Integral Meditation: The Seven Ways to Self-Realisation

By Sørensen Kenneth

Integral Meditation: The Seven Ways to Self-realisation

“Kenneth Sørensen masterfully shows how the human being is a seven-fold system of energies and offers a variety of meditations for accessing all the colors of this rainbow of potentiality.

Integral meditation is an illuminating and wise

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kentaur Publishing
• Release date: Sep 11, 2017
• ISBN: 9788792252227

Sørensen Kenneth

Kenneth Sørensen (born 1962) is a psychotherapist, author and spiritual teacher, and the co-founder of Jivayou.com. He has an MA in Psychosynthesis from the University of East London. He is the author of The Soul of Psychosynthesis: The Seven Core Concepts, 2015, Integral Meditation (2017) and Energy Psychology (2017, Dec.) See biography here: kennethsorensen.dk/en/kenneth-soerensen/

Book preview

Preface

This book has been in the making my entire life. For me, life started when I was twenty-four and discovered astrology. Two years later, I started seeing a psychotherapist and had begun a daily meditation practice that I’ve maintained ever since. It has been an incredible journey, and now, some thirty years later, I can hardly grasp how I have managed to pull my head out of that foggy, unhappy state of mind in which I was engulfed.

In hindsight, I can see two primary motivations behind my journey. One was the deep emotional pain and unhappiness I felt in relation to my life, and my sense of myself as an extremely limited person. I could not recognise myself, and this frustration around my identity troubled me until I was ready to ask the question, Who am I? On an unconscious or semi-conscious level, there was always a part of me who sensed I was far greater than my outer appearance. Today I call this part of me The King. It is a part of our personality that is connected to the Royal Self, the Soul in our heart. The King is in touch with our inner greatness, and this can cause great pain because of the sharp contrast it presents between our present self and what we can become. I am surely not from a royal background – my ancestors are predominantly farmers and manual workers – so this has only strengthened the contrast between my inner and outer reality.

But this pain has also been a blessing. It created a crack in my psychological defences and has shown a way out of the spiritual poverty in which I was living, opening me to the Soul’s calling. This pain has motivated me to widen my inner world through meditation, philosophy and psychotherapy. This type of pain will either break us or save us; for me it became a great healing agent.

The second major motivation behind my spiritual journey was a will to growth, which became more serious in 1986, when, as mentioned, at the age of twenty-four I began my real life. Today I call this drive a will to freedom; it is an uncompromising longing for free expression on all levels. There is a voice in me that is unwilling to accept personal limitations and makes great effort to work through these limitations. This will is an expression of The King but in a more pure and direct form; it is the Royal Self fighting to manifest its kingdom.

My awakening led to a sense of vivid, immediate life and an almost unbearable feeling of ecstatic joy, a powerful, almost frightening sense of my own freedom. As with all visions or moments of ecstasy, it was temporary, but its effects stayed with me. These effects are not always pleasant. The will to be free can create a strong sense of being mediocre because the vision of what we can be always transcends our immediate experience. This is a challenge–a crisis of duality–we all must face when we open up to Spirit and its demand that we become who we truly are.

I wish to write a book for all Souls who feel the call to greatness, for those whose hearts long for unconditional love and compassion, and who desire to awaken from the dream within which most of the world is imprisoned. This book is for those who dare to develop all their resources and put them into the service of the One Life.

My message is quite simple: meditate, love, and choose freedom every day. This is the essence of my book.

Meditation is an effective means for speeding up our evolution because through it we shift our focus from the world of effects to the world of causes. Through meditating we have a means to help us awaken to the content of our consciousness and the stream of thoughts, images, emotions and sensations we project onto the world. Through meditation we realise that what we call reality is coloured by interpretations based on our habitual reactions, and that these reactions are illusions from the past. Meditation makes it possible to consciously choose our thoughts and emotions, enabling us to master our minds. This is the foundation of inner peace.

Meditation has two fundamental effects. It expands our awareness from the individual to the universal, a widening of consciousness through which our separate ego gradually opens into a more universal presence. We discover that our true identity is something immaterial and subtle, a state of oneness connecting us with all living beings and the whole manifested universe.

Meditation can also alter the qualities of the personality. Through the more spiritual states of mind it can induce, meditation can refine the personality, leading to visible changes in behaviour. Where before we reacted with fear, selfishness and ignorance, we can now respond with courage, kindness and wisdom. There’s no limit to how far we can develop this capacity, as mystics and saints throughout history have shown. These two effects – expansion and alteration of the personality are the result of what we can call passive and active meditation. The first develops freedom of being, the second develops freedom of action.

These insights will be developed throughout this book. The fundamental message is that meditation changes the world because, through it, you change.

The root motivation for all meditation must be for the sake of the whole because our true identity is never separate from the world.

I have called my approach integral meditation – integral both in the sense of something that is essential and involves all parts of us – because we must apply the whole spectrum of meditation in order to work effectively with the different frequencies of energy. A holistic attitude to meditation is vital. Our practice should suit our spiritual type. For example, not everyone benefits from the use of mindfulness, so we must adjust our meditation to the needs driving our practice. Our spiritual practice must be unique and not a standardised prescription. We should be familiar with different types of meditation so we can adopt the form of meditation most appropriate to our current life situation, our spiritual type and our immediate needs.

Meditation should also be integrated skilfully into our lives, within our particular individual, cultural and social spheres. This can be done through five integral life practices, which I discuss in this book. This approach involves understanding seven essential energies, (called the seven rays), seven levels of consciousness, seven ways of meditation and seven spiritual types, all of which can be drawn upon to establish a life of greater freedom.

Yet meditation alone is not enough. Even though meditation is an act of love, some psychic content lies so deeply in the unconscious that it is inaccessible to meditation. We have to burrow into the unconscious to uncover the repressed material that limits and inhibits our free expressions as living Souls. We must enter into a radical process of transformation that corresponds to the level of freedom we wish to achieve. This can be pretty ugly business, but we are not alone: millions of people worldwide participate in the same divine spring cleaning.

We must develop the same ideal of sustainability for our inner world as we do for our outer one, and, so to speak, cleanse the collective atmosphere of psychological smog. Many psychotherapeutic techniques can help with this process, and I will be offering meditation techniques that can supplement the necessary work we do in psychotherapy to explore our shadow. The most effective approach to meditation is to love whatever arises in consciousness because love is the key agent when we want to transform the parts of ourselves that suffer. This means an impersonal love, an empathetic acceptance that flows from an open heart centre. When we can participate in this flow we become strong enough to embrace whatever comes up, we can rest in peace amid the deepest pain.

In each moment we can make a choice that will define our destiny. This choice determines the type of energy we choose to think, to feel and let our life be governed by. When we say yes to thoughts that enter our awareness, these thoughts become part of who we are. This is quite simple: in each moment we can learn to consciously choose what thoughts will define our state of mind. Accordingly, we can avoid what is harmful and choose what is helpful. It is crucial to choose thoughts from our highest values and not allow ourselves to be governed by habitual negative reactions. With this in mind, it is clear that we must choose freedom each day. Simple enough to say, but quite a challenge to accomplish.

I have written this book from my heart and have consulted very few external sources. You will find a few references to outer authorities, but the only authority I really want to appeal to is the intuition of your heart.

I write from my own experience, but I recognise my debt to prominent writers and teachers such as Alice Bailey, Lucille Cedercrans, Roberto Assagioli, Ken Wilber and Sri Aurobindo. All in some way have been my teachers because they have inspired my being. In one respect I can say that the esoteric heritage is my spiritual tradition. Helena P. Blavatsky, Annie Besant, Alice Bailey and Lucille Cedercrans have had an important, if unacknowledged, influence on Western civilization. They concerned themselves with spiritual evolution well ahead of its current popularity, and are in many ways responsible for the dissemination of Eastern wisdom in the West.

I have also decided to share my beliefs in reincarnation, God, and whatever else I have found to be true and helpful in this work. I don´t believe in a personal God, but in a divine being with a creative spiritual force. In its transcendent nature, this being can be experienced as a limitless, boundless awareness, which is the view of Buddhism. The Buddha did not believe in a God or a Self, even though he never directly opposed them. Equally, this divine being can also be experienced as a creator, a loving and intelligent deity who triggered the Big Bang and got the universe going – this is how more theistic religions see the divine. I believe that both perspectives can be true on different levels of consciousness.

This book is also an introduction to energy psychology, which looks at life and existence in terms of different energies. Meditation is our primary tool in getting to know and master these energies. The esoteric tradition speaks of seven rays and seven rivers of life, and it would take a life-time to understand these energies and their origin. Here I have made a start.

Finally, I must thank the people who directly contributed to my journey – you know who you are. There is no higher inspiration than the example of those who strive, love and suffer through life in order to liberate a compassionate and free heart.

Kenneth Sørensen, Copenhagen, 2017

Who is Meditating and Why Meditate?

"I’d been meditating for five hours, only interrupted by a ten-minute interval. My focus was on observing the content of my consciousness. Nothing specific was supposed to happen, only to be present in the moment. During the first few hours my mind was filled with a cacophony of impressions, but now a sense of clarity emerged and the many impressions no longer disturbed me. Sitting with this clarity, all thoughts, moods and sensations faded into the background, and it became obvious that only consciousness is real. I am consciousness; an awake and aware space of quiet existence.

"Then the question arose: ‘What would I be without the content of consciousness?’ ‘Nothing,’ was the prompt reply. I recognised the answer yet ... who was asking? Who was choosing to meditate? Who was maintaining the intention to sit and just observe? Who chose to stop the meditation? Who allowed these questions to arise? There is a will somewhere, who always directs energies and awareness, no matter how passive I am. This reflection made it clear to me that as long as I am in a body and have to function in a manifest universe, I must act. Not to act is also an act. Choosing not to act is an act. There is a will inside us that always upholds an intention and it is always active through our choices. This means choosing presence, a thought, a feeling, a physical act. What is this force?

Who is it? ... This question was too interesting not to pursue, so the focus of my meditation shifted character, something in me made this choice, and my journey changed."

In 2003 a new chapter in my life began. I started my own business offering astrology consultations, coaching and courses in spirituality. I also decided to start my training as a Psychosynthesis psychotherapist due to a deep dissatisfaction with myself and the esoteric milieu I was part of. Despite a regular practice of meditation and contemplation I experienced a lack of ability to walk the talk in respect to the lofty ideas I was preaching. I decided to go back to the drawing board, and to psychotherapy. I had thought I could starve my appetites and problems by not feeding them with attention, but I was wrong.

During my esoteric studies I had frequently come across the work of Roberto Assagioli (1888-1974), and was well aware of his close association with Alice Bailey. His writings were published in Bailey’s magazine The Beacon; however, it was his book The Act of Will that piqued my interest. The book influenced me greatly, and stands as one of the best presentations of the will I’ve read. Delving into the studies of Psychosynthesis felt to me like coming home. His psychological model contained all that I needed to reach out to a wider audience with my teaching.

Three perspectives in Psychosynthesis especially resonated. The first is Assagioli’s definition of the self as a centre of pure self-awareness and will; next was his idea about subpersonalities; and, lastly, his extensive exploration of the act of will. I was already familiar with the experience of being the observer of my inner world, and here was a psychological model that greatly emphasised this aspect of meditation.

Assagioli argues that our true identity is pure self-awareness and will. Decades before Eckhart Tolle was speaking of the Power of Now, Assagioli was pioneering a psychology that had a vision of the Self as pure consciousness. The global mindfulness movement we see today has the aim of awakening meditators to themselves as consciousness itself. This awakening will change the world; it will liberate the individual from egocentric attachments and prepare her for the experience of unity and oneness. Through the individual, the World Soul is awakening to itself as consciousness. This awakening has many stages, which I explore in this book. Roberto Assagioli also provides us with techniques that help greatly with this process.

According to Assagioli we must integrate and harmonise our entire personality around the self. It was a revelation for me to see how the Eastern concept of the Self could be applied within psychotherapy practice with such skill and wisdom. I was impressed with Assagioli’s self-identification exercise: We are not our thoughts, emotions or body, but the observing and acting witness behind these instruments of action. This is pure yoga, and I was not surprised to discover that Assagioli wrote the foreword to the Italian edition of Alice Bailey’s commentary on Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. It also changed my meditation practice. Whereas I had previously focused on visualisation and the contemplation of seed thoughts, I was now deeply motivated to observe consciousness itself.

In meditation I entered a place of total silence, wakefulness and peace. The sense of I-ness felt uniquely authentic. My journey with meditation changed and a completely new world opened up.

When we start experiencing the transcendent nature of our being, we need a language and certain perspectives in order to grasp its meaning. This is particularly relevant to the question of identity regarding who we are in essence. Without a good map, we can easily become lost in our inner world. Meditation is in essence an inquiry into our true identity, and a practice that can help us to manifest that identity.

I would like to describe some key perspectives that grew out of my personal experience, and the sources that helped to inspire these perspectives. Let’s start with three key questions:

Who meditates?

Why do we meditate?

What is spirituality?

These questions are profoundly existential in nature and cannot be easily answered. I will give a short introduction to each question in this chapter, and continue with the inquiry in subsequent chapters.

What is Meditation?

Let me begin by proposing a definition of meditation:

To be awake and present in the here and now

To focus our mind on an object

These definitions relate to two different types of meditation, both of which can create many positive changes in our character and, consequently, in our environment. The effects of meditation are physical and psychological, as well as spiritual.

Meditation can be of great benefit to the physical body, as documented in recent research, particularly regarding mindfulness. Meditation aids the development of our personality by enabling new psychological qualities such as courage, love and endurance to emerge. Also, meditation can have a spiritualising effect by expanding our consciousness from the individual to the universal, which can be experienced as unconditional love and a sense of communion with all of nature and humanity. Such experiences can offer deep insights into the mysteries of life, as well as providing artistic, scientific and ethical inspirations; the various effects depend on the focus of the meditation. While in a state of expanded awareness, we can gain insights into the meaning and purpose of our lives.

Thetwo different types of meditation represent an activeand a passive approach, and working with these we can further identify seven ways of meditation and seven paths of Self-realisation. The foundation for this philosophy is the teaching of the seven rays. According to discoveries within quantum physics, everything is energy – but some esoteric spiritual traditions argue that this energy can be divided into seven different colours or frequencies. The main objective of this book is to explore the seven rays and how to work with them.

In passive meditation we focus on the source of consciousness itself. This is often called awareness-based meditation or mindfulness. Practising this type of meditation we can experience consciousness without form, and pure awareness of our identity without thought, emotions or sensations. The practice is about letting go of all content to observe the source of consciousness itself. This can give us a sense of inner peace, a detached freedom, and clarity. The practice expands our consciousness from a separate ego identity to a wider universal presence. During these peak experiences, our personal identity stays in the background and a timeless Now enters the mind. The basic version of this practice involves the meditator observing the breath, thoughts and sensations with a neutral attitude in order to relax the body, still the mind and reach a state of inner peace.

In active meditation we focus on creating specific changes in the personality as part of a process of purification. This practice will eventually enable the expression of Soul consciousness through the refined personality. In this way, the good, the true and the beautiful already inherent in the Soul will manifest in creative ways. This form of meditation is orientated towards the manifestation of our Soul in action.

Another important thing to consider in respect to meditation is the psychological typology of the individual. People are different in their psychological makeup. This variety demands that a whole spectrum of meditation techniques are required to suit the particular spiritual type of the meditator. Such a holistic approach to meditation is integral: it takes into account all individual, cultural and social dimensions of life, and includes all levels of an individual from body, mind to Soul and Spirit. To illuminate this integral perspective is one of the main objectives of this book.

Meditation is also energy work. Meditation can foster an ability to master the energies that make up who we are. Energy work is a science developed by various yogic traditions over the centuries. Everything is energy, and when we realise we live in a cosmic sea of energies we better understand that spiritual realisation is a tremendous task. We live, move and have our being within this cosmic sea, and it is only through the exploration and manifestation of this sea that we can discover our inner greatness. This perspective lies at the heart of the new energy psychology, which is based on the philosophy of the seven rays or the seven rivers of life. We can master the seven rays when we understand their qualities, and integral meditation can help in this task.

In essence integral meditation concerns:

The seven rivers of life and their ray qualities.

The seven ways of meditation and their paths to freedom.

The seven levels of consciousness, from body, through mind, to Soul and Spirit.

Five integral life practices.

The fruit of this approach emerges in the sphere of I, We and It, ie in the domains of the individual, the cultural and the physical world we inhabit.

In the following chapters, I will offer an overview of the seven energies, ways and levels. I will introduce the reader to the new energy psychology and show how it can serve as a practical guide to meditation and life.

Today, meditation is often taught with a focus on its benefits to our physical and mental health, but this comprises only the basement of an individual’s inner house, and meditation can benefit the entire house, which leads us to the next of our questions.

Who Meditates?

This is the ultimate question we can ask, and it is the aim of meditation to answer it. It is a question that points directly to the Self and our experience of being in a continual process of development. I will offer a couple of perspectives here but, from an existential point of view, it is important to note that the answer cannot be known intellectually, only experienced.

When we start to meditate, we will typically be confused because we have not yet developed a centre from which to facilitate meditation. Our focus in life is so much on the external world that a conscious exploration of our inner world is an unusual and extremely difficult task to undertake. Sensations in the body, psychological states and outside disturbances occupy our consciousness, and reaching inner clarity sometimes feels like an impossible task. Even when we are able to observe the content of our consciousness, it is difficult to find meaning amid the continuous flow of thoughts and sensations that grab our attention. At this stage, we have yet to learn how to discriminate between pure consciousness and the content we project onto the inner screen of our mind.

It is not easy to grasp the full picture and nature of our identity. Let us therefore enter the laboratory of consciousness and investigate some of the many functions and parts of consciousness that are active when we have a spiritual experience.

Consciousness and Awareness

Let’s use the movie theatre as a metaphor: When we experience the content of our consciousness, we encounter it as an inner movie, or what is called the stream of consciousness. We get caught up in identifying who we are with this stream of voices, feelings, images and sensations while failing to realise that who we are is actually the light that projects the images onto the screen. This light is consciousness itself, or what Assagioli calls the centre of pure self-awareness. It is the wakefulness and awareness of the individual, the inner space where all objects of consciousness become visible.

It is self-evident that something inside us is self-aware. This is the subject, the sense of I-am-ness, the experience of being alive and conscious. We call this centre of consciousness the self, and its primary function is to be self-aware.

We cannot observe consciousness itself because the eye cannot observe itself, but it is something we can become aware of, become present in and awake to. Consciousness itself is neutral, like white light, and always carries the quality of purity. Many Eastern traditions state that from an existential point of view this light is our identity: we will always be this silent, never changing and static reality – it will always be the same, an eternal and imperishable ground of conscious being. The light is likened to a silent wakefulness out of