2009-11-26 04:55:00
JJ: There are two types of meditation, a positive and a negative meditation. Does anyone know what the difference is? They both have their uses.
Audience: "I think if you concentrate on negative thoughts you're actually meditating on it."
JJ: I don't mean negative bad. There are two polarities in meditation. They're both good but there are two different types.
Audience: "Sleepy and awake (laughter).
"Passive and active?
"Being the observer? Being the observer is a negative connotation."
JJ: It depends. You can be an observer in both types. The two types are the receptive meditation and the active meditation. Anybody know what the difference is?
Audience: "In one you are just listening and in the other you focus?"
JJ: The negative meditation is the normal thing we call meditation. You sit and try to still your mind and receive from your higher consciousness. This has a lot of benefits. It lowers your blood pressure, it's good for your health, it calms you down and helps you sleep more peacefully. You concentrate on receiving. You empty your mind and develop a peaceful feeling. This has a lot of positive aspects. Now, what is an active meditation?
Audience: "Focusing on something."
JJ: That's the second part of our discourse tonight. It's contemplation. Contemplation is the act of meditation. What does it mean to contemplate? When you contemplate do you want your mind empty? No, you have something in your mind when you contemplate. So, there are two types. One you empty yourself out and this one is generally pursued by people who want an inner peace or else to be a receiver and to receive impressions from the higher consciousness, the higher self or higher beings. To contemplate is different. It requires a seed thought. Does anyone know what a seed thought is?
Wayne: "It's the point to which you direct your concentration."
JJ: Okay. A seed thought for these basketball players who didn't practice was making baskets. They didn't just empty their minds. They had their mind full of a thought and that thought was to visualize shooting and making the basket. that was a seed thought for them and they apparently did it successfully because it actually improved their game. I wonder if you can do that with pool? You should try that Wayne so you can beat Curtis more regularly.
You contemplate a seed thought and it leads to revelation. The one thing that I did right when I was a young guy in the Mormon church is that I memorized a lot of scriptures. I found that those scriptures were like seed thoughts. At times twenty years later I might be driving down the road and a scripture that I memorized twenty years ago is going through my mind. Something like "You shall know the truth. The truth shall set you free." Something simple that you think you understand completely and all of a sudden something new comes.
It's good to have seed thoughts because we often find ourselves in circumstances where we're driving or whatever and might feel like we're wasting time but you can let that seed thought roll around in your mind. I found I got a lot of benefit, while I was driving, from seeds planted in my mind. I used to live in New Plymouth which is 50 miles from Boise. I worked in Boise and drove there every day. I grumbled about it a lot but on hindsight it was probably good for me because I did a lot of thinking. While I was driving there would be seed thoughts going through my mind that would produce a lot of interesting inspiration.
Wayne: "How many horses did you hit with your car?"
JJ: Just one. It was an expensive race horse. This guy's horse ran onto the highway and I ran right over it. It ruined my car. He thought it was my fault, but he just jumped right out in front of me. It was Highway 44. Race horses aren't supposed to be galloping down the highway.
There were benefits to me driving such a long distance every day. Now I kind of miss it. Now I make signs and oftentimes while I'm working making signs I get time to think. Actually it takes me almost as long to get to work now only a few miles away as it did when I was 50 miles away. When I was 50 miles away in New Plymouth [Idaho, USA] I could go about 75 mph until I got to Boise so it took me only 45 or 50 minutes. Now it takes me a half an hour to drive the 5 or 10 miles to our office through traffic. So I'm not saving much time and because I'm fighting traffic it's much harder to concentrate on seed thoughts. When I was whizzing down the highway with nothing to do but stare straight ahead it was a lot more productive for meditating. My mind is on automatic pilot a lot of the time when I go to work so I need to really watch myself and be aware or people are honking at me for doing something wrong.
Let's contemplate some seed thoughts. What do you think a good seed thought would be for meditation reasons? Does anyone remember reading any in the Alice A. Bailey writings? You can use a lot of her writings. Let's say the three aspects of the first ray is will, power, purpose. Think of the names of the first ray. Father is one of the names, Will, Power and Purpose. What does that mean? What does the word "Purpose" mean? Why is it associated with one of the aspects of God? There are three major aspects of God, Father, Son and the Holy Ghost. They're called the first aspect, the Father, the second aspect is the Son and the third aspect is the Holy Ghost. Let's say we want to understand this. We put seed thoughts in our mind. First of all the seed thought is the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
You ask, "What's the difference between the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost?" And you think about this and see what ideas come. Maybe think about it for a week or two and you'll have ideas begin to manifest. Then you break it down. You think, "Okay I kind of have a rough idea of the difference so let's look at the aspects." The Father aspect is Ray One. Ray one breaks down to three sub-aspects which are Will, Power and Purpose. What does this tell me about this First Ray energy? The Second Ray energy is Love, Wisdom and Understanding. That's connected to the Christ Principle. The third, the Holy Ghost Principle is by an Active Intelligence, but it breaks down to Light, Knowledge, and Activity. Those would be the three basic aspects there. And you can break them down in different ways.
Let's go back, then, to the Father energy -- Will, Power, and Purpose. Then you ask yourself: Well, what is the Will of God? What does will mean? So you think on that. And when you think on that, ideas will begin to manifest to you. Maybe a little bit different angles of Will than you have heard in church or whatever. "The Will of God demands you do this." Well, what is the Will of God? And then examine Purpose in relation to this. How does Purpose relate to God? How is Purpose different from Will? And then Power. What does the Power of God mean in relation to this? So you ask yourself these questions.
One of the basic differences between "he who is enlightened" and "he who is not" is: He who is enlightened will ask questions -- will put seed thoughts into his mind and will ask questions about them. "Well, what does this mean?" And then he will keep asking those questions until the answers come.
The person who is a poor student that asks questions will be much farther ahead than a good student that asks no questions. Because when you ask a question and demand an answer, then the answer is incorporated in your system through your soul much more profoundly than if somebody just tells you something and you weren't particularly interested in knowing but you have some teacher just telling you. But if you're asking the question, if you really want to know, then you have discovered the path to true knowledge -- the path to understanding principles.
Copyright © 2009 by J.J. Dewey, All Rights Reserved