We each have our own psychological kingdom, but we do not know what is in it. This is what we have to learn: what is in our kingdom? What constitutes our kingdom? Who is in charge of our kingdom? Who sits on the throne? There should be a divine king there: our Innermost, the Magician, the Magi, the king, who should be sitting on that throne, related to the pineal gland, related to the heart, who guides the kingdom according to divine will, divine Law, harmony with the universe, Tao. But, unfortunately, when we sincerely begin to analyze how we behave, we start to see that nobody in the kingdom is listening to the real king. Everybody in the kingdom is listening to a false king, and from circumstances to circumstance, there is a different king on the throne. Sometimes, we follow the commands of King Fear, sometimes, King Envy. Sometimes, we listen to the advice of King Lust, and other times to King Laziness. But since these false kings only want to satisfy themselves, our kingdom is being depleted of wealth, and is becoming more and more in danger of complete failure. We need to restore the rightful king.

To restore the rightful king in our psychological kingdom, we need to know how to recognize him. That is, we need to see clearly who we are dealing with inside. We need to see the face of our psychological state. We can only see that face, if we are strong enough to look in the mirror and clean it. That mirror is the Consciousness, which will reflect the contents of our psyche, if we clean it and use it.

For the mirror of Consciousness to perfectly reflect reality, it has to be cleaned and polished. Self-observation and self-remembering helps; when we activate our Consciousness in this way, we began to “shake the dust off.” But we cannot really clean and polish our psychological mirror through mere self-observation. We polish our inner psychological mirror through Meditation.

Meditation is a state of Consciousness in which the Consciousness is fully awake, bright and alert, perceptive and without filters. Meditation is a natural state of cognizant perception. Meditation is the heart and soul of liberation.

Meditation is not the repetition of a mantra; it is not concentration on any symbol, sound, or image. These are concentration exercises.

Meditation is the pure unobstructed perception of the Consciousness. When the Consciousness is fully awake and free of all conditioning and filters, it sees reality. This is the pure form of Meditation, without any artifice at all.