Ideation and Awareness

All mental imaging and thought processes are configurations of awareness. It is as if a mist would concentrate it's self to create identifiable forms. This self-same mist can concentrate its self into any form imaginable, and yet the mist does not depart from its nature. This is an extremely powerful ability (its called consciousness), but it has a downside in that it is by sensing forms present in the mist that the mist knows anything at all. And when the mist is busy configuring some self determined form it is less available for pure sensing of the not-self.

In the act of meditation the mist of pure awareness is at rest; unformed and completely aware.

Notes on Imagination

"Use your imagination" oft heard phrase: seldom done. In most cases it is the imagination which does the using. This is responsible for much personal difficulty and cultural unpleasantness.

With the emergence of awakened awareness by the practice of meditation it is not difficult to see if one's consciousness is dominated by imagination, or if one's imagination serves consciousness. The implications are obvious.

We all have a figurine collection: a glass menagerie of projections of imagination. We tend to be fiercely protective of our projections because they are "us" in the same way as our fingers and toes. Albeit in a less physically generative way.

It must be remembered that all ideas are imaginary, and when we are identified with the projections of our imagination we live in the shadow of our imagination. When imagination serves awakened awareness it is a magic lamp.

Intentional Being

Very few people are capable of making a decision. We "opt" all over the place, but opting is not the same thing as deciding.

Let me explain. The normal human creature is one for whom the animal core of the psyche is wholly invisible. It is categorically impossible for this creature to recognize the weight of undiluted great ape influencing its behavior, and since its core animal responses are taken as personal volition to say that this creature is capable of "deciding" as opposed to "opting" is doing it a decided disfavor.

Deciding and opting share the same territory in that they both reflect the resonance of the external within the domain of the internal. The point being that if the interior of our being is an unexplored mystery our responses to the external demands of life will be in large measure that of an automaton.

Self control is a necessary social discipline, but it is miles away from the ability to decide ones state of being. And since most people are in large measure automatons that respond in predictable and inevitable ways there is great value in being able to decide what to be.

The what determines the how. If we are capable of being what we need to be in a given situation the how takes care of it's self. This is a skill that makes life better for all that it touches: initiates and ordinary people alike, and meditation is the exercise which makes possible this magic

That cultivation of pure awareness which we practice in meditation gently pulls back the curtain behind which our animal nature operates. When awareness recognizes and befriends the natural animal, the animal is no longer a slave to the millions of years of darkness from which it has emerged: there is a metamorphosis; it has become the wand, the magic carpet, the wish fulfilling gem.

Of the many fruits of meditation one of the sweetest is intentional being, as the children of the earth are reborn as the children of the universe.

Transcendent Awareness

The synthetic abilities of the modern English language make possible shades of meaning that would have been impossible to convey a mere hundred years ago. The advent of psychology and the popularization of meditation have enriched the descriptive power of words to a remarkable degree. With such tools at our disposal let us revisit the relationship of consciousness to awareness.

The word "Consciousness" is used rather broadly and loosely and it makes no sense to try to sort that out. "Awareness" is less abused and therefore more easily used succinctly. That which is "Transcendent" is that without apparent limitations.

There is no such thing as transcendent consciousness. Consciousness is a configuration of Awareness. Anything that is configured is limited, and its limits are its value.

Awareness, simple, un-fixated, awareness is by nature transcendent. Consciousness is the surface of our being, and Transcendent Awareness is the substance of our being.

In meditation simply let consciousness contemplate Awareness. Nature will take its course.

The Carpet, the Wand, and the Gem

Someone recently asked me "Well, if awareness awakens as you say, what then about life?"

The Magic Carpet

The Magic Wand

The Magic Wish Fulfilling Gem


This is our creaturely life.