Author's Corner- Interview with Martin Faulks Discussing Enlightened Living

AUTHOR’S CORNER

FALCON BOOKS INTERVIEWS

EXPLORING LITERATURE

With Martin Faulks

Discussing: Enlightened Living

Author’s Corner is a platform to explore literature ranging from esoteric to historical works. offering the opportunity for authors to discuss their titles in their own words, to go behind the veil of their thoughts.

Presenting today Martin Faulks discussing his latest title, Enlightened Living and finding out more what lies behind this intriguing book.

Martin is known internationally as a meditation master, adventurer, spiritual warrior and author. Martin’s years of discipline and dedication to daily meditation practice have led to mundane and spiritual achievements. His demonstrations of mind over matter using the power of meditation brought international attention which was documented in the press (2012). Such skills include altering his body temperature, changing the binary waves in brain function, and retention of breath under water. Thus highlighting the potential of ancient mind sciences for healing, health, spirituality and self-development.

Martin also runs a Hermetic Meditation school, Seshen School of Hermetic Meditation You can also find him on Facebook, Youtube and his Website.

A cordial welcome from Falcon Books Publishing. Thank you for taking the time to answer these questions.

I thought I would begin with a quote from Enlightened Living explaining the definition of this state:

“In a world with so much confusion, where people naturally drift from their goals and are pulled around by their emotions, someone who had gained the ability to keep a clear focus stood out. They were able to stay on target in every moment. This person was truly connected with the world in a harmonious way and in every action expressed their highest potential. To the enlightened person, every moment was a moment of joyous improvement.”

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Falcon Books: I wonder if you could tell us a bit more about your background and what inspired you to write a book on “Enlightened Living”?

Martin Faulks: My life has been fully dedicated to the Hermetic Path. So much so that from my teenage years I have very much put my training first in life. My meditation taking a position above all other things.

I once had the great honour of attending a retreat under the tuition of a Zen master. During this time, I noticed something very interesting. I noticed that during our meditation practice my mind was in perfect focus and my discipline was unshakable, but when I was undertaking work for the temple none of these qualities shone through in quite the same way. In daily life, the monks were far more detailed, meticulous and on target than I was. In Zen training, you get private time with your teacher each day to talk about your thoughts and challenges. In my next session, I asked how I could bring the excellence from my meditation into daily life.

The Rōshi answered instantly,

“That’s easy, just focus fully on one thing at a time”.

It’s hard to fully communicate the feel of the response, but it was a breakthrough moment for me. From this very simple, to the point answer a series of different insights hit me at once and a change started to take place that took many years to fully manifest.

I realised I was allowing myself to not express my full potential during my everyday life. His answer was, of course, an exact definition of meditation. So the trick to life was to make each moment a meditation? Somehow I had been making a dividing line between my life and practice, learning and evolving with full awareness when engaged in spiritual practice, but finding a way of playing a role of a less capable person in day to day life. This book contains the insights that followed allowing me to let go of this role and to bring into being an evolution into every moment of life, and life into every breath.

2. Falcon Books:

In the distant past, these techniques were viewed as a means of training our consciousness for everyday life. The practitioner would use their practice time to sit in meditation and to create the qualities that would allow them to reach their full potential in daily life. These vibrations created in the consciousness would naturally pass over into their everyday thinking. The practitioner would consciously apply the skills gained whilst training and carefully assess which techniques were working, then make the necessary changes to their practice based on their everyday interaction with the world. Their goal was to create a constant state of mind that was imbued with awareness, compassion, dedicated purpose and ability to learn. This ongoing sense of improvement came to be known as ‘enlightenment.’

Enlightened Living(Second Edition)

I wonder if there are any references that you could cite within the ancient Hermetic texts that refer to this kind of training?

Martin Faulks: The most popular works in the modern day focus on learning rituals or special methods to gain spiritual powers. The focus is on magical techniques or knowledge of the occult arts. The idea focused on knowing the right word, the correct incense or corresponding stone, herb or symbol to bring about the effect you wish for. Magic is something that you can catch and harness to your own ends.

If we look at any of the original texts of the Western tradition we can see that the focus of the whole path was on the transformation of the self. The regrowing of the wings of the soul so one could become divine and to have the freedom to ascend to the higher realms. The Hermetic works describe the process of the practitioner becoming reborn and changing his or her whole viewpoint on the world. In this process, the soul is literally transformed into a new higher state, in the same way as a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. It’s an evolution that involves the practitioner transforming all that holds them back into what lifts them to higher states. To turn all the vices to virtues. In this tradition magic is something you are. To learn more you can read the following:

The Corpus Hermeticum
The Perfect Discourses
Kore Kosmu
The Golden Verses of Pythagoras
Iamblichus: Theurgia or On the Mysteries of Egypt

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3. Falcon Books:

“……As time passed the idea of enlightenment changed and became distanced from the present. Dreams of a lofty position beyond strife evolved as practitioners wanted themselves to reach a point beyond illness, beyond hardship and most of all beyond effort. Everyday life became secondary to the practice itself. Practitioners focused on improving their meditation skills and cut out other aspects of life in order to focus better on these arts, rather than practicing meditation in order to master life. “

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As we can understand from the above quote it appears as though our understanding of enlightened living has shifted onto relying on methods rather than the practice in our waking day. What steps would you suggest to the reader in redressing this imbalance?

Martin Faulks: Make sure you fully embrace every moment as a chance to express your full potential. Many people put off potential positive expressions of self until the future. Enlightenment is not in years of meditation or in some special formula, it’s in this moment, doing what you are doing now fully and honestly.

4. Falcon Books: What advice would you offer to someone who is in a very difficult life situation (For example, an unemployed stressed single mother of 3 young children trying to make ends meet) to assist them in living out these enlightened principles.?

Martin Faulks: Have you ever noticed how parents often see things in a different way after they have children? Sometimes you can see the wonder of their own childhood return as they help guide their offspring and show them the wonders of the world. Children give parents a chance to view the world anew, to do things with them, to be playful and to explore the world. The role of mother and the path of self-realisation can be one. As the children grow in awareness every day, so can they. My advice would be the same as with anyone, make small changes and be kind to yourself. It is important to only build on what you have managed to establish as a new way of being for you. Evolution takes time and should be in gentle steps, just as it takes time for a child to grow and thrive.

5. Falcon Books: I wonder if you could explain the difference, between the concept of “enlightenment” and “enlightened living”?

Martin Faulks: Often with concepts like enlightenment we can find ourselves imagining this as a perfect state in the future. Dreaming of a time when a dramatic transformation will take place whereby from that very moment we will be able to see things exactly how they are, and effortlessly and skillfully manifest our will. This is a beautiful vision, but let us ensure it doesn’t become a barrier that allows you to put off living to your full potential in the now. “Enlightenment” is there for you to embody, in this very moment. If you allow your highest potential to flow through in each act then this is enlightened living.

6. Falcon Books: What benefits do you believe the readers will gain from this book?

Martin Faulks: Most people do the same things every day with no visible improvement. It’s easy in the modern world to turn off and to forget oneself, to function automatically. With the enlightened living approach, your improvements are not limited to your practice time, but occur in all moments. Life and training become one. No moment is underutilised or wasted.

7. Falcon Books: What makes this title unique from other self-development books out there?

Martin Faulks: Most self-development books focus on artificial methods of training. Special practices developed by people or from a specific tradition. This book is different. It’s an approach that goes with the flow and takes the challenges that everyday life supplies. Viewing the world as our ashram, and fully engaging with the lessons the guru we call life is giving us.

8. Falcon Books: What do you feel the most important aspect is to grasp if we are to achieve and pursue this path in our daily life?

Martin Faulks: We need to start to fully engage with all things. To be aware and on target even in small matters. Every word, every action, every moment has value. Our thoughts, words and actions create ripples which are very powerful, let’s use this to bring around good outcomes.

9. Falcon Books: What do you feel society needs right now assist us all in moving forward and creating change for the better?

Martin Faulks: As a race, we need to wake up and learn to put kindness before ambition. At the moment we are all focusing on competing with one another, struggling as if resources are limited and we must fight to get enough for ourselves or our group. If we work together there is enough of everything for everyone.

10. Falcon Books: What is the greatest challenge people face when trying to improve themselves?

Martin Faulks: My teacher used to say to me that the hardest challenge is to take the hidden step. To really dedicate oneself to the path of perfection without hesitance, equivocation, conflict or displacement activity. To stop studying it or just thinking about it and to truly embrace walking the path.

11. Falcon Books: Is there anything else you would like to add?

Martin Faulks: If we look at more recent spirituality we can see that in the modern world it is very focused on the inner self – the answers are within you. The focus is on becoming detached, destroying the ego and letting go. Virtue is something in yourself that is seen as coming about through meditation.

Meanwhile, the world around us is very much in need in of help. It’s time for us as a race to put our ideals into action. To stop dreaming, but start making those dreams manifest. To live the philosophy we espouse. To transform ourselves by actually practicing the qualities we wish to cultivate. We need to be the change we want to see.