"The Meditative State"?

When I told a yoga instructor that thoughts arise while I meditate, she replied, "You are not getting into the meditative state." So -

(i) Is there a single "meditative state"?
(ii) Does everyone who meditates aim to get into that "state"?

The answer to (ii) is definitely no. I have never practiced the Maharishi's Transcendental Meditation but I understand that practitioners, using a mantra, get into a peaceful inner state. However, zazen, "just sitting" meditation:

is awareness of natural mental states;
is not no thoughts arising;
thus, incorporates thoughts arising;
can be unpeaceful. 

Therefore, the arising of thoughts is not a failure to meditate. Failure occurs neither when a thought arises nor when it continues naturally but only when it becomes deliberate. A monk said, "There will always be natural thoughts but don't add to them."

It follows that, as I had been told:

when I thought that I was failing to meditate, I was in fact meditating;
much meditation is not what we think of as meditation;
we learn from the thoughts that arise;
when we return our attention to the present moment, that moment includes not only the wall that we see and the cushion that we feel but whatever thought has arisen.

Present Consciousness

Every psychophysical organism is an instrument of present (cosmic self-) consciousness.
Any organism needs some memories to function in the present.
However, many memories are distractions from present awareness.
The first person singular pronoun is essential to memory.

The thought, "I remember...," affirms both the present existence and the temporal endurance of the subject.
"I" means either this organism with its particular history or a present subject transcending history.
Thus, "I should have acted differently then" or "I see that now."
Subjects with different histories meet in the present.

Trinities

The One is.
The Sun gives light and life.
The One sees itself
Through conscious beings
By the light of the Sun.
We are the One,
Revealed by the Sun.

There are similarities and differences between Trinities:

Brahma: Being, Awareness, Bliss or Existence, Knowledge, Joy.
Trimurti: Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva or Creator, Preserver, Destroyer.
Taoist: the Jade Emperor, Lao Tzu, Tao Chun.
Buddhist: the Three Bodies of the Buddha.
Christian: Father, Son, Spirit.
Goddess: Maiden, Mother, Crone.
proposed: One, Sun, Self.

Addendum, 26 Sept '15: I think that "One, Sun, Now" is better.

Being Determines Consciousness

Being determines consciousness. Educators abuse this fact. They try to determine their pupils' lifelong beliefs and values. I was told that I knew that matrimony was a sacrament. Children of American Fundamentalists are told that evolution is a myth.

Young people need to learn that:

each person is born at a particular time and place and in a particular social context;
people with different starting points necessarily have very different beliefs;
anyone could have been taken at birth to be brought up as a Muslim in Pakistan, as a Mormon in Salt Lake City, as a Maoist in China etc;
each of us needs to learn for him or herself;
learning includes understanding alternative points of view.

My mother, an Irish Catholic, did not even understand Anglicanism. Educators need to encourage learning, not propagate beliefs. 

The One And The Sun II

The One sees itself by the light of the Sun.
The One is reality.
The seen world is manifestation.
The Sun is the agent of manifestation.

Each conscious moment can be religious practice.
Gods are personifications.
Temples are foci.
The beyond is here now and within.

Iupiter Optimus Maximus.

Experience, Words And Concepts

We rightly differentiate between experience on the one hand and words and concepts on the other. However, our experience would not be human experience if it did not incorporate words and concepts, if it were not verbally expressible. Knowledge may be concrete and experiential or abstract and conceptual but nevertheless acquisition of experiential knowledge involves application of concepts.

If I consider the consequences of a religious doctrine as I walk into town, then the doctrine is a distraction from immediate manifestations of reality: trees, gardens, the sky etc. Of course, I recognize trees as such because I have a conceptual framework as well as a sensory apparatus. There are perhaps four stages of development:

unconscious organismic sensitivity to environmental alterations;
mere immediate sensory impressions;
non-verbal conceptual frameworks applied by animals to their immediate environments;
human consciousness.

However, the doctrine that is a distraction to me is some people's way of relating to reality. They live rebirth or salvation through Christ. We relate to the eternal in different ways. For human beings, different ways involves different, mutually incompatible, concepts.

Consciousness And Reflection

Consciousness is a process in an organism.
Not in an immaterial soul.
Therefore, it is continually affected by other organic processes.
Most, including early, consciousness is not dispassionate.

Instead, it is motivated by biological processes.
Then by emergent psychological processes.
Psychology is of consciousness.
However, paradoxically, many psychological processes remain or become unconscious.

Momentary individual consciousness contains:
immediate sensory impressions;
memories;
wants and fears;
emotional reactions;
apparently random thoughts caused by unconscious mental processes.

There may also be:
the ability to reflect;
consequences of the practice of reflection.

Levels of being:

inorganic;
unconscious;
conscious;
self-conscious;
self-reflective;
self-realized.

Can society encourage individual reflection?