Know Thy Self

Meditation Three: Mental Perception

By Rawn Clark
2007

In this meditation exercise, we will explore the nature of our own mental body and
mental perception.

This time you will need to have one simple object close at hand for viewing later. It does
not matter what this object is. And as usual, you will need a room where you are assured
of privacy and the ability to recline comfortably. The preferred physical posture for this
meditation exercise is reclining, with your head slightly elevated above your chest, and
your chest slightly elevated above your abdomen.

So, get comfortable in your reclining position and close your eyes . . .

(pause)

To begin, we will need to fully relax our physical body and disengage our awareness
from bodily distractions.

Begin by shifting your awareness into both feet simultaneously and relax all the muscles
in your feet. Now gently raise your awareness upward through your body and relax the
muscles in each area as your awareness passes through it. First will be your ankles, then
calves, thighs, hips and hands; then abdomen, lower back and forearms; then chest, upper
back, upper arms and shoulders; then neck, jaw, scalp and finally, relax all of the muscles
in your face.

(pause)

Now, with your bodys muscles fully relaxed, turn your attention away from bodily
concerns and focus upon my words.

My first word for your consideration is warrior.

(pause)

In response to this word, your mind automatically generated a series of images, emotions
and thoughts, all somehow related to the concept of warrior. All of these arose
spontaneously from your unintentional awareness and were rooted in your past
experiences and in the thoughts you have integrated over the course of your life.

Your response to this word was unique in as much as the content of your own
unintentional awareness reflects the unique circumstances of your life. A different
person will experience somewhat different images, emotions and thoughts than you did.
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Lets try that again but with a new word -- and this time, take note of what transpires as it
occurs. The new word is Elephant.

(pause)

As before, your unintentional awareness will have generated an image, or series of

images, related to Elephant. Using your intentional objective awareness, try to discern
where these images came from. Do they come from a personal encounter with an
Elephant? Or from a film about Elephants? Or from a book?

(pause)

Now, again using your intentional objective awareness, examine the emotions that
accompany these images. How does the image of Elephant make you feel? Is this
feeling related to your emotional state at the time when the image of Elephant was
originally formed? For example, if the image comes from when you saw an Elephant at a
zoo as a small child and you were having a pleasant day with your parents visiting the
zoo, then odds are that the emotions that arise now, carry with them the imprint or flavor
of that childhood happiness.

(pause)

Once again using your intentional objective awareness, examine the thoughts and ideas
that arise in unison with the images and emotions in response to the word Elephant. As
before, try to discern the origin of these thoughts. Are they your own original thoughts or
are they thoughts youve learned or heard from others?

(pause)

Overall, what percentage of your automatic response to the word Elephant comes from
your own personal interaction with an Elephant and how much of it comes from second-
hand sources such as things youve heard or read?

(pause)

In much the same way that the astral emotion-substance condenses around our character
traits, thus giving form to the densest layer of our astral body, so too the mental thought-
substance condenses around the ideas and thought patterns resident within our
unintentional awareness and thus gives form to the densest layer of our mental body.
Every thing and idea we encounter and thus perceive, passes through this dense layer of
the mental body before affecting our intentional objective awareness.

The domain of the mental body is that of essential meaning. By this I mean the meaning
that each thing manifests. This is different than the meaning that we give to things in our
process of personalization and subjectification. That is a secondary or interpreted
meaning, not an essential meaning.
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Essential meaning is the mental materia which constitutes the mental realm itself, and it
is this mental materia that is crystallized by the ideological content of our unintentional
awareness into the densest level of our mental body. At its purest level of manifestation
however, a human mental body perfectly reflects the essential meaning of its own
Individuality or essential Self instead of the personalized content of the unintentional
awareness.

The primary characteristic responsible for the structure and function of our mental body
is that in the mental realm similarity is the basis of attraction. Opposite essential
meanings have no power of attraction between each other, but similar essential meanings
are inseparable. Thus the mental materia that is similar to the ideological content of our
unintentional awareness crystallizes to form this dense layer of our mental body. And
since it is this dense layer through which we perceive, the quality of our unintentional
ideology dictates the objective quality of our perceptions. In other words, if the ideas that
form the basis of how we perceive the world and ourselves are rife with self-hatred and
self-doubt, then our experience of the world itself will be colored with the same bleak
hues. Likewise, if they are filled with ideas of self-love and self-confidence, then our
experience of the world will be bright and fulfilling.

The types of ideas that crystallize the mental body also dictate the types of essential
meaning that our mental body automatically attracts and is attracted to. These are the
ideas that are easiest for us to process, understand and sympathize with, and which affect
us the most immediately. But we also encounter manifestations of essential meaning that
we do not share similarity with and these, obviously, are the ideas that we have the most
difficulty processing and understanding. Yet once we do process and understand them,
these foreign ideas have the greatest power to change us utterly and absolutely by
broadening our range of affinities within the mental realm.

The mental body is capable two basic approaches or techniques for the integration of
essential meaning. The most common, default mode is ruled by the unintentional
awareness and consists of modifying the essential meaning so that it fits within our own
ideology. This prevents the encounter from significantly altering the ideological content
of the unintentional awareness. Your automatic reaction to the words warrior and
Elephant are examples of this mode in action.

You drew content from your unintentional awareness which limited your experience to
the predictable and comfortable. You didnt learn anything from your initial reaction and
you were not in any way changed by the encounter.

The second mode of approach, ruled by the intentional awareness, is to open yourself to
change and modification so that you achieve greater affinity with the manifest essential
meaning you have encountered. This means setting aside your resistance to change and
your inclination to subjectify, and instead, exercising your power to truly explore the
essential meaning for what it is. In other words, to truly open yourself to an experience
of its essential meaning.
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One way we go about this is to think about an idea. When we do this with an open mind,
free of assumptions and preconceptions, then the idea will exert its attractive force over
us and draw illuminating thoughts into our awareness. This can be a long process of
looking at the idea from every angle imaginable and letting the mind follow the meanings
that reveal themselves. A brief example of this was your objective examination and
analysis of your automatic response to the word Elephant.

The drawback of this method of thinking about something is that the process of thinking
is itself influenced by the unintentional awareness. In other words, it occurs within the
arena of our basic mind-set, that array of fundamental ideas which shape our every
experience. Thus it is incapable of directly experiencing the essential meaning.

To directly perceive essential meaning is to experience it. Direct perception of essential

meaning is never achieved through interpretation or through thinking. It is only achieved
through becoming. By this I mean that you completely open yourself to being affected
by the essential meaning. Thinking and interpretation come after direct perception and
are not in any way a part of the act of perceiving.

When approached in this way, essential meaning opens itself to your awareness and
shares itself with you, creating the deepest sort of mutual affinity or similarity. This
experience of essential meaning increases your scope of affinities within the mental place
and grants you easy access to a broader variety of essential meaning than before the
experience. In other words, it increases your objective Understanding.

To illustrate, I will now guide you through a technique for experiencing the essential
meaning contained within an abstract idea. The first step is best described by one of my
favorite poets as resting with the question. This is a time during which you simply let
the words which describe the idea float in your mind. You just sort of sit with them
quietly and let them crystallize in your awareness. So, rest with the following words for a
few moments:

The Universe is infinite.

(pause)

In order for a thing to be infinite, it must encompass all space, all time and all meaning.
Imagine now that space stretches without end in all directions from where you are
reclining.

(pause)

You are at the exact center point of this infinite expanse. No matter where you move,
space still stretches infinitely in all directions from where you are.

(pause)
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Now feel how time stretches infinitely behind you and ahead of you.

(pause)

You exist at the exact center point of time in a bubble of now-ness and time always
stretches infinitely in both directions.

(pause)

And now feel the infinite variety of essential meaning that fills this infinite space and
time. There is no end to the variety.

(pause)

Your own essential meaning exists in context with all of the infinite variety of essential
meaning that surrounds you and no matter how you change, you are always surrounded
by an infinite variety.

(pause)

Within this infinite Universe, no matter how much or how little space, time and meaning
you yourself encompass, you are always at the exact center of space, time and meaning.

(pause)

This is true for each and every point in space, each and every moment of time and each
and every bit of meaning, not just those that you occupy. There are an infinite number of
centers in an infinite Universe.

(pause)

Now spread your awareness outward infinitely and become the whole. Feel yourself
spatially infinite. Feel yourself temporally infinite. Feel yourself manifesting an infinite
variety of essential meaning. BE the infinite Universe.

(long pause)

Now gently refocus on my voice and listen to my words. Even though I just led you
through a series of conclusions rooted in the simple phrase the Universe is infinite, all
of these conclusions are nonetheless inherent to the idea itself and naturally arise in your
awareness when you open yourself to this idea without the inclusion of thinking and
interpreting. In other words, given sufficient time and openness, you would have had
much the same experience of the essential meaning on your own had I not been guiding
you through its layers. Only in introducing you to the technique was my guidance
necessary.
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Essential meaning is manifest in all things, ideas being just one type of thing. To
illustrate, I will now guide you through a technique for experiencing the essential
meaning contained within an object. Specifically, the essential meaning manifest within
the object you chose at the beginning of this meditation.

Please note that just by my mentioning your object, a series of events were initiated in
your mind. In a flash of less than a second, you most likely pictured your object,
experienced your usual emotional feelings about the object, and named or described your
object.

However, in order to directly perceive your objects essential meaning, you must now
leave all of that behind and use only your intentional objective awareness. If you start
thinking about your object then you are not perceiving. Instead, you are thinking and
interpreting and trying to shape its essential meaning. So keep this in mind as we
proceed.

Now open your eyes and fix your gaze upon your chosen object. Set aside all of your
thinking and feeling about the object and just observe objectively for a moment. Rest
with it for a moment and let its objective details crystallize in your awareness.

(pause)

Now open your awareness to the object itself and objectively perceive how it affects your
awareness.

(pause)

If you find your internal dialogue thinking about the object then let your go of your
thinking and refocus your awareness upon simply perceiving.

(long pause)

Try to experience for a moment what it would feel like to be your object.

(pause)

Now let your mind think about your object and objectively observe the meaning that
those thoughts express.

(pause)

To what degree and in what way do your thoughts express your experience of the
objects essential meaning?

(pause)
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Now objectively perceive your emotional responses to your object and ask yourself to
what degree and in what way they express your experience of the objects essential
meaning.

(pause)

Now objectively examine the physical details of your object and observe how they
manifest and communicate the objects essential meaning.

(pause)

Now close your eyes again and turn your awareness inward. Take a few moments to
review your direct encounters with essential meaning and examine the unique qualities of
your experience with essential meaning that make its direct perception different than any
other form of perception. Try to fix this difference in your mind so that you can recall
how it feels in the future.

(long pause)

Focus again on the sound of my voice and gently return to a more normal state of
awareness. Gently open your eyes, sit upright and reorient yourself while I say a few
words in closing.

Our temporal mental body is the clothing of ideas and thought patterns through which we
manifest our own essential meaning. When their formation is left to the whims of the
unintentional awareness, they allow us only a partial or clouded expression of our
essential meaning and a skewed perception of the objective Universe. On the other hand,
when these foundational ideas and habits of thinking are examined and transformed by
the intentional objective awareness, our self-expression then becomes clearer and more
sure, and our perceptions begin to truly reveal the objective Universe to our
understanding.

By intentionalizing our mental body we also gain the power to open our awareness to an
infinite range of essential meaning. This is important because it is through the
incorporation of ever-new types of essential meaning that the essential Self evolves and
expands and ultimately comes to encompass the whole infinite Universe.

I suggest that over the coming days and weeks you use the faculties of your intentional-
objective awareness and actively pursue the direct perception of essential meaning in
your mundane life. Truly experience the essential meanings you encounter and savor
each to its fullest. Use your awareness to spend time truly experiencing life within the
miracle of your own mental body!

My best to you!