MEDITATION
An Inquiry into the Self
James Swartz
©1999
1.
MEDITATION
The Joy is Not in the
Object - Meditations Who Am I?
Experience verses Knowledge
The Waker, Dreamer and Deep
Sleeper
A Simple Technique
2.
THE BAD NEWS
The Samskaras - Ego
and the Inner Enemies - Desire
3.
THE PATHS
Action – Knowledge – Meditation -
The Ropes - Diet and Lifestyle
4. THE PATH OF LOVE
Ill-Considered Facts - See God in Everyone -
Love Games - The Goal
5.
FINE POINTS
The Integrated Person - Pure Mind
The Nature of the Self - The Means of Knowledge
Enlightenment Sickness
INTRODUCTION
Meditation is a specialized activity, practised
by a minuscule fraction of the world’s population. Humans have always
meditated, but the science of mind that arose from what must have been a highly
individual endeavor, developed into a comprehensive body of doctrine and
technique before the time of Christ and provided the spiritual root for the
Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Chinese, Buddhist, and Vedic religions. The earliest extant Vedic work, a codification of ideas floating
around for more than two thousand years, one that established meditation on a
‘scientific’ footing and is still the definitive work today, the Patanjali Yoga Sutras, dates from the period just before
the Christian era. Meditation’s techniques evolved experientially,
not from religious belief. The first meditators were dedicated scientists,
exploring the subjective kingdom with the same dispassionate spirit that gave
birth to modern material science.
Doctrines of identity and transcendence distinguish meditation
from religion. The doctrine of identity holds that the Self, the object of
meditation, is directly experiential and therefore knowable as the innermost
being of the meditator. Fulfillment is not to be found in the details of
individuality or in the subjugation of a limited identity to a Divine
Personality, but by identifying with the nameless, formless source of life.
The doctrine of transcendence urges the meditator to go beyond
his or her objective and subjective limitations, the body and mind, and find
fulfillment in Self knowledge. ‘Beyond’ does not indicate a journey
to a distant physical or heavenly state, but refers to the process of
overcoming the limitations imposed on one’s experience by unconscious
conceptions about oneself and the world.
Identity and transcendence need not be taken as beliefs but as
theories verifiable by experiment. The East’s preeminent place in the
spiritual world is directly attributable to the development of a vast body of
technique confirming identity and transcendence.
The tree of meditation is firmly rooted in the spiritual, not
the psychological, sky. The details of a specific existential situation, the
childhood, for example, are not taken to be the direct cause of suffering.
Instead they are seen as a symptom of a pre-existing spiritual ignorance. And,
therapy or not, unless the underlying ignorance is erased by the knowledge
arising from direct contact with one’s source, the Spirit or Self,
suffering continues.
People have always had problems, but neurosis as a cultural
phenomenon was evidently not a major part of ancient life. It seems, however,
to coincide with the decline of religion and the advent of material science.
These changes brought on the industrial revolution and the atomization of life,
initiating the individual into a world...formerly filled with religious and
moral certainties...of tremendous complexity and insecurity.
With religion in decline and science in the ascendant Freud came
on the scene and introduced the idea of therapy which was based on his
remarkable but belated discovery of the Unconscious, the storehouse of
psychological dysfunction. Freud’s somewhat primitive views, which
fortunately have been greatly modified, threatened to become a quasi-scientific
religion for a small percentage of the intelligentsia and dominated the way the
West looked at suffering for the better part of a century. Meditation is not
therapy but has therapeutic benefits because, as the mind empties and calms,
the roots of neurosis are exposed.
Any virtuous soul can practice religion and the general
population can benefit greatly from the plethora of therapies available today,
but meditation is and will always be for the few, not because its view of life
is elitist, but because success depends on qualities not widely distributed in
the general population. Until evidence that the personality is integrated
enough to conduct a serious self inquiry appears, meditation is impossible and
will not lead to Self Realization.
Nonetheless, all attempts to find subjective solutions to
life’s uncertainties should be encouraged. Faithfully practised,
spiritual arts develop a healthy personality. Even uninformed attempts at
meditation are useful, since results are not solely attributable to
qualification and self-effort but to the all-powerful and compassionate
Intelligence that ultimately guides and influences our quests.
The burgeoning international interest in subjective solutions to
the problems facing us encouraged me to write this text. But need alone does not
supply the character and understanding required to solve the riddle of
identity. In fact, the so-called spiritual world suffers from the same decline
in moral and intellectual standards evident in the general population. Because
it has little inclination to study the ancient texts and modern teachers seem
more inclined to pass on imprecise, idiosyncratic and trendy versions of the
ancient wisdom, the need for an accurate and impersonal expression of the
science of Self inquiry is immense. Without a rigorous, clear and comprehensive
understanding of the basic issues, theories and techniques, the subjective
search for happiness is little more than a frustrating, haphazard emotional
pursuit of vaguely defined and largely unattainable goals.
The logic and structure of the ideas presented below...as well
as the ideas themselves...are drawn from humankind’s vast store of
eternal wisdom and should not be thought to belong to a particular individual
or culture. That their flavor is decidedly Vedic is a consequence of the fact
that my personal quest, by no fault of my own, led me to
The experiences, positive and negative, that motivate the search
for lasting happiness come in many forms. Each has its beauty, yet will never
be more than a peculiar and limited expression of the Self until it assumes its
place in the universal bouquet of transcendental wisdom.
It is hoped that this modest attempt to clarify a sometimes
mysterious and profound body of knowledge and provide an impersonal context for
the personal view of oneself will be helpful for those who wish to solve the
riddle of their true identity.
MEDITATION
The Joy is not in the Object The
business of life is the business of happiness. Because we feel limited with
respect to happiness, everyone is fully engaged every minute trying to attain
happiness. When I take a job, fall in love, read a book, eat a meal, go to the
dentist, pray or meditate, I expect the activity and/or its results to make me
feel better than I do at the moment. No matter how good I feel I can always
imagine a state of greater happiness. If I am miserable, my actions will be
calculated to remove or lessen the misery, a situation I view as an increase in
happiness. When a better state is inconceivable, I refrain from activities that
might compromise it. The world’s tropical beaches are packed with people
flat on their backs, not moving a muscle. Everything is done for the sake of
happiness. Some accumulate money, not necessarily for itself, but for the
happiness it supposedly brings. Others seek happiness in life threatening
sports because they produce a high, an aliveness
beyond the normal state. We ingest chemicals, pills, drink and drugs to change
our state of mind for the better. Belief in God is not intended to make one
miserable. Nobody gets married to suffer. At first glance happiness seems to be
the result of activities. I jog, garden, meditate or ski and feel happy. But if
happiness were in an activity, the activity should produce happiness for anyone
who performed it. Giving away millions makes philanthropists happy. Letting go
of a dime is anathema to a miser. A granny who knits for fun will not take
pleasure in bungee jumping.
Can happiness be achieved getting and possessing certain
objects? A man divorces his wife because she seems to be the cause of his
misery but before the ink is dry on the divorce decree he finds her in the arms
of another...who sees her as his darling bundle of
joy. A steak makes a carnivore happy, a vegetarian unhappy. In spite of this
sad fact we slave overtime to get happiness through objects and activities.
Some try to attain happiness through the mind. Poets,
writers, artists and intellectuals find happiness playing with thoughts and
ideas, feelings and emotions. Professionals, convinced that sustained happiness
can be gained through knowledge, subject their minds to years training and
their lives to untold sacrifices.
A tiny minority, spiritual questers,
try to find happiness by disciplining themselves with prayer, meditation, chanting,
breathing or ‘processing’ to achieve altered or high states of
consciousness.
The psychological world believes happiness can be attained
by removing subjective barriers...disturbing experiences and memories, self
limiting concepts and unforgiving thoughts lodged in the subconscious mind.
Limitation of Object
Happiness
Both approaches, the physical and the psychological, share
the belief that self effort can alter the objective and subjective factors
inhibiting happiness and bring about greater happiness. Conventional wisdom
supports this view and the kernel of truth it contains probably accounts for
the universal attempt to get happiness by changing our objective and subjective
worlds.
Why do we feel happy when we realize a goal or obtain a
desired object? According to spiritual science, all activities are caused by a
split from our natural state of happiness, a separation that engenders two
apparently contradictory instincts, fear and desire, which cause many
disturbing emotions. Beneath every desire a fear lurks, behind every fear a
desire. If I don’t get what I want I will be unhappy. Avoiding what I do
not want makes me happy. So the fear of unhappiness is just the desire for
happiness. These two primal forces...which cause attraction and repulsion,
attachment and aversion, likes and dislikes...color every aspect of our lives.
The many subtle and gross fears and desires playing in the
mind stem from a deeper need, the need to be free of fear and desire,
the need to be fulfilled or happy. When I say I want a new car or a new lover I
do not actually want the object. I want the happiness apparently wrapped up in
it.
Removing the Wall
If happiness or unhappiness does not come from objects, it has to be
coming from me. If this is true,
why does it seem to come from objects? Because the attainment of desired objects or
the avoidance of feared objects temporarily removes the wall of fear and desire
separating us from the Self, the source of happiness. When the dam breaks our
lives are flooded with happiness, from the ecstasies of love to the pleasure of
a cup of coffee.
When a fear or desire is removed, the mind
associates the happiness with the object rather than with the removal of the
subjective limitation. That human beings are universally attached to and frightened
of physical, emotional, and intellectual objects confirms this poorly
appreciated truth.
At one time or another almost everyone believes people
love is happiness. As long as the love object gives and receives according to
the subject’s special needs everything is fine. But as soon as the object
stops cooperating, the love dries up and the removal of the object is then
thought to make one happy. Why does the love dry up? Because the idea that it
was coming from the object acted like a switch which closed the door between
the mind and the Self, effectively cutting off contact with the inner source of
love.
That switch, the
belief that the joy is in the object, can also pull down the wall. For example,
loneliness often causes us to fantasize an ideal someone who is capable of
removing our unhappiness. When reality presents an
approximation of the fantasy, the wall encompassing the inner ocean breaches
and love cascades wildly into the heart, producing the experience of happiness.
Because the process is unconscious and takes place instantaneously, the love
seems to be coming from the object or an interaction with the object, but the
person is only a catalyst, a trigger activating the inner switch.
Let us argue that since everyone’s innermost nature
is happiness/love the joy is in the object, in this case people. True,
love is all-pervasive and has to be in the object, but since objects invariably
impose conditions on their love, we cannot count on it to make us happy. To
avoid this trap I should understand that though love is in everyone, I can only
rely on it when I have realized that it is my own Self. To do
that I need to sacrifice the fears and desires separating me from my own
happiness/ love. For example, people are happy in deep sleep because
objective and subjective limitations do not hamper their experience of bliss.
An Important
Definition
What is an object? Spiritual science
divides creation into two apparently separate categories: subject and object.
Though many subjects seem to exist, there is only one, the Self, and many
objects. An object, therefore, is anything perceived or seen, including the
instruments of experience, the senses, mind, and intellect. So
objects include physical forms, activities, sensations, feelings, thoughts,
ideas, beliefs, opinions, memories, dreams, and states of mind...like desire
and fear. All our life experiences, solicited and unsolicited, are
objects. Objects are not conscious but the Self, the Seer, is. Though egos
are subjective with reference to the objects they experience, they are objects
from the Self’s point of view. The appearance of many individuals is
caused by an unconscious association of the one Self
with many bodies. One aim of Self
inquiry is to remove the belief that the joy we seek is in objects.
Object Happiness not
Permanent
If you are not convinced that
happiness and unhappiness do not reside in objects and activities, you will
probably agree that object related happiness is impermanent. If permanent
happiness were attainable by possessing and enjoying objects, the desire to
have another object would never arise once the desired object was attained.
Conversely, if permanent happiness were attainable by the removal of an object
(including states of mind like negative feelings), we would never have to rid
ourselves of another object. But experience shows that desire for and fear
of objects continue, often increase, with their possession and enjoyment. I
may want more of them, less of them, or something else altogether. One day I
may even want something I previously believed would make me miserable. The
satisfaction of my desires and the removal of my fears does
not leave me permanently satisfied. For example, people who associate happiness
with a certain object, say a drug or alcohol induced
state of mind, try to achieve that state over and over, up to and often beyond
the point were it no longer yields pleasure. Nobody is ever permanently
satisfied by a successful sexual encounter or any other supposedly happiness
producing object or activity. In fact, happiness producing objects and
activities often suddenly produce unhappiness. The confusion about the nature of
happiness and unhappiness with reference to objects suggests that the question
of happiness and unhappiness must be centered on me, the subject.
Am I whole and complete and therefore immune to the pull
of objects, or am I an incomplete being, one desperately in need of things to
complete me? Having eliminated objects as the source, a
confusion still exists about my nature, prompting further analysis. When
I think about it I can see that sometimes I am happy and sometimes unhappy.
After careful consideration I can confidently conclude that happiness is
natural to me because I always cling to it when I have it. And when I am
unhappy the reverse is true; I try feverishly to rid myself of it. Therefore, if I am happy by nature, do
not consistently experience happiness, and know it does not come from objects
and activities, how would I attain it?
I know that through effort I can attain something I do not
have, but how would I attain something I do have? When she answered the phone
the secretary put her pencil behind her ear. After a lengthy conversation
during which many important subjects were discussed, she began searching for
the lost pencil. A co-worker asked why she was agitated and, on discovering the
reason, revealed the pencil’s location. In this case, the physical search
was ineffective because she had the object all along. And she found it the only
possible way...through knowledge. Similarly, if I do not know happiness is my
nature, the discovery will only come through knowing, not through doing.
Meditation, an inquiry into happiness, is a method of Self discovery that can
lead to knowing.
What is Happiness?
Let us capitalize Happiness to
distinguish it from object happiness. Like its synonym love, Happiness is
difficult to define. Often only negatives suffice. Happiness is the absence of unhappiness,
pain, suffering, sorrow. A kind of neutral blank state? No, not at all. One feels very good but the feeling is
not connected with the presence or absence of anyone or anything. Happiness is
a causeless, objectless, unspecified sense of well-being. Though not an
emotion, it uplifts the emotions.
But are not feelings temporary?
Feelings are fleeting but the ‘feeling’ of true or real
Happiness is not. ‘True’ means it lasts forever. ‘Real’
means unchanging, undying.
Happiness is the sense that nothing is missing or lacking on any level,
inwardly or outwardly; that, no matter what, one is perfectly equipped to deal
with whatever life has to offer.
Happiness is the feeling of endless possibility, invincibility, and
unqualified freedom seen in children before they’ve been compromised by
conditioning. Happiness is
wholeness, completeness, an unshakable conviction that nothing can be gained or
lost. Even if someone or something very dear is taken away, one is
undiminished. Happiness is the
knowledge that one is more powerful than all the objects in the world and all
the thoughts in one’s own mind.
It is the knowledge that no separation exists between oneself and the
world, between oneself and others. Happiness is
unconditional disinterested love for the sake of the beloved. It is fearlessness, fullness,
inexhaustible inner abundance. And the absence of desire. Especially the
absence of desire.
Happiness, beyond the
intellect and unaffected by time, is ‘the peace that passeth
understanding.’
Happiness is Consciousness, our very essence, not thoughts
and feelings, but the Awareness1 illumining thoughts and feelings,
the ‘State of Meditation,’2 the Self, an unshakable
identity beyond the body and mind.
We meditate for the same reason we engage in any activity:
the belief it will make us happier than we are. So the only question remaining
is: does it work? Does it produce temporary or lasting Happiness?
1. Because we have been conditioned to
think of Consciousness as mind or thought-flow (‘stream
of consciousness’), it might be helpful to refer to It as
Awareness. The mind is Pure Consciousness taking theform
of perception, thought, feeling, memory, will, etc... like
an ocean taking the form of waves.
2. Because Consciousness is non-dual it has
no ‘states,’ but it seems to because of the projections of the
mind. See ‘The Waker, Dreamer, and Deep
Sleeper’ later in this Chapter. Thinking of it as a ‘state’
is attractive to those who have a problem with Consciousness as God, a consciousbeing. However, ‘states,’ as we
ordinarily understand the term, changeand are also
not conscious. The Self is unchanging and conscious. It is being, but not a
being.
MEDITATIONS
(a) The Blank Mind
An idea that never seems to die says the
‘state’ of meditation, the state of permanent happiness, is a mind
free of thoughts. Whoever gets credit for this theory is a mystery. Perhaps the
author analyzed deep sleep and concluded that where thoughts and emotions were
absent limitless bliss was present. Ergo, if thoughtlessness works in deep
sleep, why not transpose it to the waking state?
Two facts somehow got lost. If you want to be happy, go to
sleep. And, limitless bliss is already available in the thought free
‘state’ of meditation.
The ‘peak experience’ phenomenon lends
credence to the blank mind theory. During these experiences the mind stops
inexplicably and the individual feels wonderfully focused, fearless, peaceful,
powerful, awareful and loving. Many of the
definitions of Happiness in the above list apply to peak experiences. When one
feels excellent, one would like to ‘maintain’3 the
feeling forever. I once encountered a young Japanese man in the ashram of an
Indian yogi who claimed his mind stopped as he skied down
In the thirty years I have been involved with meditation I
have never met anyone who permanently attained the thought free state of mind,
with the exception of a man who botched his suicide and ended up in a permanent
coma. This is because ‘stopping’ the mind is an egoic activity. The
results of ego’s activities are limited because ego is limited.4
Additionally, the mind is just a bundle of thoughts and
feelings and the desire to stop the mind merely another thought in it. How will
it eat up the existing thoughts? In fact it will fatten, not starve, the mind.
Finally, how will we work out what needs to be worked out
if the mind is not available? True freedom and lasting Happiness are only
attained through the knowledge ‘I am Happiness Itself,’ an
impossibility with a non-functioning mind.
Still, a modified Blank Mind theory can produce a reasonably peaceful mind.
That certain thoughts and feelings apparently cause suffering is well documented.5 For
example, desire is the primary link in a chain of inherently frustrating mental
phenomena that disturb the mind and generate endless ego-centered activities which
in turn cause vasanas6 that recycle the desire. Refusing to act out ten percent of one’s desires over time
results in a corresponding reduction of mental, emotional, and physical
activity and a ten percent increase of peace. Also, many thoughts and feelings
are quite wonderful, do not conflict with happiness and need not be eliminated.
So the application of a soft version of the Blank Mind theory can eliminate
much suffering.
3. Happiness or meditative states of
mind cannot be ‘maintained’ because they are not under
anybody’s control
4. When the Self is realized, however, It is experienced as thought free. If the Self is empty and
I am the Self, I experience silence, peace, love,power, etc. no matter what the mind is doing.
5. Actually, identification with
unhealthy thoughts, not the thoughtsthemselves,
causes suffering.
6. Subconscious impressions. For a
detailed discussion of the vasanas see Chapter II.
(b) Happy Thoughts
Most meditation theories are not as radical as the Blank
Mind. Not many are willing to go to the trouble of stopping or controlling the
mind for limited happiness. Another theory suggests replacing unhappy thoughts
with happy thoughts. Affirmations, a popular modern
meditation practice, involves making positive statements about oneself
or the world. This approach, which is rather like watching a sunset, seems
easier than going for a blank mind, but creating and maintaining happy thoughts
is hard work, so happiness is held hostage to incessant effort. Since personal
effort and its results are limited, the happiness produced by this technique
would necessarily be limited.
And when you think about it, creating happy thoughts is
actually just another way of saying ‘I am unhappy’ and thereby
reinforcing the view of oneself as an incomplete being. When you are happy,
unhappy thoughts are not a bother. Supposedly the happy thoughts crowd out
their unhappy companions, but negative thoughts and feelings should not be
dismissed out of hand because they indicate what needs work. In fact, because
mental and emotional pain is a symptom of a much deeper complaint, the
separation from the source of happiness, trying to correct the symptom without
addressing the cause is ultimately futile.
However, visualization, a happy thought variant, which utilizes
the mind’s tendency to think in images can help
purify the mind. Since relative happiness is proportional to the degree of
mental and emotional purification, any technique that cleans the mind is
useful. Whether such practices lead to lasting happiness is questionable.
Many New Age visualizations invented by neophytes
and created solely from imagination, beyond an immediate feelgood
factor, are spiritually pointless because they are not based on a clear
understanding of the relationship of the psyche to the Self. Symbolic images
need to be powerful Self archetypes, the contemplation of which clears the mind
and brings single-pointed attention to the Self.
The meditator who cannot relate to the sophisticated
visualizations offered by Eastern religions should at least study their
underlying psychology before attempting his or her own.
The most common type of visualization involves contemplation on an enlightened
being, a god or goddess.
The purpose of creating a god or goddess-like figure in
the center of one’s consciousness is to symbolize the god and/or
goddess-like nature of the meditator, the state of pure Meditation. A god or
goddess is essentially a human being endowed with qualities of compassion,
wisdom, discrimination, dispassion, radiance, power, and beauty, qualities that
are undeveloped in the meditator.
‘Center’ refers to the Self, the center of
one’s being, and indicates what is most essential. Put a smile on your
goddess and you are symbolizing bliss, our innermost nature. Crown her to
contemplate on the dominion the Self enjoys over your thoughts and feelings. A
many armed god symbolizes the Self’s infinite capabilities, Its power to accomplish anything. A sword in one hand could
indicate discrimination, the ability to separate the real from the unreal. A
staff means authority, support. The Self is the ultimate authority and our only
true support. Your deity’s posture needs to suggest grace and poise and
its gestures invoke reassuring and kind feelings. A kneeling figure represents
devotion, a reclining one, peace. Colors play an important part in
visualization. Gold, for example, symbolizes spiritual wealth; blue, infinity;
red, the fire of knowledge or the heat of meditation; green, healing. A natural
setting symbolizes the Self as the most natural aspect of oneself. A figure
sitting on a high place indicates the exalted, witnessing nature of
Consciousness. Put your god and goddess in sexual union to symbolize
Enlightenment, the union of love and wisdom. Or create an androgynous figure to
indicate gender transcendence. A god treading on or seated on an animal might
symbolize transcendence of the lower nature.
As you meditate on your God or Goddess imagine
that its mind is the essence of perfect wisdom. See immaculate rays of light
emanating from its heart dispelling unforgiving and self limiting concepts.
Mentally prostrate to your creation, offer loving feelings, and ask that it
guide you to Enlightenment.
(c) Mantra Meditation
“Meditation is the uninterrupted
thinking of one thought.”
Patanjali
Mantra is a variation of the ‘happy
thought’ style of meditation.7 A mantra is a spiritually
charged sound syllable or syllables which, when repeated with feeling and full
awareness, can purify the nervous system, eat thoughts and feelings, and awaken
the mind to the source of happiness, the Self.
Mantra meditation is based on the idea that thought
is natural to the mind and that the type of thoughts determines our knowledge
and experience. According to this theory, the mind becomes what it meditates
on. If it constantly thinks of a pleasurable or painful experience, for
example, it will become painful or pleasurable. If it meditates on the Self, it
will come to know and experience the Self. However, for the mind to accurately
think about an object, it must know what and where the object is. Therefore, before
it can successfully meditate, it must be turned away from objects and fixed on
the Self.
Mantra first represents the Self with a sound symbol.
The mind is then trained to concentrate exclusively on that symbol. When the
concentration is perfect, the symbol dissolves into the Self. The feelgood factor is the upside and the downside of mantra
meditation. Mantras are composed of ‘seed’ syllables,
fine vibrations that activate the bliss aspect of the Self. Unless there is an
inclination to chant endlessly, chanting is a limited solution to the question
of lasting happiness. Yet bliss calms the mind and aids concentration. When
concentration is highly developed and directed to the Self, Enlightenment is
possible.
7. For more on mantra see ‘Mantra and
Visualization’ later in this chapter.
Mantra as Contemplation
Mantras have specific spiritual meanings, the
consistent and deep contemplation8 of which can lead to liberation.
Chanted daily by tens of millions worldwide, OM NAMAH SHIVAYA is a
popular mantra. What does it mean? The first word,
The second word, one found in many mantras, is namah. If
1.
Contemplation on the inner meaning, not the mere verbal repetition,gives the mantra
its power.
2. The meaning of
The Effect is the
Cause
Thinking of oneself as an unlimited being is not
delusional. Certainly the body and mind are limited, but the essential
Consciousness, That without which we do not exist, is
non-separate from the Consciousness in everyone and everything. How far is the
wave from the ocean?
If
10. Pronounced ‘She-vai-yuh.’
(d) Insight Meditation
Insight meditation11 requires neither a blank mind, generating special imagery or
repeating a mantra, but trains the mind to dispassionately observe the
phenomena constantly appearing on its luminous screen. This ancient and
respectable meditation trains the meditator not to identify with, react to, or
act out samskara-motivated12 impulses. The realization
of the impermanence of all phenomena and the discovery of the non-existence of
ego that comes from dispassionate observation causes knotty problems to
unravel, freeing the mind of limitations. An unlimited mind is a happy mind.
The theory is sound, but will the mind remain free as a
result of such a practice? Only when the Unconscious,13
the source of experience, is emptied. Because the quantity of stuff in the
Unconscious is unknown, fulfillment may be postponed indefinitely. Secondly,
although problems are solved, what is to insure that one will not generate new samskaras
and therefore new problems? The Unconscious is not merely a passive memory
like intellect, but it is a dynamic mechanism that recycles everything created
by the ego/mind entity. Only by neutralizing the vasanas, the seeds
sprouting from past actions, a Herculean task, can the mind be freed.14 Furthermore, to ‘maintain’ the round-the-clock
awareness that might make the technique work in the long run is virtually
impossible.
Finally, if witnessing is the result of splitting the
mind, training one part to observe the other, the split will need to be healed,
so witnessing meditations eventually have to deal with the removal of the
witness. If witnessing is maintained by effort, the benefits will cease when
the witnessing stops, the witness being a self-appointed voyeur who, for
reasons of its own, keeps an hard eye trained on the
mind’s seductions.
Still, vipassana, which
mimics the power of Consciousness, is based on a scientific fact: when you
watch something for an extended period, awareness turns around and becomes
aware of itself, the Witness.15 Practiced with an inquiry into the
nature of the Witness, it can awaken one to the
knowledge ‘I am effortless Awareness. I am happiness itself.’ Short
of that, vipassana is an excellent,
though arduous, technique for purifying painful samskaras16 and
attaining a relatively peaceful state of mind.
11.
Known as vipassana, a technique dating
back to the time of theBuddha and before.
12. Subconscious formations. Related to vasanas. See Chapter II.
13. See Chapter II.
14. The method for insuring against creating new subconscious impres-sions is explained in the Karma Yoga section of
Chapter III.
(e) The Gap
Another
theory defines meditation as attention on the space between thoughts or the gap
between the waking and sleep states. That, contrary to
appearances, nothing in the universe is substantial is the basis of this technique. A material object, though seemingly
solid to the senses, strings out into waves and completely loses form on closer
analysis. Similarly, the mind, which is capable of thinking only one thought at
a time, is an apparently opaque flow of thought. Yet gaps exist between each
thought...a moment after a thought ends its successor begins. Since the
omnipresent and all-pervasive Self is the substrate on which the mind dances, It pervades the space between thoughts. Therefore, if the
unconscious karmic pressure that jams up the thoughts were reduced, the
thoughts would slow down and bring about a heightened state of awareness
allowing the meditator to see into the gap and realize the Self.
The
idea combines nicely with mantra, a conscious thought. Most mental
activity is unconscious patterns of quasi-logical associations specific to the samskara sprouting in the mind at any time.
Associative thinking, where one thought connects to another like a link in a
chain, is spiritually useless because the mind can end up anywhere. But mantra
is a specific conscious thought about the Self introduced into the mind in
place of everyday thoughts and practiced with a gap. If the mantra is
not simply interjected between random thoughts, or chanted on top of the samskara-produced associations, but allowed
to absorb the mind’s energy and become the only thought, stopping it
stops the mind momentarily and, at that Moment, if attention is directed to the
gap, the Self in the form of Silence, Peace, Light or Energy, is experienceable.
1. The Self.
2. The purification techniques are
discussed in Chapter III.
(e) Pay Attention!
A final theory, one that makes a good deal of sense, is
meditation as attention. Attention is not a specific thought but the flow of
awareness to a particular object like the flow of oil through a wick to the
flame. In this type of meditation, of which an example will be given later, the
attention is moved from the sense world to the breath and finally fixed on the
Self.
Who Am I?
Whether it comes through a meditation technique or another
avenue, the rediscovery17 of oneself as effortless Awareness
beyond the mind rather than a watching ego or the watched mind is
Enlightenment, the goal of meditation practice.18
‘Beyond’ doesn’t mean somewhere else, but the Awareness by
which the ego/mind is known.
The relationship
between the Self and the mind is sometimes likened to the relationship between
the sun and the moon. The moon-like mind is a seemingly sentient bundle of
inert tendencies, thoughts, and feelings because it is illumined by the
sun-like Self, the radiant Spirit.19
17. Because the Self is the most essential
part of our experience, It isknown. However, owing to
the pressure of the samskaras, the mind extroverts and forgets the Self,
so when one ‘realizes the Self’ or ‘attains
Enlightenment,’ it is never a new experience but a ‘re’cognition, a‘re’discovery,
or a ‘re’awakening.
18. Enlightenment and Self Realization are synonyms. However, in spiritual
literature the constant experience of the Self by a purified mind iscalled either Self Realization or Enlightenment. A
slightly subtler andfinal stage in which the
meditating mind ‘merges’ into the Self is also termed either
Enlightenment or Self Realization. In the first stage theSelf
is the object of meditation and in the second the mind is the object because
the meditator has ‘merged’ into the Self. In reality there is no merger
because the meditator is already the Self. Stage two follows effortlessly from
stage one as long as the mind holds steady on the Self. The transition is
effortless because the mind understands that the Self is the source of
limitless happiness and clings to it with a vengeance.
19. Capitalized words are roughly synonymous and refer to the Self.
I Am The Light of the World
Though
the Self cannot be accurately described, It can be
known because It is us. Always present and accounted for, Consciousness is the
most familiar and essential part of every experience. However, because it
cannot be objectified, we do not know it the way we know ideas, emotions or
sense objects, aspects of outer reality known through media. If we are looking
for the lasting happiness that comes with liberation, even knowledge of
scripture will not do the trick because it would only be inferential, conditioned
by how an admittedly ignorant intellect interpreted certain ideas. If Self
Knowledge is not mediate intellectual knowledge what kind is it?
Experience Versus Knowledge
Knowledge takes place in the intellect but not all knowledge is
‘intellectual.’ Intellectual knowledge is knowing
of something about which one has no experience. Knowledge not backed up by
experience is not knowledge. It is opinion or belief. However, concluding that
because knowledge can be intellectual, it is spiritually useless,
is foolish, because the intellect definitely needs knowledge to make an inquiry
into the Self.
For knowledge to happen the mind needs to contact an object of
knowledge. Contact with the object is experience. But the knowledge half of the
experience only happens if the intellect is alert and paying attention to the
experience. For example, if the ego is completely wrapped up in the feelings
and sensations arising during an experience, the intellect will not work
properly and knowledge will not happen. For this reason accident victims cannot
accurately report what happened, for example. A similar phenomenon occurs in
commonplace situations when intense concentration on something prevents
knowledge of events taking place in the immediate environment.
It stands to reason, therefore, that if the Self is the object
of experience, and I am so ‘blissed out’
or excited when the experience is taking place that my intellect is turned off,
I will be unable to know the Self.
Because the intellect was unavailable during Self experience,
many are left with vague and often confusing feelings of wonder and are not
freed of the craving for experience that is the signature of Enlightenment.
When you realize that you are the Bliss you are experiencing, experience
continues but the longing for blissful experience dries up.
Often a mystic experience of the Self in the form of a vision of
God or a particular deity leaves the impression that the Self is the deity, or
that the deity caused the experience. However, since experience of the deity is
fleeting, when the deity is not manifesting, a craving for its return dominates
the mind, even though Self experience is actually going on all the time
‘at a deeper level.’
Whether
the Self can be an object of experience is the subject of a long-standing
spiritual controversy. Some claim It cannot be
experienced, others that It can. If Self Realization is described as an
experience, a transaction between subject and object, it is a peculiar
experience. Ordinary experience is a straightforward interaction between a
human being and its world. If the mind,20 consciousness with a small
‘c,’ is a gross and limited transformation of Pure Consciousness,
how will it fully know or experience Pure Consciousness, the Self in its
subtle, unlimited form? Just as the senses cannot experience the mind, nor the material world the senses, the mind/ego entity
cannot ‘experience’ the Self.
According to spiritual science even the material world is a
transformation of Consciousness. But as Consciousness involves Itself with Itself as matter, Its ‘light’ or
awareness seemingly gets absorbed into the objects and, on the physical level
at least, apparently stops shining. For example, even though light reflecting
off my body falls equally on a mirror and the black wall on which it hangs, I
will only see myself in the mirror. The Self is also seemingly absorbed into a
mind clouded with emotion and thought, making It unexperienceable for all intents and purposes. It can,
however, be ‘experienced’ in a mirror-like pure mind.
The non-experience school claims that humans are two-tiered,
existing on one level as a subject interacting with objects, which necessarily
means experience, and on another as Consciousness, the ‘light’21
illumining experience. So in scriptural literature you will find definitions of
the Self as transcendent, beyond, uninvolved, and unattached to anything. It
will be described as living in its own hermetically sealed world, the shining
world of knowledge, unaware of anything other than itself, or alternatively as
the witness of outer events.
Many who are unaware of this fact incorrectly believe the ego
will experience the Self like it experiences everything else. So to save them the grief of trying to obtain a mind-blowing cosmic
enlightenment experience, the knowledge people point out that the Self is not
that type of experience. Mind-blowing blissful cosmic experiences, which
come by the grace of God, sometimes in conjunction with conscious spiritual
practice, sometimes quite unsolicited, are simply mind-blowing blissful cosmic
experiences, reportable only because they are observed by the Self which as
disinterestedly watches non-mindblowing unhappy
mundane experiences.
Thinking of Enlightenment as an experience also opens the
meditator up to the problem of maintenance. When the ego enjoys a pleasant
experience like the Self, it always feels that the experience should continue
indefinitely. Apart from the fact that the Self is out of time and therefore
not subject to disappearance, no ego experience lasts forever. If I am unaware
of this I am tempted to see if I cannot ‘maintain’ the Self
experience. On the other hand, knowledge requires no maintenance. For example,
the knowledge of one’s name does not interfere but politely remains in the
background as one goes about one’s business, effortlessly popping into
consciousness on demand. Moreover, Self experience cannot be made constant
because the Self has no handles. How can the ego, which is a limited form of
the Self, hold onto the unlimited Self and make it deliver a particular
experience? Additionally, Self experience cannot be maintained because it is
always present and self evident. The one who mistakenly wants to maintain the
experience is already the Self.
The experience of egolessness is a
common definition of Enlightenment. Aside from the obvious
fact that experience needs an experiencer, an ego...except the experience of egolessness...what happens when the sense of separateness
returns? Is the Self no longer available for experience? It is because It is the only possible experiencer, witnessing both the
prior experience of egolessness and the present
experience of ego. If it weren’t witnessing, how would egolessness be known? Therefore, Enlightenment does not
require any particular experience. It only requires that I remove the notion
that I’m not already the Self.
Knowledge has it that the Self is everything. Therefore It is the experiencer, the experienced, and the
experiencing. It is never apart from us. If this is so, thinking in terms of
experience is spiritually unwise because it may actually prevent one from
finding out who one is. For example, if someone
experiences the Self for a period of time and the experience stops, the person
might be heard to say, “I was the Self for two days.” Fair enough,
but from this point on the experience becomes an acute source of misery because
the Self is no longer available for experience.
Where did the Self go? It did not go anywhere because it is
always present. What went (or never happened) was the knowledge ‘I am the
Self.’ This knowledge needs to happen if the experience of the Self is to
set you free. In other words, I am not the victim of a lack of Self experience
but of the dualistic belief that ‘I’ experience something other
than my Self.
If the idea of pure knowledge is too stark and unforgiving,
perhaps it will help to think of Self-Realization as a knowing experience.
Knowing is as much an experience as any physical or psychological transaction
with an object. To distinguish it from knowledge of an unexperienced
object or knowledge by perception and inference, Enlightenment is called
‘realization,’ which means ‘to make practical or real.’
Making the Self real simply means allowing the knowledge that one is a partless whole to destroy one’s sense of limitation.
Self Knowledge will definitely make sense of the whole of
one’s life, since the Self is the only factor present throughout all
one’s diverse experiences. Additionally, the idea that an ignorant experience-hungry
ego can properly appreciate the overall meaning of his or her life on the basis
of the knowledge gained from disparate experiences is ridiculous. A gem dealer
visited a flea market where he found a huge uncut opal on the table of a man
who had picked it up on a camping trip, thinking it was just an interesting
rock. For ten dollars the vendor relinquished the opal, which subsequently sold
for two million dollars. Both vendor and customer experienced the rock, but
only one knew its true value... because knowledge was operating in his mind.
Where is this knowledge going to come from if I don’t have
it already? I do have it already but not in the form of opinions and beliefs
about the meaning of my experiences. It resides secretly in the Self and is
made available to me in at least two interrelated ways: through the teaching
tradition and through meditation, direct contact of a tutored and purified
mind with the Self. The techniques for gaining this kind of mind are
revealed in Chapter III. Vedanta, the teaching tradition, uses a very clever
method of thinking in a formal meditative setting to remove the notion that one
is merely a limited experience-conditioned creature. If the knowledge enshrined
in this text were properly understood and used as the basis of a discrimination between the Self and the Not-Self in the
seat of meditation, Enlightenment may happen.
That experience does not always lead to true knowledge is
another dimension in the ‘experience versus knowledge’ debate. For
example, from the point of view of someone standing on the equator the sun
seems to rise in the east and set in the west, but at certain times of the year
the same person can stand on the North Pole and experience the sun going around
in a circle. Which is true? Knowledge has it that though apparently rising and
setting with reference to the earth, the sun is actually stationary and it is
the earth that turns. Similarly, if the Self is experienced at one time as a
blazing light without circumference, for example, and as a cosmic vibration at
another, which is true? Knowledge has it that the Self is the Awareness
illumining both experiences.
Another example of the contradictory nature of experience,
psychic fact, is that sometimes we experience ourselves as miserable suffering
creatures and sometimes as radiantly happy beings. Which is true? Spiritual
science claims that we are miserable, suffering creatures when we are
identified with the egoic part of ourselves and happy, adequate beings when we
are identified with the Self, an identification that is not possible without
knowledge.
Yet, we cannot discount experience because discrete identifiable
Self experiences are helpful even though Self experience is taking place all
the time whether we know it or not. Therefore, meditation and other spiritual
practices are to be encouraged. Additionally, if the knowledge of the Self did
not change one’s experience what would be the point of seeking it? The way the enlightened experience 22 the world is
radically different from those identified with samskara-projected
experience. Or, more accurately, the Self realized enjoy a
completely different relationship to samskara
projected experience than those who don’t know the Self. The Self is
an object of desire because It eliminates limitation
and inadequacy. Moreover, it is the ‘sense’ of inadequacy buried
deep within the mind that knowledge aims to destroy. When the idea that one is
inadequate is removed, one’s experience changes because what one was
previously suffering was nothing more than the idea of inadequacy. Experiencing
the Self without the destruction of the idea that one is limited is only
marginally superior to other experiences. The so-called spiritual world is
little more than millions whose knowledge of themselves as limited beings has
survived repeated experiences of the Self.
The purpose of this discussion is not to weigh in on one side or
the other of a weighty argument, but to show that we need to appreciate the
inadequacy of beliefs and opinions born solely out of personal experience. And also, because so-called ‘intellectual’ knowledge
about the Self, Its bodies and states, and the methods of purification, is
definitely necessary for success in spiritual life. Without it, the
meditator will fail to reap the sweet fruit.
Finally, meditation technique will not give Self knowledge
because techniques only produce certain types of experience. Yet a meditation
practice that creates the kind of mind that is clear enough make a disciplined
inquiry into the Self and Its vehicles is absolutely essential for
Enlightenment.
20. The mind is technically called the ‘Subtle Body’
and is known as the ‘instrument of experience.’ ‘Person,
individual, soul’ and ‘human being’ are commonly used terms
signifying the Subtle Body. The Subtle Body is explained in Chapter II.
21. Hence
the term ‘Enlightenment’ which probably originally meant a mind
aware of the light illumining it.
22. The
enlightened experience the world, their bodies, and their minds just like the
unenlightened. However, Enlightenment grants viveka,
the power to separate the meaning the mind projects on experience from reality,
the Self. Therefore something that seems real to the unenlightened may be known
to be unreal bythe enlightened.
The Waker, Dreamer and Deep Sleeper
What if I am denied happiness because I think I am somebody I am
not? The following discussion reveals the reason the ‘I’ I think I
am will only experience periodic fits of happiness, never lasting fulfillment.
As humans we have three ‘egos’ or experiencing entities.23
The waking state ego,24 is Consciousness,25 the limitless
Self, shining through the body/mind/intellect bundle experiencing both the
material world and the subtle world of feelings, emotions, thoughts, beliefs,
perceptions, ideas, memories, etc.
Everyone primarily views his or herself as a waker.
When I say ‘me’ in conversation, I am referring to myself as a
waking state entity. Our analysis will show that the idea of oneself as a
waking state entity is a belief accompanied by the erroneous conviction that
the waking state and its objects are reality.
The waker’s consciousness is
turned outward. It is the Self shining through the
senses, mind, intellect, illumining objects, emotions and thoughts. Idealistic
metaphysics’ claim that no world exists apart from the perceiver, means
that the Self does not see a world unless it shines through a body, mind or
intellect, not that the physical world does not exist. Though it exists
independently of the waker’s perceptions, the
universe doesn’t exist apart from the Self.
The waker, vishwa,
is a consumer of experience. Sanskrit literature describes the waker as ‘the one with thirteen mouths.’ The
‘thirteen mouths’ refer to the ten senses, mind, intellect, and
ego. These instruments are mouths in that, powered by the momentum of past
experiences, the samskaras, they aggressively seek experience. The
physical body consumes matter, the four elements26 in various
permutations and combinations. The mind constantly chews emotion, the intellect
eats ideas and the ego gobbles any experience it believes will make it feel
adequate and happy.
23. The teaching that follows is taken from
the Mandukya Upanishad, aVedic
text from the pre-Christian era.
24. See the bottom third of the
diagram on the next page.
25. The word ‘Consciousness’ as
defined in Vedic texts is unmodified Consciousness, i.e. the Self without.
26. Air,
fire, water and earth.
Consciousness turned inward27 is called the dreamer.28
It enjoys experience similar to the waking state in
some respects and radically different in others. In the
dream state the Self illumines only subtle
objects, a replay of the vasanas29 gathered in the waking
state expressing as mental imagery. In the waking state the vasanas30 express
as the waker’s thoughts and feelings. Like the waker, the dreamer takes itself and its world as reality.
The dreamer is equipped with the same instruments of experience as the waker: dream senses to consume dream objects, a dream mind
to emote and feel, a dream intellect to think dream thoughts, and a dream ego
to go about experiencing the dream life.31 The Upanishad refers to
the dreamer as taijaisa, the ‘shining
one,’ indicating its nature as Consciousness. Even though the waking
senses are inactive, all dreams are bathed in light because the Self,
Consciousness, is shining through the dreamer, illumining the dream world, just
as It shines through the waker
and illumines waking objects.
Sleep is defined as a state, saturated with happiness, where one
loses consciousness, does not desire external objects, does not see internal
objects, and is both Self and self ignorant.
The
sleeper is called pragnya or formless
consciousness. The sleeper is extremely subtle, virtually unknowable, its
existence inferred by the knowledge upon waking that one slept well. People
with serious problems like depression often sleep to avoid the limitations that
plague them in the waking state. Though the bliss of the Self shines in all
states, in the waking and dream states It is broken by
sense perceptions and many divisions of thought and feeling. When experience
alternates in this way we unconsciously develop a confusing idea of who we are.
The deep sleep or ‘seed’ state is free of both the
waking and dream egos and objects because the vasanas projecting them
are dormant. When the ‘seeds’ sprout, one becomes a waker or a dreamer and experiences the appropriate world.
Because we do not remember being conscious in it, the sleep
state is often thought to be a void. In fact Sanskrit literature refers to it
as ‘the womb,’ because our waking and dream worlds emerge from it.
When you wake up in the morning your whole life is consistent with the day
before, indicating that previous experience had simply entered a dormant state.
The dormant potential of the sleep state containing the macrocosmic vasanas32
is called Ishwara, the Creator, in Vedantic literature. With reference to the microcosmic vasanas33
the sleeper is called pragnya.
The sleep state is also known as the gateway between the waking
and the dream states because it functions as a kind of closet with two doors
where the dreamer can don the guise of the waker in
preparation for its appearance on the waking stage. And vice
versa.
Though they seem to be so, the three selves are not separate
entities, but are apparently distinct entities created when the limitless I associates with a given state of consciousness. Associated
with the waking state, the Self seemingly becomes a waking state personality,
suffering or enjoying the limitations of the senses, mind, intellect, ego,
Unconscious, and ignorance. The dreamer suffers the limitations of the mind,
the Unconscious and ignorance. And the sleeper, the Self apparently merged into
the unconscious, suffers only ignorance and limitless bliss.
These three states and egos are known to everyone and constitute
the totality of the limited ‘I’s’
experience. An interesting question posed by this analysis is ‘Who am
I?’ If I am the waking ego, the person on my driver’s license, what
happens to me when I become a sleeper? I willingly surrender my body, mind,
intellect and all my physical possessions to become a mass of limitless
Consciousness.
Yet I do not seem to be content as a sleeper, the blissfully
ignorant subtle being, because I sacrifice that status to suffer and enjoy the
world created by my vasanas in waking or dream states. My dreamer
identity is equally insufficient because I always leave it to become a waker or a sleeper. So my status as any one ego is
uncertain and my true identity open to question.
If identity is happiness then an ego identity will deliver only
intermittent happiness since the happiness experienced in sleep disappears in the
waking state. Dream happiness dissolves on waking and waking happiness cannot
be transported into sleep or dream. For example, one can be quite happy at
bedtime, fall asleep, and suffer a nightmare. Or leave the misery of the waking
state to enjoy a happy dream.
27. In fact Consciousness is all pervasive
and can’t turn inward oroutward. The
consciousness referred to is Consciousness
functioning as the mind.
28. The lower right third of the
diagram.
29. Subconscious impressions.
30. Chapter II presents a detailed
discussion of the vasanas.
31. The substance of the dream
field, thought and feeling, are drawnfrom both the
macrocosmic and microcosmic minds, i.e. collective and individual experience.
32. The impressions of the experience of all
beings over limitless time.Creation, according to
Vedanta, is the recycling of unmanifest
experience.
33. The personal subconscious, the
impressions of each individual.
If I am Real I Have to
Exist all the Time
The answer to ‘Who am I’ is that I am not any of
these egos or ego states. If I am real I have to exist all the time. I cannnot suddenly be someone one minute and somebody else
the next. I experience life as a single conscious being.
In fact I exist in the waking, dream, and deep sleep states
independently of the waker, dreamer and deep sleeper.
As what?
As the Self, the Awareness, and witness to the three states.
Aside from meditation, the Self is perhaps easiest to identify in the dream
state because the physical senses are inactive and no thoughts arise because of
their contact with objects. A dream plays on the screen of the mind like a
movie. Though physical light is absent, the dream ego and dream events are
clearly illumined, a phenomenon sometimes referred to as ‘lucid’
dreaming. The lucidity is the Self functioning as the
dreamer, ‘the shining one.’ However, identification with the dream
ego and its doings prevents us from properly appreciating the dream light, the
Self.
In the waking state too we are so preoccupied with the
happenings in our worlds and minds that we are unaware that both the sense
objects and our thoughts and feelings are bathed in Awareness, the source of
happiness.
In deep sleep the ego dissolves into very fine unconscious
thought, so it is denied knowledge of the Self even though it enjoys limitless
bliss.
Meditation Practice
Meditation practice is the waking state tool connecting us with
the Self, unalloyed Happiness, not the goal. Some traditions teach that
practice is both and insist that sitting should be enjoyed for itself, quite
apart from striving to attain a high state...good advice, because transcendence
is reluctant to come when called. In fact, just sitting still, thinking of
nothing in particular, waiting for a bus or driving home after work, might
cause transcendence...the experience that the body and mind are merely objects,
like the passing scene.
Contrary to popular opinion, transcendence does not have to be
experienced as an earth-shattering ‘out of body’ experience. In
fact, though no one seems to notice, we are already always beyond our bodies
and minds. Meditation practice should strip us of the identification with the
body and mind, allowing us to appreciate the natural separation of the Self
from its vehicles.
Aside from the goal, meditation is practiced for psychological
and physical benefits: increased energy, heightened senses and reactions,
strengthened immunity, improved intelligence, creativity, efficiency, power,
pleasure, discrimination, dispassion, sense of purpose, peace of mind, expanded
awareness, selflessness, compassion, and others.
What to Expect
Without a powerful technique to quickly lift the mind to the
level of the Self, meditation practice is difficult for two reasons. First,
until the idea that it should be entertaining is abandoned, practice is deadly
boring. The realization that some part wants to sabotage the meditation is a
large marquee advertising the whereabouts of an ego whose craving for excitement
can quickly derail practice. The ego likes action and entertainment and will
only grudgingly cooperate since meditation moves it from the center to the
periphery of one’s consciousness.
Second, observation makes the ego feel exposed and vulnerable.
Born in the darkness, unappreciative of scrutiny, it will certainly crank out
an incessant stream of distracting thought and feeling throughout the
meditation. Because of its mindless belief in the virtue of self-validating
work, no matter how ill-conceived or illogical, it needs to be given something
to do.
Which accounts for the popularity of active
over witnessing meditations. Active meditations keep the ego busy thinking
holy thoughts, saying calming words, or visualizing ‘spiritual’
images. Because it bores quickly, its least preferred activity is watching the
breath or mind. Sooner rather than later, the meditator who listens to the ego
will consistently find him or her self mentally sitting on the beach sipping a
coke, reading an adventure novel, and working on a tan.
Allowing the ego to preside over meditation practice puts the
fox in charge of the chicken coop. Understandably, most initial
‘spiritual’ activity is ego based, but changes should evolve out of
discrimination and dispassion arising from meditative insight and awareness,
not as a reaction to suffering or ego ‘shoulds
and shouldn’ts, do’s and
don’ts.’ The monasteries, zendos, and
ashrams of the world over are populated with egos whose fundamental sense of
identity has been unaffected by the move to the religious life, not surprising
since ego transcendence is not unlike a salmon swimming hundreds of miles
upstream to spawn.
In the next chapter we consider why meditation as a practice is
so difficult to master, what causes the incessant cascading of thought and
feeling, why deep-seated complexes yield so grudgingly to awareness, and why
trying to control the mind with the ego is impossible.
A Simple Technique
Based on the idea that the mind likes pleasure and the Self is
the ultimate pleasure, the following simple technique introduces the mind to
the Self.
If holding the body upright is difficult, lying down is
acceptable as long as the tendency to sleep can be overcome when the mind
empties. Some go for the full lotus while the less physical gravitate to the
half lotus or the simple meditative poses evolved by Hatha
Yoga. In
On the mental level assume a gracious, upright, noble, pose. Get
into a sensitive, inquiring state of mind, like a botanist patiently examining
a delicate flower. The meditator should think of meditation as an afternoon on
the beach, not a shift in the mines.
With the eyes closed, settle in.
What is next?
Ask for help. Obviously, if you knew who you were you would not
be meditating in the first place, so by sitting you are really saying you do
not know anything, the most essential ingredient for a successful meditation.
Most meditators believe in a higher power, God, a spirit guide, guru figure,
the saints, the universe, ‘guidance,’ or a deity. The Self, which
knows every thought and feeling, understands the need and will respond through
the chosen symbol. The Self put the meditation idea into the mind in the first
place so the meditator needn’t worry. Everything that needs to happen
will happen.
Make a resolution to leave your worries and involvements behind.
It is good to meditate in a place not used for other activities. Feel satisfied
you are making an effort to meditate. Next, clear the mind of memories of
previous meditations, good or bad. Trying to improve a bad meditation or
reproduce a good one is futile and will agitate the mind.
After the invocation, scan and relax the body from the feet up.
If you have a hard time relaxing, use a little visualization. Imagine you are a
warm, peaceful, light-filled ball of consciousness inside your feet and expand
until the feet feel hollow. Next bore your way up the legs, hollowing out the
ankles, knees, and hips. Take your time. It may seem a silly trick but it works
because the body is actually a vast field of consciousness, not a constipated
little ball of meat. If the ‘ball’ does not work, use any method
you wish to relax your way up the legs. Because they are associated with waste
removal, the stomach and abdominal organs often carry negative energy, so spend
sufficient time working in this area. Move up and explore the chest. Its
association with the emotional center causes angry and unforgiving feelings to
lodge there, so the muscles are often tight. Scan leisurely, leaving it
light-filled and relaxed, then move up to the neck and shoulders. Much tension
accumulates here so take your time. When it’s
relaxed move out to the tips of the fingers and hollow out the arms like you
did the legs. Then redo the neck and shoulders.
The face we carry around in the world is not usually our real
face, so we need to do something to get it back to normal. Work
around the chin, mouth, and cheeks first and then up to the eyes and forehead.
You will find many tiny vibrations hovering around these regions,
so release the muscles supporting them and let them dissipate. A smile or frown
means too much energy’s been left behind. Aim for the indifferent look of
a Buddha or the peaceful face of the dead.
The idea behind all this scanning and relaxing is to prepare the
body for your exit. Think of the body as an automobile and yourself as the
driver. The driver just returned from a long day on the road, will park the car
in the garage and enter his or her home for the evening. Before you park it for
good, re-scan the whole thing to make sure it is comfortable and turn your
attention to the breath.
The Breath
The breath goes in and out nicely on its own. Simply observe it,
do not breathe consciously, although observing the breath consciousizes
it a bit. Not to worry. It will settle down and return to its normal pattern.
The point of meditation is to relax, not just physically but mentally. Watching
the breath occupies the mind with a simple rhythmic object. Because it wants
glamour and excitement, the mind quickly grows bored, but boring is good.
Learning to enjoy boredom is one of the benefits of meditation.
At this point I give the mind a challenge by training my
attention to ride on the breath. When the breath is out the attention should
flow out and when the breath comes flowing in, the attention comes with it.
Of course, the mind will wander. Pull it back and synchronize it
with the breath. It need not ride perfectly on every breath. Do not get upset
if it doesn’t work immediately. Take your time.
Meditation is not about the breath anyway. The breath is only a
tool. How long should one work with it? There is no hard and fast rule,
sometimes five or ten minutes, sometimes longer. You are looking for a sign
that the mind is getting quiet because it stills quickly as it synchronizes
with the breath.
As the mind and breath harmonize, use surplus attention to
release pent-up thoughts and feelings on the out breath. Do not relate to or
analyze the thoughts/ feelings at this point, simply pay attention to what you
are doing. Just as the out breath cleanses the body, releasing thoughts
detoxifies the mind. From a meditative perspective one’s relationship to
the thoughts is more important than the thoughts themselves. Later, when you
are seeing from the Self, you may wish to analyze them, although ultimately all
thoughts are basically useless. Do not be concerned about losing them, they
will be back. The aim is to take a little pressure off the mind, not empty it
completely.
The Silence34
The mind is becoming quiet when you become conscious of all
sorts of sounds of which you were previously unaware...like going to sleep. You
never hear the clock ticking until you want to sleep, because the mind,
formerly occupied with its thoughts, is emptying. You may hear the heart beat,
the scratching of the breath as it goes in and out, snippets of conversation
taking place blocks away, the hum of the kitchen refrigerator, a fly buzzing
lazily in an adjoining room. The thoughts may be amplified, larger than life,
or slower as if they were slogging through molasses. You might start picking up
on them as they start rather than midway through their cycle.
You will notice these things because you are now surrounded by a
bubble of Silence which, depending on the quietude of the mind, is hardly
noticeable or roars as it does on the great plains in
the dead of a summer night.
When the Silence appears as a tangible presence, take your
attention from the breath and fix it on the Silence. Because it has served its
purpose, the breath should drop out of consciousness, or seem very faint, far
away and irrelevant. Occasionally the Silence completely swallows the mind and
you find yourself deep within your Self, unaware of the breath, the noises in
the room, your thoughts...absolutely everything...a state similar to conscious
sleep. Time dissolves and you might be overcome with ecstasy.
Many unusual experiences can happen when the mind is quiet. Let
them happen, do not cling. All experience, like thought, is essentially
transitory, not subject to ego control. Moreover, the purpose of meditation
is not to produce specific pleasurable experiences but to inquire into the
nature of the Self and distinguish It from the
mind.
When the mind remains partially active and the senses report
information, the thoughts and sounds appear into and disappear out of the
Silence like phantoms. The silent peaceful Awareness in which they appear is a
rocklike, real, luminous and eternal presence. The experience of the Silence is
the essence of meditation. It allows the meditator to carefully observe the
transitory and insubstantial nature of the body/mind instrument.
I think of the Silence as the altar of the inner temple and take
great pleasure witnessing the thoughts and feelings arise out of and disappear
back into It. The discipline of meditation is always
the struggle with the ego to keep attention fixed on the Silence. If the
Silence is particularly deep or radiant the ego will be so stunned it will
surrender easily like an awestruck child at a carnival. But more often than not
its powerful samskaras carry attention far afield.
Holding to the Silence for the purpose of inquiring into the nature of the
Self is meditation.
One would not think to visualize or chant because the experience
of the Silence is fascinating and fulfilling. However, sometimes the mantra
arises spontaneously, chanting itself. Occasionally meditation activates
particularly subtle parts of the Unconscious and wonderful visions appear.
The meditation is not creating the Silence, although it may seem
so. The Silence is the substrate of experience, self-luminous Consciousness.
The technique simply withdraws enough consciousness from the body and mind to
allow the ever present and apparently hidden Silence to manifest.
Once you are consistently able to contact the Silence, start the
inquiry. Who or what is the Silence? Who is the meditator? Explore the boundary
between the mind and the Silence. The Silence is the most subtle form of the
Self, the realization of which frees one from suffering. There are many ways to
relate to the Self, but I see It as an intimate lover,
in whose presence I feel deliciously comfortable. Try surrendering, melting
into Its compassionate embrace. When
the ego opens up to Silence, Its cleansing waters flood in, healing body and
mind.
The Silence may manifest as peace, the sense of being completely
at rest, fulfilled, and unconcerned.
Or as bubbling blissfullness.
Or limitlessness, spacious emptiness and
fullness.
Contact of the mind with the Self can be described in many ways
but experience of the Self through the mind is not Self Knowledge,
Enlightenment.
Enlightenment is the rediscovery of oneself as the Self.
The question of what illumines the blissful, silent, peaceful
state needs to be answered. How is this Self, which is routinely ignored in the
waking state, suddenly available for experience? Is someone other than It
illumining It, or is It illumining Itself? What is the
nature of the Self and how does it relate to the ‘me’ I think I am?
The purpose of meditation, working with the breath and mind, is
to create an inner environment conducive to the exploration of the Self. As
mentioned, most seekers have an exaggerated and fantastic notion of
Enlightenment. Because their views are so unrealistic they
are not going to get it even when it is staring them straight in the face.
The information necessary to make the discrimination between the
Self and the Not-Self in meditation is contained in this text. The last chapter
contains a list of ideas useful in the inquiry.
34. The Silence is not merely the absence of
sound or thought. It is the Awareness of the absence of sound and thought.
Self Knowledge and Meditation
The best source of knowledge on the Self is scripture, particularly
very old texts, the Upanishads, for example. These sources, which represent
collective knowledge, can be trusted because no specific ego is responsible for
them. The experience of contemporary mystics may also be valuable but only when
it squares with scripture. Seek knowledge from many sources and only accept
that on which all agree. If someone becomes famous and writes books on
meditation, distortions inevitably occur. Forty years ago a yogi, whom the
author had the pleasure to know, had a profound experience of a ‘blue
pearl’ before Enlightenment. To this day meditators in his lineage strive
to experience it and often feel spiritually dissatisfied when they do not.
Extraordinary experiences are not inherently unspiritual, but each path to Enlightenment
is unique and will only provide experiences relevant to the individual’s
needs.
Scripture is valuable because the language is impersonal and
factual. For example, the following verses from an Eighth Century text by Shankaracharya, written in the first person, present the
Self as pure knowledge:
“Negating conditionings with the knowledge ‘I am not this’
realize your identity as the Self as indicated in scripture.
The three bodies are perceived objects and as
perishable as bubbles. Realize through pure discrimination I am not them.
Because I am other than the body, I
don’t suffer its changes. I am not born nor do I die. I have no sense
organs so I am uninvolved in the world. Because I am other than the mind, I am
free from sorrow, attachment, malice and fear. Scripture says I am pure,
without thought and desire and so I am.
I have no attributes. I live without breath. I
am eternal, formless and ever free. I am the same in all, filling all things
with being. I am infinite non-dual pure Consciousness.”
While we can’t avoid it, the language of experience can be
potentially dangerous. People invariably speak from the point of view of a
subject looking out at an object. The objects, one’s experiences, are
usually the points of interest to them, not the subject, the one who is
reporting them. If I see a blazing light without limit, the blazing limitless
light captures my attention and will be assumed to be the content of the
experience. However, the Consciousness that witnessed the light is the essential
ingredient and the light non-essential, because nothing is experienced without
Consciousness. Were the light the Self it would be conscious of being
witnessed, but subtle objects of experience, like dreams, are never conscious.
Seeing a light or lights is a common experience which should stimulate inquiry.
What ‘light’ is illumining the light? Who saw the light? The
‘who’ is you, the Self, whose existence is
not validated by a particular experience. In fact, without knowledge of what we
are seeking the meditator can easily live from experience to experience,
craving more and more, building a grotesque, addicted spiritual ego.
So the point of having clear knowledge going into meditation is
to arm the meditator with discrimination. Discrimination allows the meditator
to skillfully wade through the endless experiential phenomena that take
attention away from the Self.35
35. See the list of terms in Chapter V describing the nature of
the Self.
Meditation as Therapy
Meditation is a means of Self Realization. Realistically,
however, Self Realization is at best a distant goal, attainable by the few.
Moreover, the authorities insist that Self Realization only comes when the mind
is relatively free of neuroses. Since freedom from suffering is
everyone’s goal, meditation is also psychologically valuable because it
acts as a bridge between the conscious and unconscious minds and brings the
causes of suffering to light. When the causes are acknowledged, they dissolve
and suffering ceases. Whilst the theory is a little crude and Enlightenment can
happen before the samskaras are completely exhausted,36
the idea is sound and provides a reasonable rationale for practicing
meditation.
Therapy,37 because it
doesn’t introduce the patient to the Self and takes the ego for the Self,
can only split the mind into two parts and train one to observe the other. The
therapist assumes the position of a dispassionate witness, observing from
beyond the dark penumbra cast by the ego, facilitating the exposure of shadow
content. Ideally the therapist’s point of view is transferred and the
patient begins seeing objectively.
The science of meditation claims that everyone has a built-in
inner therapist, the Self, in whose compassionate light the ego’s habits
and patterns are objectively revealed. Meditation is not necessarily superior
to therapy, but at some point the objective view of oneself has to ironically
come from within.
Enlightenment is nothing more than assuming the Self’s
point of view as one’s own. Identification with the Self gives lasting
happiness because it frees one of limiting concepts.
36. Chapter III describes the
techniques for purifying the samskaras.
37. See the beginning of Chapter V
for more on therapy and meditation.
Limiting
Concepts...The Not-Self
‘I am the body’ is our most pervasive and severely
limiting concept and the source of much grief, the immense fear of disease, old
age and death, for example.
Why am I not the body?
First, because it is perceivable, an
object of my awareness. I see or feel it, therefore it
is other than me. The Self is the perceiver.
Second, because it is insentient. If I were the body the
body would know me just as I know it, but the body has no idea who I am. The
Self is eternally sentient.
Third, because it is limited and not
constantly present. If I am the body, why do not I exist in the dream and
deep sleep state? I do exist in those states, but not as a physical body. Even
in the dream state where I may have a body, the dream body is not the same as
the waking state body. If I am two bodies, there are two ‘me’s,’ an obvious impossibility. In deep sleep
I have neither a gross waking nor a subtle dream body. Therefore the body
isn’t me. The Self is unlimited and omnipresent.
Fourth, because it changes. The Self
doesn’t.
Fifth, because the body has a shape. The Self is formless
being.
Sixth, because the body depends on its
constituent parts and the elements. The Self is a partless
whole and independent of everything.
I am the Mind
When I am ignored or rejected, my statement ‘You hurt
me’ indicates a confusion of the ‘me,’ the Self, with the
mind. ‘I am angry, sad, depressed, jealous, envious,’ etc. are
further examples. You are not your feelings and emotions for the same reason
you are not the physical body. Feelings and emotions, like the body, are
insentient. They do not know you. Because of you they are known.
And, like the body, the mind does not exist in all three states.
Sleep is only possible when the mind dies, yet you do not cease to exist without
the mind.
I am the Intellect
The third layer of ignorance to be discriminated as Not-Self is
identification with ideas, thoughts, and ideals. ‘I am a doctor, lawyer,
communist, capitalist, Christian, mother, father, gay, black, lesbian,
meditator,’ etc. are spiritually incorrect statements. The
‘I’ is the Awareness in whose light all ideas are known. Like the
body and emotions, ideas are not conscious.
I am the Ego
A fourth misconception causes
identification of the Self with the ego, the doer and enjoyer, ‘I climbed
a mountain’ is untrue. The body climbed the mountain. The ‘I’
watched it climb. ‘I want a job’ is untrue. The ego wants a job.
Like the body, the mind/intellect/ego is a perceived object and
limited with respect to experience. Its non-existence in sleep also confirms
its relative unreality.
One might argue that if the Self is everything, the body, mind,
intellect, and ego are the Self, and therefore enlightened by default, just as
an effect is the cause in a different form. But the effects of the Self are
non-essential with reference to Consciousness and therefore not enlightened. A spider ’s web, for example, manufactured from the body
of the spider is non-separate from the spider with reference to its substance,
yet, unlike the spider, it lacks consciousness. So until the identification and
attachment to the body/mind/intellect is destroyed,38
Enlightenment will not happen.
When the crutches of limiting concepts no longer support the
meditator, he or she is forced to stand alone as the Self. The Self, unlike
limiting concepts, cannot be discarded.
Try to discard yourself.
Direct experience and knowledge of the Self comes as a surprise
because the Self, an intimate but apparently hidden part of every experience,
is out in the open. And like one’s name, It
cannot be forgotten. Meditation is an awakening, a journey without a distance,
from the state of Self ignorance to Self knowledge.
This kind of awakening happens rarely, although there are
moments when the Self is known and one could be said to be temporarily
enlightened. But, owing to factors which will be discussed in the next chapter,
the vision fades, the light seemingly goes off, and one is returned to the
sleepy life of limitation.
38. Conventional wisdom notwithstanding, Enlightenment can
happen when the meditator is partially identified with the Not-Self. It will
not come or be momentarily experienced when there is a high degree of
identification with the Not-Self. Complete identification and non-attachment
with the Not-Self does not exist on ego’s level. Even a highly identified
person is capable of moments of meditation and transcendence. Conversely, even
predominantly non-attached persons are subject to periods of attachment.
THE BAD NEWS
If the primary purpose of meditation is Self Realization, the
rediscovery of oneself as the Self, and if the Self can be realized through
meditation and other methods, then why is it so infrequently realized? Why is
the spiritual world full of meditators whose underlying sense of inadequacy,
incompleteness, and limitation remains in spite of innumerable shaktipats, satoris,
nirvanas and fleeting samadhis?39
From the ego’s point of view life is one long experience
broken up into many small experiences. Information comes in from the world around
and it reacts. After enduring a seemingly endless procession of stimuli and an
equally countless queue of responses, the lights go out and we die.
Stimulus/response is so instinctive, subtle and fleeting we
hardly realize it exists. Deeper analysis, however, reveals a complex and
powerful process.
To find out why even seasoned meditators find meditation to be
difficult we need to investigate...not the humdrum experiences that pack our
daily lives or the peak experiences that flavor them...but the way we
experience.
Because they steadfastly rely on the senses as their primary
means of knowledge,40 materialists ridicule the view that an
externally self-existing, indivisible, non-dual Consciousness, the substrate of
material and psychic reality, transforms itself into matter and intelligently
divides into five elements which subsequently split and combine to create the
infinite diversity of names and forms that confront our senses. Yet, if the
ancients are correct, this (or something akin to it) seems to be what happened.
Just as a web is manufactured from a spider’s body and
shaped by its intelligence, the material world evolved from formless Reality,
shaped by conscious impersonal Intelligence. According to the Vedic view, the
Self is not requisitioning matter from a supramundane
deity or a parallel universe, but metamorphosing into matter without
compromising Its formless nature.
The science of the Self, unlike religion, does not ask us to
blindly swallow church doctrine or mindlessly take on board unverifiable
scriptural contentions...like heaven and hell...but presents time-tested
methods that let enquiring meditators verify its theories in the laboratories
of their own minds. Its models are not meant to cement profound concepts
concerning the precise nature of a given physical or psychological object or
process in the mind, but to guide the meditator to practically know the Self,
the non-conceptual factor underlying experience. Quaint as it seems, over the
centuries the ancient model used to explain the elements’ interaction
with the senses has provided meditators with a reasonable explanation of an
important process, one that aids in understanding the pitfalls inevitably
encountered in meditation.
Our discussion of the
psychology of meditation begins with the apparently mysterious statement that
the sense organs ‘arise’ from the elements.41 The five elements in order of subtlety are: space, air,
fire, water, and earth. Their five corresponding properties give rise sto the five perceptive senses whose instruments are: ears,
skin, eyes, tongue and nose.42 For example, the property of space is
sound. The Self, Consciousness, accurately labelled
the ‘unstruck sound,’ is spaceless and therefore soundless. But Consciousness as
matter is dualistic, subject to constant motion. Assuming an ocean of matter,
energy in motion, eternally vibrating in limitless space, in turn superimposed
on an endless
39.
Shaktipat is the experience of the inner Self, satori a glimpse of theSelf. Nirvana, a negative description of the Self, means that experience is ‘blown out’ i.e.
no longer exists. Samadhi is the knowledge that everything one perceives
is equal in value to everything else. It is a yogic term describing one type of
experience of the Self.
40. Those whose primary means of
knowledge are the senses, tend to think the body is
the Self.
41. The upward moving arrows on the left.
42. The ‘Gross Body’ in the second
column from the left.
The property of fire is light. The sun, for example, is a massive
fire radiating light throughout the solar system. So Consciousness evolved the
organ of sight in the Subtle Body and its physical instrument, eyes, to allow Itself to visually enjoy Its creation.
Air makes the organ of touch and its physical instrument, the
skin, possible, allowing us to calculate proximity to physical objects and
forces...heat and cold, for example.
The power of taste relies on a tongue immersed in saliva so
water is said to be the source of the organ of taste. A dry tongue tastes
nothing.
Finally, earth, the
densest element, a composite of the others, emits smells, recorded in the
Subtle Body through the nose. The sense instruments (eyes, ears, nose, tongue,
and skin) are located on the physical body and composed of matter, but the
organs proper are located in the Subtle Body and are formed from the sattvic
or light component of the macrocosmic mind.43
So Consciousness has devised a way to ‘involve’ Itself into the elements and eventually, when It becomes
weary of Its game, ‘evolve’ back out of them. The ancients say the
elements evolve before the psyche, or consciousness,44
an idea roughly coinciding with the epiphenomenal views of modern
science. The idea makes sense if we accept the view that the universe was
evolved by the Self for the purposes of Self Realization because the psyche or
Subtle Body45 would need a field of experience, one capable of
providing the experiences necessary to re-awaken to its source.
The Subtle Body, composed of the subtle components of the five
elements, molds physical nature to serve its ends. If chemistry is destiny, a
predominance of the subtle component of the earth element might lead to a
practical nature, the predominance of fire to a passionate temperament, water
to emotionality, and air to abstract thought. Moreover, if the ancients are to
be believed, a preponderance of a particular subtle element attracts the
corresponding physical element into one’s body. The permutations and
combinations of the elements make for the immense variety of psyches and bodies
comprising the creation.s Animals and plants are
rudimentary subtle bodies interacting with the elements.
Air and fire predominate in hummingbirds, for example, while
earth and water predominate in hippos.
The relationship between the psyche, the Subtle Body, and the
material world makes experience and knowledge possible. If the creation were
exclusively elemental and conscious beings absent, nothing will be known. For
example, electricity, as opposed to visible matter, is a form of energy. Though
gross, a tungsten filament is nonetheless comprised of subtler particles:
protons, neutrons, mesons, quarks, and what not. When it flows into the
filament electrical energy excites subtle particles which subsequently excite
grosser particles producing light. Similarly, when the subtle consciousness in
the sense organ interacts with gross objects, knowledge (psychic light)46 is produced.
According to Vedic theory the elements evolved from the subtle to
the gross. The most subtle element and first to evolve was space. Because it
pervades everything, is unaffected by what it pervades, and is intangible, it
is often confused with the Self. In spite of similarities it can’t be the
Self because it is insentient. The invisible container of the other elements,
we infer its presence by listening to the sound vibrations arising in it. Sound
doesn’t exist where there is no space. The Self is silence because it is spaceless. Sound cannot be seen, felt, tasted, or smelled.
The apparent feeling of sound vibration is due to the skin’s contact with
air that has been disturbed by sound. Air, the next element, can be heard
through the ears and felt through the organ of touch. The smells in air come
from earth particles carried by it, not from the air itself. Fire, the first
element perceivable by the physical eyes, can be seen, heard, and felt. Water,
number four, can be seen, heard, touched, and tasted. Finally earth, the
element that made noses possible, can be smelled, seen, tasted, felt, and
heard.
Why, if five separate senses report five different stimuli in
five separate theaters, do not conscious beings enjoy five separate
simultaneous experiences?
Enter mind, the mixer.
What a marvel! Five unique perceptions involving myriad bits of
information combine to create one cogent perception.47
So the universal foundation of experience is sense contact with
the sense objects, symbolized by the five element model.
On the way to the supermarket a car ran a stop sign and came
hurtling at me. I screamed, slammed on the brakes, and turned the wheel,
narrowly avoiding an accident. Though such a situation had never before
happened to me, why did I react so swiftly and appropriately?
A speeding object emits stimuli
which strike my retina. The mind sends a signal to three of my five active
organs and an accident is avoided.48 How
did the mind know what to do?
In fact, the
mind’s command to the senses was the final step in a very subtle process taking
place at an even deeper level. Moreover, the mind did not unilaterally make the
decision, but merely executed a command coming from a higher center, intellect,
the discriminating function.49
The mind not only executes instructions coming from intellect
but sends the unified sense stimuli garnered in the world up to intellect which
decides how to respond. On the basis of what?
43. See Chapter III for a discussion of the gunas:
sattva, rajas, and tamas.
44, Consciousness
with a small ‘c’, the Subtle Body.
45. The middle column of the diagram.
46. The word light in spiritual literature
generally refers to Consciousness,the
knowing principle, and knowledge, the result of the mind’s interaction
with objects.
47. The five downward-flowing
arrows converging on ‘M.
48. The five small arrows
moving from ‘E’ to the active senses in the second column.
The Causal Body
Imagine this situation. On the first day of creation a mountain
shaped like a perfect cone thrust out of the earth and the first drop of rain
struck the mountain’s very tip.
What path would the drop take?
Since no precedent exists each potential path is as likely as
any other. Let’s say it flipped a coin to determine its course and slid
down the south side leaving an imperceptible little trail.
Time passed and a second drop fell. What path would it take?
High odds favor all paths, but marginally greater odds favor the south side. It
followed tradition and etched the existing path a little deeper. After
thousands of rain storms other paths developed and the mountain sported
canyons, ravines and gullies all around. And the original path became a great
river valley.
We obviously cannot go back to the time when our psyches were
perfectly clear like the Consciousness from which they emerged, but let us
pretend we can. On the day the first mountain sprung up the first man strolled
out of his cave and looked around just as the first bear wandered out from
behind the first tree. The bear spied the man and decided to have lunch. The
man, however, picked up a huge rock and struck the bear so hard it died
instantly. And, in life’s first irony, the first man enjoyed the
world’s first bearburger for lunch.
What kind of a day was it for our hero? Because it was his first
experience and he had no others with which to compare it, he could not say. As
he sat contentedly munching his burger the experience replayed several times,
gradually diminishing in intensity and frequency. When evening fell it left his
consciousness entirely and he dropped off to sleep.
On the second day the first man bumped into the first woman, one
thing led to another, and they made the first love, a delightful experience.
When he fell asleep after dinner, the memory accompanied him and cooked up
delicious dreams.
The next few days saw many experiences, some good, some not so
good. One morning, a week later, he woke up, ate his porridge, and looked out
the entrance to his cave to see a hungry bear looking in. Suddenly an exciting
and emotional replay of the encounter with the first bear flashed in his
primitive consciousness and he understood what to expect if he ventured out.
Each experience, no matter how trivial, leaves a trace in our
consciousness, like an elementary particle carving a track in a cloud chamber.
The deep memory that saves experience, unlike intellect’s facts and
figures memory, is the Causal Body, the Unconscious, which not only retains the
essence of each experience, but also the subjective reactions to it: the
feelings, emotions and thoughts arising in the mind at the time.
What a blessing to have his experiences stored out of
consciousness! He could get up in the morning, take his porridge, and venture
out into the light of day without having the past intrude, very much like the
first day.
But as time passed he noticed a change. One day, walking along
without a care, he began to feel a little out of sorts, as if he wanted
something. Trying to picture what he wanted made him uncomfortable and he was
unable to keep his attention on the pristine world around. Suddenly he knew! A
picture of first woman appeared in his mind and the experience of their tryst
vividly flooded his consciousness. Because the memory was so pleasurable and
first woman was no longer available he became unhappy. He wandered about in
this state for several days when, as luck would have it, he met the second
woman of the world. To make a long story short, they made love, and first man
was happy once more.
After repeatedly cataloging the love experiences, the Causal
Body realized it was running out of storage space and edited the extraneous
details: the color of her hair, the cut of her garment, and her name, saving
only important facts like the grunts and groans and (of course) the big moment
when the world stopped. As more experience flowed in, it merged the experiences
of many different women into the essence of woman, compacted myriad episodes
into the essence of love, and created a file marked ‘high
priority.’ Though the memories were meant to remain ‘sub’
conscious, the woman memory eventually took on a life of its own, popping into
his conscious mind, the Subtle Body, with disturbing regularity. Moreover, each
repeated memory deepened the scar in the pristine landscape of his subconscious
until it resembled the great river valley on the side of the first mountain
after millions of years of wind and weather.
Now, sadly, when the first man awoke he had an agenda. No longer
able to sit blissfully in front of the cave enjoying the scenery as he’d
done before, he passed his days longing for a companion. Just as rain tends to
flow down the mountain’s deepest valleys, our
hero’s consciousness gushed wildly down the deep sexual groove in the
Causal Body, filling his conscious mind with desire.
His routine changed and he became increasingly indifferent to
the practical details of life. Instead of enjoying random walks through the
forest, staying home patching cracks in his cave or stocking winter stores, day
and night he haunted the first bar hoping to find love. The more he thought
about a mate, the more he thought about a mate.
His emotional state was being saved and recycled too. Just obsessing over the memory of love generated great desire.
And with each longing the channel in the Causal Body got deeper and deeper,
flooding the mind with fantasies, tossing it hither and thither like a small
boat in a storm.
Furthermore, he began to notice a strange connection between his
all-consuming desire and the probability of meeting a first woman type. Were
these the chance encounters they seemed? In the beginning outer life seemed to
be creating his inner reality, but now his cravings seemed to control his
destiny. Eventually he reached a point where inner reality became as vivid and
real as the outer.
We’ll leave first man and return to my drive to the
supermarket. Although I’d never been in an accident, I knew exactly how
to respond because the Causal Body, which contains both the personal
subconscious (the impressions of personal experience) and the collective
unconscious (the impressions of the experience of all beings50),
stored the memory of that or a similar situation and activated the chain
reaction that resulted in an appropriate response to the threatening situation.
In a fraction of a second intellect, based on information stored
in the Causal Body, determined danger, passed on the information to ego, the
top dog of the inner triumvirate, whose identification with the Gross Body
compelled it to instruct mind to generate intense fear and activate the hands
and feet, causing the car to swerve and avoid the accident.
The five executive organs which evolve from the rajasic51 aspect
of the macrocosmic mind and correspond to the five information gathering senses
are: speech, hands, feet, genitals, and anus. Speech, which evolves from the
active element in Space, corresponds to the ears. Hands evolve from the active
element in air and correspond to the skin. Feet, corresponding to the eyes,
come from fire’s active element and the genitals, born out of
water’s active element, correspond to the tongue. The earth element
generates the anus which corresponds to the nose.
To round out our model, five ‘vital airs’
(respiration, evacuation, circulation, assimilation and udana,
the power to initiate thought and eject the Subtle Body from the physical body
at the time of death) account for the autonomic processes that keep the
physiological systems functioning.
The traces left in the Causal Body by repeated experience are
called vasanas, impressions, in Sanskrit. When they accumulate, vasanas
become samskaras, deep channels, and generate a terrible internal
pressure which causes life to become neurotic and obsessive. Instead of waiting
to see what comes, we frantically try to make things happen by creating favorable
and avoiding unfavorably remembered experiences. Samskara
means ‘formation’ and is similar to the psychological idea of a
‘complex,’ an amalgam of subtle tendencies that produce a
particular mental/emotional condition.
Whether
life is a spontaneous reaction to external factors, a subjective compulsion to
manipulate external factors based on past experience, or a combination of the
two, attention is always fixed on either the gross or the subtle bodies. Focussing on these bodies is not meditation. Meditation
is the flowing of attention toward the Self...which is even subtler than
the Causal Body.
The Self is not directly involved in life processes. Just as the
sun blesses earthly activities with its radiance but doesn’t actively participate
in specific activities, the Self simply provides the consciousness that
enlivens the Gross, Subtle, and Causal bodies. From Its point of view, sentient
beings are perfectly free to respond to life spontaneously or according to
programmed patterns of habit and thought.
Perhaps the most serious obstacle to meditation is the obsession
of the Subtle Body, the instrument of meditation, with happenings in outer
reality.
The Causal Body determines the type and quality of experience,
hence the word ‘causal.’ No thought, feeling, emotion, memory,
fantasy, dream, desire or idea appears in the Subtle Body that has not sprouted
from a Causal Body seed. Moreover, all physical actions flow from Subtle Body
motivations.
Knowledge of the factors influencing the Subtle Body is
essential because it is the instrument of meditation.
Since most experience is worldly, the typical Subtle Body is
extroverted. However, the Causal Body indiscriminately saves information,
subtle and gross, mystical and worldly, so Self experience,
which often happens spontaneously, creates powerful introverting samskaras.
Meditation also produces introverting samskaras, encouraging the
tendency to seek within. Because of the belief that happiness only comes from
outside, materialists consider introversion undesireable,
but introversion caused by spiritual practice is not incompatible with dynamic
work. In fact, inner vision, which will not develop properly until one’s
relationship with the world is satisfactory, enhances outer awareness.
49. The two large arrows moving from
‘I’ to ‘E’ and ‘E’ to ‘M.’
50. Often called
‘instinct.’
51. See the discussion of the gunas
in Chapter III.
The Subtle Body
Spiritual practice indirectly changes the Causal Body which is
unmanifest52 and beyond the conscious control of the Subtle Body.
The following chapter discusses methods other than meditation affecting the
Causal Body.
The instrument of meditation, the Subtle Body, commonly called
the mind, controls the perceptive and active organs and the vital airs.
The Subtle Body functions in three capacities: as mind,
intellect, and ego.53
Mind is the ‘emotional center’ in the Subtle Body,
the ‘feeling function,’ or the ‘heart.’ In its passive
aspect it tunes into and plays feelings and emotions like a radio. In its
active role it projects a wide array of positive and negative feelings: anger,
jealousy, possessiveness, kindness, love, sympathy, affection, etc. Like the
senses, which are nervously fixated on the material world, the mind54
is obsessively riveted on the emotional world, constantly on guard against
negative impulses from hostile minds, nervously anticipating tender sympathies
from kindred hearts. Identification with and attachment to the mind is one of
the primary obstacles to meditation.
The intellect, another Subtle Body function, is involved in the
analysis of situations, inquiry into problems, making determinations and
discriminations. Though simply a function like perception, sensation and
emotion, intellect plays an important role in spiritual life since suffering
and enjoyment are ultimately tied to what we know about ourselves and the
world.
In the service of worldly ends, intellect’s powers of
abstract thought, reason and discrimination render it an obstacle to meditation
and spiritual growth. A little subtler than the mind, a bit closer to the Self,
the source of its intelligence, it can, if educated and trained to think
objectively, become a powerful meditative aid.
52. The Causal
Body, because it is subtler than our perceiving instruments, the senses, mind
and intellect, can not be directly perceived.
53. The
following discussion of the Subtle Body, like the preceding discussion of the
Gross Body, is simply a model. The idea that the mind, intellect, and ego are separate
conscious entities is imprecise. They are actually inert feeling/thought
bundles that seem conscious because of their association with the Self. Seeing
the Self functioning in three modes may be more
helpful. The model is meant to assist the meditator in isolating these inner
factors in his or her understanding.
54. The word
‘mind’ has many meanings. Describing the emotional function as mind
is confusing because the term generally refers to the thinking function.
I’ve retained the Vedic term, manas (mind)
because the mantras use a separate term, buddhi,
to describe the thinking apparatus, the intellect. The mind or
‘heart’ is not to be confused with either the physical heart or the
hrydaya, the spiritual ‘Heart’ or Self. As a symbol of the self, ‘Heart’ means
‘essence’, as in the ‘heart of the matter,’ because the
Self is the essence of everything.
Ego and the Inner
Enemies
The Subtle Body’s third limb is called ego. No word is
bandied about more enthusiastically than ego. What is ego? Is it good or bad? How
does it relate to meditation and the Self?
In Vedantic literature the word has
several meanings. One defines ego as the part of the Self that thinks
it’s a doer and/or enjoyer. It identifies with actions, accomplishments,
joys and sorrows, the physical world and the body particularly. ‘I did
this...I did that’ would be egoic statements because the Self is unembodied and a non-doer.
Two related terms, jiva and ahamkara, also define ego. A jiva or ego is an embodied being. Plants, animals, insects,microbes and humans are
embodied beings. This definition says nothing about what these egos think about
themselves or the world. Jivas are sometimes
conceived as ‘rays’ or ‘emanations’ of formless
Consciousness, ‘man cast in the image of God,’ and are apparently
separate from Consciousness. Jivas are
embodied Consciousness and share Its essential nature,
but seem separate when viewed from their own perspective. When viewed from the
Self they are not separate.
Ahamkara is a compound word. Aham means ‘I’ and kara means a notion
or idea. So ahamkara is the notion or
idea a jiva has about itself. Needless
to say, egos who have no notion they’re one with
the Self, have a plethora of ideas about themselves. This more reasonable and
helpful definition sees ego not as a flawed individual but as the perfect Self
temporarily flawed by an incorrect self concept...the idea that it is separate
from the world, from other beings and from the Self.
When a pure and perfect being seemingly forgets its limitless
nature, it unconsciously concocts a secondary identity...the association of an
‘I’ with a long string of apparently related experiences. To
compensate for its insecurity in the face of the unstructured oceanic reality
of existence, the secondary entity nurtures a belief in a solid material
reality and sees itself as limited by the body and mind. Since billions think
of themselves in this way, they reinforce each other’s ignorance.
Therefore, little incentive to discover the truth exists in their world.
Because the Self knowledge arising during inquiry destroys this
idea, ahamkara is said to be (Self)
ignorance or egoism. The ultimate goal of spiritual life is the removal of
this ignorance.
To more completely understand the phenomenon of ego, let us
trace its birth and development.55
55.
Although this process has been known since time immemorial, theauthor
is indebted to Kenneth Wapnik for fleshing it out in
clear, modern psychological language.
The Separation
If I am limitless, adequate and complete, yet think of myself as
limited, inadequate and incomplete, I am living a lie. Christianity has labeled
this separated state ‘original sin.’ It is ‘original’
because it is the source of erroneous views about oneself, the world and
‘God’...the Self. It is called ‘sin’56 because
it misses the mark about who we really are. To miss the mark is to suffer.
Stage One...Guilt
The error of non-apprehension 57 of the Self is the
mother of ego and the cause of a chain of negative states of mind, the first of
which is guilt... feeling bad for making a mistake. Guilt, which is largely
unconscious and a synonym for The Separation, torments us until we realize what
we’re missing by living out of the light of the Self. We would like to
erase the mistake but have in the interim subconsciously accumulated a great
store of negative feelings, beliefs, ideas and experiences which continually
roil and cloud the mind with reaction, attachment and delusion. Attached,
reactive, deluded minds are incapable of meditation.
We infer guilt by observing our self loathing, anger,
depression, inadequacy, failure, impotence, emptiness, longing, desire,
arrogance, and the constant feeling that things should be
more-better-different.
Stage Two...Fear
The psychology of ego is infantile and may account for the
religious view of humans as ‘children’ of God. When a child breaks
the rules he or she immediately fears punishment. But ‘God,’ the
Self, being unconditional love, will not punish us for separating
but...here’s the rub...we believe It will. Perhaps fear is a reasonable
reaction to The Separation because we have unwittingly removed our true support
and protection in life. The longer we remain separate, the deeper the hidden
reservoir of fear becomes. Unfortunately the Causal Body is dynamic and fear
oozes out, attaching itself in thousands of ways to various objects, both
animate and inanimate, polluting our contact with the world.
Stage Three...Denial
The best way to live with fear...mutated guilt...is to repress
it, push it down into the Causal Body, a phenomenon known in the psychological
world as denial. However, what goes in must come out, so the repressed energy
eventually erupts into the Subtle Body creating intense extroverting waves
which completely obscure the Self, making meditation quite impossible.
Stage
Four...Projection
When guilt erupts the Subtle Body is painfully conscious of it.
To avoid taking responsibility, the ego quickly and automatically directs the
pain to an object. It finds convenient scapegoats: the world, mom and pop, its
childhood, the government, fate...and even God. The unconscious purpose of
projection is to separate the ego from the ‘sin’ of Self separation
even though Self separation is not all bad from ego’s point of view
because it opens up the fertile field of victimhood...which
makes it feel marginally better about itself.
Stage Five...Anger and
Attack
Having successfully laid the blame on someone or something
outside, the next logical step is: get angry at the object, usually a person,
and attack. The need to project guilt is perhaps the major root of hatred and
anger. Anger, obviously, is inimical to meditation because attention, instead
of flowing inward toward the Self, is completely wrapped up in projected
objects.
By following ego’s idea we seem to have solved the
problem...but attack makes us feel guilty. So instead of doing away with our
uncomfortable emotions we are right back where we started. And, as if to make
matters worse, the ego, who is no fool, has a vested interest in seeing that we
believe in the reality of The Separation. As long as we believe we are
separate, ego is in business because it is the belief that we are separate.
So when we take up a spiritual way of life and begin to practice
meditation we not only have to contend with ego’s self-serving thought
system but its predictably negative view of our desire to meditate.
Perhaps the biggest danger on the path of meditation is allowing
the ego to co-opt the meditation by donning the guise of a sincere, humble
meditator. Meditation practice should facilitate ego transcendence, disengage
ego identification, and purify the Subtle Body to the degree that it lifts the
mind into the plane of the Self where the ego is no longer the subject, the
experiencer, but ‘becomes’ an object of the Self ’s
awareness. Meditations that fail to expose the ego and ego generated thoughts
and emotions won’t lead to Self knowledge even if they produce
extraordinary experiences.
If we define meditation on the level of practice as purification
of the thought and feeling waves in the Subtle Body, we have our work cut out
for us. If we understand meditation as the flow of attention toward the Self,
one can easily see how Subtle Body disturbance keeps us merely
‘processing’ the effects of our spiritual ignorance instead of
meditating on the Self. ‘Processing’ is an ego driven activity,
designed to keep ego firmly in control of thought processes, unlike meditation
which should free thoughts and feelings from ego manipulation and control. If meditation
is also the process of undoing the tight knots of the psyche through Self
awareness, this convoluted psychological mess is what we have to work with.
Stage Six...Defense
As if dealing with the guilt/denial/projection/fear/ attack
cycle were not enough, a secondary complex develops...the attack/defense cycle.
When you attack you need armor, a defensive posture, because of the fear of
being attacked back. The more we defend ourselves the more we reinforce our
guilt. Attack is projected fear, so defense is an attempt to protect against fear,
but like all Separation-induced thoughts and feelings it reinforces the precise
samskara it is intended to relieve.
If the ultimate purpose of meditation is to provide an
environment conducive to inquiry and Self knowledge, participation in
ego’s game is a waste of time because it teaches that the guilty, fearful
ego is the self.
Desire
Another apparently less pathological obstacle to meditation and
inquiry is desire. The Separation creates a firm belief in scarcity. Poverty,
psychological or physical, generates intense need for the possession and
enjoyment of objects (things, situations, relationships, feelings, ideas, etc.)
which are thought to make one feel complete and erase the sense of limitation
and inadequacy. In consumer oriented cultures probably no belief commands as
much sympathy and support as the view of ourselves as
needy, wanting creatures.
Wanting is Suffering
The idea that desire is an inherently unworkable and
self-defeating game plan is a remarkably unpopular criticism of ego’s
thought and feeling system. Yet, no matter how you wish to see it, wanting is
suffering. Still, the ego fanatically worships desire...which it sees as an
easy way to resolve its sense of limitation and inadequacy.
That the world is in constant flux is the fly in the ointment of
this theory of happiness, however. Even if ego gets what it wants, the object
eventually loses attractiveness and the mind changes. Or the
mind changes, causing the object to lose attractiveness. Or the
relationship between the desirer and the desired breaks down, as relationships
are wont to do. Were ego to continually get what it wants, the feeling of
poverty would not disappear because it is produced by ignorance, an unexamined
misconception about who the ego really is.
Inner Conflict
As if the picture painted so far were not grim enough, when the
mind is not in meditation, the Self unknown and the Causal Body chock full of
unpurified samskaras, over time a structural distortion takes place in
the Subtle Body that becomes a secondary source of conflict...which also mitigates against successful meditation.
As mentioned above, each limb of the Subtle Body has its own
agenda and functions in its own limited way. The mind deals with emotional issues,
the intellect with thought life, and the ego attempts to control the way the
body, mind, and intellect serve or fail to serve its desires.
Seduced by an irrational belief in the reality and supremacy of
‘feelings,’ the mind insists that spontaneous emotion will bring
happiness, needily seeks love, and quickly becomes
embroiled in the emotional world where it uses its impressive arsenal of
emotions to get what it wants. Mind-dominated egos view the intellect and
reality-based advice with suspicion...as an attack on the value of
‘feelings.’
Intellect, the world of ideas, dominates the psychic economy
when there is a strong conviction that happiness can be attained through
careful analysis, inquiry, logic, and reason. Intellectuals live mainly in
their heads and often view the emotional side with distrust and suspicion.
Rather than discriminate between the Self and the Not-Self,58 the
intellect contributes to inner disharmony by questioning ego’s every
desire and action, developing agendas based solely on fantasy, enquiring into
spiritually useless paths and discriminating between assorted unrealities. When
it should be offering impartial counsel, it often plays handmaiden to mind,
providing self-serving rationalizations and justifications for the emotional
approach or cooking up grandiose schemes to please a needy ego.
Intense and consistent pressure over time from the samskaras compromises
the Subtle Body’s perfect geometry and contorts the personality to the
point where it is incapable of living in a peaceful, dignified and meditative
manner.
Depressing as this discussion of the obstacles
to meditation may seem, serious meditators need a realistic understanding of
what they are up against. The following chapter discusses techniques that make the mind meditation
worthy.
56. The greater one’s sense of
separation from the Self, the more one’s actions are
motivated by guilt, fear, anger, and desire. Because it is unaware of its
common identity with the Self, ego develops a relentless and single-pointed drive
for success, continually faces the prospect of failure, and constantly wars
with the world and those parts of itself that seem to limit its freedom. Its
inflations and deflations, grandiosity and low self-esteem, render it unfit as
a stabilizing factor in the psychic economy. Like the mind and intellect, ego
is subject to the vagaries of power and may support its fellows one moment and
attack them the next.
57. Drawn from archery, the word
‘sin’ originally meant ‘to miss the mark.’
58,
Vedanta defines The Separation as ‘the non-apprehension of Realityand the subsequent misapprehensions that arise.’
It’s technical term for The Separation is maya, ‘that which isn’t.’
58. Viveka
THE PATHS
How we live impacts on meditation practice. If, instead of
experiencing transcendence, you find yourself continually slogging through samskara driven problems, struggling with
heavy waves of emotion and striving to suppress unremitting thought
projections, a life-style calculated to purify extroverting samskaras and
reprogram the Causal Body is advised.
Purification
Therefore a program of purification must accompany the practice
of meditation. ‘Pure’ means uncontaminated.
Substances can be purified in theory, but in practice nothing in nature, the
Not-Self, exists in a perfectly pure state. The three bodies, for example, are
aggregates of the gross and subtle elements. The Causal Body, the primary
obstacle to meditation, draws positive and negative energies from the
macrocosmic mind...as well as personal experience... and can never be
completely purified. Diligent practice, however, can cleanse it until
meditation is effortless, spontaneous and deep. A purified Causal Body is
relatively free of projecting and veiling energies, about which more will be
said later in this chapter.
The Subtle Body can be purified directly or indirectly. Direct
purifications are peak experiences and epiphanies which lift the mind and put
it in contact with the Self, the ‘State of
Indirect purification, the long range view, purifies the mind by
consciously changing or removing samskaras. Unhelpful vasanas
dominate the mind pictured above, extrovert the attention factor and create
disturbing thoughts and feelings that completely obscure the Self. In the mind
represented in the following diagram unhelpful programming has been largely exhausted,
causing the centers to turn inward, giving them a constant vision of the Self.
Programming,
the samskaras, can be helpful or unhelpful. The type of programming is
determined by the attitude obtaining when the action that produced the vasana
was performed. Samskaras are helpful when they produce harmonious
thought and feeling
states unhelpful when they agitate the Subtle
Body, extrovert the attention, and challenge concentration on subtle objects.
Because I do not know I am the pleasurable Self, I try to get
pleasure from a cigarette. Though short term pleasure may be experienced, the
practice is counterproductive because I end up concentrating on the body,
reinforcing identification with it, and creating a dull state of mind. Smokers
can usually meditate only after smoking, when the desire is temporarily
submerged. Were a meditative state achieved, it would undoubtedly disappear
with the next craving. Additionallly, the systematic
destruction of the body increases mental and emotional agitation, further
reducing awareness.
Actions motivated by selfish craving and excessive concern for
results produce unhelpful vasanas. For example, if I am unaware that
love is my nature I will undoubtedly crave it from others and burden myself
with an emotionally disturbed mind.59
Fear motivated actions produce negative vasanas. Worry
about family, health, and money, causes even worldly
pleasures to be unfulfilling, let alone the bliss of meditation.
Desire prompted activities produce unhelpful vasanas.
Greed, pride, lust, deceit...religion’s seven deadly sins...extrovert and
stir the mind making it unfit for meditation.
What to Do?
An enjoyed activity produces an attraction vasana for
that activity. An unenjoyed activity creates an
aversion vasana for that activity. Without an action, subtle and/or
gross, a vasana will not be produced. When experience takes place with
the mind free of attraction and aversion, no vasanas are created. If a
course of action is foregone when the vasana for it explodes in the Subtle
Body, the vasana does not recycle and is removed from the Causal Body...assuming it is acknowledged
and not reinforced by longing or repressed. Repressed desires come back.
Therefore it is possible to add, change, or delete vasanas.
A person developed colon cancer and needed an operation. The
doctor cut the abdomen to remove the cancer, causing the patient’s death.
Though the operation was unsuccessful, the doctor was lauded for a noble
attempt to save a life. Another man walking down a dark alley after the bars
closed was accosted by a mugger who thrust a knife in his abdomen, killing him
instantly. The robber was vilified and sent to prison for life. The cause of
death in both cases, a knife to the gut, was the same, but the killers suffered
quite different fates. Were the action inherently evil the doctor would be
doing time; were it inherently good the mugger would have gone free. Actions in
themselves are neither spiritual nor unspiritual, helpful nor
unhelpful, good nor bad. If the motivating attitude is the critical
ingredient in the production of helpful or unhelpful vasanas, it stands
to reason that changing the nature of the motivation will have an effect on the
vasana.
59. See ‘A Daunting List’ in Chapter IV.
Change Your Attitude
To change our attitudes we need to cultivate mindfulness.
Mindfulness or self awareness is constantly compromised because the vasanas distract
and extrovert attention. Mindfulness is paying attention to and
identifying attitudes, especially those which ego prefers to keep in the dark.
Altering behavior without changing the underlying attitude does not result in
purification and spiritual growth. The action vasanas may be obliterated
but not the attitude vasanas, leaving a disturbed Subtle Body. The
‘dry drunk’, an alcoholic who quits drinking but retains the
psychology of drunk, is a case in point.60
Attitudes can be binding or non-binding. Binding attitudes
produce extroverting vasanas and mitigate against meditation.61
The following attitudes enhance agitating samskaras: fear, desire,
attachment, pain, guilt, dishonesty, obsession, compulsion, pride, vanity,
envy, jealousy, anger, fantasy, delusion, depression, selfishness, concern for
results, and others.
A non-binding attitude produces a non-binding vasana
and/or exhausts an existing vasana. Non-binding attitudes are: selflessness,
compassion (object-motivated love), forgiveness, acceptance, playfulness,
dispassion, and joy. Non-binding attitudes are called yogas,
states of mind that neutralize likes and dislikes, purify the Causal Body and
make the Subtle Body meditation worthy.
Spiritual practice is Subtle Body work, attitude adjustment. The
three yogas purify the three inner centers:
action yoga purifies ego, love yoga purifies mind, and knowledge yoga
purifies intellect. A purified Subtle Body is geometrically stable like an
isosceles triangle. No longer under intense pressure from unhelpful vasanas,
its centers turn inward, fuse together, and meditate naturally on the Self.
When the Causal Body has been purified and anxiety for results abandoned, the
mind rests comfortably and joyfully in the present, taking what comes with
equanimity. The three centers62 respect each other’s turf and
cooperate to present a unified front to a changing and uncertain world. In a purified
Subtle Body, intellect, schooled in the knowledge of the Self, cheerfully
presents a dispassionate and discriminating view to ego and mind, whose clarity
is regularly compromised by emotional passion. Refusing to unduly push a
personal agenda, it counsels a balanced response in all situations and, in
highly evolved persons, turns its formidable power of observation on itself,
ferreting out poorly conceived plans, incorrect analyses, and emotion
influenced conclusions.
In
the best of all possible inner worlds, Mind, ordinarily handmaiden to a needy
and selfish ego, resists gratuitous desires,63 loves purely and
faithfully, and refuses to disturb Subtle Body equilibrium with petty conceits,
insecurities and ill-conceived inflations...while offering support to
intellect’s well thought out sadhanas.
A well balanced, satisfied emotional self is a primary qualification for
Self Realization.
The tendency to operate exclusively from the emotional center is
not conducive to Subtle Body harmony and causes unnecessary suffering. Because
unhealthy emotions are caused by incorrect views about oneself and reality,
during initial phases of unrestrained ego-motivated devotion, the meditator
needs to develop discrimination and dispassion.
The third limb of a
purified Subtle Body, ego, often considered the villain in the piece, should be
strong and confident, either because it has successfully snegotiated
its way through life, or because it has the courage to follow its spiritual
inclinations. The ego’s power needs to come from the realization that
happiness lies in serving noble ideals. A mature ego, mindful of its dependence
on subjective and objective factors, will carefully heed intellect’s
counsel, respect mind’s feelings and intuitions,
refuse to play inner politics, and promote inner harmony.
60. Unexamined attitudes keep ego in
business. The ego often has a vested interest in maintaining negative vasanas
even though they cause suffering. For example, individuals with drug or alcohol
problems often cling to the habits long after they have ceased to bring
pleasure because the attitude associated with the habit brings pleasure...the
“poor me” or “victim” mentality...eliciting enough
sympathy to partially counteract the suffering caused by the addiction itself.
Often just the familiarity of one’s feelings causes clinging and prevents
self-examination.
61.
Addictions and compulsions are extreme examples.
62. The three ‘inner
centers’ are not actually distinct entities but interconnected functions
of the Subtle Body. And the three ‘yogas’
are not wholly independent therapies but interconnected attitudes. The‘yogas’ actually help to break down
the artificial barriers between the parts of the inner self, the Subtle Body.
63.
The attempt to repress or deny desire is spiritually counterproductive because
the unconscious is extremely powerful and will not be tamed by will power. The
meditator needs to take the long-term view, gradually eliminating gratuitous
desires. As the small desires are effaced, the mind becomes more peaceful and
confidence builds, allowing one to take on more well-entrenched vasanas.
The Path of Action
The ego is the part in each of us that has split from the Self
and set up business on its own. A product of Self ignorance, bedeviled by an unappeasable
emptiness, it is a synonym for desire, the fear-driven power thought to correct
the (unconscious) separation from the Self.
Desire implies action, and the ego is a doer, eager to act on
the belief that the joy is in the object.64
Actions Have
Consequences
Prudent individuals consider the consequences of their actions
because every action or non-action performed in the field of Consciousness
produces specific results that rebound back to the doer. For example, we take
employment and a check comes two weeks later. Teeth are brushed so cavities
don’t develop. However, no matter how seemingly intelligent they are on
the surface, the performance of action solely for
intended results is spiritually unwise because attention, which should be
concentrated on the skillful performance of the action, is dissipated by
anxious concern for results. Because it is so obsessed with an imagined
result, a child on a trip to an amusement park says, “Are we having fun
yet, mommy?” How many job assignments have been hopelessly botched and
thoroughly unenjoyed because of performance anxiety?
A person suffers through school to get a job, gets the job to support a family,
produces the family to enjoy retirement and worries about death throughout
retirement. At every stage the fullness of the present is unappreciated because
of an unhealthy anxiety about the future. Excessive concern for result casts a
gloomy shadow over our lives, agitating the Subtle Body and denying us the full
pleasure of meditation in action.
64. See ‘Limitation of Object Happiness,’ Chapter 1.
Meditation In Action
To remedy the situation, perform action for its own sake.
Understand possible consequences beforehand, but take your attention away from
imagined results and put it into the mindful performance
of the action itself. When attention is fully engaged in action, thought or
feeling (subtle actions), it enters the moment, transcends the mind, and
experiences the Self. And, truth to tell, a fully enjoyed and efficiently
performed action is more likely to materialize an intended result than one
deprived of the mind’s attention. Finally, action from this ‘here
and now’ state breaks the vasana for results, purifying the Subtle
Body of pernicious, extroverting waves.
Watch For The Ego
Action yoga is a change of attitude toward action.
Instead of thinking it has been brought to earth to attain happiness through
the possession of objects and the performance of activities, the ego is
encouraged to define life’s goal as Self Realization. Action yoga
does not destroy the ego, remove it from daily life, or condemn it to specific
religious activities, but corrects its relationship to the body and the world.
In the short run, however, because of a perceived threat to the ego, action yoga
may create disturbance and hinder meditation. In fact, action yoga,
because it produces resistance, is an excellent way to identify ego by coaxing
it out from behind its wall of self serving rationalizations and deceits.
Enough theory. How does it work?
First, all actions, even the most insignificant, are dedicated to an altar
other than one’s own desires...and the results renounced. For example, I
want a new automobile. Before trying to manifest the desire, I need to examine
my motives. Will the purchase make it easier to pursue my spiritual path? If
the present vehicle won’t get me to work, and I need work to support
myself and take care of obligations (so I have time to meditate), the purchase
of a vehicle qualifies as action yoga. This technique calls for great
integrity because the ego is not above using spiritual ideas to justify
unspiritual impulses. A capricious motivation...luxury or status, for
example...will conflict with spiritual values, agitate the mind and reinforce
unhelpful samskaras.
Assuming the reasons are not frivolous, come from a loving,
serving state of mind and consciously dedicate the endeavor to a higher
altar. Results dedicated to a higher altar accrue to the altar’s account
rather than to the ego’s. This practice, which
is the foundation of spiritual living, teaches how to relate one’s
ultimate ideal to the practical details of life. When actions are performed
for someone or something other than one’s ego, there are no disturbing
emotions caused by concern for particular results. Actions dedicated to causes
and ideals, especially those fuelled by a sense of injustice or unexamined motives, do not necessarily qualify as action yoga
because the causes may be the result of group ego...as unreal as one’s
own.
Count Your Blessings
Dedication at the onset of action should be balanced by an
attitude of gratitude when results, positive or negative, accrue. Each life
experience, no matter how trivial, is a fructification of previous actions and
provides an excellent opportunity for practicing gratitude...even when unwanted
results manifest. For example, a man took a flight from
Desire is Stress
One major source of agitation is the ego’s belief that the
likelihood of a favorable consequence is enhanced by desire for a particular
outcome. But if the results of actions were a consequence of desire everyone
who ever bought a lottery ticket would win the lottery. The desire for a
particular result plays a bit part in the fructification of results.
The nature of the action, the condition of the field in which
the action is initiated, the availability of the intended object, and the needs
of others vying for the same result ultimately determine the result. Finally,
intense desire for an object, because it disturbs the mind, often compromises
appropriate and timely action, and mitigates against
successfully reaping the intended result.
What Will Be Will Be
With actions consecrated and the desire for the results
renounced,65 the anxiety for the
result (stress) that usually accompanies the interval between the initiation of
an action and its result does not recycle. Therefore the mind eventually
becomes quiet because the ego is stress free as it goes about its business. Practiced
consistently, action yoga slowly chips off vasana accretions and
lets the meditator enjoy a dynamic life while simultaneously preparing the mind
for meditation.
Occasionally, because ego is excessively identified with a
spiritually unhealthy desire, the consecration and renunciation of the fruits
of action produces short term mental turbulence. Addictions and compulsions are
examples of encrusted desires or fears which, though inimical to spiritual
growth, produce strong Subtle Body reactions when we try to work on them.
Conversely, not every action that makes one temporarily feel good is
spiritually beneficial. On the basis of short term benefits, a seemingly
reasonable case can be made for pursuing sense pleasures in that their
immediate effect is often a feeling of wholeness and contentment. But sense
pursuit does not qualify as spiritual practice because it produces binding vasanas
which bring about attachment to objects and habitual activities.
In summary, action yoga, the foundation of inner work, is
a discriminating state of mind that purifies the ego and makes the Subtle Body
fit for meditation. Because it reveals motivations, action yoga, which
requires constant mindfulness, not only removes anxiety and desire but also
exhausts negative states generated at any stage of the
separation/guilt/denial/projection/attack/ defense cycle...because the
consecration of action and the glad acceptance of its results effectively
neutralizes or transmutes the original motivation and breaks the vasana,
clearing the mind and insuring that negativities don’t recycle.
65. The
results can’t be renounced because they aren’t up to the actor. The
renunciation of desire is just a formal way of saying ‘what will be, will
be.’
The Path of Knowledge
If action yoga suggests a change in attitude toward
action, knowledge yoga requires a change in the way we think. Ordinarily, because the intellect is Self ignorant and under
ego’s passionate influence, its concepts cause suffering. To right
the inner disharmony,66 knowledge
yoga aims to detach intellect from ego and train it to identify with and
think from the Self. ‘Thinking from the Self’ means that impersonal
truth, not personal prejudice, becomes the center of one’s thought life,
the point from which thoughts originate and to which they return.
Self ignorance manifests first as a confused and unrealistic
thought life and then trickles down to disturb and delude the emotions,
eventually contaminating one’s contact with the outer world. Because it
eliminates incorrect, ignorance born ego-centered thoughts, reality based
knowledge produces an harmonious, clear and luminous
Subtle Body, one suited to meditation.
The yoga of knowledge relies on intellect’s power
of discrimination, analysis, and inquiry to effect changes. Before charging
into the spiritual fray armed with personal opinions, ill-considered ideas,
beliefs, and superstitions, the meditator will be well served to make a
systematic and dispassionate study of his or her chosen path. A clear
understanding of the Self and the nature of Enlightenment, the three bodies and
states, and the methods of purification removes many obstacles from the path.
This knowledge is not merely ‘intellectual.’ Nor is it ‘intuition’ or ‘guidance’ which,
like book knowledge, is subject to interpretation and misapplication as it
filters through ego’s entrenched prejudices, fears and desires.
Hopefully, it is carefully and systematically imparted by a compassionate
Self-Realized teacher skilled in the methods of transmission. The knowledge
presented in this book, for example, is intended to provide an impersonal
framework for evaluating issues confronting a meditator. This path’s
basic technique is the discrimination between the Real and the unreal, the seer
and the seen, the subject and the object, the ego and the Self, and is meant to
be practiced both in the seat of meditation and in daily life. The meditator
should continually strive to bring his or her thought life in line with
experience of the Self garnered in meditation and elsewhere. For example,
if I think there is something wrong with me, that I am unworthy or impure, for
example, I need to square this idea with the experience of myself in meditation
as a whole and complete being.
Not to put too fine a point on it, for the purposes of inquiry
and discrimination, the gross, subtle, and causal bodies and the three states,
the ‘Not-Self,’ need to be negated until identification with and
attachment to them is dissolved. Identification and attachment to the unreal67
prohibits attachment to and identification with the Real. Non-attachment
is not merely the intellectual conviction that the states, bodies, and objects
are unreal but the experience of freedom arising from the destruction of
one’s connection to them.
Meditation and Self knowledge go
hand in hand. Transcendence in itself, experience of the Self, is not
liberation because it is subject to change, owing to the power of unpurified samskaras
to generate samsaric68 experience. However, transcendence
reveals the Self and facilitates discrimination, not only during transcendental
episodes when it is especially powerful, but later in normal ego states, owing
to an increase of knowledge based faith brought on by the experience.
Self knowledge arising from discrimination produces
transcendence. Like the Oroboros, the mythical
creature that ingests itself, intellect, skillfully applying knowledge, can
gobble Subtle Body phenomena so effectively the waves subside completely,
producing transcendence.
‘Processing,’ which is not the practice of
knowledge, is designed to interpret experience in terms of ego’s thought
system. Ego, because its view of life is based solely on conclusions derived
from skewed interpretation of experience, colored by likes and dislikes, is
incapable of properly practicing knowledge. Inquiry, the practice of knowledge,
however, views ego as Not-Self, effectively eliminating
it as a discriminating factor.
66. See Chapter II, ‘Structural Distortions.’
67. For an extensive definition of reality
see pages 157-158.
68. Ordinary perception and all its
attendant emotional and intellectual misconceptions.
Meditation
Nothing purifies like experience of the Self which releases a
flood of healing, cleansing spiritual energy into the conscious and unconscious
minds. Although most epiphanies wear off in a matter of hours, occasionally
days, they produce powerful spiritual vasanas which can inspire practice
and keep the mind focussed on the goal. Practiced
diligently, meditation techniques purify the mind because they bring awareness
to unholy patterns of thought and feeling. Unhealthy thoughts cannot survive
the penetrating light of awareness.
Transcendence does not contradict purification. When the
meditator transcends the mind and begins to see from the plane of the Self, the
need to ‘maintain’ consciousness dissolves, since the Self is
effortless Awareness. Knowledge of the mind’s patterns and complexes is
more accurate from the Self’s point of view than is knowledge derived
from a witness created out of one part of the mind. Secondly, transcendence
breaks attachment to the mind, making it easier to work with it.
Finally, transcendence accompanied by inquiry can produce
Self knowledge, the ultimate purifier. In fact, the Self realized meditator
understands the futility of trying to clean, fix, or comprehend something that
ultimately has no reality. To the enlightened the mind is never a problem, with
or without disturbing thoughts.
Transforming the Mind
In addition to the extroverting force of the samskaras
and the development of ego,69 three Causal
Body factors color everyday experience and impact on meditation. No
psychological, spiritual, or philosophical system, except the Vedic, has
articulated this aspect of psychic and cosmic reality so carefully and English
words don’t do it justice, so I have retained the Sanskrit terms. Because
they evolved before the psyche and gross matter, sattva, rajas,
and tamas in their Causal condition cannot be known by the senses. They
can, however, be inferred by observing the quality of our thought, feeling, and
behavior patterns.
Sattva, rajas, and tamas are called ‘gunas,’70
which translates as ‘ropes’ and ‘qualities.’ The
vaguely pejorative ‘rope’ idea implies that these three energies or
qualities bind the Self, Consciousness, to its psychic and physical creations.
The Self is always transcendent, but, for a technical reason,71
apparently gets caught up in Its creations. To free the ever free Self from Its
apparent identification with material and psychic reality, knowledge of the gunas
is extremely valuable. The rope metaphor is useful in that it invokes the sense
of three interweaving strands of energy making up the whole creation.
69. See Chapter II.
70. Pronounced ‘goon-uhs.’
71. Maya, the non-apprehension of the Self.
Sattva
The meaning of ‘sattva’ can be divined from
its root ‘sat,’ which means Consciousness and is another
name of the Self. ‘Sattva,’ is the principle of light or
knowledge in the universe. The perceptive senses evolved from the sattvic
aspect of the creation. The senses beam ‘light,’ Consciousness,
onto the sense objects, making them known, experienceable.
The knowledge of sound, for instance, is possible because the sattvic
element in the hearing center in the Subtle Body ‘illumines’ the
sounds coming in from the material world.
The Subtle Body knows what it knows because sattva’s
luminous, reflective quality mirrors Consciousness. The mind’s
creative functions depend on sattva. The physical body is least prone to
disease when sattva predominates because it allows the healing waters of
Consciousness to wash away blockages in the physiological systems,
purify the nerve channels and invigorate cellular life. When the mind is sattvic,
clarity of thought occurs, insight is commonplace,
intuition active, discrimination precise, dispassion profound and meditation
possible. Sattva is responsible for intelligence. A mind under its
influence is capable of long flights into subtle realms. All occasions of vast
knowing and deep understanding depend on sattva. It causes happiness
because it reflects the bliss of the Self. A happy mind is conducive to
meditation and inquiry.
Rajas
To make a pot, clay, an idea in the
potter’s mind and the energy to shape the clay are necessary. Sattva
supplies the idea behind the creation, tamas the physical substance,
and rajas72 the energy needed to mould it. Atomic power,
thermodynamics, volcanic activity, the movement of the seas and winds, the
physiological and nervous systems and the power to move the mind and emotions
are caused by rajas. Wherever there is activity, rajas
is at work. The five physiological systems and the five active
organs evolve from rajas.
Psychologically, rajas whips the
mind into frenzied waves like a strong wind, distorting perception and
knowledge. Highly prized by goal oriented persons, coffee drinkers especially,
for its power to temporarily activate the mind, rajasic projections
nonetheless reverberate in the Subtle Body creating confusion, eventually
delusion, and ultimately loss of discrimination.
Rajas, the ‘projecting power,’ is called the
‘mode of passion.’ The conviction that active pursuit of
one’s goals is the wisest way to deal with uncomfortable feelings of
incompleteness and inadequacy is caused by rajas. Because of its fiery
nature, rajas purifies the water elements from
the subtle and physical bodies producing feelings of thirst and attachment.
Those suffering from excess rajas tend to be emotionally needy and
mentally distressed, forced into a life of unceasing activity in an attempt to
possess and acquire what is yet to be gained and to protect and insure what
has. Rajas creates continual static in the mind
which efficiently drains energy, producing dullness.
In spite of motivational benefits, a mind dominated by rajas
is a powerful enemy because its intense projections...greed, aggression,
desire, restlessness, anxiety, and longing...obscure the shining of the Self,
the true source of peace and happiness. Extroverted rajasic people are
continually embroiled in conflict because this guna
forces them to project subconscious content on the world around. As a
result they suffer problematic relationships, have little contact with their
true feelings, and lack Self knowledge.
72. Vikshepa shakti
Tamas
Tamas, the dark strand in the psychic rope, is known as the
‘veiling’ energy.73 Tamas produces a cloud in the
Subtle Body that hides the Self. Because the Self’s
loving light cannot break through, the individual lives in spiritual
darkness. Fear is a natural reaction to the dark and when we are fearful we
hide, so tamasic people hide from themselves, the world, and God. The
best way to hide is to sleep. So sleep, including all its waking forms, sensual
indulgence and the like, is pursued vigorously by those in whom this guna predominates. Sleep is a symbol for
ignorance, and tamasic persons are ignorant of the Self, themselves, and
goings-on in the world.
Tamas, all that is dark and heavy in nature, is the power of inertia
and entropy inherent in things. Physical substance, solidity, substantiality,
and insentience evolve from tamas. An indispensable force, it is
responsible for the most universally loved and necessary activity...sleep.
Without it the mind would never rest and the organism would die.
On a psychological level, moderate tamas confers a
practical intelligence but excessive tamas causes dullness, inadvertence,
lethargy, and depression. Just as rajas is
responsible for the tendency to project, tamas is responsible for
denial. When the mind rests under its delusory fog the meditator is incapable of
discriminating between the Self and the Not-Self and holding the mind on the
Silence.
Tamas can be blamed for the proclivity to escape duties and
responsibilities. It discourages ambitious undertakings. A tamasic person
often leads a sensuous, inadvertent and miserable life, one plagued by
accidents, losses, and mistakes. Too much tamas in the Subtle Body
creates conditions conducive to disease because it blocks the flow of shakti, the energizing and healing power of the Self,
to the cellular level.
When the gunas are balanced, the body and mind are
healthy and the soul relatively happy. Unfortunately the gunas are in a
state of continual flux. One predominates for a few hours, then a second, and
finally a third, so that throughout the day one may experience intense
activity, moments of clarity, and mind numbing dullness.
Experience has demonstrated a direct connection between mental
and emotional pain and a predominance of rajas and tamas relative
to sattva. Meditation and inquiry are only possible in a sattvic mind.
Three buckets of water stand in front of a white wall. The sun
reflects off the water producing three reflected suns on the wall. A strong
wind roiling the contents of the first bucket produces a dancing image of the
sun. The second, filled with muddy water, produces a dull dark spot, and the
third containing clear and still water generates an accurate reflection of the
sun. If the purpose of meditation is Self Realization and the mind is the
instrument through which the Self is known, it stands to reason that accurate
identification of the Self depends on a clear still mind.
73. Avaranna
Shakti
Pure Mind
When the Subtle Body is pure the bliss of the Self uplifts the
emotions and awakens subtle devotional feelings. When the Subtle Body is pure
the Self illumines the intellect, enhancing discrimination and inspiring
brilliant thinking. Radiant health results when a sattvic
Subtle Body channels the Self’s healing energy to the body.
If the meditator consistently feels a sense of uncaused
happiness and unexplained peace, the mind is pure. When happiness
can’t be attributed to a specific situation, change in status, person or
persons, belief or belief system and the presence or absence of any object, the
mind is pure. A pure mind is free of the belief in attainment and
accomplishment. It no longer panders to desire, knows what’s happening
and is capable of making rational decisions...because rajas and tamas
are controlled. Finally, spontaneous and deep meditations happen automatically,
or are produced with minimum effort.
Therefore, whether one pursues worldly goals or practices
meditation for Self Realization, mental peace, or health, a sattvic mind
is useful. Complete purification of rajas and tamas is neither
possible nor desirable. Some tamas is necessary for grounding
experience, both worldly and spiritual, and rajas provides the resolve
and vitality necessary for purification. But cultivating a pure mind is the
primary purpose of spiritual practice.
Therapy and
Purification75
Modern psychology generally tries to explain suffering with
reference to events in the past, the childhood particularly, the idea being
that parental behavior, abuse (rajas), or neglect (tamas),
produces long-lasting psychological effects. Whilst the idea that
‘recovering’ and ‘processing’ these unhappy experiences
can alleviate suffering is well-intentioned and perhaps partially effective, its
premise that the ego is the self is reinforced by these practices and will not
solve the problem of incompleteness and inadequacy.
Irrespective of past experience, suffering, attachment to
negative memories, ultimately stems from the inability to attach to the
permanent source of happiness within. People with perfectly happy childhoods
often suffer as much or more than those with unhappy childhoods, while many
with miserable childhoods live happy, productive lives. In other words, we
actually suffer because we have incorrectly identified the self as the ego. Tamas
and rajas thicken the wall of non-apprehension separating us from the
Self and depriving us of our innate happiness.
Seeing the problem this way depersonalizes our view of
suffering, thus freeing us, our families and the past, of blame. Since what has
happened has happened, affixing blame and taking it personally only compounds
the problem and requires an additional and difficult step... forgiveness. But
if the gunas are at fault and can be purified, suffering can be
gradually eliminated.
Spiritual practice doesn’t attempt to correct the past or
change our circumstances, but to change the way we see ourselves and the world. Directing attention
to the highest in us cleanses subconscious sources of pain and minimizes the
danger of building a suffering based identity. If the ego is thought to be the
self, its negativities will never be eliminated because its very existence is a
negativity based on a fundamental error. Like therapy, purifying rajas
and tamas will not remove the fundamental error, but it will create
conditions suitable for its removal through Self inquiry, meditation and
teaching.
75. For more on this topic see Chapter V.
Diet and Lifestyle
The idea of purification needs to extend to all areas of
life...social, financial and sexual. One should associate with people who are
seriously committed to spiritual growth. Association with worldly people and
insincere spiritual types only increases worldliness and reinforces doubts
about oneself. Money should be used to create a
lifestyle conducive to Self inquiry. Sexual attitudes and practices, which
should be rigorously questioned, need to support rather than conflict with a
purification lifestyle.
Because the materials in food that enters our bodies affect the
nature of the mind, spiritual culture has evolved a comprehensive science of
diet based on the gunas and the four elements. The diet is scientific in
the sense that optimum health and a meditative intelligence can be partially
achieved by experimentally adjusting the relative proportions of sattva,
rajas and tamas in the food consumed.
A heavy tamasic diet is counterproductive because it
creates sleepy waves in the mind. Foods in which the earth element predominates
require a greater expenditure of energy to digest, assimilate, and excrete and
are considered tamasic. With reference to vegetables and grains, for
example, eating flesh is considered tamasic, although some flesh is
relatively sattvic, fish and chicken, for example, while others, beef
and pork, because they are difficult to purify, are tamasic.
The food’s form can cause it to be sattvic or tamasic.
For example, cheese is remarkably tamasic because it produces sticky
mucous which attracts and absorbs environmental toxins and the waste of
putrefactive bacteria. In the slow moving intestinal environment, it bakes
encapsulated toxins on the colon wall, reducing the power of the body to purify
itself, slowing all physiological processes. When the physiological processes slow, the brain eventually becomes bogged down and
the mind clouds, making meditation difficult. Yogurt in reasonable quantities,
on the other hand, though producing mucous, is classified as sattvic because
it contains enough of the water element to purify easily and consists of
beneficial lacto bacteria, vitamins and minerals, so it is classified sattvic
when ingested in reasonable quantities.
Methods of preparation also impact on the quality of the food. A
potato, for instance, in its natural state, is a nice blend of sattva
and tamas. Fry it in animal fat, cover it with
butter and sour cream and eat it in large quantities and it becomes decidedly tamasic.
Broiled steak is less tamasic than fried.
Eat Life
Food should be eaten fresh. Food is not only physical substance
but shakti or energy, a manifestation of
Consciousness in living beings. An apple plucked from the tree on a cool fall
day and eaten immediately is much more spiritually beneficial than one shipped
from
Since tamas makes flesh, it should be carefully balanced with rajas
and sattva to create the desired body. A Sumo wrestler obviously prizes tamas
while a ballerina eschews it, opting instead for a predominance of rajas and
sattva. A meditation lifestyle demands a large percentage of sattva,
and smaller proportions of rajas and tamas. Creative life-styles
that involve much thinking favor larger proportions of sattva, lesser
proportions of rajas, and minimal tamas.
Rajas, the activity principle, is also found in food.
Although many bitter and astringent foods are classified rajasic, the
most common and popular rajasic food is coffee, prized for its ability
to prod the mind into action. Coffee and other stimulants are not recommended,
not only because they artificially activate the mind by stimulating the nerves,
but because they produce tamas post-digestively. Sugar, which gives
bursts of rajasic energy in the short run, becomes tamasic as it
passes through the system. The depressed state following the consumption of
processed sugar indicates a tamasic condition of mind. When the
body/mind has been activated by alcohol76 and other stimulants in
which the fire element predominates, for example, so much stress is put on the
physiology that the mind is called on to supply the required energy. Not
understanding the cause, the ego consumes more rajas, often in the form
of exciting emotions, which temporarily reactivates the mind but eventually
exhausts the system, thereby producing tamas. A mind continually
required to adjust to the rajas/tamas cycle is unfit for meditation.
The sleep/coffee/cigarette vasana neatly illustrates the
incestuous relationship between rajas and tamas. When we awaken
in the morning feeling tamasic we immediately take a cup of coffee to
stimulate the nervous system and activate the mind in order to deal with the
world. When the mind starts to sag, another cup is consumed. The effect of
coffee, which purifies slowly from the system, is a hyperactive mind. To solve the
hyperactivity problem and ground the mind, cigarettes, drugs, or other tamasic
food is used. And when the dullness makes life inefficient and painful, one
seeks a cup of coffee or other stimulants and excitements.
Operating the physiological systems takes energy. If the diet
drains energy, then the shortfall must be met by the mind. If the mind is
continually drawing on its reserves to adjust the physiological systems, little
energy will be available for meditation. A sattvic diet of easily
digestible and effortlessly excretable high energy
foods purifies the physiological systems, freeing the mind of extra duty.
Adjusting the three gunas to purify the mind conserves
energy and produces psychic heat. The practice of spending energy as fast or faster than it accumulates, building a large
deficit, is not recommended for meditators. A meditator needs sustained clear
energy to restrain the mind from roaming in the past and future and dissipating
through the senses. When the energy builds to a certain level, it self
ignites and becomes a raging fire which feeds on the vasana fuel pouring
in from the Causal Body, incinerating the samskaras to ash.77
Because each body is a unique combination of elements, the
effect of a food should be evaluated by the way the Subtle Body reacts
to it. A couple of beers will put a sattvic mind to sleep, but might
temporarily quiet a rajasic mind. A steady diet of highly spiced food
will cause short term rajasic and long term tamasic reactions because
spices accumulate in the organs and are difficult to purify. Any high fiber
diet will have a sattvic effect on the whole organism.
Purification of the body depends on knowing how the elements
work. Fire and water purify the earth element. Air can be used to control the
fire element. For example, if the mind is too active, regulating the breath can
bring it to clarity. If the body is heavy, cardiovascular exercise increases
the air element in the blood, activating metabolism (rajas) and
consuming excess fat. When a particularly dull state clouds the mind, an
increase of air can fan the fire of rajas and heat away the clouds. The
water and air elements are especially helpful in controlling the digestive
fires. Water should be consumed in a pure state, uncontaminated with sugars and
other pollutants. When the desire for coffee, tea, milk, and soft drinks arises
the body is actually asking only for water. The addition of caffeine, sugar,
and other “tastes” are basically psychological and do not contribute
to overall health. Sugars, for example, in their refined state are useless.
Taken in the form of fresh fruit, however, they provide clean burning efficient
fuel. Pure water, uncontaminated by sugars and stimulants, collects rather than
deposits contaminants as it passes through the body.
‘Eat to live, not live to eat’ is the motto of the
meditator. The vasanas for taste should be carefully examined to
determine if cravings are psychological or biological, a difficult
discrimination, since attachment to food is a major Subtle Body
disturbance. Very often parents use food, particularly sugars and fats, to
control the emotional states of children, creating an association between
happiness and unhealthy tamasic food. When a meditator moves to a sattvic
diet, the fear of unpalatable ‘tastes’ often proves to be an
obstacle. As the samskaras for particular tastes purify, however, the
mind develops an affinity for plain unsexy foods.
Study of the stool corrects the diet. Hard, compacted, slow
moving, malodorous stool indicates a tamasic diet. Loose, scattered,
irregular, multi-textured, multi-colored, fast moving stool suggests rajas.
Sattvic stool is light, soft, well formed, and not unpleasant to smell.
Finally, although rajas and tamas are desirable in
moderate amounts, the state of mind in which food is gathered, prepared, and
consumed should be sattvic. Because food is given by God to sustain
life, one eats with gratitude, not fear or desire. See the body as a temple or
an instrument of the Divine and treat it with great love and respect. If the
ultimate purpose of life is the realization of the Self
and meditation the means to it, then one’s relationship to food is
important because it directly affects the quality of the mind.
The meditator’s physical surroundings should express the sattvic
principles of beauty and simplicity. Environments loaded with possessions,
stimulations and conveniences, incarnate activity and dullness, mitigating against clear thinking and peaceful living.
The media, television in particular, and its relentless
promotion of excitement, pleasure, convenience, consumption, aggression and
body consciousness should be eschewed. Sex without love practiced merely for
stress relief or pleasure, serves to etch and reinforce deep sensuous samskaras
in the Causal Body. On the other hand, pure love, occasionally culminating
in sex, integrates the mind.
Become aware of the positive and negative effects of all sources
of consumption, gross and subtle. Jettison objects and activities that
consistently agitate or dull the mind. Discreetly terminate the relationships
with dull and disturbed people unless your presence causes them to begin the
process of self examination. Helping sentient beings on their paths contributes
to the universal good and to the sattvic condition of one’s own
mind. Practices like prayer, meditation and selfless service and relationships
with committed meditators and highly evolved beings, should be cultivated. To
develop sattva one follows the ‘less is more’ maxim. The
less we require ourselves to deal with material and social reality the more
aware and balanced our minds become.
The three guna four element
model helps diagnose the causes of an extroverted and dull mind and provides a
practical formula for purging vasanas and correcting extroversion,
thereby making the Subtle Body meditation worthy.
76. The American
Indians appropriately called alcohol ‘firewater’ because of its rajasic
properties. The post-digestive effect of alcohol is tamasic,
however, because it turns to sugar in the system.
77. Meditation in
PATH OF LOVE
All human longings begin with The Separation
without which we would all be wildly happy, children sporting in a garden of
delights. Philosophers debate the ‘why’ forever but we are not
concerned with ‘whys.’ We simply want it to end. So we search from
womb to tomb trying to find the Self we have seemingly lost, the state of pure
Love.
We try to find it by falling in love. The love into which we
‘fall’ is very much like the love we are seeking. In it we feel
whole, complete, happy, peaceful, powerful, tender, immortal, and free. Would
that it, like the Love of which it is a pale reflection, last forever.
What is this ‘in love’ love?
Generally Ill-Considered
Facts About Emotional Love
Love has to ‘happen.’ We cannot just decide willy nilly
to go out and fall in love because it is a reaction to the deep unconscious
need to love (and hopefully be loved), motivated by The Separation. Ignorance
of the real reason causes us to make incorrect assumptions concerning the
nature and source of the love we are experiencing.
First, though love is our innermost nature and independent of
anyone or anything external, we assume it takes two. That it is our nature is
demonstrated by the fact that everyone, even rascals, love someone or
something. “What’s the fuss?” said Mrs. Hun. “Atilla’s really a great family man. And he loves his
work.” Secondly, when love is seemingly absent, we are continually, often
frantically, trying to find it. We hang on for dear life when it finds us and
sink into the slough of despond when it dies.
Identification
Not knowing it’s me...when it happens...I assume
it’s you. So I fall in love with you. Bathed in the halo of my projection
you seem absolutely wonderful, my white knight. You saved me from my
loneliness. Unlike anyone, including my most recent incredible being, the last
in a long line, (who had the temerity to change and force me not to love him any
more) you are so special, the very best. You have everything I lack.
You’re funny. I’m serious. You’re strong. I’m weak.
You’re beautiful. I’m plain. In an inexplicable way I see myself in
you. I identify so much that even your worn skin tight jeans, that old floppy
hat you picked up at a garage sale and your snappy little red sports car have
become my sacerdotal objects.
Honesty, however, forces me to admit that even though you are so
fantastic certain things about you need fixing. So I’m prepared to set
you straight and see that this oneness we feel is absolute. From now on
we’ll listen to the same music, speak alike, eat the same foods, and even
dress the same. After twenty or thirty years we should hopefully come to
physically resemble each other, like the neighbor and his dog. Wouldn’t
that be nice?
How I wish I knew when it happened that I was really only in
love with me.
Want to Know all About You
But wait a minute! Falling in love means, in spite of the
wonderfully free feeling of love, that my happiness
depends on you. I’m so heavily invested I’m hopelessly attached and
can’t stand you out of my sight. I live in constant fear of losing you.
When you’re gone I think of you all the time, imagine what you might be
doing, what you’re thinking. To protect myself I need to know all your
personal secrets, find out what you saw in all those other (horrid) women.
It’s only sensible that I compare your words and deeds for discrepancies,
pry into your past, psychoanalyze you to your face, and see that you account
for every minute. Can’t be too careful, now, can I?
But oddly, in spite of all this surveillance, I never seem to
know what’s going on with you. You’re as much a mystery as the day
we met. Women are from Venus, men from Mars.
Attachment and Anxiety
I hadn’t figured I’d become so clingy when I fell in
love. I seem to have been tricked (by you) into thinking I can’t do
without you, my catalyst, my cupid. Remember, you shot
the arrow. In the old days our love was so terribly free and happy. I even let
you do little things on your own and didn’t feel jealous at all. But now
for some odd reason the more I love you the less I seem to love myself.
I’m forever wondering if I’m good enough for you.
What a terrible irony! In the beginning I loved me more because
you made me feel so free. When I think about it I’d have been happier
falling in love with me because there’s nothing wrong with me and
I’m always here, available to be loved. But you, you’re much more
difficult, always running off to who knows where.
Not only did I lose my freedom when I fell for you, I got
anxiety as a way of life. They say anxiety is reasonable because the world is
always changing. I change, you change, the relationship between us changes.
Much as I hate to face it, I know, in the back of my mind, that one day
we’ll no longer be an item (because you’ve changed). But
nothing’s to be done because I’m still in love with you, my ball
and chain.
Service and Surrender
OK. OK. You’re right, it isn’t all that bad. Because
I love you I want to please you. Your happiness is my happiness. So I’m
continually thinking of little things to make your day. Of course this
attachment to your happiness has its downside. If you don’t feel good, I
don’t feel good. Why can’t I see that you’re responsible for
your own happiness? And also, why am I neglecting my own needs to satisfy
yours? Better yet, why aren’t you taking care of me like I’m taking
care of you? You go blithely about your business and I go blithely about your
business. It doesn’t seem right. If love is its own reward, why do I feel
so incomplete?
Along with this desire to serve, I surrender to you, do what you
want, an inspired idea that seems O.K. with you. Not my will but thine. This idea, which is terribly romantic, puts me in
hot water with my ego, who sees it differently. It
would like you to surrender to me, do things my way, since I love you so much.
Desire for
Finally, though you’re never out of my sight physically or
mentally and it’s clear you’re here to stay, I seem to always
‘want’ you. When you sit down after dinner in front of the TV, I
want you here with me, tidying up the kitchen. When you’re off on
business the long phone calls are a poor substitute for the real you. I want
union. When we make love I feel unhappy if our special moments are not
perfectly synchronized. I won’t rest until we’re absolutely one.
Yet in spite of all our passionate unions I still feel separate.
The Slippery Slope
No matter what I do, no matter how hard I try to set you
straight, the record speaks for itself. You don’t really love me. We
never spend quality time together any more, go out
dancing like when we met. You’re always schmoozing clients on weekends,
working late, watching football. Even Monday nights.
And, I know I shouldn’t say this, but you’ve really slacked off in
the hay too. You used to take your time, make me feel wonderful. Not any more.
It’s all over in a matter of minutes. What’s wrong with you? I
don’t think you love me in spite of all my devotion. The more I think
about it the more it seems that you probably never loved me at all. How could
you let me love you like that, take advantage of me, vulnerable as I was?
It’s unconscionable! You beast! You liar!! You said you loved me, but we
can see what kind of love it really was!
Well, I’ve got news for you. I never loved you either. I
only loved you for the happiness you brought. I had to work very hard ignoring
the many signs cropping up every day telling me you’re not my prince charming:
your bad manners, your vanity, your big ego.
Just hurt? Defensive? How dare you!
I’ve never been so offended in my whole life! I try to share my feelings
with you and this is how you react!
OK. Maybe it isn’t as bad as I make it sound, but, believe
me, I’ve had it. Nonetheless, just to show you how lucky you are, and
because I’m not quite ready to hit the bars looking for my next most
incredible someone, for your sake, I’m going to dig deep into my magic
bag and trundle out another energy draining psychological trick. I’m
going to deny that you’re the mess you are and try to see your good side.
After all, you pay the bills, make me look good in public, and, of course, we
have the whole past life thing to work out properly, lessons to learn, and all
that.
You’re worth one more try. I really mean it this time.
What? That’s baloney! I can do without you. You think I’m some sort
of love starved waif? Over the hill? How dare you!
I’ve never been so offended in my whole life! I’ve still got my
figure unlike you, sitting around all day swilling brew, munching chips!
You’re wrong, I’m staying for you, giving
you one more chance to shape up. Still, I have to admit, every day you’re
looking more and more like my worst nightmare.
Here’s the plan. We just have too many issues to sort out
on our own. We’ll do this right, make a proper profession of our
relationship, call in the experts. Maybe if you hear
it from someone else you’ll realize how lucky you are, how much you
really do love me down deep. But until I see concrete evidence of your love
I’m cutting you off, throwing out my sexy underwear.
Hate
I was right, you S.O.B. You never loved me. Don’t give me
that psychobabble you picked up at the shrink. Yes, those are the papers. I get
the house, the kids, and half your retirement. This is war, you bastard. The
best years of my life down the drain.
A Daunting List
As much as we would like to think it is not really like that, it
is. And, if we are going to sincerely address the emotional side of our personalities,
which, sadly, is often the only side, we need to honestly evaluate the
importance we give to the idea of love relationships.
Relationship with unexamined motives, not relationship itself,
presents a formidable spiritual problem. However, buttressed with the belief
that each is responsible for his or her own happiness, relationship or not, and
a deep commitment to practicing a higher kind of love, the meditator may find
relationships a useful vehicle for attaining spiritual goals.
Nonetheless, before we can develop successful love relationships
we should have a clear idea of the psychology of conditional love, because the
feelings and emotions that confront us in special love relationships are often
a neon sign advertising a flawed understanding of ourselves and the world. If
we are going to haul our feelings and emotions out of the dark ages and present
a pure heart to God, we need to be mindful of the distinction between
conditional and unconditional love.
In the first place, I would not need a special love relationship
if I were already happy. When I am whole I feel love. Therefore wholeness
equals love. Conversely, when I feel incomplete I crave love. Tormented by the joyful memory of love, I long to be whole again.
Because I am cut off, I blame myself and feel guilty, a nasty feeling that
spawns a raft of negative emotions, not the least of which is self loathing. To
compensate and reconnect to my most important part, my Self, I unconsciously
project love on someone else and invest my love object with Godlike qualities
that compensate for things apparently lacking in myself.77
Because I am now unconsciously back in
touch, in the flush of love, I want to serve, surrender to, and know all about
my beloved. And to keep love flowing I insist my god or goddess prove his or
her love by fulfilling the special needs sprouting like weeds in the fertile
field of my incompleteness. My many needs make me dependent and I become
attached. The fear that my needs will not be met spawns anxiety and anger.
Unfortunately the cooperation of my significant other is
required to keep this projection alive. But sadly, others seem more concerned
with their own needs. So I do not get satisfaction unless I agree to support
the beloved’s projection by fulfilling his or her special needs... a
heavy price to pay. But what to do? If I do not take
care of the beloved, he or she will not love me. And I need love because I
don’t have a clue who I am. Even in the best of
all possible worlds the love object cannot completely take care of all my needs
and cracks appear in my Godlike projection.
To protect myself I need to deny I am projecting and become
delusional which allows me to imagine something’s ‘wrong’
with the love object and, therefore, justify my anger. Anger is psychic aggression
and causes guilt which leads to fear because my angry attacks invite
retaliation. To protect myself I need a strong psychic defense mechanism.
Keeping the illusion alive for extended periods is virtually
impossible because this type of love is based on ever changing special needs.
Additionally, my relationship to my needs is always changing. To make matters
worse, the love object’s special needs and relationship to his or her
special needs is also always changing. When anger and guilt no longer work love
withers on the vine and, depending on the depth of attachment to my projection
(how guilty I am), turns to hate. When I’m sure my love object has failed
me, I become disillusioned and bitter and set out to find a more cooperative
victim.
This daunting list of negative psychological effects flowing
from the uninformed attempt to heal The Separation by falling78 in
love hardly inspires confidence in the idea of romantic love. Yet falling in
love is a universal reaction to The Separation.
77. See Chapter I, “Removing the
Wall”
78. Is this why we use the word
‘falling’ to describe romantic love?
Why I’m Fooled by Love
Why does this unlimited unconditional reservoir of love that I
am seem to come from outside, to depend on the love object? Because the
erroneous belief that I need love extroverts my mind to such a degree I do not
realize what is actually happening when I fall in love. This extrovertedness acts as a high barrier, prohibiting access
to my innermost Self, the source of love.
The more I’m deprived of love, the more I desire it. And
the more I desire it the thicker the wall becomes. When cupid shoots the arrow,
which is just my desire reaching critical mass, and the object magically
appears, the dam collapses and the ocean of love that is my Heart, floods into
my mind, overwhelming it with happiness.79
And, oddly enough, you just ‘happen’ to be there in
front of me at the time. Is it any wonder I innocently associate my happiness
with you? I am so happy I not only love you, I love me for being in love, and
the world, which heretofore was such a dreary place, does not look too bad
either. At least for a while.
79. See Chapter I, ‘Removing the
Wall.’
Seek Within
After numerous unthinking excursions through this painful
psychological landscape, I have enough information to know that ‘in
love’ with all its turbulent self deceptions and disappointments is not
real. At the same time the experience of love was real. Something that feels so
good has to be real. So even though I reject the Mr. or Mrs. Right idea, and
eschew the magic of ‘chemistry,’ I do not let go of the idea that
love is what I want. And, let us assume that, for whatever reason, I have come
to believe the love I am seeking is within me. If so, how would I go about finding
it?
Just as we cannot meditate on something we don’t know, we cannot love something we do not know. However, though
the love that I am permeates everything, I find staying in touch difficult. So
I need a path that will convert my many relationships into a spiritual path,
one that will bring me in contact with the Self, pure Love.
See God in Everyone
To purify the mind of the ugly samskaras listed above and attain
union with the Self in love, is the purpose of the path of love, the third of
four basic approaches
to happiness.
The simplest way to accomplish this is to see God in everyone.
What is God? God is a symbol for pure Love. I need a symbol because It can’t be directly perceived in my present gross
state of consciousness. And since I need someone to love, I need to personify
Love as God or a god. Personification is an indispensable step on the path of
love because the heart thinks in terms of people. Ultimately, when we have
worshipped our God of Love for an appropriate time, the heart becomes subtle
and we feel the formless Self directly within.
Though It is an impersonal
all-pervasive unlimited field of Consciousness, the Self works through the
symbol to provide the experiences and insights necessary to draw the devotee
ever closer. In this way it is possible to have a personal relationship with
the Self. Before the devotee is subtle enough to feel God’s love, he or
she should purify the extroverting rajasic and dulling tamasic energies
through prayer and devotional service
When
I love God, in effect, I’m loving everyone and
everything because God is this whole universe. Clay, for example, might be
thought of as the ‘god’ of a pot in so far there is no pot without
clay. And just as every atom of the pot is clay, every atom of this world is
God, congealed, grossified Love. Until we understand
that the whole universe is love we need to see everything as God or a symbol of
God...because it is.81 My spiritual
brothers and sisters, are true symbols too, ‘cast in the image of God.’ And significantly, it should not escape
my attention that if everyone else is God, I too am God and most worthy of
worship.82
For those uncomfortable seeing humans as symbols of the Divine,
any object that invokes love like a tree, stone, a flower, an
animal, or religious and mythological symbols is acceptable. However, at some
point the meditation needs to include humans in so far as everything eventually
needs to be seen as one’s own Self...if the path
of love is to culminate in Self Realization.83
Endow the symbol with noble qualities. The ‘God’
should be compassionate, conscious, all-powerful (capable of fulfilling
spiritual and worldly needs), peaceful, and beautiful. Installing these
qualities in the symbol is a roundabout way of developing them in oneself.
If You Can’t
Make It, Fake It
Religion
or religious concepts need not enter into it. If you have difficulty with the
idea of God adopt any sensible reason for treating everyone with love and
respect...because we are all human beings, for example. Or for no reason at
all. The path of love simply means loving others for their sake, thinking of
them first, helping them. This view is a powerful antidote to the selfish view of love, because the
devotee is saying, in effect, that The Separation is not real. Eventually, this
practice heals The Separation.
80. The others,
discussed above, are: meditation, action, and knowledge.
81. It’s not actually a symbol because the universe is non-dual love, butto make the vision of oneness real we need to take
everything we see asGod until the vision of
non-duality happens.
82. This path is an excellent
solution to the self-esteem problem.
83. If any object is ultimately excluded the
love that develops will not be unconditional.
Return to the Source
Loved unconditionally, the world starts loving back! The more
love is practiced, the more it flows, like a mountain torrent in springtime,
flushing away unforgiving thoughts and feelings. Slowly attention turns within,
awakening the devotee to the unlimited power of Love. When our small loves find
their infinite Source we are free and are no longer compelled to grovel at the
feet of the world.
Qualifications of a
Divine Lover
The path of love, devotion, is an unsentimental discipline of mind,
a method of converting emotion into devotion, and an effective means of Self
Realization. Though it usually begins with some form of religious practice,
worship of deities and idols, for example, it culminates in the highest form of
realization, union with the Self.
Anyone can practice love, but to achieve Self Realization, the
devotee must be ethically and morally pure, endowed with discrimination,
dispassion, and a burning desire to know God. He or she must be truthful,
straightforward, sincere, non-injuring, kind, considerate, polite,
compassionate, charitable, forbearing, patient, humble, self
accepting, accommodating, persevering, fearless, and mentally strong.
The devotee needs the faith to commit to sustained and
persistent effort in restraining the outward flowing tendencies of the heart
and directing all feelings toward the Self, a futile practice without an
equally strong commitment to the practice of non-attachment.
Non-Attachment
“When the moon
shines the stars dim. When the sun shines the moon loses
luster.”
Old Saying
Such is the self indulgent nature of the age and the intensity
of ego’s resistance to the idea of loss that modern writers on spiritual
topics have been forced to scotch the words ‘sacrifice’ and
‘renunciation’ and employ the euphemism
‘non-attachment.’ Call it what you will, serious devotional
progress is impossible without drawing back from outer things and ideas. True
renunciation, non-attachment, means that on the physical level the devotee must
be willing to abandon craving for the fruits of action, on the intellectual
level, self limiting concepts, and on the emotional level, attachment to love
objects.84
Contrary
to conventional wisdom, renunciation brings power, understanding and love. For
example, people
willingly sacrifice a less attractive object for a more attractive one. When
someone addicted to sensuous pleasure discovers the subtler pleasures of the
mind, physical objects loose luster. And when the devotee finds the state of
Love that is the innermost Self, the small personal loves that captivate the
unthinking heart, pale. As the practice of letting go grows, love grows.
Peel back the veneer of life and see the love glue that bonds it
to the Self. Strip away the shallow emotions that crave romance and excitement
and discover that your deepest need is the desire to love and be loved. Nothing
is more exciting and attractive than love, realizing oneness with someone or
something. When the real object of our desire is unknown we chase small loves,
but when we wake up to the Self we understand that it could only be the Self we
love, it is for the sake of the Self that we love. Even our small loves are
merely pale reflections of the Love pervading every atom of the universe.
An Upanishad says, “None ever loved the husband for the
husband’s sake; it is the Self, the Lord85 within, for whom
the husband is loved. None ever loved the wife for the wife’s sake, but
for the sake of the Self in the wife.”
The path of love directs love to the Self, the real object of
our affections. Passion, feeling and emotion become workable when rightly
directed and sublimated into the practice of unconditional love.
84. The
attachment, not the object, needs to be renounced.
85. The
term “Lord” in Vedic literature does not usually refer to a
particular deity but the limitless, nameless, formless Self. The term should be
taken as someone or something that is valuable, important, and powerful.
The Practice of Love
Although Love is formless and nameless, forms and names can be
used to cultivate devotion. Because it produces spiritual vasanas and
purifies worldliness, physical practice, ritual, which can be discarded at the
advanced stages, is the foundation of devotional life. Ritual involves two
elements: a devotional attitude and a physical or mental symbol for the
Beloved.
Because the mind is gross when we begin, physical images like
stone, brass, gold, or wooden statuary, a picture, or a highly evolved living
human are easiest to worship.
The endless smorgasbord of symbols provided by world religions
permits the devotee to select one to which he or she is particularly attracted.
Religious symbols derive their power by invoking Self archetypes,86 awakening a sense of awe, majesty,
reverence and love.
To still and introvert the mind the combined power of
one’s thoughts and feelings need to be directed to the symbol in an
attempt to achieve an unbroken flow of devotion.
Because it requires no ritual paraphernalia and can be practiced
anywhere, the most simple and effective devotional ritual is wholehearted
worship of the Divine Name wherein a particular word (or words) that refers to
God is repeated continuously, either aloud or silently, with deep feeling. This
practice, like action and knowledge
Prayer, congregational worship, study of scripture and the lives
of great devotees, are equally effective rituals. Try seeing your body and home
as God’s temple, regarding your spouse and children as God’s own,
considering every spoken word the name of the Lord, and every duty as service
of God. Bending, lying, or kneeling should be considered prostration to God,
walking as circumambulation of the Deity, all lights as symbols of the Self,
sleep as samadhi,87 rest as meditation, and the act of eating
as God eating God. In this manner every object and activity loses its secular
character and becomes divine through devotional practice.
86. The Causal Body, the Unconscious, is
home of the archetypes of release and transcendence as well as the archetypes
of suffering. yoga, purifies unhealthy samskaras
and turns the mind inward.
87. A state of complete absorption
in the Self.
Love Games
The emotional patterns we bring to life are expressions of samskaras
from previous births shaped by the immediate childhood environment. When we
came in, rarely were we taught that the purpose of life is to love God.
Therefore, our primary relationships, under the pressure of physical and
emotional factors, don’t serve spiritual ends. Consequently our adult
lives are rife with emotional suffering. Had these fundamental relationships
taught us to love ourselves and others unconditionally, a longing for God would
never have developed.
The
path of love transforms emotional energy into devotion. For example, if a
parental relationship functioned successfully, the mind will be naturally loving and
respectful. From here it is only a short step to convert the love and respect
one feels for elders into love of God. The means of conversion are called
‘bhavas,’ devotional moods
or styles of worship that may lead to Self Realization through love.
The Slave
Dasya, The Slave, is based on the idea we
are not masters and mistresses of our destinies but slaves to the tyrannical samskaras.
Who is not chained to physical passions, indentured to selfish feelings,
painfully shackled to unforgiving thoughts? The more we strive for freedom,
rail against injustice and court empowerment, the more we acknowledge bondage
to the unreal.
The Slave is a service oriented psychology that converts
feelings of powerlessness into a positive devotional force. The devotee is
enjoined to slavishly worship God and Its manifestations, particularly people,
with a whole heart. He or she should turn his or her life over to God and
become a faithful and diligent executor of God’s will. Such devotees need
to support and maintain religious, charitable, and spiritual institutions,
faithfully serve enlightened souls, spiritual teachers, and God intoxicated
devotees.
In addition to loyalty and respect, The Slave develops a quiet
mind and keen discrimination, qualities necessary to distinguish God’s
voice from the many self serving ego voices playing in the mind. Practiced
faithfully, this devotional mood reduces ego inflations to rubble as it
empowers the inner Self.
The Wife
If The Slave is not your cup of tea, try kanta, The Wife, another high devotional stance. The
tie between the husband and wife is the strongest and sweetest, containing all
expressions of love, particularly sexual intimacy, which symbolizes the union
of the devotee and God, the ecstatic wedding of the individual and universal
Selves. In a mood of complete identification and attachment, the devotee,
regardless of sex, sees God as a husband or wife, to honor and obey in every
situation, even beyond the grave. Just as devoted spouses gladly suffer for
each other, the devotee will suffer any misery for his or her beloved Husband
or Wife.
A quotation on the back of an eighteenth
century painting reproduced in a book entitled, Krishna, the Divine Lover,
illustrates the mood as practiced by a sect of devotees known as the Shakti
Bhavas,88 worshippers of the Divine Mother, Radha,
consort of Krishna.
“This sect is in favor with those with an effeminate
turn of mind. They declare themselves to be the female companions of Radha, with the idea of paying her homage and establishing
identity, even taking on the manner of speech, gait, gestures and dress of
women. At monthly intervals, in the manner of menstruating women, they put on red clothes as if
affected by menstruation and pass three days in this state. After menstruation
is over, they take a ceremonial purificatory bath. In
the manner of married women anxious to be physically united with their husbands
as enjoined in the scriptures, they take to themselves on the forth night a
painting of Sri Krishna, stretch themselves, and raising both legs, utter
“ahs” and “oohs,” adopt coy
womanly manners, and cry aloud, “Ah Krishna, I die! Oh
88. Shakti is the energetic, feminine
aspect of Consciousness. In spiritual literature women tend to symbolize energy
and love.
89. Vedic deities invariably have
‘vehicles’ or ‘shaktis’ which
are usually symbolized by a woman or an animal, the idea being that the
non-dual Self can only function through a form or deity. When the Supreme
Deity, the Self, is symbolized as a woman, like Kali, the vehicle is invariably
an animal which represents the ‘lower’ nature. So Shiva and Shakti,
Ram and Sita, Krishna and Radha
represent alternatively the Self and the Universe, Spirit and Matter, the Self
and the Mind, although on the rudimentary devotional level they are thought of
as actual physical Gods and Goddesses. This ‘primitive’ conception
works because the Self, which dwells in the hearts of all, knows that the
prayers are actually for It and compassionately functions through the chosen
symbol to fulfill the devotee’s needs.
The Friend
A more common form of worship, one that transforms worldly love
into devotion, is sakhya, friendship, in which
equal love flows between God and the devotee. God is viewed as a tried and true
confidante, a close relative or family member, one with whom innermost secrets
can be shared. “Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knoweth not what the lord doeth, but I call you friends,
for all things I have heard of my Father, I have made known to you.” Striving to see everyone in a friendly light, those who practice
this devotional mood take great pleasure in encouraging and supporting their
friend’s spiritual inclinations.
That a competitive ego may develop is thought to be the downside
of this type of devotion. The expression popular in New Age circles some years
ago, “God is my co-pilot” is a case in point. Nevertheless a
diffident, sacrificing, attitude toward God, The Friend, is cultivated. As do
close friends, the devotee acutely suffers moments of separation, continually
craving God’s company, either in the form of a deep experience of God, or
through communion with other devotees. The tender, joyful, and playful
relationship of nine and ten year old children serves to model this charming
mood which sees God as an equal playmate sporting among His or Her creations.
The Child
A popular bhava because we so
easily identify with childlike parts of the psyche, this method is based on the
universal need of children to love their parents.90 The devotee is
enjoined to love God with the unsuspecting faith of the child, acknowledging
and accepting his or her state of total helplessness, ignorance, dependence,
and attachment. Practically, the devotee is meant to treat all fatherly and
motherly figures as God, including his or her own parents. Parents, our
physical source, make a nice symbol of God, our spiritual source. The
realization that we are part and parcel of His or Her being instills confidence
in our own divinity.
Similar to The Slave, this love game is considered an imperfect
vehicle for God realization because it does not, except indirectly, cultivate knowledge of God, leaving the devotee vulnerable
to exploitation and manipulation from unconscious forces and religious figures.
Ultimately love begets knowledge because the intellect develops curiosity for
what the heart loves, but in the short run this devotional stance is at best a
preliminary step in the soul’s long march home. Because this style of
worship produces such deep attachment, unless the devotee cultivates
understanding of the formless aspect of God through scriptural study and
meditation he or she is in danger of merely using God to satisfy ego needs and
will not realize that the need behind needs is union with God. And finally, in
this approach the love object is seen as someone other than oneself and
therefore rarely leads to Self Realization.
90.
Perhaps the strident criticism by thinking people of fundamentalism stems from
Christianity’s obsession with this devotional stance. The idea that
‘children of God’ are meant to obey, not think for them selves,
puts them at odds with modern views.
Mom and Pop
Vatsalya, the parental mood,
is thought to be superior to The Child because parental love is tempered with
understanding and a sense of responsibility. The precious and profound love of
God produced by this mood is balanced and enhanced by an equally deep attempt
to probe the mysteries of the Divine through scriptural study, meditation, and
reflection.
Vatsalya taps the parental
archetype and can be successfully practiced by anyone who has felt the need to
protect and nurture small helpless creatures. Children, because of their
purity, innocence, and guileless bliss, make excellent symbols for God. When
the devotee develops this feeling for his or her inner Self, he or she shines
with maternal or paternal splendor. Because one becomes what one meditates on
in time, when maternal feelings for God achieve rapturous intensity, this mood
is even known to produce mammary secretions in women!
Because it forces the devotee to identify with the ‘inner
parent,’ this mood helps heal the negative views of parents that
accompany the reluctance of adults to leave their ‘inner child’ and
attain spiritual maturity. The bhava also
teaches the devotee to detach from ideas of power, fear and punishment that
might be associated with God. Calling into question the concept of mindless
obedience, the bhava also roots out concepts
of devotional unworthiness associated with God’s glory, majesty, and
grandeur...actually projections of a primitive religious consciousness.91
Unlike children, parents are not generally moved to
awe in the presence of the child. Because they cannot beg from the child, the bhava negates the tendency to ask favors of
the Lord, and complain about one’s lot. And, like parents for their
children, the devotee is enjoined to make any sacrifice for the sake of God.
91. In fact
God, the Self, is neither great nor small, glorious nor
inglorious. And while It seems great and
glorious with reference to the ego’s smallness and selfishness, to
constantly idolize the love object is spiritually unwise, since, by
implication, it diminishes one’s own innate greatness. If God is great, I
am great. If God is nothing, I am nothing.
The Passionate Lover
“Oh, for one kiss from Thy lips, my
Beloved!
The thirst of one kissed by Thee
increases forever,
his sorrows vanish and he forgets all
things but Thee.”
About this kiss, Swami Vivekananda says, “Aspire for that
kiss of the Beloved, that touch of the lips that makes the devotee mad, which
makes a man a god. To the one who has been blessed with such a kiss, the whole
of nature changes, worlds vanish, suns and moons die out, and the universe
itself melts away into that one infinite ocean of love. That is the perfection
of the madness of love.”
A selfless lover eager to gratify his or her beloved is the
intriguing model for this bhava which takes
the bliss of physical orgasm as a symbol of the powerful experience of ecstatic
union with the Self.
Sringarasa bhava,92 the attitude of
passionate love of God is often considered the most advanced love game because
passionate spiritual love is the hardest to develop owing to the difficulty of
consistently experiencing the Self. It is also difficult to break owing to an
excess of attachment brought on by the experience of extreme joy in the
presence of God.
A completely spiritual love, the devotee sees God, the innermost
Self, as divinely beautiful and lovely, an Adonis or Aphrodite, to be loved
with affections verging on the erotic. In this style of love, all conventions,
reservations, hesitations, and personal views are cast aside and an exclusive,
potentially jealous, love cultivated. A gargantuan appetite,
craving for the embrace of God, the experience of the Self, is evidenced, the
need for spiritual experience replacing the need for physical gratification.
Just as lovers locked in the throes of orgasm do not know inside or outside or
which body is which, the devotee in union with the Self sees no distinctions
and experiences only the sweetest bliss.
92. Sringarasa means springtime
and was chosen to represent this bhava because
spring is the season of sexual passion.
Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder
Obstacles to ecstatic meditation...return to mental and
emotional states of mind...serve to intensify this bhava
and are to be used as opportunities to develop love in absence, just as a
lover’s desire for the beloved is increased by temporal and spatial
separation.
It
should be noted that this mood in no way resembles the modern idea of tantra yoga 93 as ‘spiritual
sex.’ Based on the fact that true love only comes from within, it is a
sophisticated psychological technique for sublimating sexual energy into a high
meditative state of mind and can be successfully practiced only by virtuous
celibate individuals or married souls in mature non-possessive relationships.
Unlike love born of rajas, passionate love of God derives from the sattvic
element and aims to gratify God, the object of one’s affections, not the
devotee.
The state of mind and the emotions produced by the realization of
the presence of God, the deity in the Heart, includes loss of consciousness and
suspension of animation as if one were asleep: erratic breathing, perspiration,
thrills, chills, horripilations, shivering, breaking
voice, change of color, and shedding unselfish tears from the sides of the
eyes.
The devotional manifestations of realization of the absence of
God’s presence are sleeplessness, helplessness, fickleness, depression,
and anxiety. When they descend from the ecstatic heights of devotion, devotees practicing
this bhava often see God as a fickle,
inconsiderate, and unfaithful lover prone to selfish disappearances. They are
not above exhibiting signs of haughty superiority and disdain, fervent
yearning, regret because of the Beloved’s uncaring attitude, and a sense
of folly for having become involved with God in the first place. Occasionally
the separation causes such anguish the devotee accuses the Lord of cruel
injustice and the perverse dispensation of pleasure to others while the
devotee, who has not forgotten the Beloved for a minute, continues to suffer.
93. Sexual union is often used as a symbol of the union of the
devotee with God, not as a feel-good sustitute for
Divine Love. .
94. Rajas invariably inclines one to selfishness.
Forbidden Lover
Operating under the assumption that the more love is obstructed
the more it intensifies, this mood, a variation of the Passionate Lover,
converts feelings of secrecy and shame associated with love into a positive
devotional force.
Love of God often awakens in the most unlikely and inconvenient
worldly circumstances. When a declaration of love would invite ridicule,
condemnation, and persecution, taking God as a forbidden lover is helpful.
Devoid of outer signs, the Forbidden Lover is a ‘stealth’
psychology through which devotion grows by inner yearning, silent repetition of
the Holy Name, and meditation. This mood is tailor made for devotees who need
to protect their spirituality from possessive, insecure, and jealous spouses.
Negativity
Because it ultimately spells the end of ego control, devotional
practice often generates strong ego resistance. Negativity tends to exhaust as
devotion develops, but occasionally negative samskaras refuse to yield
and require a radical procedure.
Taking a negative attitude toward negativity, thinking of
ourselves as worthless sinners, for example, reinforces it, destroys
discrimination, clouds self awareness and derails spiritual practice. Taking a
negative attitude toward others is a karmic disaster. To deal effectively with
negativity devotional science encourages us to project it at God... as a last
resort.
If the purpose of devotional practice is to produce an
unbroken flow of thought and feeling in the direction of God, allowing
periods of negativity to break the flow is devotionally unwise. Therefore,
though the offerings are ugly and inappropriate, we should place them squarely
on the altar of our Deity.
Rather than abandon my practice when I am angry, I need to
castigate God for denying me the courage to overcome my weaknesses. Rather than
turn my back, why not blame the Lord for turning His or Her back on me? With a
little imagination a devotee can dump any kind of negativity at the feet of the
Beloved, a practice that protects oneself and the world. When it is given to
God it does not recycle, but dissolves like clouds in God’s vast inner
Heaven, filling the heart with love.
As the love offering proceeds, the barrier between the devotee
and God becomes increasingly transparent. Repressing negativity solidifies it95
and erects a thick wall of duality around the ego, cutting it off from the
Lord’s loving embrace. Ultimately both God and the devotee merge into
each other in devotional ecstasy.
How does God, the innermost Self, feel about this practice? Just
as a lover listens to the angry tirades of the beloved because the love behind
the words is perceptible, God understands the devotee’s distress and
appreciates his or her desire to maintain contact at all costs, graciously
accepting, nay, encouraging, all expressions of love, even foul abuse. Paying
attention to God irrespective of the emotional state, the devotee becomes
absorbed in God and experiences mystic union.
A touching example of a negative relationship with God is
provided by a commentary on a verse in the Narada Bhakti Sutra by H. Poddar.
“When a child begins to toddle, it often stumbles and falls. Hearing the
cry the mother runs to help, but the child becomes angry with the mother for
assuming that it might need help, even though she was not at fault, and chides
her to make her feel guilty. “Why did you leave me alone? See what
happens when you leave me?” it says. Then it decides to punish her.
“I’ll never talk to you,” it wails. “I’ll never
sit in your lap!” To appease its anger the mother tries to take it in her
arms but it evades her and runs away weeping. Why does it do so? Because it recognizes its power over her and hers over it.
She is everything to the child and the child is totally dependent on her. There
is no discrimination. The child can express anything without fear, including
all its negativity. The dependent devotee makes God the object of passion,
anger, and pride.”
95. Christ’s admonition, ‘Resist not evil’
acknowledges this deep truth.
Peace
This bhava is a characteristic
of Self realized souls, devotees with a continuous and direct experience of
God. Because spiritual practice as a means of attainment ceases on the
realization of the Self, this bhava is not
actually a practice but a description of the relationship between the mind of a
realized soul and the Self. In it the emotions are stilled and fused with the
Self, “the peace that passeth
understanding.” This type of devotee, who is one with God, is a lover of
solitude, discriminating, and indifferent to his or her own ego. He or she has
strong but well considered opinions, a refined sense of irony, and is
unaffected by the emotions and views of others.
Development of
Devotion
Primary devotion is the state where the devotee and the object
of devotion have become one. Secondary devotion is dualistic, a communication
between the devotee and an object of devotion and is conditioned by the
instrument of worship, the Subtle Body. As we have seen, the Subtle Body is
always influenced by the gunas and therefore sattva, rajas
and tamas color devotion.
Stage One
When Tamas predominates, a rudimentary and ignorant style
of devotion develops. Because sleepy waves envelop his or her intelligence, the
devotee is neither self nor Self aware. God, who is
known indirectly through blind belief, is worshipped fearfully and slavishly.
Such devotees are susceptible to superstitious beliefs in magic, ghosts, evil
spirits, poltergeists, demons and devils.
Tamas, the dark energy, dictates a commitment to formula, especially
ritual, and literal interpretation of scripture. The unhappy dualistic view of
‘original sin,’ which saddles the devotee with a negative identity,
is the crest jewel in the tamasic devotee’s belief system.
Ignorance loves organization, swelling the ranks of cults and religious
institutions worldwide. Because thinking for oneself is considered a form of
disobedience, the tamasic devotee is easily manipulated by corrupt
priests and is happy to surrender to powerful spiritual personalities. To
question or attack this kind of faith is to gain an enemy for life. Religious
history is replete with examples of excesses wreaked from this narrow state of
mind.
The tendency to worship God or the spiritual teacher as an
authoritarian figure is often motivated by the belief in oneself as a helpless
child of God. On the positive side this type of faith is capable of
withstanding life’s pinpricks and her major crises. The conviction that
an external God exists is steady, deep, and heartfelt.
Stage Two
Rajas, the projecting power, keeps the mind and emotions in a
continual state of disturbance which functions as an opaque moving screen,
effectively concealing the Self and blocking the flow of love from within. When
the rajasic devotee’s needs are satisfied the world is a Garden of
Eden. When unfulfilled, God often takes the blame.
The rajasic devotee’s lust for
life, ambition, and sense of dissatisfaction work against developing a steady
stream of love. On the other hand, dissatisfaction can prompt one to
enthusiastically purify tamasic devotional elements. Because of this, rajasic
devotion is sometimes considered superior to its tamasic sister.
The rajasic devotee is inclined to self centeredness and
is not above bargaining with the Lord for power, position and wealth. The
theory of ‘abundance’ currently making the rounds on the New Age
spiritual circuit is tailor made for this type of devotee who tends to be
status and image conscious, views devotion as evidence of attainment and is not
above using it to humiliate and impress others. Scratch the surface and you
find a someone more interested in presenting a
devotional front to the world than a devotional heart to God. Unlike the steady
dependability of the dark type, the active devotee will change religions,
beliefs, teachers, and practices at the drop of a hat.
Rajasic devotional style, unlike the sleepy innocence of
Mother/Father worship, tends to be passionate. In evolved souls God is taken as
the ultimate Lover, an appropriate object for intense feelings of romance,
attachment, possessiveness, jealousy, and anger. For rajasic devotion to
evolve into sattva the devotee must be convinced that God, not His or
Her toys, are the goal of spiritual life. Once
committed to the highest view, union with God, the devotee becomes a bundle of
spiritual energy and makes rapid progress.
Stage Three
With roots in the Absolute, sattva,
the third strand in the psychic rope and the highest of the three lower stages
of devotion is the most secure foundation for devotional life because the sattvic
heart is a spotless mirror, capable of accurately reflecting God’s image.
Sattvic devotees are blessed with curiosity, intelligence, and
discrimination. He or she loves God purely and unselfishly.
Because the veil separating the sattvic devotee from God
is so thin, the devotee may become spiritually conceited and suffer attachment
to goodness, beauty, and knowledge, golden chains difficult to break if
devotion is to flower into the fourth and highest stage.
Love and Knowledge
As love for God grows the desire to know more
about God increases. And as knowledge of God, based on scripture and direct
experience, grows, so does love of God. Knowledge of an ego does not incline to
love because egos are selfish and fickle, but knowledge of God invariably
increases love because God’s nature is eternal love. Therefore both paths, love and knowledge are intertwined, like
passionate lovers.
Evolution Through the Gunas
Tamas is the devotee’s most intractable enemy because its
sleepy clouds cover the intellect, veiling the ideal, the state of Supreme
Devotion. Rajas’ unremitting projections also serve to obscure the
vision of the goal, but passionate pursuit of spiritual life brings glimpses
that inspire continued purification. As striving to experience the Self
increases, experience of the Self increases, bringing knowledge of the Self.
Knowledge ‘of’ the Self is not Self Knowledge, but may eventually
lead to full Enlightenment.
In the sattvic mind a happy, selfless, blissful state,
called rati arises. The experience of rati is so delightful the devotee becomes quickly
attached and purifies more diligently. When rati
becomes deep and constant it is called prema,
transcendental Love.
The Goal
“Attaining It one becomes intoxicated,
then silent, delighting in the Self.”
Narada Bhakti Sutra
The state of Devotion to which this verse refers is not a simple
love of God inspired by blind belief, but an inner transformation, the rebirth
of the soul out of the womb of matter into the realm of pure Spirit. It is a
spontaneous awakening to the ultimate state of Being,
an ecstatic, expansive, dynamic open ended experience that fills the head with
wisdom and the heart with love. Unlike “born again” experiences,
which quickly fade leaving the devotee caught up in the limitations of the old
life, the heart merges completely and permanently into the Self.
Even a glimpse of this state inspires intense faith, prompting a
single minded striving to enter into It. Referred to as salvation in religion
and liberation or Enlightenment in the spiritual world, it is beyond
meditative, concentrated, absorbed and practice induced states of mind.
This seeing and enjoying the Self inspires divine madness. The
devotee feels exhilarated and intoxicated, as if he or she had won the lottery
and fallen in love on the same day. It is not unlike a mother’s feeling,
extended forever, when a child thought to be dead returns to her. When it
happens the devotee is blown away and no sense of separateness remains.
Everyone and everything is experienced as pure undying love. One may hug and
kiss a complete stranger, sweetly accept an insult, go without eating for days,
renounce money and possessions, sing recklessly, laugh without reason like a
child or talk wildly in tongues.
Gradually, however, the emotions purify. Not that the vision of
God is less intense or the relationship less passionate, but the heart breaks
open and becomes infinitely spacious, graciously accommodating the Divinity
blazing within. Over time the feelings, in an orgy of sacrifice, offer
themselves to the fire, like a moth to a flame...and visible signs of devotion
disappear. God doesn’t seem like such an incredible being any more, but a
trusted companion.
The devotee will shortly become aware of a deafening silence, a
powerful presence that swallows every thought and feeling, engulfing every
perception. Caught in the embrace of timeless love, mad passion becomes the
white heat of meditation and the devotee sits quietly sipping the nectar
flowing from the Heart of hearts. Becoming silent, absorbed in the Infinite,
the patterns supporting the ego crumble, the mind disappears like a phantom,
and the soul, in primordial nakedness realizes oneness with the Self.
FINE POINTS
The division of the modern psychological world into physical,
emotional, and cognitive therapies suggests parallels to the paths of action,
devotion and knowledge outlined in the two preceding chapters. Dominated almost
exclusively by Freud’s ideas for most of the century, the therapeutic
world might be seen as a secular attempt to compete with religion in the
business of cleaning up sinners. Its model of the ego, which sees childhood
trauma and libidinal impulses as the cause of suffering, was taken as seriously
as church doctrine by a significant segment of the thinking public for the
better part of the century. Because it takes the ego as the only self, it has
suffered since its inception from the absence of an overarching concept like
the Self to integrate its diverse psychologies. And because it is saddled with
the materialist-scientific model of the universe, it has until recently
steadfastly denied the validity of spiritual experience.
The correction began almost immediately with the schism between
Freud and Jung. Unlike Freud, Jung couldn’t deny spiritual experience and
developed the idea of the Collective Unconscious, a quirky Western blend of the
Causal Body and the Self. Jung’s work set the stage for the transpersonal
model that sprang up as a result of the influx of Vedic and Buddhist ideas in
the Sixties and Seventies.
The
increasingly popular transpersonal model, which has established itself as a
legitimate branch of therapy in the last thirty years, is closer to the
original spirit of the Veda, in that it acknowledges one of the most
sought-after experiences...transcendence...and is therefore not antagonistic to
meditation and spiritual experience.96 Transcendence is not
world-denying or ego-destroying but ego and world including. Fundamentally it
is simply a shift from a particular to a universal view of oneself and
one’s world. The transpersonal model, which is a reasonable compromise
between Enlightenment as a blissful daily experience and the myopic life of a
neurotic materialist ego, is a rudimentary purification therapy in so far as it
addresses the larger issues of values and purpose. When we consciously know
that lasting happiness is the purpose of life, we make a giant step spiritually
because we free ourselves of the frustrating view that activities, experiences,
and objects will relieve our sense of limitation.
When
values are sorted out, most of our suffering dissolves. Values, which
scientific-materialist therapies are loath to tackle and which religion
approaches in an unhelpful moralistic way, are related to ego in that the more
limited one’s conception of oneself, the more selfish one’s values.
The more selfish one’s values, the more one finds oneself in conflict
with oneself and others.
The three guna model presented
in Chapter Three explained the unconscious forces operating in every
personality...sattva (light), rajas (passion), and tamas (inertia)...and
suggested that the ego/mind of a psychologically mature person was
predominantly sattvic. The unhealthy or ‘dysfunctional’
complexes that need purifying before the individual can live an integrated life
were said to be caused by excessive tamas and rajas in relation
to sattva. When one’s natural spiritual light or consciousness is
veiled by heavy tamasic clouds, the ego/mind is dominated by fear and
aversion. Rajas, like tamas, is a deep
unconscious reaction to the separation of the ego from the Self, and produces a
passionate, aggressive tension-filled mind. When the relative proportions of
rajas and tamas are reduced and accommodated within a spacious sattvic
mind they cease to produce negative emotions and become forces for growth and
change. Rajas provides the motivational energy for realizing goals
and tamas the grounding required to protect and maintain what has been
achieved, spiritual or otherwise. A mind dominated by rajas and tamas
is a suffering mind. When rajas and tamas are the sole energies
operating, serious psychological dysfunction, like manic-depression, can occur.
Mania is total rajas and depression is complete tamas. To use
modern psychological language, the more fear and desire operate in the
personality, the less integrated and more dysfunctional it is. In terms of Vedic Science such a personality is said to be
‘impure,’ the standard being the pure97 Self.
96. Because Jung did not realize the Self in It’s state beyond the Macrocosmic
Causal Body (which he called the Collective Unconscious),he
located It as an ‘archetype’ or samskara
in the Causal Body. He was unable to see that the Self transcended the Causal
Body because his official means of knowledge was inferential - the
interpretation of dreams. His direct personal experience of the Self, even had
he been able to contextualize and interpret it correctly, would never have been
accepted by the scientific community, so it was professionally useless. He was incapable
of understanding the full import of his Self research because it occurred in a
spiritual vacuum, the Western scientific intellectual world. Had he been
brought up in Vedic culture where both the Unconscious and the Self have been
accepted knowledge for at least three thousand years and figure prominently in
both Yoga and Vedanta, his research would undoubtedly have met with
considerable support and led him quickly to a clear understanding of the
relationship between the Self andthe Causal Body.
97. Pure
means partless. The Self is a partless
whole.
The Unhealthy Mind
Rather than connecting all the modern words describing
psychological dysfunction with rajas and tamas, suffice to say
that a psyche in which guilt (tamas), fear (tamas), denial (tamas),
projection (rajas), anger (rajas), passion (rajas),
aggression (rajas), defense (tamas), desire (rajas), greed
(rajas), stress (rajas), depression (tamas) and fantasy (rajas)
operate, is impure. Since everyone exhibits these unhealthy psychological
tendencies to some degree we all have work to do.
The popularity of transcendence as a solution to suffering might
be reasonably tied to the degree of unfinished inner work. The more one
suffers, the stronger the desire for freedom. Conversely, the more integrated
the personality, the less the desire for change. So, in this age of instant
gratification, the tedium of sadhana is readily sacrificed for the
transcendental quick fix. However, transcendence as an escape from suffering is
difficult to ‘maintain’ without sadhana because powerful samskaras
activate the ego and pull the mind back down to the karmic level.
The Integrated Person
To get to the point where meditation provides easy access to the
Self and a healthy ego becomes just another of the many objects in one’s
consciousness, the ego needs sadhana. However, ultimately sadhana
is only a means to an end. When it ceases to be a discipline and becomes a
natural way of life, the meditator is psychologically healthy and qualified to enter
the final stage of life...Self inquiry...which will solve the riddle of
identity.
Qualifications
What is a healthy, qualified mind?
(1) An open mind,
one willing to see itself differently. Because of the subtle nature of meditation
and the difficulty objectively evaluating experience, the meditator should seek
the help of scripture and the counsel of realized souls. The mind that imagines
that it is qualified to interpret its own experience, spiritual or otherwise,
solely on the basis of its beliefs and opinions, is not ready to assume the
impersonal view propounded by the spiritual science and is therefore
unqualified for meditation. Although the impersonal view is not Self
Realization, it is a necessary stage because it purifies the effects of
non-apprehension of the Self, i.e. limited conceptions and the disturbing
emotions they produce. Eventually even the idea ‘I am limitless
Awareness’ dissolves into the permanent knowing experience of oneself as
the Self. The mind that expects a grand enlightenment experience to cancel its
ignorance and therefore refuses to examine its beliefs and opinions,
is not qualified for Enlightenment.
Importance of a
Teacher
It is remarkable that people who would not think twice about
investing years studying with top professionals in their chosen fields will
shun spiritual teachers and attempt meditation based on the instructions
contained in a ten-dollar New Age cassette. In an age of instant gratification,
sound bites and fast food, it is not surprising that we have come to believe
that a few minutes of deep breathing, concentrating on the space between the
eyebrows, parroting a mantra, or sashaying through a visualization fantasy will
produce transcendence.
On the other hand, because spirituality is totally unregulated,
setting standards by which techniques, teachings and teachers can be
objectively evaluated, is impossible. So the situation is potentially
dangerous...a further reason why a mature mind is required. Nonetheless, a
respectable teacher, purified of the craving for pleasure, power, fame, and
wealth, will appear when the Subtle Body is clean and the desire for liberation
intense.
Meditators need help developing an objective view because the
ego has a vested interest in keeping its dark penumbra cast over the mind. Secondly, since the Self is so subtle and the techniques for
reaching it equally subtle and varied, the assistance of someone who has
successfully walked the path is invaluable.
However, a meditator should view all teachers, gurus, meditation
masters and their teachings, unsentimentally. Suspending critical faculties and
dredging a wide moat of superstitious love and respect between the meditator
and the teacher, though passing for devotion in certain circles, is certain to
nullify the benefits conferred by association with a realized soul.
The open mind is a thoughtful mind, one endowed with a clear
understanding of its own psychology and the theory and practice of meditation.
Binge meditators, who vacillate between intense practice and worldly life,
don’t understand the fundamental ideas behind the spiritual path. A
thoughtful mind, one that takes the long-range and objective view, refuses to
cease discriminating when powerful experiences are taking place.
(2) A discriminating
mind, one convinced that the Self alone is real and that the phenomenal worlds,
subtle and gross, the Not-Self,98 are
unreal.
What is Reality? Reality, the Self, exists in the past, present
and future, before the past and after the future, and in and beyond the waking,
dream, and deep sleep states of consciousness. Any object, event or state of
mind that doesn’t satisfy this definition is considered unreal or
‘Not-Self.’
On an outer level, discrimination is the power to avoid
entanglements in the dramas, pleasures and concerns of daily life. To the
discriminating, life is viewed as a fantasy, a tragicomedy to be acted to the
hilt, no doubt, but ultimately of no lasting consequence. On the inner level,
discrimination forces the meditator to take his or her likes and dislikes,
memories, dreams, fears, desires, ‘altered’ or
‘spiritual’ states of mind, as transitory epiphenomena. Both outer
and inner phenomena are to be considered Not-Self or unreal.99
‘Unreal’ does not mean objects do not experientially
exist but that their existence depends on many temporal factors. Reality, the Self,
is self-existent and therefore independent of all phenomena. A rainbow, for
example, momentarily exists, but is not real because it relies on a conspiracy
between a specific sense organ and certain physical conditions. When the
conditions that brought it into being dissolve, it
ceases to exist.
(3) A dispassionate
mind is free of the pernicious effects of binding vasanas. Dispassion is
defined as the willingness to abandon sense indulgence, emotional passion, and
intellectual pleasure for the sake of a quiet mind. The meditator should sin
intelligently, walking the tightrope between indulgence and abstinence.100
When indulgence causes attachment, train the mind to
let go of the attachment. When denial causes cravings that can’t be
renounced, indulge in the object until the developing attachment significantly
disturbs the mind. Both unfettered indulgence and fanatical denial produce
turbulence and prevent meditation. A dispassionate mind, one free of rajas
and tamas, enjoys an ironic, humorous indifference toward itself and the
world.
(4) A quiet, balanced mind. The quiet mind
will not happen until the first four qualifications develop. The ability to
control reactions101 to stimuli pouring into the mind102
and repeatedly return one’s attention to the Silence,
creates a steady mind. If subjective baggage... emotional problems, for
example...is taken to be real, the mind will never become calm. A calm mind
will concentrate on subtle objects, contemplate the inner meaning of the
teachings, listen to the Silence and discriminate between the Self and Its
numerous shadows.
Equanimity is the
peaceful state ensuing when the mind meditates consistently on the Silence and
detaches itself over and over from sense stimuli, feeling and thought as a
result of a continuous examination of their defect.103
(5) A motivated mind. Only a burning desire
for liberation will generate the perseverance and determination required to
overcome the surfeit of obstacles encountered on the path. However,
half-hearted motivations may bear fruit if the meditator associates with
realized souls and practices renunciation and meditation.
(6) A forbearing mind, one endowed with the
capacity to endure sufferings and disappointments without struggling for
redress or revenge. An ego that tries to right wrongs or one that feels
deprived or victimized is not qualified for meditation.
(7) A believing mind, one capable of taking
on faith, pending confirmation through experience, the idea of Enlightenment
and the words of scripture and realized souls.
(8) A devoted mind. Perhaps the most
important qualification, devotion is the constant inquiry into the Self and the
determined attempt to incorporate the insights gained through sadhana
and meditation into one’s life. when the
qualities are in full flower the meditator is spiritually mature and capable of
scaling the sacred heights of Self-Realization.104
98. See
the chart in Chapter II.
99. The determination
of the unreality of phenomena is meant to neutralize the meditator’s
projections. When the projections are removed and theSelf
realized, phenomena are once again seen as real
because they are known to be non-different from the Self.
100. The Buddha
called this madyamika, ‘the middle
way.’
101.
Stimuli, both internal and external, are uncontrollable. Whether or not one
reacts and how one reacts, however, can be brought under conscious control. The
lion’s share of Vipassana practice, for
example, involves controlling reactions by naming and observing sensations in
the body and mind. Naming objectifies phenomena and breaks the subjective
connection with them. 102. Mental disturbance arises automatically when sensory
imput interacts with the vasanas gurgling up
from the Causal Body. Samskaras cannot be controlled by the mind but
need to be sublimated into spiritual practices. 103. Their defect,
impermanence, makes them unsuitable as objects ofmeditation
and the basis of life choices.
103.
Their defect, impermanence, makes them unsuitable as objects of meditation and
the basis of life choices.
104. For
more on this topic see ‘Qualifications of a Divine Lover’ in
Chapter IV.
How Pure
is Pure?
The purification brought about by sadhana is the result
of a consistent and continued performance of certain gross and subtle actions
over time. As the mind purifies the meditator increasingly experiences
happiness and is tempted to conclude that intensifying sadhana will
produce lasting happiness. But as personal samskaras exhaust and become
less binding another problem develops. The subconscious, the container for
personal samskaras, is a subset of the Collective Unconscious, the
Macrocosmic Causal Body, the container of the
collective vasanas. These vasanas,105
which are operating in the background at the beginning stages of spiritual
practice, gradually come to the fore as personal complexes yield to the
consistent pressure of sadhana. Because on a deeper level we are all
part of the Macrocosmic Mind, society’s impurities are to some degree our
own. Purifying the vasanas of every sentient being is so obviously
impossible that eventually the meditator needs to draw the line on the
purification idea and seriously face the ‘Who am I’ question.
Because I, the Self, is already pure, I
will not practice meditation and sadhana for the purpose of
purification. Nor will I try to fix the world...which is fine as it is.
Moreover, on the ego level, the suffering we are so eager to remove is
spiritually valuable in so far as it compels us to look at our values and the
way we approach life.
How does purification relate to Self realization?
Enlightenment
takes place in the Subtle Body. The Self is already enlightened. Enlightenment
is the steadfast and simple knowledge ‘I am whole and complete limitless
Awareness.’ This knowledge, which is based on direct experience of the
Self, destroys the ignorance ‘I am incomplete, inadequate and
limited.’ Obviously the Subtle Body of an heroin addict whose samskaras
are so powerful that craving dominates the mind from dawn till dusk and in whom even
common sense knowledge does not find an hospitable environment, will be unable
to grasp the fact ‘I am whole and complete actionless Awareness.’ On
the other hand, a discriminating and dispassionate mind occasionally rocked by
turbulence can retain this subtle fact. Therefore, for practical purposes, we
can say that the mind is pure when it is capable of permanently grasping this
knowledge.
When the mind is pure spiritual experience is prone to occur,
but evaluating experience without Self knowledge is a problem. For example, the
Self can be experienced as radiant light, infinite sound, deep peace, power,
transcendence, wholeness, a deity, ‘guidance’ and in numerous other
ways. If It is experienced as deep peace at one
sitting, a circumferenceless light at another, and
the word of God at a third, contradictory understandings about Its nature are
likely to develop. The argument that one ‘knows’ in an intuitive or
mystical way is not helpful because...what happens when ‘intuition’
is not functioning? Self Knowledge, Enlightenment, needs to be working in the
mind all the time, not only in certain states. Otherwise how will it free one
from the incessant push and pull of the samskaras, not to mention the
fundamental problem...the concept of oneself as an experiencer conditioned by
experience?
105.
Political, social, humanitarian and economic ‘issues’ that one
feels the need to address.
Experience and Knowledge
Again
If I cannot see the thread running through every daily
experience, how am I going to see the thread running through all my diverse
inner experiences? In fact, the thread running through each inner and outer
experience is the experiencer, me, the Self. By knowing my nature I provide
myself with the information necessary to make sense of all the contradictions
experience has to offer. Receiving teaching at the feet of a realized soul and
knowledge of the import of scripture combined with meditation sadhana is
the traditional means of experiencing and knowing the Self and evaluating
experience-based knowledge.
Self Knowledge takes place when the meditator’s intellect
integrates two apparently different realities, the Self and the Not-Self. The
‘intellect’ that makes the discrimination between the Self and the
Not-Self is a sattvic Subtle Body in which the mind, intellect, and ego
are integrated and turned inward...not our everyday unpurified mind. This
is why Enlightenment usually only comes after considerable purification of the rajasic
and tamasic samskaras, either through spiritual practice or prolonged
experience of the Self106...and why many enlightenments are
consequently premature. A period of clarity might allow the meditator to
realize the Self, but unexhausted samskaras can boil up and disturb the
mind to such a degree that the knowledge is lost. However, additional
purification brings the knowledge back.
Very often Self knowledge comes by default as a result of
conducting a proper analysis of the mind and ego. It is the knowledge ‘I
am not the ego/mind’ that destroys the meditator’s identification
and attachment to these limited and unreal factors, not a particular mystic
experience, although it may come during such an experience. One never
‘attains’ Enlightenment because it’s our birthright. One
simply removes the identification with the ego/mind.
The view that Enlightenment is knowing who one is contradicts the
ill-considered view that the intellect needs to be transcended or destroyed for
Enlightenment to happen, an idea that is probably partly the result of a
perennial misinterpretation of the second of Patanjali’s
sutras, ‘yoga chitta vritti
nirodha.’ The verse, which is the basis of
the idea of vasana purification explained in Chapter Two, says that the
union107 (yoga) of the individual and the Self is not
accomplished until the samskaras (chitta
vrittis) are exhausted (nirodha).
If the intellect itself is defined as a chitta
vritti, which it is from the Self’s point
of view, then yoga takes place. Yoga means union with the Self.108
Yoga, which in its highest sense is nirvikalpa
samadhi, the blank or empty mind, is often held up as tantamount to
Enlightenment. However, if the ego/intellect is responsible for ignorance, how
will the samadhi remove it if it is not there in the samadhi?109 Even the claim that nirvikalpa samadhi is the experience of
limitless bliss, has to be incorrect because it presupposes an experiencer and
an object of experience, both dualistic thoughts (chitta
vrittis). If there is no one ‘there’
in that meditation, who is to experience or know what? The case for yoga
as liberation is more reasonable if we consider savikalpa
samadhi, which is samadhi ‘with thought.’ In this case,
if we interpret ‘with thought’ as a sattvic intellect, one
relatively free of rajas and tamas, the projecting and veiling
energies, we have a situation tantamount to the one above where an awake, alert
inquiring mind is present in meditation to remove its ignorance.
In savikalpa samadhi the
meditator is seeing from the Self, hence the term samadhi, which means
that everything seen is equal in value to everything else. The mind is active, hence the word vikalpa
(thought, feeling, perception) but no thought is more important than any
other. Everything is equal because it is known to be the non-dual Self. Seeing
things equally destroys the belief that everything is unique and needs to be
related to dualistically.
106. This
is not argument against ‘experience of’ the Self. However, unless
inquiry continues during Self experience, how will the knowledge ‘I am
the Self’ occur, since the Self will be taken as just another object of
experience? In reality, the Self can’t be the object of experience
because It is the ultimate subject and illumines both
the relative subject, the ego, and its objects of experience.
107.
Whether this ‘union’ is a matter of experience or knowledge or
realization (knowledge/experience) is for the meditator to determine. I am in
favor of the knowledge idea not because spiritual experience is illegitimate
but because of the mind’s tendency to cling to the belief that its sense
of limitlessness is only available when a certain kind of experience is
happening, i.e. when the mind is empty and/or happy. In fact the Self is
limitless irrespective of ego’s experiencing. And if I have discovered
that I am the Self I do not forfeit limitlessness when the Subtle Body is
suffering or enjoying. I may even find its states amusing.
108.
Vedanta argues that there is no one other than the Self to join with it. But
Vedanta is forced to admit the existence of an equivalent someone who is
ignorant of the Self, so its teachings can remove the ignorance. Even if the
one who is ignorant of the Self is the Self, which is impossible, it still has
to admit the existence of ignorance...which is equally Not-Self.
109. This
discussion is not meant to criticize Yoga in favor of Vedanta. In fact, the
most influential figure in the Vedantic world, the
Eighth Century non-dualist, Shankaracharaya, uses the
Yoga language of samadhi alongside the Vedantic
language of jnanam, knowledge. (See Viveka Choodamani,
The Crown Jewel of Discrimination, and other texts.) My view is that the yogis
that attain liberation make the discrimination the Vedantins
say is necessary for liberation in savikalpa
samadhi.
Stuck in Sattva
The blissful state that happens when the Subtle Body is
predominately sattvic is often taken as an experience of the Self. The
mind becomes increasingly sattvic as rajas and tamas
purify. The gunas operate sequentially in an unbroken circle. Tamas
may predominate momentarily with sattva and rajas dormant, but
when rajas takes over the mind becomes active. Breaks in the projecting
energy indicate that either tamas or sattva is about to reassert
itself. If the meditator notices tiredness while the mind is active, tamas
is waiting in the wings, opting to become the dominant energy. But if a flash
of happiness or peace is experienced, sattva is about to take over. By
meditating on this shiver of happiness, the sattvic guna
can be expanded because it increases the happiness vasana. If the
relative proportions of rajas and tamas are reduced by practice
of the yogas as enjoined in Chapter Three, the
mind experiences many happy periods throughout the day...what might be called
intermittent happiness. When the sattvic element is more powerful and
the rajasic and tamasic elements largely effaced through sadhana
and meditation on these positive feelings, happiness becomes oceanic and breaks
like waves over and over again on the shore of the lake of the mind.
Eventually, if sattva completely dominates the other gunas, it
will produce light, levitation-like feelings that pervade every atom of the
body and cause sustained sensations of ecstasy in the mind.
Joy the Enemy
The predominance of sattva is both unhelpful and helpful.
It is unhelpful because intense and sustained bliss produces reactions of
excitement and clinging which point to remnants of unpurified rajas and tamas.
Unfortunately, a pure mind is still an insentient object, a product of karma,
and needs to be dismissed as ‘Not-Self.’ It is also unhelpful,
unless the meditator is extremely dispassionate and clear about the goal,
because he or she can become convinced that a pure mind is Enlightenment,110 stop inquiring and terminate the sadhana.
But because a pure mind is produced by conscious or unconscious sadhana,
rajasic and tamasic ‘defilements’ will eventually
reappear unless sadhana is continued. After learning the secret of sadhana,
many settle for sattvic mind happiness and remain in ‘the
world’111 to act out residual vasanas...often burdened
with predictably elitist views.
The feeling of satisfaction associated with a pure mind can
easily sidetrack inquiry. Absorption in sattva is usually proportional
to the memory of suffering in rajasic and tamasic states. The sattvic
subtle body is blissful because it accurately mirrors the Self. Since the Self
is whole and limitless, It translates into a feeling
of happiness in the mind. But the experience of wholeness or happiness or bliss
characterizing the sattvic mind is not liberation, lasting happiness,
because rajasic and tamasic tendencies can destroy it.
Yet sattva is also desirable because a reflective mind is
ideal for insight. Moreover, a blissful mind aids concentration. Concentration
is necessary for successful meditation on the Silence. The danger, as usual, is
ego’s tendency to opt for experience in favor of knowledge and attempt to
expand the feelings of happiness to infinity. The need to experience infinite
happiness is evidence of an unenlightened ego.
Happiness is not the Self but Self knowledge causes happiness.
It is not the Self because it is insentient and an object of the Self’s
consciousness. Happiness doesn’t know you, but you know happiness. The
realization that one is separate from happiness is one of the final moments in
the spiritual quest because it allows the attention to become completely steady
and dispassionate.
Equanimity...Meditation
on the Silence
The meditator enters this final stage of meditation when the
attention is withdrawn from the experience of happiness and moved to the
‘space’ surrounding it, the Silence. Space is a common Self symbol
and need not be taken literally. Meditation on material space is virtually
impossible and would not produce the knowledge needed to remove the ignorance of
who one is. The Self is often referred to as
‘space’ because it is relatively non-material with reference to the
four gross elements; It pervades the elements though
none pervade It and It contains the four elements just as the Self contains all
five.
Moving the attention from the blissful sattvic mind to
the silent ‘space’ surrounding it is meditation, direct absorption
in the Silence. The attention that meditates on the Silence will become
completely balanced. An equanimous mind is capable of
discriminating between itself and the Self. Or, if you prefer the language of
experience, the equanimous mind ‘dissolves
into’ or ‘becomes’ the Self.
Negating the Not-Self does not condemn the meditator to a
monastic objectless life. Its purpose is to destroy the belief that happiness
is in objects by showing the mind the pure Self. Though the
Self is always pure, until Enlightenment It is always confused with objects,
particularly subtle states of mind. Once the objects have been negated
and the Self realized, the objects are re-embraced and life goes on quite
normally, the only difference (and what a difference!) being that they produce
no attractive or aversive reactions. Or, if they do, the reactions are
witnessed as Not-Self.
110. This view is popular in both Buddhism
and Yoga.
111. There is no world apart from the mind.
The Problem of
Language
Because knowledge comes in the form of ideas and ideas come in
the form of language, the language we use to identify the Self may affect our inquiry...since
we need knowledge to inquire. The Vishuddi
Magga,112 an ancient Pali text which talks about the progressive stages of
meditation, shows how language can skew understanding. The text says,
“Then, turning away from the contemplation of space, the meditator
proceeds to the contemplation of the state of consciousness itself which has
arisen with space as its base.” The author of a book113
discussing this state of meditation calls this “becoming aware of
awareness.” The text continues, “And once the meditator has become
aware of awareness”...which is an experience...“he or she should
proceed to repeatedly name it, saying ‘consciousness,
consciousness’.”
Naming objectifies and identifies. And if the purpose of
meditation is knowledge of the Self, the meditator needs to identify
Consciousness. So both languages operate here: the meditative experience, the
‘contemplation of the state of consciousness which has arisen with space
as its base,’ and the knowledge of it. If the ultimate purpose of the path
of meditation were only experience, no need to name the experiences would
arise. But at each increasingly subtle stage of meditation the meditator is
asked to identity the object of meditation with a word that effectively
identifies it as ‘Not-Self.’
Because it becomes confusing at this point, let us take issue
with the idea of meditating on subtle states of mind and its language of
experience and shift to discrimination and the language of knowledge. For
example, the text says, “The meditator proceeds (from the contemplation
of happiness) to the contemplation of the state of consciousness itself, which
has arisen with space as its base.” Oddly, the statement seems to suggest
that consciousness arises from matter, which is precisely the epiphenomenal
view of modern science and is contrary to all known sources of spiritual
wisdom. But the verse says, ‘state’ of consciousness. A state must
necessarily be distinct from non-dual Consciousness, the Self, which has no
states. So this ‘state’ is a condition created when one meditates
on Consciousness, i.e. it is a particular experience, “becoming aware of
awareness” to use experiential language.
Let us stick with the language of knowledge because the language
of experience leaves us in the dark about the most important factor, the
meditator. Who or what is the meditator? We have three factors: an object of
meditation (awareness or consciousness), a meditator, and the
‘state’ that arises as a result of the contact of the subject with
the object. The discrimination between the Self and the Not-Self, the subject
and objects, asks us to find out who the meditator is. Is the meditator
conscious or unconscious? Is the consciousness that ‘has arisen with
space as its base’ the same or different from the consciousness of the
meditator? The language of experience would seem to suggest that it’s
different. The odd paradox of the craving for experience is the blindness of
the experiencer to his or her Self. In fact we never experience objects
‘out there’ in a world apart. So-called ‘objective’
experience is simply experience of oneself apparently conditioned by objects.
This is why the purpose of meditation is Self knowledge, not the experience of
a particular state or purification of the mind, since knowledge removes the
mistaken belief that experience of something other than oneself is the source
of happiness.
The language of identity and knowledge categorically states that
the subject and the object are one. Moreover, the purpose of meditation is to
discover this fact by “merging” in knowledge the meditator
and the object of meditation, freeing the ever-free subject from its love
affair with objects. The merger can only happen in knowledge because the
subject and object are already one in reality. That they seem separate is caused
by the unconscious assumption that the way we perceive things is correct.
In the case of the meditation we’re discussing, the
‘consciousness based on space’ is not the Self but an experience in
the Subtle Body of the meditator. Because It is
unchanging and all-pervasive, Consciousness can’t move to another
location. So any movement is simply the apparent movement of thought as it
arises and subsides in Awareness.
112. The Path of
Purification
113. Tranquility and
Insight, by Amadeo Sole-Leris.
Nature of the Self
As I sit, my attention completely balanced and riveted on the
Silence, I need to stay thoughtful and alert, not fall into a delicious,
mindless ecstasy, because I know that the ultimate purpose of meditation is
knowledge. At this point knowledge of the Self and the Not-Self should be
systematically working in my mind so I can very clearly distinguish the
meditator me from me, the object of meditation. That there is ultimately no
distinction should not prevent me from going through the process over and over,
until I directly understand how the unchanging Self apparently becomes the
ever-changing Not-Self and every last shred of doubt that we are separate is
removed.
Words...Valuable
Knowledge
A small child, offered the choice
between a candy bar and a one hundred dollar bill, will invariably choose the
candy. If it is going to destroy my incorrect self idea, the knowledge
operating in my mind when I am meditating needs to help me recognize the truly
valuable Self and dismiss the apparently valuable Not-Self. So to avoid the
problem of language we encountered in the example above, let us unfold the
meaning of a few words to facilitate our inquiry.
Three pairs of ordinary words convey important knowledge about
who I am and who I am not: changing and changeless, permanent and
impermanent, ephemeral and eternal.
What changes is not me. What does not
change is. What in my meditation is changing? If I am body conscious, I notice sensations
appearing and disappearing in the body. The rising and falling of thoughts and
feelings, memories, perceptions, imaginations and visions in the Silence,
indicate an active mind. Where there are no thoughts and feelings, as in deep
sleep and the Self, the mind is not. Since mental-emotional phenomena change
continually, they are not me either. Obvious as this seems, I need to seriously
contemplate on this fact, because when I descend from my meditative heights,
knowledge should be at my fingertips to keep me out of trouble. If a sexual
desire is dismissed as laughably unreal in the seat of meditation, is it
considered equally unreal when a luscious and inviting body shows up in real
life asking for you know what? What changes is unreal. What doesn’t is.
Now we have four words to work with: change, changeless, real
and unreal. Let us add two more: dual and non-dual.
The duality I experience in everyday life shows up in meditation as me, the
subject, and the objects of my experience. The objects are not real. The
subject is. In real life the objects are gross and subtle and in meditation,
assuming I have transcended body consciousness, the objects are subtle (sattvic,
rajasic and tamasic states of mind) and very subtle...the Silence.
If I am experiencing the Silence, It is an object and I am the subject.
Discerning the nature of the Silence is difficult because It
is the subtlest manifestation of the Self, assuming It is not simply the
absence of physical noise. If It is the absence of
thought, It is the Self.
Which brings us to two more words: thinkable and unthinkable.
Any changing object is thinkable, known by the mind...but am I thinkable? So as
I sit with my mind steady on the Silence, unaffected by random thoughts, I might
profitably try to see if I can think me. If I can I’ve got the unreal me,
the ego, and need to keep working. When one inquires into the ego, tries to
see what’s there, one can’t find anything.
The words that help us here are thing and nothing. A thing is
thinkable, an object of one’s consciousness. Nothing is
not. I am no ‘thing’, the absence of things. Words fail at
this point because it is obvious that I am something if I am alert and present
and inquiring into reality. So I need to see how the something that I am is not
an object of anyone or anything. Put succinctly, I need to see that I am the
thinker, the one wielding the intellect. In ordinary states of mind neither the
intellect nor the Self could be said to be the thinker because our thought life
is simply a completely unconscious out picturing of the vasanas...thought
thinking itself.
The realization that one is no thing should bring a sigh of
relief, but is often cause for lament. Much ado has been made of this fact and
it is perhaps the primary reason Enlightenment is often assumed to be a
negative state. Nirvana, for instance, is a legitimate negative
statement about the nature of the Self. The Self is not a thing or a state
called nirvana but nirvana is a word indicating that the Self is thingless,
that experience... which relies on objects... is non-existent or ‘blown
out.’ The word nirvana means ‘blown out.’ Inquiry into
it does not reveal a wanting entity or any objects of experience. When we come
to voidness (the no-thingness)
we need to continue our inquiry, not stop because we have drawn the conclusion
that the Self is a life-denying scary state. We need to see that what we are
seeing is no thing. Yet this no thing is obviously known by something. And that
something is me, the meditator, the Self.
Other pairs of useful words that open up our meditation on the
Self and the Not-Self are seer and seen, perceiver and perceived,
knower and known, observer and observed, witness and witnessed. The inner world
provides many interesting experiences. For example, I may experience limitless
light. Sometimes I hear infinite sound. During another session I have profound
visions. What do these experiences mean? The discriminating meditator dismisses
them all because they are perceived, seen, and known...and because they are
unreal. Why are they unreal? Because they are limited.
They come and go as I watch. And they are not there when I am no longer in
meditation. Yet one factor consistently transcends every inner (and outer)
experience...me, the observer, the seer.
If everything is the Self and the Self is non-dual and I am the
Self, there can by definition be no witness...since a witness implies a
witnessed. This is why it is said that before Enlightenment can happen one
needs to remove the witness. The removal of the witness is not a volitional
act, physically removing something, but the removal in one’s
understanding of the belief that the witness and the witnessed are
separate objects. Enlightened beings experience objects distinct from
themselves just like the rest of us, but they know that duality is a trick of
the mind, not an actual fact. For example, a father and his son experience a
mirage. The son rushes off to drink, yet the equally thirsty father stays put
because he knows that his mind is simply producing the appearance of water.
The most common meditation experience is transcendence, seeing
the mind and body as objects, an experience that in itself has no power to
liberate... although it might be emotionally liberating. In fact, many who experience
transcendence come away confused and frightened because they believe that the
separation of the Self from the Not-Self is unnatural...a confusion caused by
ignorance. If, however, a meditator courts
transcendence and experiences it armed with the understanding that the seer is
the Self and the seen, the objects, are Not-Self or unreal, Enlightenment can
happen. This knowledge is extremely useful, the means of liberation, even
though it takes place in the intellect.114 But it is not
‘intellectual’ because it is more than the belief of someone who
has not experienced the separation of the Self from Its vehicles first-hand.
What is my nature? Consciousness.
Before we use this idea in meditation we need to know that the normal
definition of consciousness is spiritually incorrect. In common usage the word
means the thoughts and feelings, memories, perceptions, dreams, imaginations,
etc. playing in the mind. We have learned that consciousness is a
‘stream,’ a thought flow. But Consciousness is that in which mental
and emotional phenomena rise and fall, the container of the thoughts. It is
immovable. The discrimination that one practices might proceed with the
continuous subtraction of the thoughts from their container, consciousness or
me. That I am conscious is the important fact, not what I am conscious of.
Ignorance is simply the confusion of myself with the
phenomena arising and falling within the scope of my limitless Awareness,
“That which sees but which the mind cannot see.”115
Two words that cement this idea of Consciousness are sentient
and insentient. Consciousness is alive, aware. The three bodies are
insentient, unconscious.
That and this. These words are
helpful in sorting out the riddle of identity. The experiences arising in
meditation are ‘that,’ meaning away from oneself.
The Self, I, is ‘this.’ ‘This’ indicates nearness.
“The nearest of the near,” says scripture. What’s nearer to
you than you?
The meaning of the words one uses to liberate oneself needs to
be clear. The most famous Upanishadic proclamation
‘You are That’ seems to contradict the
knowledge that ‘that’ is not me. In this case the Self,
‘you,’ seems to be a ‘that’ because it is referred to
from the plane of the ego where it appears as an object. When we meditate, we
meditate on objects. There is no meditation without objects. If the reflection
of the Self appears in the sattvic mind we need to know that what
we’re seeing is really us, not an independent light. Prolonged meditation
on the Light will, of course, ultimately reveal the identity between the
meditator and the object of meditation.
Inquiry requires a flexible, scientific, non-dogmatic state of
mind. For example, the Self is defined as ‘the nearest of the near’
and ‘the farthest of the far.’ It is described as
‘within’ and ‘without’, infinitely huge and infinitely
small. When I can properly identify the non existent ego116 and the
very existent Self I can understand how two apparently contradictory facts are
not contradictions at all. From the ego’s point of view, the Self is
non-existent and therefore ‘the farthest of the far,’ space being a
metaphor for ignorance. From the Self’s point of view, the Self is
‘the nearest of the near.’ In knowledge there is no distance.
The concepts of action and inaction, doing and
being, are extremely useful in identifying the Self and the ego. As I sit in
Silence, I experience a great deal of activity. If the senses are working, I
notice all the sounds and movements in physical reality. If inactive, I notice
the unceasing movement of the mind. These movements take place in the context
of non-movement, i.e. Consciousness. The Self is the consciousness of the
movements, that which us allows us to evaluate the movements. Action, like
thought and feeling, is unconscious. It has no idea it is known by you, the
meditator, the Self.
The scriptural statement that ‘the one who knows action in
inaction and inaction in action is indeed wise’117 means that
there is no real distinction between what is moving and what is not, that the
appearance of movement is caused by using the instrument of knowledge, the
mind. In fact, the ‘knowledge’ that things are moving is ignorance,
produced, like the mirage, by identification with the mind. When one identifies
completely with the Self all movement stops, a phenomenon often referred to as
‘the still point.’ The ‘inaction’ in action is the
realization that actionless Awareness is the content of every activity. Nothing
happens on its own, although the Self does not seem to be involved in our
actions. Yet, activity implies Consciousness. The sun, for example, cannot be
said to be directly involved in any of my personal actions, in so far as I can
do things in the dead of night or a completely sunless place, like a cave under
the earth. However, if the sun stops shining, all activity on the earth
eventually stops. The action one sees in inaction is the knowledge that the
potential for action exists in the Self, that Its mere
presence generates the immense energy that creates, maintains, and destroys the
whole universe.
Cause and effect. What is the source of
all the phenomena witnessed in meditation? As I sit in the Silence, I might
profitably attempt to trace the thoughts, the effects, to their source. When I
do so, I see that they are emerging out of and dissolving back into the
Silence. And what is the source of the Silence? Me, Awareness, the knowing
principle, that because of which the objects and the Silence are known.
When the texts tell us that the Self is all-pervasive like space
it means that everything that happens in the mind is pervaded by Consciousness.
Before any mental phenomenon appears Consciousness is there. Consciousness
illumines it as it plays in the mind and supercedes
its disappearance. When I carefully examine each and every experience/thought
by holding my attention on it, it resolves back into me, the Awareness.
Limited. Limitless. Measurable.
Immeasurable. Beginningless. Endless. Experience is limited.
It begins and ends. Thought is limited. Feeling is limited. Perception is a meaninglesss, temporally discrete activity. It can be
evaluated because the Self knows its beginning and end and transcends its
relationship to other perceptions. The Self, however, is an unlimited
experiencer. When you meditate, try to find your limits. You cannot. Therefore,
you are immeasureable.
Describable. Indescribable.
You
can describe objects, but you cannot describe the Self because it has no form.
Incomplete. Complete. The objects are
incomplete. They begin and end and are made up of parts. The ego, for example,
is just a fiction created in memory by stringing together many discrete
experiences and assuming they belong to some individual. The expectant part of
the psyche is the ego and its expectations are proof of its incompleteness. The
Self is free of preferences and expectations because it is complete.
Pure. Impure. What is made up of
parts is impure. What is partless is pure. The
Self is a partless whole. The mind is impure, a
continually changing assortment of experiences.
Sound. Soundless. The physical world
and the mind are continually vibrating. These vibrations occur in
soundlessness, the Silence.
Agitation. Peace. The body and mind are
continually disturbed because they are at the mercy of their causes and the effects.
The Self is peaceful because it is one homogenous mass of Awareness, pervading
everything. Nothing affects it, just as space is unaffected by the objects and
activities taking place within it.
Pleasure. Pain. The mind is painful
because it is in constant conflict with itself and the world around. The Self
is pure pleasure because it is not in conflict with anything. This is why it is
also called bliss or joy. Enlightenment is not the emotional feeling of joy,
even though the emotions may be elevated when the Self is known. It is peace,
wholeness.
Irreducible. Discrimination means that as I study
the subjective world opened up by my inquiry, I bring my attention to various experienceable phenomena which I compare to the Self. And
the more I inquire into a phenomenon, like my ego, the more I discover that it
is dismissable. It cannot stand scrutiny, a fact that
leads me to conclude that it is not real. When I perform an analysis on my Self
I can not remove It.
Self-luminous. Self-supporting.
All objects, the senses and mind included, operate with borrowed light. The
Self shines on them and they are knowable. As I explore my Self, I discover
that It is self-luminous, continually generating and
maintaining Its light from within itself. Knowledge that I am that light means
that I am a light unto myself. I do not need existential validation from anyone
or anything.
Ever-free. This self-validating, self-luminous
nature of the Self is known as moksha,
freedom. I do not depend on anything other than myself for my existence.
When I think of myself as a body or mind I condemn myself to a
circumscribed existence.
A cursory study of a few Vedantic
texts will provide the meditator with a long list of terms that help to
discriminate the Self from the Not-Self. Lest the meditator reject the idea of
using relative knowledge as a means of Self realization because it is merely
‘intellectual,’ he or she needs to be reminded that the relative
means of knowledge, the Self and the Not-Self, is only a tool the purified intellect
uses to realize the Self. When it dissolves the belief in oneself as a limited
being, it drops out of consciousness. From this point on, the belief ‘I
am limitless Awareness’ has ‘become’ a fact.
Moreover, if I’m using ideas to guide my inquiry I need to
make sure that I understand how to use them. For this I need discipline
and a teacher, since inquiry is the application of knowledge. I need discipline
because ignorance is tenacious. I need a teacher because I need to learn how to
think. The technique of inquiry is not merely asking questions, but using
the logic inherent in the impersonal scriptural way of reasoning to destroy
ignorance. The logic is presented throughout this text. A rare someone with
a purified, sophisticated mind and the determination to use the method of
inquiry might successfully remove his or her ignorance solely on the basis of a
deep study of this and other texts, but the best way by far is to subject
oneself to the teachings at the feet of a realized soul. Surrendering oneself
to this means is the most efficient and the traditional way to realize the
Self. During this style of sadhana the student’s and the
teacher’s minds become attuned and the teachings constituting the inquiry
become the natural way of thinking.118
114. We’ve
already determined that Self Knowledge is not ‘intellectual.’ But
Enlightenment is useless if It doesn’t establish
the thought ‘I am limitless Awareness’ in the intellect because the
Self functions through the intellect. If I experience limitlessness at a deeper
or transcendental level but have no intellectual comprehension of it, the
experience will only serve to provoke a conflict within myself.
115.
Verse 127 Viveka Choodamani
by Shankarcharya.
116. The
water in the mirage metaphor shows how it is possible to identify the
non-existence of something. Perhaps we might profitably modify the teaching of
the non-existence of ego to say that it both is and is not. Although it exists
as an experience, it does not exist as reality.
117.
Bhagavad Gita.
118. While
the satsang or ‘conscious company’ style of sadhana
is becoming increasingly popular and may deliver an ‘experience’ of
the Self, it does not produce enlightened beings wholesale, if at all, because
very few are actually qualified to inquire and because the teachings are typically
carried out in an unnatural and contrived manner, often as expensive weekend
courses run by admittedly unenlightened cultish trainers who are dependent in
some way on the seminars for their livelihood and who seem more inclined to
whip up desire for experience than to encourage rational and open-minded
inquiry. It should be noted that nearly every human activity can produce an
experience of the Self and that that experience is only as useful as the
ego’s ability to understand its value. The failure to understand the
value of the Self accounts for the fact that Self experience is fleeting, like
every supposedly Not-Self experience.
I Am The Means of Knowledge
But study at the feet of a master does not always do the trick.
The spiritual world is little more than tens of thousands of dedicated
inquirers who have subjected themselves to copious teachings at the feet of
enlightened masters...yet find themselves unenlightened. Furthermore, even when
it seems the teacher is removing the student’s ignorance, the student
applying the teachings to his or her own mind at the time of teaching actually
removes the ignorance. The teacher and teachings are two factors in a more
complex situation. If the teacher could do it alone, the whole world would be
enlightened by now. Likely as not enlightenment happens
outside the formal teaching situation in a still and private moment as a result
of a patient and careful application of the method of inquiry...when the
meditator discovers ‘I am the Means of Knowledge.’
Knowledge does not happen on its own. It needs an instrument.
For example, sounds coming in through the ears reach the organ of hearing in
the mind causing it to vibrate. But the vibrations mean nothing until they are
interpreted. Interpretation of experience depends on what one knows. And
knowledge cannot happen without Consciousness. Therefore, Consciousness is the
ultimate means of knowledge.
The perception of events and objects in dreams raises an
epistemological problem. How are they known? If the physical senses are
inactive, how are sounds or images perceived in the dream? True, dream senses
and dream mind experience dream objects, but how are the dream senses and mind
known? They are illumined by the dream ‘light.’ Because the
physical eyes are closed, no light is going to leak into the dream. The only
other possible source is Consciousness, the dream ‘light,’
operating as The Means of Knowledge.
In the waking state, many subtle thoughts and not so subtle
emotions are experienced. How are they known? By
Consciousness. Who or what is that Consciousness? It is me, the
meditator, the one without whom no meditation can take place. When I experience
ego transcendence, how do I know ego transcendence? When I experience Divine
love, how do I know what I am experiencing? When I talk about my joys and
sorrows, how do I know that I have a ‘me’, an ego? I know because I
am the Means of Knowledge.
The ego is not a valid
means of knowledge, although it tries to pass for one. The
‘knowledge’ we get through ego is simply skewed interpretation of experience
showing up as beliefs and opinions. The experiences of waking egolessness and deep sleep give lie to the idea that
‘I,’ the ego, is a means of knowledge to be counted on because
knowledge is happening...but the ego is not its means. In deep sleep two bits
of knowledge operate, ‘I am limitless bliss’ and ‘I am
ignorant.’ In waking egolessness the knowledge
‘I am egoless’ operates. To know that I am egoless I need a means
other than the ego. And that means is me, Consciousness.
Even the teacher and the scripture are not self-validating means
because they depend on ignorance. And ignorance depends on me, Awareness. How
far is ignorance from me? No matter what I know or do not know, I know or do
not know it only in Awareness. For example, if I claim I am unenlightened, what
is my means of knowledge? If my means is simply an opinion or a belief about my
existential status, my claim cannot withstand inquiry. In fact, my ignorance is
illumined by the same means that sheds light on my Enlightenment...my Self.
Knowledge and ignorance, enlightenment and endarkenment,
are merely objects of knowledge that do not exist apart from me, the Self.
The popular discussion of who is and who isn’t enlightened
means nothing without an inquiry into the Means of Knowledge. Since the Self,
The Means of Knowledge, is never unenlightened, the question is moot from Its point of view. How something that is enlightened by
nature can apparently become unenlightened and then feel the need to
re-enlighten itself is one of the spiritual world’s most perplexing
questions, one that only resolves itself when the Means of Knowledge sheds
light on the dream that one is unenlightened.
Moreover, if we define Enlightenment as an ego shedding its
ignorance of its Self nature, at the time of Enlightenment it will have
‘become’ the Means of Knowledge. As mentioned before,
‘becoming’ means that the ego was the Self all along, not that the
ego is transformed into the Self through a special experience, unless that
‘experience’ is insight or knowledge. Those who perpetuate the
belief that ego transformation is enlightenment do spiritual culture a
disservice. Additionally, the reverence and respect accorded enlightened beings
is also undeserved because enlightenment is nothing other than a return to the
sane and natural state. Touting one’s Enlightenment only calls attention
to a lengthy and embarrassing stay in ignorance.
The experience of shedding ignorance might be more profitably
described as waking up. When I wake up I don’t become somebody else, I
simply trade the idea of myself as a dreamer for the idea of myself as a waker. In fact, the waker and the
dreamer are the same person, but seem to be separate entities because of their
association with the state of consciousness in which they find themselves at
the moment.
Who Am I?
A modern formulation of the method of Self inquiry, an ancient
Vedic technique called vichara, was
brought to the attention of the Western world by Ramana Maharshi,
a popular sage who lived in the first half of this century and who is often
erroneously thought to be its author.
Since Self experience is not in short supply in so far as the
experiencer, the experienced objects and the experiencing is the Self, the question
of happiness, Enlightenment, can be solved, again not by seeking a particular
experience of the Self, but by looking into the ego, the experiencer. The ego,
like everything else in the creation, is a peculiar phenomenon. On one hand it
seems to be a very real entity, me, but when we inquire into it, we can never
conclusively locate it.
Knowledge, Not Ego,
Makes the Inquiry
If the inquiry is going to be successful the ego cannot be the
one to make it. One style of inquiry tries to directly isolate or objectify the
ego, to see it as Not-Self. If this is not possible then the meditator might
inquire thus: My hand is an object. I see it. But where do I experience it? Do
I experience it ‘out there’ away from me, or do I experience it in me?
If I experience it ‘out there’ in objective reality, my experience
of it would interfere with the object or other’s experience of the
object. But this is not the case. Hundreds of people can experience a film but
the film is unaffected. Therefore, there is no distance between me and the
objects of my experience, just as there is no distance between the dream and
the dream me. How far is the knowledge of the object from the experience of the
object? The knowledge arises simultaneously with the experience. Where is the
knowledge experienced? In my mind or in me? Is my
mind, my knowledge, apart from me or is it in me? What is the relationship
between me and my experiences, between me and my knowledge? They seem to be me,
but they also seem to be not me. Have I ‘become’ my experiences? My knowledge? When I illumine another object, like a tree, I
see the tree as it is and don’t confuse it with my hand. Why? Because there is no trace of my hand left in me, Awareness, when I
switch from the hand thought to the tree thought. Though the thoughts
are me, I am free of the thoughts. Though experience is me, I am free of
experience.
This inquiry applies to any object, including the ego and the
Silence. How far is the ego from me? It is me. How far is the Silence from me. It is me.
The idea of inquiry into the ‘I’ thought dovetails
nicely with another ancient and effective meditation technique, vipassana, or insight meditation. A vipassana meditator is trained to make a
rigorous observation of all the events taking place in the Gross and Subtle
Bodies to prove that they happen automatically and impersonally. When their
appearance and disappearance is not carefully observed, they are unconsciously
thought to belong to an ‘I’...but careful observation shows that no
such ‘I’ exists. Additionally, the meditator discovers that the
mental reaction to the object occurs simultaneously with the object and that no
person is involved in it.
So who is this non-existent person and how does it come about?
This non-existent person comes into being because we ceaselessly identify our
selves with the body and mind. And the way to break the identification with the
body/mind is to first discriminate the objects from the subject, the
‘I’, and then discriminate the ‘I’ from the Self.
Ramana says, “There is an absolute Self from
which a spark proceeds as from a fire. The spark is called the ego. In the case
of an ignorant man, it identifies itself with an object simultaneously with its
(the object’s) rise. It cannot remain independent of such association with
objects. The association is ajnana or
ignorance and its destruction is the object of our efforts (inquiry).”119
Separating the ego ‘I’ from the objects may result
in apparently contradictory experiences. One may discover that either the
‘I’ cannot stand without objects, (that it dissolves when separated
from them) or that the ‘I’ precedes the objects and remains when
separated from them. In the first instance, the meditator need not inquire
further because the ego will be seen for what it is (or isn’t) and the
Self realized by default. In the second case, the meditator needs to continue
the inquiry until the ego dissolves under intense scrutiny. Seeing that there
is no ‘I’ obviously changes my idea of myself. At the moment of
seeing I am forced to take myself as the Seer, the one who knows that there is
no ‘I.’ If there is an ‘I,’ very little reasoning is
required to realize that I am its source, since it doesn’t exist unless I
illumine it.
Once I have a fix on the Self, I need to keep my attention on It without wavering.120 Ramana again, “To hold to It with effort is vichara (inquiry).” The purpose of keeping attention steady on the Self is to dissolve ignorance,