Some Principles of Meditation

This is an outline describing the way I meditate and the methods by which I approach meditation. My goal is that through meditation and speculation I find new knowledge for the benefit of mankind.

I should also say that I believe it is important to put in an effort. And that one should meditate long and hard and in silence (if possible). I try to meditate for four hours on most days. I consider it as akin to religious prayer.

Principle 1) Order

What the concept of order means in my method of meditation is the following:

Order means the opposite of change. So that within the duration of our meditation there are no temporary concepts to be brought into the mental contents of the meditation.

So that each element or concept which is brought into the meditation is to be scrutinized before hand, as it were, as to its value.

The scrutinization or interrogation process is a method of temporary evaluation within the duration of the meditation. It's value lies in discovering the most worthwhile and most lasting concepts which are to be meditated upon.

By the concept of order the meditator will keep within his meditation time only contents which are durable and the concept of order is to be kept within the mental concentration permanently through the duration of the meditation.

The concept of order also means that there must be as much silence and as little motion as possible during meditation.

Any future concept brought into the meditation must be compatible with this concept of order.

One should also pre-meditate, i.e. prepare the groundwork of one's meditation by dwelling upon the meanings of the concept of order.

Principle 2) The elements within order; the magnification of order

The first element within my meditation is the element or concept of rigidity. Rigidity means to go straight, as in a straight line. (Rigidity, of course means a lot of things so choose those things which suit you out of the thesaurus and out of quotation book which help you get the mental juices going.) Remember rigidity will be a permanent element within the meditation. Rigidity, to me, also refers to a kind of atomism. An atomism which implies that there are detailed limits to the mind and to external reality alike.

Rigidity implies neatness and inner perfection as well as limit with respect to motion. The higher nature of our inner perfection or perfect being within meditation acts as a limit to the 'lower' natures (the nature of constant temporary changes which tend to confuse the human senses).

The experiences that we encounter after our meditation should be 'limited' by our minds, by the inner perfection that we derive from the meditation process. The limit is the sharpness of 'measure' of inner being. It is the measure of how much inner perfection is achieved through philosophic meditation. This limit places conditions upon the order and the internal composition of the "representations" which we encounter in nature (including society etc.) These representations, or our necessary encounters with them, are what Whitehead calls "atoms of experience" or atomic experiences.


(For Hegel, the concept of 'idea' was far more than an epiphenomenon of substance. On the contrary it is the proper and essential object of philosophical study constituting history. The initial identification of the idea for Hegel thus conincides with the advent of a thinking which for the first time knows what its true content is, which in the idea has the unity of thinking and being clearly before it. The complete externalization of each element within human experience means that we are to exist stricly within what we already know, (i.e. the soul is considered as being equal to parts of external intelligibility): we act within our own passages of being by uniting the human mind with purely coherent surroundings, by knowing, logically everything in our surroundings.

If the position is reached where intelligible reality is seen as being totally exhausted by our internal limits then:

Physicality will become symbolic physicality; each limit or phase of being is then explicitly external. Motion will be self-identical. All being will be seen as internally related, undivided.

We will exist in our own thoughts for those thoughts will be true reflections of movement.
We will become our own atomic passages of being because those passages which make up the conditions of our environment will be coherent from all vantage points.

When our environment becomes externalized (known) we will become one with it.)


The next element I would add would be clarity. Clarity means to focus upon and to measure the subtleties of your thought and your thinking processes down to the final details and remember them. (You should also try to remember your dreams, because they are sometimes relevant.)

Principle 3) Memory and Location

Remember, during meditation you need to keep the same mental contents over as long a period of time as possible (don't be afraid, drink plenty of coffee). And you should try to meditate in the same place over and over again. This way you can easily pick up where you left off.

Finally, don't be afraid to free-associate during meditation, as long as you return to the same basic mental contents. If you follow the principles of meditation as I have outlined and if you are in earnest you should see some "LIGHT". I certainly hope we will.

-- Pythagorean