A Vision to Build a More Enlightened and Compassionate Humanity
Updated: 20 hours ago
Meditation is the ancient science of Spiritual Approach - it is ‘smart spiritual technology’ at its most refined. The daily practice of meditation helps build a resonant bridge of connectivity with our Higher Self, so that its guiding influence can inform and direct our daily lives. Meditation connects with and activates our power of intuition to access the wisdom of the Soul.
However, meditation is not just a tool of communication with these ‘inner realms’, it is also an advanced technology for creating a new future together. The focused combined use of the group heart and mind is a powerful agent for imagining and shaping new ideas that form the spiritual architecture for building a better future based on universal principles that benefit all life. This is the core work of Meditation Mount.
As we enter this autumn season, we wanted to take a moment to pause, reflect on and share with you the rich and abundant history of the Mount…
A Brief Overview of our History:
In 1950, Dr. Roberto Assagioli, founder of the spiritual psychology ‘Psychosynthesis,’ and direct student of the Master Djwhal Khul (DK), took on an assignment to promote Creative Meditation and the six Universal Spiritual Pathways and Principles to help establish the architecture of a new world. After several years of searching for suitable co-workers, Dr. Assagioli met up with Michal Eastcott and Nancy Magor from Sundial House, a spiritual center in the south of England. Together they gathered a larger group of students who took on the role of expanding Creative Meditation and the Universal Spiritual Pathways and Principles around the world. One of these students was an American citizen, Florence Garrigue.
After retiring in 1943, Florence moved to New York to join the Arcane School, an institution for esoteric studies founded by Alice A. Bailey who was also a student of the Master DK. After ten years there, Florence and a group of friends started the School for Esoteric Studies in New York which is still active. She then became a member of the small informal group of individuals from several countries who met at Sundial House in England with Dr. Roberto Assagioli for the purpose of fostering group meditation to benefit the world.
Dr. Assagioli compiled a Creative Meditation course that was taught via booklets distributed through the mail every two months. They included a three and ten-year course, which can be accessed on our website at: https://www.meditationmount.org/study-courses
Florence was asked by Dr. Roberto Assagioli to set up a center in the USA and so, in 1962, she established Meditation Groups, Inc. as a legal entity in Connecticut.
The Ojai Valley is the ancestral homeland of the Chumash people, whose communities continue here today. The Ageless Wisdom teachings spoke of an area in Southern California that would be set aside as a place where a new way of life could be demonstrated through collaboration, Right Human Relations and Group Endeavor. In the 1920s, Annie Besant understood this vision and bought several pieces of land in the Ojai Valley to help fulfill this dream of a better future.
Florence Garrigue, approaching her 80th birthday, was guided to the Ojai Valley and arrived in 1968 to establish a center for Meditation Groups, Inc., with the physical location now known as “Meditation Mount”. After finding the initial benefactor and arranging financing for the project with generous gifts from the people who believed in the work of the organization, Florence selected the site at the East end of the valley. She worked closely with Ojai architect Zelma Wilson in planning the beautiful Tibetan–style buildings, and Grant Castleberg, of Santa Barbara, who served as the landscape architect for the center.
The Meditation Mount facilities were completed in April of 1971, and in the more than fifty years since, Meditation Mount has served as an educational center offering spiritual programs that enhance the awakening of the human Soul in all aspects of social endeavor. At the heart of this work are Group Creative Meditation and the Monthly Full Moon Meditations, which continue to be an important part of the Mount’s rhythm. Each focusing on the embodiment of the Universal Spiritual Pathways and Principles as a cornerstone to build a more enlightened and compassionate humanity.
A Brief Overview of Creative Meditation:
Meditation Mount is part of a growing global network of groups and individuals who practice meditation as a service to humanity and the world. Our commitment is to make the power of creative meditation available to people of all ages and backgrounds.
Creative Meditation is the toolbox of methods and techniques we use to help build a shared and preferred future. This meditation practice is a way of bringing dreams and ideas into practical forms that serve the needs of our world. As we meditate together in service to the greater good, our own personal growth unfolds naturally.
The Creative Meditation toolbox of methods and techniques contains:
Concentration - the practice of coming into resonance with the heart and mind through an act of focused stillness.
Reflective Meditation - the holding of a seed thought that allows us to pierce to the core of meaning through the agency of the higher mind.
Receptive Meditation - includes, inner silence, contemplation and awakening of the intuition.
Imagination - the process of taking an idea or an ideal from the inner realms and propelling it into ‘formal’ action. This is done primarily through visualization.
Affirmation - utilizing the will to reinforce either an already existing vision or a new desired future reality.
Invocation/Evocation - the synthesized action of our whole being to “call down” something higher (invocation) and the response from above to this demand (evocation).
Telepathic Radiation and Blessing - the act of giving out what we have received in service and blessing to our world.
The Ageless Wisdom teaching states that, “energy follows thought” and so through the power of a focused mind and a compassionate heart, we are a potent force for good in the world. Group meditations have the ability to positively charge and change the spiritual and psychological climate – creating optimal conditions in which new possibilities may be born.
Through the practice of Creative Meditation, we transmit energies and qualities into the subtle realms that surround the Earth so that the ‘spiritual bio-sphere’ may be infused with seed-ideas of new possibilities that help our deepest aspirations to be realized and manifested.
Creative Meditation is the art and science of creating complete ‘living thought forms’ that are beneficial to all life. These thought-forms are the magnetic seed ideas of new possibilities made up of a balanced fusion of thought, feeling, imagination and will.
We plant these magnetized seeds into this fertile field of the heart, so that the harvest of our labors can benefit humanity on two levels: on the inner level as telepathic radiation (or blessing) and in the outer world, as concrete manifestations which are the outer effects of the inner work.
If Creative Meditation is the toolbox, then the Pathways and Principles are the building materials needed to construct a solid foundation upon which to shape a better world for all.
The Pathway of Spiritual Approach leads to the Principle of Essential Divinity
The Pathway of Right Human Relations leads to the Principle of Goodwill
The Pathway Group Endeavor leads to the Principle of Unanimity
Through Creative Meditation we meditate on and seek to embody these living Pathways and Principles as a practical act of service to birth a new global reality.
We invite you to participate in this Group Endeavor with us! We warmly welcome you to visit us in person for one of our workshops, retreats, educational programs, or Sanctuary Hours to pause and reflect. Please refer to our calendar to view our upcoming offerings. For those of you looking to connect with us in the digital space, our website has an abundance of resources for you to read and listen to, including online courses. If you feel inspired to learn more about Creative Meditation, or the Universal Pathways and Principles, we have informational videos and online meditations for you to explore and experience. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for updates on our upcoming in person, and online, offerings, along with brief messages of hope and inspiration.
We look forward to your unique presence as we come together in planetary service to build a more enlightened and compassionate world!
-The Mount Stewardship Team
