At face value, meditation is a mental health tool. Some view it as new age fluff, as a pseudoscientific fad, or as the ignorance of bliss. Others think the discipline has a superiority complex. But meditation is a dark horse. A few of the largest businesses in the world at the time of this writing have meditation programs in the workplace. It's in the background of many of the greatest inventions in history. And it's in the background of the wealth of golden ages. Through this podcast, we're looking past the points of view of meditation and are returning it to factory settings. From this central position, we'll push open both gates with a thrust to liberate meditation's full potential and enable it to become as effortless as breathing. Welcome to meditation. I'm Beolti. Earlier I said, meditation is a dark horse. This suggests meditation's potential is far greater than what is captured by common knowledge. It suggests its potential is greater than what most meditation experts understand. In the next few minutes, I'll reveal its potential and I'll make your jaw drop. It might even blow your mind. As we're on the subject of the meta of meditation, let's do this right. I invite you to find a quiet place to sit with your eyes closed. Seriously. This is the only way for you to comprehend the dark horse. If you're busy driving or doing something else, you'll miss it. I suggest sitting tall at the front of a firm armless chair without resting your shoulders on the back. Pause now to get yourself set up. The purpose of closing our eyes is to reduce the number of stimuli that takes our attention away from our focus. The purpose of sitting tall is to put ourselves in a posture that heightens our attention. When we slouch in a chair, we go to a restful state where our attention span shortens towards something like a motion detector. Yes, we can drive a car and listen to a podcast at the same time, but our priority is on the road. If another driver is not paying attention, our motion detector goes on high alert. Otherwise, we're just staying between the lines and driving at the pace of the traffic. It's almost relaxing. There's just no way someone driving can comprehend the depth of what I'm about to share, as well as someone who is sitting with their eyes closed. When we are busy while listening, we tend to agree with what confirms our points of view and disagree with what challenges our points of view. This is because we have no time to reflect. For example, some listeners interpret my patient commentary as proof I have a superiority complex. But when listeners know in their heart I'm talking like this to enable them to comprehend what I'm saying, they have a different perspective. They're noticing I'm enabling them to make up their own minds, to make sure I'm not indoctrinating them with dogma. I'm treating listeners as an equal. When you're sitting with your eyes closed, you've passed through a door to another world. A world where time seems to stand still. When we're unfamiliar with this opportunity to contemplate, it's a little uncomfortable, maybe even intimidating, which discourages us from practicing a form of meditation called contemplation. We tend to disagree with anything that makes us feel uncomfortable, like different points of view. But when we get past this hurdle and embrace contemplation, we learn we can do almost anything we want with this time. This is where innovations happen. If you're an author, this is where your story spreads its wings and soars to incredible destinations. If you're an athlete, this is where you keep injury to an absolute minimum. And where you unlock slices of potential. This is where we find our art forms. This is where we unlock human potential. This is where we find who we were meant to be. Once this level of attention becomes as effortless as breathing, it spills over into our everyday lives, like it used to when we had youthful exuberance. It's good, really good. It's so good that I gave myself a tingling sensation while writing this and repeating it here. Do you feel it? If not, I imagine something like driving a car, or the uncomfortableness I mentioned earlier is preventing you from comprehending the game changer I've just shared. Remember, this is where innovation happens. This is the dark horse. It was made for and exercised by the ruling class. In more modern terms, it's a meditation for influencers, leaders, the affluent, the privileged. I call it a meditation for the elite as it cascades down from them. Most forms of meditation seek to give the everyday person balance in the present moment. The meditation for the elite seeks to enable them to choreograph the results of meditation exercised by the people within their influence. I'll repeat this again to help it digest. This meditation for the elite seeks to enable them to choreograph the results of meditation exercised by the people within their influence. Choreography is what the elite aims to achieve whether they know it or not. Let's understand choreographing the results of meditation. Why didn't I say the results of people? This is something the elite already attempt, though with limited success. It's like organizing a parade. Remember, most people practice meditation to achieve balance in the present moment. When two people are balanced in the present moment, instead of bickering with each other, they are coordinated and achieve greatness, like a pair of Argentine tango dancers. For clarity, Argentine tango is completely improvised. It's a dance for two people where partners and music can be randomly chosen. All we do now is scale this balance across the group of people within our influence. Now, instead of coordinating people within our influence to improvise Argentine tango, we choreograph them to improvise a golden age enjoyed by everyone. A pursuit of anything less is now officially ignorance. Please don't call the elite who are unaware of this ignorant. That's psychological projection. The elite need us to partner with them so that we can all be friends. Anything less is now officially ignorance. In summary, I said choreographing the results of meditation because it's easier to choreograph results than people. For clarity. A golden age is a period when our intellectualism takes a leap forward. The arts flourish, and there is economic prosperity. This meditation for the elite is the only way to achieve a golden age deliberately. All other golden ages were achieved accidentally and came to an end through oppression. This meditative tradition is sophisticated. The elite seek the best of anything. They want the Mona Lisa of meditation, the Rolls-Royce of meditation, the lost art of meditation. They have no time for anything less than the best. They don't expect to levitate or be blissful like they're high on exotic drugs. Those are ideas from people who've misinterpreted meditation. They want pure meditation. They want the experience that is like being a passenger of a fighter jet, where the pilot says something like the following. Do you feel it? That vibration is letting us know we're nearing the bleeding edge of the jet's engineering. If I increase our speed slowly, the vibration might disappear. Or it will intensify. The jet will warp ever so slightly and influence our trajectory like if it's pulling the joystick. This is the data I share with the engineers to enable them to make the jet better. Would you like to go a little faster? Yes. This is this type of meditation. It enables us to go where no one has gone before and come back to tell the tale. It's patient and calculated at the limits of our potential. It never wants to do what others are unsure of, as that's gambling, no matter how self-assured some might appear. This meditation is a sophisticated synchronization of two meditative traditions that have since started functioning independently around eight hundred years ago. I call this pairing meditation to encourage the synchronization to return. I'll describe it in transparent detail in the next episode. Plus, the first four episodes of this podcast will modernize it so that the elite can practice it again and unlock widespread human potential. This will help you to not fall into a trance where you stop thinking. I suggest using a journal to deepen the experience. This is the perfect time to let you know that when you've been sitting with your eyes closed, you have been experiencing a form of meditation called a visualization. When your eyes are closed, you are an active participant. You're thinking he's right. Sitting with your eyes closed is the only way to give 100% attention. When you're doing something else like driving a car, you're in listener mode. You don't have time to think as deeply as someone who is sitting with their eyes closed. You either reject what I'm saying, or you're listening like you're looking at the facade of a building. Through this visualization, we've done some dancing. We flew in a jet, and for the people who are listening with their eyes closed, I've been sprucing up their minds to be like a Zen garden. Visualization is like a sensory deprivation tank, where what I describe is as immersive as wearing virtual reality goggles, but better. By engaging in a visualization, you're experiencing something you cannot possibly appreciate if you are listening while doing something else, like exercising or organizing your watch collection. When you're busy doing something else, it's like you're overhearing a conversation at the next table. When you're sitting with your eyes closed, we're like two kids under a blanket with a flashlight looking at a comic book together. We're immersed in the experience together. Soon we'll become like we're two scientists working through a problem together. You're catching the finer details of my commentary, which enriches the experience. The reason why we sit tall is the same reason why we don't stand and close our eyes. Stand and close your eyes now, as I'll demonstrate something important. Do you notice your body is making small balance corrections every few seconds? This distracts our attention. We're lucky if we can sustain our attention when we have distractions. Return to sitting. By sitting tall in a quiet room with our eyes closed, our attention receives the fewest distractions. If you sit in a chair that wobbles, find a stable chair. Don't let the wobble steal your attention. Laying down is better than standing, though just a touch of tiredness might send you to sleep. Walking or running are good options, as the rhythm can help us get in the zone. Sitting or kneeling on the ground are just as good, though I'll have a tough time coaching you to maintain comfort. For as long as sitting in a chair. We'll now shift our attention to meditation's origin story. Because when we seriously understand how it became a phenomenon, we stop crossing our fingers. I'm presenting meditation's origin story like we're engaged in forensic science. Like two wine glasses on a coffee table, side by side, tells a different story than two wine glasses on opposite ends of a coffee table. One suggests intimacy and the other suggests conversation. If I just told you the history, my commentary would be indistinguishable from indoctrination. Even when the information is one hundred percent true, without presenting it as forensic science, it turns off our ability to think for ourselves, which only encourages us to accept anything we hear as dogma. The forensic science approach enables us to know how the pieces of the puzzle fit together. Then we'll have insights into meditation that are difficult to put into words. The word meditation itself has Latin roots. It derives from the Latin word meditatum, meaning to ponder. Northern India and its neighbors to the West also pondered, though they also created technical and granular levels of meditation. Pondering is meditating on anything or on something specific, like a visualization. If I asked you to listen to the first four episodes of this podcast every week for a year, this would turn it into a technical meditation, like transcendental meditation. Meditating on a mantra is an example of a granular level of meditation. It's a form of meditation on the smallest unit of concentration. As the word meditation has Latin roots and applies well to Eastern traditions, the ancient Athenians also engaged in meditation. It just never emerged into a phenomenon like it did in Asia. Marcus Aurelius, one of Rome's greatest emperors, had a personal journal never intended for publication. In the sixteen hundreds, it was published under the title Meditations. In this work, he had the following core tenets that guided his leadership. I cannot control external events, but I have the absolute control over how I interpret and react to them. I accept fate in the natural order of the universe, as this enables me to embrace change rather than enforcing stagnation. I benefit most when I constantly remind myself to act justly, be of service to humanity, and resist the corruption of absolute power. I frequently remind myself of the transient nature of life, to stay humble and focus on what truly matters in the present moment. I'd love to share more, though we're drifting away from the origin story. Let's get back on track. One of the world's first narrative texts discussed meditation three thousand five hundred years ago. The collection of works was written in modern day Pakistan, and it was called the Vedas. Those who wrote the Vedas catalogue the wisdom they had preserved previously through oral traditions. Before the Vedas, and still in Pakistan, a five thousand-year-old seal was found, which shows a person intentionally sitting. This person is dressed regally, which might suggest the image honors an individual instead of being a symbol of meditation. Yet, as this person is not standing or sitting in a chair, we could propose that this person was honored for having successfully used meditation for benefiting the community, like a wise person. This is the earliest evidence of meditation experts have given us, though it doesn't give us the motive that made meditation a phenomenon. We only have conjecture at this time. In other words, we don't know whether meditation was the ignorance of bliss or it served a useful purpose. If meditation was the ignorance of bliss, it's the longest running fad of all time, which is inconceivable. To find the answer, we need to propose a purpose, an ambitious purpose, and see if there is something that adds credibility to this theory. Let's propose meditation unlocks human potential, serious human potential, not like levitation, because that's supernatural. I mean something like Albert Einstein human potential. The kind of potential that makes some outsiders say people who meditate have a superiority complex. The kind of potential that makes people realize they themselves held a bias that locked up their potential. Five thousand years ago, there was a mass-produced motif that was widespread throughout the region between Pakistan, Egypt, and Turkey. Plus, it was in widespread use for almost eight thousand years. As this motif was this ubiquitous, it's conceivable that it was something people meditated upon. This motif is called the master of animals. Feel free to pause now to look it up. Let's not get distracted by what the motif is called. This name was coined in the eighteen hundreds during the time when people would put wild animals on display in unsuitably small cages. This name clearly captures psychological projection. In other words, what people call the motif cannot be used for the basis of forensic science. Doing so is what we call willful indoctrination. The motif is of an image of a person between a pair of animals, like two large cats, two snakes, and two geese. The pair of animals is an important feature. If the animals were different, it's more likely to suggest mastery over animals. As it's routinely a pair of animals, the pairing means something. Symmetry is one possible reason for the pairing. If this is true, then the pairing conveys harmony. It says the person with the pair of animals has found harmony. We now need to know why a pair of animals were used instead of a pair of flowers or a pair of trees. When I first saw the image, I saw a metaphor for a mediator between different points of view. I've seen many nature documentaries of animals fighting for dominance, like rams' budding heads. Close to home, I've seen geese, squirrels, chipmunks, and who knows what else fighting for dominance. As a child, I had two cats, and once in a while they fought each other. I unfortunately also bicker once in a while with the woman I love. It couldn't be more obvious to me that this is what the motif means. Yet don't take my word for it. That's indoctrination. Try to break this theory by testing alternative points of view. For example, if we think the motif means master of animals, explain why farming and the domestication of animals wasn't enough to make the motif redundant, like blueprints for a building become archived once the building is built. When this motif encourages people to be a mediator between contrasting points of view, it would explain how meditation turned into a phenomenon and led to the first stable urban centers. If it were up to me, I'd call this motif the Master of Reconciliation. Visualization is a form of meditation used to convey wisdom, like the forensic science you've just experienced with meditation's origin story. Visualization is used to build a reliable foundation to a protege's understanding. When a protege builds enough of a foundation through visualization, they become mentors themselves, and then that wisdom acquires a life of its own, like common knowledge. As the wisdom is freely floating from one person to another, if wisdom contains a bias, time will eventually free the wisdom from the bias. Anything documented, like this podcast, can lock in a bias. If the bias is reinforced through oppression, it'll take far more time for the wisdom to become free of the bias. Like dictionaries, preserving words with negative meanings. They indoctrinate us to stay divided. Words with negative meanings express psychological projection. Psychological projection is an unconscious defense mechanism where a person attributes their own unacceptable or uncomfortable thoughts, feelings, and impulses onto someone else. Think of the word stupid. If I were to call someone stupid, it's a clear indicator that I've stopped trying to understand the other person's point of view. I've stopped trying to be a friend. I've chosen to gaslight someone instead, which is a stupid thing to do. Words with negative meanings are best suited to be moved into an appendix of the dictionary titled Psychological Projection Words. Visualizations were essential for the ruling class. The ruling class that used visualizations kept up with the changing times and enabled prosperity to continue for generations. Rulers who didn't meditate took the path of stagnation and oppression, which implodes sooner than later with incredible reliability. Elders from thousands of years ago would achieve a similar effect at night as a shared wisdom with others lounging around a campfire. Keeping our sensory perceptions to a minimum enables us to absorb wisdom far more efficiently. Plus, it teaches us patience, which is useful for when it comes time to apply the wisdom we have learned. When we are busy doing something else while listening, we encourage ourselves to be impatient when it comes time to apply ourselves. And when we are impatient, we handicap human potential. This is when we sit with our eyes closed and process or invent something new to ourselves and maybe the world. For example, when each section of this episode is complete, you can sit with your eyes closed and contemplate what you've heard. Contemplating is something our ancestors were skilled at because they didn't have the modern conveniences of literacy and copying and pasting. Throughout most of our history, the skill of contemplation has been hovering near one percent application. Most of us are as skilled at contemplation as most of us are skilled at juggling three balls. We're lucky if we can contemplate for more than a minute at a time. I have every reason to believe the skill of contemplation flourished when the master of reconciliation motif was mass-produced. This skill gave us the wheel. Think about that. Imagine it is five thousand years ago, and you're carrying something heavy while seeing someone else using a cart with wheels. It takes contemplation to make a step change in our lives. This period of our history gave us agriculture, standardized weights and measures, the Egyptian pyramids, and much more. They also gave us writing, which I consider to be the greatest invention of all time. Language developed serendipitously. The wheel was coincidental. Writing, on the other hand, was a deliberate invention to store wisdom in something other than ourselves. Interestingly, there was a time in our history when the skill of contemplation emerged a second time and created widespread prosperity. By my count, it created a combined sixty-five centuries of golden ages throughout Asia. I'll share with you in the next episode. I imagine you are familiar with a concept called a know-it-all. When someone knows more than the know-it-all, the know-it-all turns on the witch hunt of crab mentality and tells them they're wrong. They've forgotten one of the most important proverbs of all time. Actions speak louder than words. To demonstrate you understand, actions speak louder than words. Use forethought before any mentions of this podcast through social media. Please. No promotions of this podcast. People don't know this meditative tradition well enough to start virtue signaling. Feel free to let people know you think this podcast is worth checking out. If you disagree with this podcast, you are welcome to state your perspective on social media. Just don't take the path of defaming my character. Let's show the world how to have friendly and constructive conversations on the world stage. Thank you for listening. Please also visit meditation.ca. That's M-E-T-A-T.ca. For programs for the elite and for the genuinely ambitious people who seek to serendipitously contribute to the whole. Like those with an interest to lead our face-to-face meditation programs in cities near you. In the words of Michael Natye, this will take time, but there is order here. Very faint, very human. Whatever you do, do it with compassion.