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Magic Monday
It's midnight, so we can proceed with a new Magic Monday. Ask me anything about occultism and I'll do my best to answer it. With certain exceptions, any question received by midnight Monday Eastern time will get an answer. Please note: Any question or comment received after then will not get an answer, and in fact will just be deleted. (I've been getting an increasing number of people trying to post after these are closed, so will have to draw a harder line than before.) If you're in a hurry, or suspect you may be the 143,916th person to ask a question, please check out the very rough version 1.0 of The Magic Monday FAQ here. Also: I will not be putting through or answering any more questions about practicing magic around children. I've answered those in simple declarative sentences in the FAQ. If you read the FAQ and don't think your question has been answered, read it again. If that doesn't help, consider remedial reading classes; yes, it really is as simple and straightforward as the FAQ says. The picture? I'm working my way through photos of my lineage, focusing on the teachers whose work has influenced me and the teachers who influenced them in turn. I'm currently tracing my Martinist lineage, and at this point we've reached a genuine man of mystery, Jacques de Livron Joachim de la Tour de la Casa Martinez de Pasqually. Nobody knows when Martinez de Pasqually was born or where he came from; what's known about him is that he showed up in southern France in 1754, taught an extraordinarily rich system of Gnostic esoteric philosophy and practice to a circle of pupils that included Louis-Claude de St.-Martin and Jean-Baptiste Willermoz, and then sailed away to the Caribbean in 1772 and reportedly died there two years later. The image I've posted is one of the very few portraits of the man.
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With that said, have at it!
***This Magic Monday is now closed. See you next week!***
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(Anonymous) 2023-08-14 05:17 am (UTC)(link)- In The Sanctified Life document you posted in the UGC posts, on page 7 at the bottom, there is the quote below. Is that meditation technique described the same thing as mindfulness meditation?
"...begin by directing unceasing efforts to keeping the mind free of attachment to any specific idea, concept, or exercise, even while actively engaged in its practice. Strive to exist solely in the moment, in God—every act, every thought, an offering to God—letting the past, the future, the “10,000 things” take care of themselves. Endeavor to maintain as pure a state of objectivity as possible, observe each and every thing around and within, tangible and intangible, animate and inanimate, with equal care and thoroughness, yet cling to nothing. As various thoughts, emotions, and sensations manifest themselves, examine them, trace each to its source, but allow no opinion, no prejudice, no preference to take root."
Thank you!
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2) That I can't tell you. I'm not a specialist in either mindfulness meditation or mysticism.
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(Anonymous) 2023-08-14 03:05 pm (UTC)(link)One thing I am finding a little confusing, after finishing the structured practices of one of your books (the DMH), is deciding how to learn from different spiritual courses or practices. For example, the different styles of meditation. I do the discursive meditation practice you describe, and also John Gilbert's intuition exercise I asked about. But I've read about a different type of meditation practice in Evelyn Underhill's Practical Mysticism and another in The Sanctified Life, all which are of great interest to me. But then there are the warnings I've read about doing mindfulness meditation.
So more generally, can you safely do different styles of meditation per day?
Not an expert either, but AFAIK...
Disclaimer: never bothered with Mindfullness Meditation, but. From what I have talked with a practicioner that came to me after I had voiced my concerns about the practice being uprooted from their Buddhist origins; what beginners are asked to concentrate on is on their own sensations and their own physical body, and to be aware that this is not reallity but sensation.
Based on the above, I'd say this practice is to Mindfulness (TM) more or less what love-making is to masturbation.
Re: Not an expert either, but AFAIK...
(Anonymous) 2023-08-14 11:09 pm (UTC)(link)no subject
(Anonymous) Date: 2023-08-14 05:17 am (UTC) wrote:
"...begin by directing unceasing efforts to keeping the mind free of attachment to any specific idea, concept, or exercise, even while actively engaged in its practice. Strive to exist solely in the moment, in God—every act, every thought, an offering to God—letting the past, the future, the “10,000 things” take care of themselves. Endeavor to maintain as pure a state of objectivity as possible, observe each and every thing around and within, tangible and intangible, animate and inanimate, with equal care and thoroughness, yet cling to nothing. As various thoughts, emotions, and sensations manifest themselves, examine them, trace each to its source, but allow no opinion, no prejudice, no preference to take root."
The above instructions are a type of Gyana (alt spelling: Jnana) yoga sadhana that develops one's higher transcendent wisdom aspect.
Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev says Gyana yogis never let "the editor/commentor/the critic/the nagger, etc" interfere when doing the above type of yoga sadhana. The moment a Gyana/Jnana yogi does their development of a keen, penetrating wisdom (that manifests as flashes of instantaneous, deep insight) is stopped dead in its tracks.
What is not mentioned in the above instructions is that the number of breaths one takes per minute and the number of thoughts you have per minute are very closely linked. You can read more in-depth about this link between thoughts and breaths-per-minute in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras.
Sadhguru says most of today's billions suffer from "monkey mind" or as he puts it - "mental diarrhea". It's mental diarrhea because their mind is doing it to them despite their sincere wishes that it would not. Simply wishing that it would not chatter so incessantly is not enough to make it quiet down simply because you want it to. It's a capability that takes training because it's changing the structure of your higher-level sheaths.
For reference the average person takes about 15-16 breaths per minute. That should give you an idea of how to track the success of the above instructions as well. You'll actually notice the number of breaths you take per minute begin dropping. You'll notice the space between each thought arising gets a little bit longer and longer as well. This also means you'll have pushed your prana/chi a little bit larger than the perimeter of your physical body too. If you can maintain that prana stably pushed beyond the body even while REM sleeping you will get total relief from the constant inner chatter.
As Sadhguru put it one day (I'm paraphrasing somewhat):
Erase the chalkboard (the mental diarrhea), then train yourself to clearly "write" one single thought that you Purposefully Will.
Congrats! You are well on your way to gaining the Pragna (alt spelling: Prajna) Halo around your head! I mean that quite literally as the above practice, should you choose to invest serious time and effort into it (basically similar to the commitment of somebody who trains to become a pro athlete) - you will gain the Transcendent Purified Wisdom Halo (know as Pragna/Prajna in Sanskrit) someday around your head. Those whom have opened their 3rd Eye will be able to perceive it. Sadhguru has an entire video discussing exactly this and the above practice is one of the ways you can train to gain it.
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