Ten Rules for Meditation

Scientific meditation has ten basic, fundamental rules. Without them, emancipation and liberation from the mortifying shackles of the mind is impossible.

1st Rule: Before the arising of any thought, be completely conscious of your psychological mood.

2nd Rule: Psychoanalysis: investigate the root and origin of each thought, remembrance, affection, emotion, feeling, resentment, etc. as they emerge from the mind.

3rd Rule: Serenely observe your mind; place perfect attention on all mental forms that appear on the screen of the intellect.

4th Rule: From moment to moment during the common and current course of daily life, remember and recall the “sensation of contemplation.”

5th Rule: The intellect must assume a psychological, receptive, integral, uni‑total, complete, tranquil, and profound state.

6th Rule: There must be continuity of purpose, tenacity, firmness, constancy, and insistence in the technique of meditation.

7th Rule: It is commendable to attend the meditation rooms of the Gnostic Lumisials anytime we can.

8th Rule: During any agitated or revolving activity, it is peremptory, urgent, and necessary to convert ourselves into watchers of our own mind, to stop at least for an instant to observe it.

9th Rule: It is indispensable and necessary to always practice with closed eyes, with the goal of avoiding the external sensory perceptions.

10th Rule: Absolute relaxation of the entire body, and the wise combination of meditation with drowsiness.

Beloved reader, the moment has arrived in order to judiciously weigh and analyze these ten scientific rules of meditation.

A: The principle, base, and living foundation of Samadhi (ecstasy), consists of previous introspective knowledge of oneself. It is indispensable to introvert ourselves during deepest meditation. We must start to profoundly know the psychological mood that precedes the appearance of any mental form in the intellect. It is urgent to comprehend that all thoughts that emerge from within our mind are always preceded by pain or pleasure, happiness or sadness, like or dislike.

B: Serene reflection. Examine, estimate, and inquire about the origin, cause, reason, or fundamental motive of every thought, remembrance, image, affection, desire, etc., as they emerge from the mind. Self‑discovery and self‑revelation are in this second rule.

C: Serene observation. Pay perfect attention to every mental form that makes its appearance on the screen of the intellect.

D: We must convert ourselves into spies of our own mind by contemplating it in action from instant to instant.

E: The chitta (mind) is transformed into vrittis (vibratory waves). The mind is like a pleasant and tranquil lake. When a rock falls into this lake, bubbles emerge from the bottom. All the different thoughts are perturbed ripples on the surface of the waters. During meditation, let the lake of the mind remain still, without waves, serene, and profound.

F: Fickle people who are voluble, versatile, changeable, without firmness, without willpower, will never achieve ecstasy, satori, samadhi.

G: It is obvious that scientific meditation can be practiced individually in an isolated way, as well as in a group of like-minded people.

H: The soul must be liberated from the body, affections, and the mind. It is evident, clear, and obvious that when the soul is emancipated from the intellect, it is radically liberated from the rest.

I: It is urgent, indispensable, and necessary to eliminate perceptions of the external senses during interior profound meditation.

J: It is indispensable to relax the body for meditation; let no muscle remain tense. It is urgent to provoke and regulate drowsiness at will. It is evident, clear, and unarguable that illumination is the outcome of the wise combination of drowsiness and meditation.

Results

Upon the mysterious threshold of the Temple of Delphi, a Grecian maxim was engraved in the stone that said, Homo Nosce Te Ipsum… “Man, know thyself, and thou will know the universe and its gods.”

In the final instance, it is obvious, evident, and clear that the study of oneself and serene reflection conclude in the quietude and silence of the mind.

When the mind is quiet and in silence — not only in the intellectual level, but in all and each one of the forty-nine subconscious departments — then the Newness emerges. The Essence, the consciousness, is unbottled, and the awakening of the soul, that is to say, the ecstasy, the samadhi, the satori of the saints occurs.

The mystical experience of Reality transforms us radically. People who have never directly experienced the Truth live like butterflies going from school to school. They have yet to find their center of cosmic gravitation. Therefore, they die as failures, and without having achieved the so longed for realization of the Innermost Self.

The awakening of the consciousness, of the Essence, of the soul or Buddhata, is only possible by liberating, emancipating ourselves from the mental dualism, from the struggle of the antitheses, of the intellectual waves.

Any subconscious, infra-conscious, or unconscious, submerged struggle turns into an impediment for the liberation of the Essence (soul).

Every antithetical battle, as insignificant and unconscious as it might appear, indicates, accuses, aims to obscure points that are ignored, unknown within the atomic infernos of the human being.

To reflect, observe, and know these infra-human aspects, these obscure points of oneself, is indispensable in order to achieve the absolute quietude and silence of the mind.

To experience that which is not of time is only possible while in absence of the “I.”

a chapter from “The Magic of the Runes” (1969) by Samael Aun Weor