have people asking you questions and you have to explain yourself and you know all the stuff you have to work on and there Oh you relax you get rid of those you begin they begin to fall off you those thought forms those clothes those identities and everything you've carried for so long you begin to relax and to stretch and to breathe this other air and and then slowly over the years in this meditation you begin to wake up and in this particular path that is said there are seven levels of dianna and then there are seven levels of Samadhi Samadhi is super contra state and the first the last level of Dianna is the first level of Samadhi which is you begin to have a sense of being in meditation you just begin to feel all I am or something is or it is or you just be you just are you don't know what you are but there's a sense of being and it feels really good because it's not being in relationship to anything you know when we were brought up we have to be this in relationship to our parents of this in relationship to our school teachers or then this in relationship to our boss and it's always always such an effort I always think being a human being is such an effort you have to but there you just are you so oh I just happened isn't it nice you just feel it it is like goes through your bodies oh just feel so good and then slowly slowly this miracle of really which is I suppose when meditation begins to really to take off when you begin to become conscious in another level of reality I say another level of reality because that's just language it's actually much more elemental is much more real as much more how things are and you can call it oneness if you like you can call it love it's all there it's just our mind stops us from experiencing it it is you begin to wake up in meditation you begin to the clouds begin to part these are all metaphors these are all just images for this deepening mystical experience of who you are what you are and it's so simple I always like that line from TS Eliot he talks about a condition of complete simplicity costing not less than everything and you discover that in meditation on this complicated person at all you're just a place of oneness a place of love and and what is interesting is that what you say say what you experience in meditation then begins to come back get reflected into everyday life that other consciousness at the beginning you just sense it in meditation and then you begin to feel it around you in waking life it's as if this other consciousness woke up inside of you through meditation you you gave a space to it you became familiar to it you learnt how to be with it and then it likes to live in this world it isn't just for meditation and and you like to see the oneness that's all around you and you like to see the simplicity of everything and this quality of being that belongs to everybody and everything it just begins to flow into this worlds I say the two seas meet and the divine consciousness comes into this consciousness and flows into this consciousness and does this very nice Zen stages of the path which are called the Ox IDing pictures and which are the kind of stages of the journey and that comes this place when you just go into this circle is just a circle and everything is present because they're inside of you everything is present and and meditation gives you access to it it's I don't know what more can you want it's a way you can say it's a way of being with God and sometimes you feel a divine presence and sometimes you just feel loved and and and then of course sometimes the mind just comes back because it says so you think you can meditate and then it comes back with all sorts of thoughts and but once you've begin once you've stepped over that threshold once you once dianna begins to absorb you and then once it's other current taking them you can't go back because it's a much greater force that takes you into this other reality that's all around us that's the breeze through you and it's really and then of course the journey goes on um and because beyond what we call the self beyond this Center of divine consciousness that you get taken into there is another reality which you also get drawn into and I found this most beautifully described actually by Thomas Merton as Christian mystic who also had relationship with Sufism desert and void the uncreated is waste and emptiness to the creature not even sand not even stone not even darkness and night a burning wilderness would at least be something it burns and is wild but the uncreated is no something waste emptiness total poverty of the Creator yet from this poverty Springs everything the waste is inexhaustible infinite zero everything comes from this desert nothing everything wants to return to it and cannot for who can return nowhere but for each of us there is a point of no one as in the middle of movement a point of nothingness in the midst of being the incomparable point not to be discovered by insight if you seek it you do not find it if you stop seeking it is there but you must not turn to it once you become aware of yourself as seeker you are lost but if you are content to be lost you'll be found without knowing it precisely because you are lost for you are at last and know where this friends is is the uncreated world that is behind creation and if you really want to explore the the frontiers of consciousness I I don't see how you can do it except through meditation I don't see how it is possible because you need a vehicle to take you to this other reality um yes there are people who awaken in oneness just awaken oneness lease feel the oneness inside themselves that the love that is inside themselves and and see the oneness around everything else and that is they feel this Center of themselves I think it's if you've got that through meditation that your consciousness gets adapt adapted to it more easily your consciousness has to be trained how to function in oneness there's like after years of meditation what what actually happens when you go into meditation is you begin to become permeated by a finer and finer light and that changes your consciousness it changes the way you think it actually changes the way your brain works and it's a gradual process and it's really quite a scientific process because you can't suddenly wake up and in the ocean of light you become blinded by it and through meditation practice the light comes in more and more and more and it changes even the cells of your brain work differently and I think it's very very helpful if you if you want to realize that inner state and then to go beyond that state into the uncreated world into this vast emptiness that underlies all of existence I don't know how you can do it without a meditation practice because if you suddenly saw it in full consciousness you would probably go insane right away just consciously see that the uncreated world in front of your eyes while you're present in the physical body would be just a tremendous shock so you actually through years of meditation you build a vehicle will you build a consciousness that can experience this reality that's strong enough and you get used to it you get used traveling in another reality you get used to these frontiers of consciousness which to me is what is really really exciting about being a mystic that you explore the frontiers of consciousness and and they are very very real the frontiers of consciousness and beyond this created world even beyond the world of the South even beyond the oneness of love there is what traditionally called the uncreated world or the world of non-existence or the world of non-being and I've kind of studied this very very carefully over 20 years or so since I first began to experience it and noticed how at the beginning there is some awareness that you don't exist I actually find it the most refreshing awareness that there is that you don't exist because maybe I have a strange consciousness I actually find it an enormous burden to exist and you have to relate to people all the time and they relate to you and and you have to have thoughts and you have to have a purpose and if you're really on the spiritual path you have to have a spiritual purpose and and then you just don't have to exist at all it's not a negation in the senses it's so much more alive and so much more dynamic and so much more powerful and there is infinite space and there's nothing there and and at the beginning there is this little bit of consciousness that you realize you don't exist and then you are just gone and you know then at the end of the meditation you come back and you know you've been somewhere where you don't exist you bring back that memory you've been abiding in emptiness and it does something really strange and really wonderful and a bit crazy to your mind but it's very real the uncreated world does where like Thomas mertens description there's no where there's no where land is is actually very very real it's actually much realer than any thoughts any images I suppose it must have something to do with like either dark energy or dark matter that's much more there's much more of it than existence there's a lot more of non-existence than there is existence and just like there's a lot more dark energy or dark matter than there are particularly dark energy than there is of anything else and you can become part of that and the whole number one experience I had in which I actually felt it like like leaving the planet except the planet was my ego self and actually left it in fact you you take off those clothes of existence and you just drop them and you go into this space like the space between the stars and there's so much more freedom there and does this you can call it cosmic consciousness if you like it doesn't matter what you call it and then when you go into this emptiness this vastness and there's no you anymore to have an experience I should say that that part of you got left behind and and and really you are completely free and you are and then I remember one of these times coming back and as I came out of meditation I watched myself coming back into this ego and suddenly I had anxieties again you know and these this little package of anxiety is why I should worry about this and I do worry about that and I'm concerned about the other and and I think okay I mean part of the Sufi practice is to be able to come back I should say that is one of the trainings one has is to be able to come back at any moment of time sometimes you have to force yourself to come back because once you get into that world this is a very strange world I can tell you you know that there is this image that Plato has in the cave story about you know the guy who's left the cave inside the cave everybody's chained up and betting and shadows which is what happens in this world then you go out and this whole world of sunlight out there and it's very very beautiful it was real sunlight as the sunlight of divine consciousness is incredibly beautiful and then you come back into this cave and you can't see anything because you're used to the sunlight and then you look at all these people and they kind of betting at shadows on the wall and you say hey there's a whole world outside there but they're not in the slightest bit interested and then you know if you're not careful you can think you're completely crazy but you have to be able to you know to come back even if this world looks a little odd when you come back and then you know I like to share my own experience I get you know two or three hours a day when I can go there and the rest of the time I you know I have an odd job description because I'm a spiritual teacher and I can tell you this the weirdest job description that I think exists in the Western world is kind of you know it's very very very odd for reasons I won't go into now but you know then you know I come back and there are emails to write and lectures to prepare and you know people to meet and all of the stuff that we call life which exists just on this very very very surface and you know this is whole other reality and sometimes when you know when people come to me and I see there is something in them that either knows or wants to know that whole other reality that that's around them was like the air they breathe as wise like the fish trying to discover water and but what can you say you know what you've got you know sit there for 10 years or but it really I think the most important thing is that at the beginning it's it's athlete and it's why I like some Teresa stages of Prayer when I when I when I read include so much like my experience in Sufism she uses the image of the gardener working in the garden and watering the garden and how first you have to carry the water from the well and water the garden and all the effort you have to do for the first few years of sitting in meditation to now to still the mind and I just learn to do that practice that way of being emptied being in a space with God but then I think it's the fifth stage of prayer when it just rains and you know that's how the garden is watered it just rains and all of your effort is you don't make any effort anymore because that's you are at this place where the two seas meet and this you know this divine current this other energy source just comes and takes you when it wants to take you and sometimes when you sit there nothing happens and you do you're half an hour and you still the mind a bit and other times you would just taken you can be taken you know so many other levels of reality and you know you begin to explore what you know what it really means to be a human being what it really means to be alive what and for you know human beings have been given this secret because if you if you look in the you know in the openness as if you look in the Vedas people been meditating for a very very very long time I never teach meditation by the way I've never ever taught meditation because what I discovered I mean yes we have a meditation practice and not explain it to your moment and then we can sit for half an hour but I've discovered in the end that everybody makes it their own was this saying in the Quran every being has his own mode of prayer and glorification and and I discovered that we each have our own way of being with God we each have our own way of stilling the mind for example in Sufism some people use the Zickuhr at the beginning of their meditation to steal them some people use the image of the teacher some people just allow themselves to be absorbed in love and and there's nothing left so you know I suppose it's a bit like you know there are manuals just like there are manuals about how to make love but don't make love according to a manual and you you open your heart to God and you say you know you show me how you want me to be with you you reveal yourself as yes I'm going to sit here I'm going to be quiet I'm going to put aside my thoughts I'm just going to go into my heart because that's where in Sufism the lover and the beloved me to them but you take me because you are just in the end one is taken just as you are taken by God back to God you are taken meditation you are absorbed your you are in this other current and probably the the only effort one has to do initially is to surrender to that other current and it can be frightening I will say that I remember the first year or two when I started to go into dianna at the beginning the mind got frightened because the mind is used to its own existence and the mind doesn't like to give up it's a you know it has its own patterns of control and and it got frightened and then eventually it realized that it it was going to come back at the end you know it wasn't going to go completely you weren't going to go completely crazy it is not yet and then it kind of says okay and it surrenders and really in this Sufi way it is about surrender you surrender to love you surrender to God and meditation you surrender yourself also you surrender your consciousness you surrender that most precious thing you have your own divine consciousness and and you give it to the heart you give it to love you give it to God and then it takes you and it takes you to all these you know first to this oneness within the heart to this consciousness of pure being what you are before you are and then then it takes you beyond to the uncreated world until the the darkness in which you get completely lost and completely absorbed and then probably the journey goes on beyond their their their realities beyond them realities beyond so meditation is really just a way to be with God so he can be with you so he can show you his secrets because that is what Sufism is about is about being open to be shown the secrets of God whatever God is we call him the beloved because it's about love it's very intimate and it is also completely completely other and somewhere it is our birthright it belongs to us those who are drawn to mysticism of those who are drawn to reclaim that birthright to reclaim that heritage of of what a human beings consciousness is really capable of experiencing and I don't think there's anything more worthwhile doing in this world unless you are drawn into a path of service of just being in service to other human beings but to be open to those infinite inner worlds there's other realities that are also here they're not anywhere else that's what you know the dark energy is here it's flowing in this room there's nowhere else but one needs a way to to get there that's all one needs a little doorway to open within the heart to be at this place where the two seas meet so that other ocean can take you and then bring you back and take and then bring you back so I explained for those who don't know I explained the meditation we do but as I say you have your own way of being and in silence with God is is every meditation practice is a way to steal the mind and this is a way of using love to steal the mind and you just go within your heart within the feeling quality of your heart to where love is presence you love something it can be your partner it can be your cat it can be God it doesn't matter and when you go into this place of love you just put all of yourself into the love you put all of yourself into your heart and then when thoughts come which they do you just put the thoughts back into the love you put the thoughts into the love you drown the mind in the heart you drown the mind in love and when thoughts come you just put them into the heart you don't try to stop them you just put the thoughts into your heart so we just do that for half an hour Oh

Channel: LlewellynVaughanLee

Views: 42,239

Rating: 4.8739634 out of 5

Keywords: Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, Sufism, Sufi, mysticism, oneness, meditation, love, heart, consciousness, mystic, divine

Id: dr3LVy7RjIA

Length: 63min 5sec (3785 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 04 2016