Dangerous Meditation I:
The Esoteric Pearl of Great Price
Rob Schmidt, Ph.D., Tayu meditation teacher
Original date: Thursday, December 11, 2008

Download MP3 Audio File Here (14.6MB)

The esoteric spiritual practices of the world's great religious traditions have left the confines of monastic cells and huts in remote mountains. Descriptions of esoteric secrets now fill books and can be found on the web. Does that mean there are fewer spiritual secrets left, or none? Instead of lamenting this purported loss, we might prefer to celebrate that the willful obscurantism of false teachers, deployed to snag the unwary, has been thus undermined. Most importantly, we can take comfort in the perennial truth that the "open secret" of genuine practice remains hidden in plain view in our age where information is garbage. While in times past mystics sought the Pearl of Great Price in remote deserts, today the mesmerizing wilderness of contemporary life obscures its gleam. We need training to recognize the nature of the Pearl because it and we are immersed in crap. Yet even with every stolen mystery a mouse-click away, the truth of esoteric practice remains constant: only those initiated into productive, persistent practice are positioned to pluck the Pearl from the grime of illusion consistently and reliably. Join us for the first of two talks discussing what esoteric Truth means in the twenty-first century. These talks serve as prelude to a practice group commencing in January 2009 at Many Rivers.

Rob Schmidt, Ph.D. studied with Tayu Meditation Center founder Robert Daniel Ennis, and succeeded him as Tayu spiritual director. Tayu Center is an esoteric spiritual school with roots in several traditions, but founder Robert Ennis crafted an original and cohesive set of everyday esoteric practices applicable to the conditions of life in the twenty-first century.

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