Practice 5

Practice 5: Authentic Emptiness and Intention

Welcome to the fifth meditation practice in your mindfulness foundational work. Congratulations on all your effort in making it this far!

There is one important definition we should cover before moving forward. Answering the question, what is the Ego?

The Ego is the self you believe yourself to be. The Soul is the self that you actually are.

This practice is about discovering and maintaining emptiness, which can be likened to a state of pure stillness of mind. Emptiness is very much the same thing as stillness, which is the language God uses to speak to us. It’s the state of being that allows the soul to come forth, and in this practice we seek to achieve this state of emptiness and then we forge it in a union with what’s called authentic intention.

Authentic intention is another term for a prayer that’s prayed from deep inside. It has a quality that goes beyond being just a thought, because this is a desire of the soul—a deeply felt experience that seeks union with the divine. This sort of prayer is central to who you are right now and is a touchstone that you can connect with frequently.

These two states are fundamental in obtaining a depth of awakened presence that is truly transformational. A depth of inner stillness and silence enable our ability to have important realizations as well as revealing your subtle intuitive wisdom body (your higher soul self).

For those reasons, I encourage you to dig deep within yourself to find the fortitude to achieve and maintain these states regularly.

Take your time with this information and its application.

These states, when mastered, have increasing degrees of intensity and with these degrees of intensity bring many important revelations that reveal the very nature of reality and of the self while elevating your day-to-day life to a more blissful state. Mastery means experiencing the infinite pleasure and fulfillment of stillness itself (the now).

It is important to keep in mind that when you begin exploring emptiness in union with intention you perceive them in a certain way. But as you continue to apply them more accurately through practice, you not only begin to understand them more in-depth and with greater clarity, but you also gain more conscious clarity toward all aspects of your life.

As you increase your clear radiance of perception, you will realize things you would normally miss. You begin to sense yourself in the world in a drastically different and unique way as you transition from perceiving the crude dimensions of consciousness into the more subtle dimensions. This will make more sense over time, I promise.

So give this practice time to sink in; apply it like a vessel that you are temporarily using to cross the sea. Although you might not be able to see the shoreline in the distance during your travel, as long as you steer the boat in the right direction your destination will arrive, eventually. And once you land, you can leave the boat behind for good and enjoy the new sword of inner wisdom you have just discovered.

As practitioners, we continue sitting in formal meditation in order to generate a depth to these states first before trying to take them into your waking world. As you sit, you will stray out of the union of authentic emptiness and intention; that is normal. But what you do when you stray will determine the speed of your ascension into presence in your waking life.

If you find that you fail to maintain the union of emptiness and intention, it is paramount that the moment you notice this, you immediately return back to your union without hesitation or thoughts of any kind. 

It is no use to berate or belittle yourself if you find that you are egoically selfing, just stop and return to your intention gently, compassionately, without empowering any mind-stream.

Now let’s discuss the practice.

Use the tools you have practiced to this point to attain the most relaxed state possible whether laying back before bed or in your meditative posture.

As you relax more and more you should not allow yourself to get carried away too far into mind-stream or unconsciousness. Stay wakeful but as relaxed as possible.

Keep this practice up until you find that you remain in this neutral state of perpetual awareness more than you find yourself straying from it. 

Once this state is stabilized—which may take one or two practices or several, take your time—then apply authentic intention so that both are active concurrently. That means, practice the 20 minute track at first, until you have achieved stabilized emptiness. After you have achieved fairly good results, do the 30 minute version which includes the intention practice.

Once you can hold intention in unity with emptiness, you will invoke a prayer that is a sensation that requests a complete renewal of spirit, a complete purification of intention out of limited egoic desires, and an installation of a burning spiritual fire that only desires to ascend and perceive that which you once called home.

This intention should be strong enough so that when held, no thought, no ego desire, no reactionary emotion could ever have enough strength to overcome it.

If thoughts come to blot out your intention, go back to your perfect prayer (in the meditation audio) and overcome the rhythm by reminding yourself of your pure desire. Aspire for what’s more important.

After completing this meditation and witnessing the challenge it presents, ask yourself in contemplation, not conversation, what is more important—your liberation through ascension or the mindless fleeting egoic needs that seek to keep you in delusion and suffering?

No one thought, no egoic ‘wanting’, no reaction, no event is more important than your revelation of the spirit (entering presence), nor should it ever convince you that it is, regardless of  how clever the argument might be.

For now, the only purpose you should be focused on is nourishing your higher-mind with the light of your love and not continuing to nourish the lower-mind with temporary mind-stream and unconscious emotional reactions. We will learn to nourish the lower-mind correctly later; for now, we need to give the higher, the thing we have ignored for so long.

Once you have stabilized this union of emptiness and intention through this meditative practice, try to apply this state to your waking life. You will find the waking states are much more difficult to attain and hold in union because habit energies and rhythms will throw you off your center constantly.

However, as you remember to fall back into these states during your waking life, you will catapult yourself into your ascension much faster than in your meditation practice by itself.

As you continue to practice, you will know you are moving in the right direction if two things occur; one is the onset of heavy rhythms. The heavier the rhythm, the closer you are to crossing into the Gate of Joyful Ease. 

Note: rhythms are defined as movements in the field of energy that underlies the surface matter of all things. They influence our lives in profound ways, like the way the moon pulls and pushes on the ocean tides.

And two, the sensation of the joy or bliss which is at first felt only in the subtlest way, continues in your ascension by your feeling it more intensely and more often. Indicating your ever increasing closeness to the Gate.

In time, the ‘light of spirit’ energy created in this meditation will help you in making the adjustments you wish to make by creating ease—smoothing out rhythms by making them less challenging. 

Allow this light to enter your life, and remember to return to your state of union (emptiness + intention) as much as you can. Do not be discouraged when you fall out of intention or emptiness and find yourself once again empowering the egoic mind-stream; this is normal. Just seamlessly return to your state of emptiness, then bring back your intention, and continue your ascent. 

Enjoy!