What is Meditation and Why Practice It?

Meditation is a means of acquiring information about ourselves, why we suffer, and what we can do to transform our suffering into wisdom and happiness.

​It is also a technique for accessing personal knowledge of the divine and receiving insight on how to live with greater rectitude and love.

Meditation is a means of awakening and expanding consciousness beyond conditions and limitations of the physical senses.

Since consciousness is the ability to perceive, meditation is a deepening of that perception, a means of perceiving facts on a psychological and spiritual level.

Meditation is the natural state of the unconditioned, liberated consciousness. Therefore, the practice of meditation is a method of stripping away conditioning, illusions, and misperceptions. It is a means of gathering information about who we are. It is not "spacing out," nor is it solely focused on having ecstatic mystical "experiences."

Meditation is also not produced through artificial means, technology, machines, or drugs, since chemicals and psychedelic substances further condition the mind and psyche. Meditation is a state of being free of conditioning; therefore it is unnecessary to take substances or use technology in order to produce the natural state of awakened perception.

In order to perceive in its natural state, the consciousness must be purified of its conditions through practice and the application of conscious attention.

By removing the conditions of the psyche that make us suffer: anger, pride, fear, resentment, anxiety, desire, envy, etc., we can in turn see past illusions in order to access the essential nature of the consciousness: a profound state of happiness and contentment.​

The meditator also possesses subtle energies in the mind, heart, and body that can be harnessed for meditative discipline. This is well explained in certain schools of Yoga and Buddhism.

​Since we have everything we need within ourselves in order to strip away what is unnecessary within our consciousness, learning to return to the natural state of perception is only a matter of individual training.

As a practical technique and way of life, meditation is a method of gaining comprehension and guidance in relation to problems, difficulties, and challenges in life that seem impossible to resolve.

By gaining direct knowledge about the causes of our most intimate problems, we can then arrive at peace, serenity, and insight.

This personal, self-knowledge has been called gnosis in Greek. Gnosis is beyond belief, theory, scholasticism, argumentation, debate, concepts, etc. It is in fact the direct apprehension of truths through our very capacity to perceive.

In meditation, we rely on facts and evidence to support our understanding of the truths contained and taught within different traditions.

Here, we do not speculate. We know. For as the founder of the modern Gnostic tradition, Samael Aun Weor, stated: 

"Gnosis is lived upon facts, withers away in abstractions, and is difficult to find even in the noblest of thoughts." -The Revolution of the Dialectic

Interested in learning how to meditate?  Attend a class!

Want to listen to lectures about meditation?  See the resources below:

• Gnostic Meditation Course
• ​Gnostic Psychology Course

Looking for explanations of spiritual practices to help prepare for meditation? See:

• Guided Practices