Natural mind

Though many people practice or are familiar with some kind of meditation, often a type of guided visualization, very few people, relatively speaking, are actually familiar with the meditation practice whose sole purpose is to introduce you to natural mind. Without knowing natural mind—the universal nature of yours and everyone else’s mind—the other forms of meditation may be nothing more than a kind of escapism. Especially for those of us espousing the virtues and values of returning to natural time is it utterly necessary to balance our knowledge with direct experience of natural mind.

—Jose Arguelles, Natural Mind, Natural Time

Self-empowered “Chief Doer of Stuff”, Jason Zook, whose writing on taking action I greatly enjoy, recently wrote an article about meditation. In it he reports how he set out to choose a meditation practice for himself. As usual he makes plenty of keen observations, but something nagged at me as I read. In his research, he found the commonly stated reasons why one “should” meditate. Things like (quoting his article):

• You’ll sleep better
• You’ll have less overall stress
• You’ll eat a more mindful diet (less stress or binge eating)
• You’ll be able to reduce pain and heal faster
• You’ll be able to beat anxiety or general worrying
• You’ll smile more
• You’ll have a more relaxed outlook on all things
• You’ll enhance your love life
• You’ll feel more successful and achieve more goals

Notice anything missing? Well for me this list was a real head-scratcher. Let me give you a little back-story: I was fortunate enough to have been one of the assistants in a meditation seminar conducted by Jose Arguelles in 2005.

Prior to the meditation seminar, Jose Arguelles taught us natural mind meditation. For several weeks we would meet to meditate, and discuss natural mind. Thanks to this training, I received the priceless gift of knowing the value of sitting on my bun every single day to directly experience natural mind. And it is something I diligently continued to do for one to two hours per day for several years.

So, to me, that “list of benefits” as marketing for meditation products glaringly lacked the actual point of meditation practice. No, those things are simply the likely beneficial side-effects of doing the work to observe directly, and come to know, your own mind.

It was a poignant yet disheartening realization to see how there are so many meditation “products” cluttering up the internet being promoted simply as a means to achieve these benefits. As a result it seems the point of meditation is completely lost to the “meditation consumer”. Furthermore, if these “trendy” apps become the most common or trusted voices about meditation, this will result in discourse about meditation by people who have exactly zero first-hand experience with actual meditation.

This is a tragic loss of an opportunity. Internet technology can allow us all to exponentially increase our ability to mutually support one another in understanding Mind and, hence, reality at a deeper level (no matter one’s religion or culture). Or experience and experiment with synchronized meditation, the kind of meditation that has even demonstrated the power to reduce crime and increase peace. But, the clamor for quick money on the internet all but drowns out any credible voices or communities who could offer real, experiential wisdom on the subject.

Jose Arguelles called meditation “all-inclusive study”. It is one of the most scientific endeavors you can embark upon, since you are endeavoring to experience reality as it is. Through meditation you come, ever so scarcely at first, into contact with Mind (with a capital “M”) or that consciousness, or awareness or light that exists regardless of your thoughts, ideas, intentions, goals, prayers, plans or projections. That Mind which existed long before your body was formed in your mother’s womb, and which will last long after.

The perspective of the Law of Time is that this Mind is co-extensive with space itself, and absolutely and completely permeates the entire universe, as does the synchronic order.

The truth is, to really understand the 13 Moon Calendar, or rather, the accurate perception and experience of multidimensional Time (a.k.a synchronic order) as accessed via the 13 Moon Calendar – the practice of natural mind meditation is totally necessary.

So I invite you to read Jose Arguelles’ article from 2005: Natural Mind, Natural Time. (Note: This article was originally written with the noble yet ambitious goal of Universal Peace by 2012, a whole topic unto itself, but his commentary on natural mind remains more relevant than ever).

Deeply consider the profound points he addresses in this excellent article, and I hope you’ll consider practicing natural mind meditation every day – even if it’s just for 10-15 minutes to start! Even better if you and a few of your friends or family practiced and discussed regularly, along with your study of the 13 Moon Calendar.

In fact, I just created a Natural Mind Meditation group on galacticSpacebook for those who may like to meet and share this way.