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The Light of the "I"

Guidelines for Meditation

Paperback
September 2008
9781584200598
More details
  • Publisher
    Lindisfarne Books
  • Published
    15th September 2008
  • ISBN 9781584200598
  • Language English
  • Pages 68 pp.
$12.00

This remarkable short guide to meditation is the fruit of many years of meditative experience as well as thirty years of teaching meditation. Through exercises and meditation sentences it delineates an accessible, systematic process of inner work by which a person can come to experience both the “I,” or Self, and the miraculous nature of that Light that, as inner Light, we call attention.

Beginning with simple meditation sentences that illuminate the role of attention in perception, the person wishing to take this path is led gradually to the reality and experience of form-free attention.

Kühlewind offers-step-by step guidance in concentration exercises, sentence meditations, visualizations (image or symbol meditations), and perceptual meditations for guidance on the path. He also offers advice and help with the difficulties and problems that can arise.

Each stage of the path—in itself and in relation to the whole sequence—is presented in a way to be understood through meditative thinking. Deepened in this way, it becomes, as well, a work of philosophy—but philosophy understood as a transformative way of life, an inner path

“This concise little book summarizes forty years of research on the nature and power of human attention. In a direct style, as though thinking out loud, Kühlewind shares a sequence of original exercises of his own devising and offers practical tips on technique, embedding it all in characteristically succinct epistemological remarks. I recommend this generous, instructive book to anyone who wants to begin meditating and also to those who want to refresh their existing practice.”

Gertrude Reif Hughes Professor Emerita of English and Women's Studies at Wesleyan University, author of Emerson's Demanding Optimism, a lifelong student of Anthroposophy, and a meditation teacher

“Georg Kühlewind has and continues to be a central formative being in the work of spiritual psychology and my own individual meditative practices as well. The work of our school relies centrally on developing inner attentiveness. His practices for developing capacities for doing so are, in my estimation, Kühlewind’s most important contribution. You can never go wrong with Kühlewind. The other major contribution that I utilize in all meditative work is his understanding and very helpful practices concerning the “soft will.” No one better, anywhere.”

Robert Sardello, Co-director of The School of Spiritual Psychology and author of Love and the World and Silence

C O N T E N T S:

Introduction by Christopher Bamford
Foreword

What are we looking for?
Exercises
Meditation
A Personal Afterword
A Meditation

Further Reading

Georg Kühlewind

Georg Kühlewind (1924–2006) was a Hungarian philosopher, writer, lecturer, and meditation teacher who worked from the tradition of Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual science. Setting aside his early interest in music and psychology, he pursued a successful professional career as a physical chemist. Meanwhile, he continued to deepen his spiritual practice and insights. A prolific author (most of whose works are still only in German), Georg Kühlewind spent much time traveling the world, lecturing and leading workshops and seminars in meditation, psychology, epistemology, child development, anthroposophy, and esoteric Christianity. He was the author of numerous books. Kühlewind died January 15, 2006 at the age of 83.