A little paean to meditation

Beautiful expression from a lifelong meditator:

Trying and struggling to achieve a level of meditation always brings the opposite results. One cannot fall asleep beating a drum and shouting to one-self repeatedly, "I am determined to sleep."

The states of consciousness can be changed only very gently. 

Let meditation seep through you like water into a rock, like the sound of a falling rose petal, like a baby's finger growing invisibly, like the sun's ray sipping a drop of water.

There are no dramatic manifestations, just a slow and graduating transformation.

- Pt. Usharbudh Arya (Sw. Veda Bharati), Superconscious Meditation, Himalayan Institute Press

Thoughts and progress in meditation

Here's one perspective of progress based on thoughts in meditation [1]. This seem independent of the type of meditative practice:

1. Random thoughts, followed by their chains or sequences of thoughts, as one's attention drifts. Daydreams and fantasies.
   
2. Random thoughts arising quickly, but no chains. One is able to detach or relax one's attention from each new starting thought.
   
3. Specific thoughts around current practical problems, in the conscious or subconscious mind.
4. Answers, solutions, guidelines. Inspired or intuitive ideas.
   
5. No thought arises uninvited. Inspiration from one's superconscious may be requested.
   

Stages 4 and 5 occur after a fair amount of introspection, releasing self-created layers and complexities, and changing one's habitual behaviour.

NOTES

[1] Arya, U., (Sw. Veda Bharati). 1989. Superconscious meditation (Problem Thoughts). pp.90-102. Himalayan International Institute of Yoga Science and Philosophy.

Two simple questions to train your mind

There are effectively only two questions one has to ask to train one's mind:

1. What am I doing now?
2. What should I be doing now?

 If both answers match, one's mind is trained at the time.

The answer to the second question obviously requires some planning - short, medium, or long-term. But the two questions are the easiest way to check if one's mind is attending to what one wants, i.e., is "am" == "should"?

A lifelong project or goal, like mukti or self-realisation, is difficult to pin down to such a simple technique. But "am" and "should" matching naturally is a sign of progress.

Per PYS [1], an untrained mind fluctuates between these states of mental attention:

1. kṣiptam - disturbed, agitated, jumpy; habitually, involuntarily reactive; rajas-dominant mind
   
2. mūḍham - stupefied or somnolent; unreactive; tamas-dominant mind
   
3. vi-kṣiptam - distracted, but with illuminative flashes; mind sattva-dominant at times, but generally overlain by rajas

Further training leads to ekāgram - willed attention on a single object, as long as desired, with a sattva-dominant mind

In the highest mental state, niruddham, sattva is totally dominant, and one's attention moves effortlessly, freed of all potential and actual distractions.

NOTES

[1] Slightly evolved descriptions than in 5 mental states.

Cleaning and free will

Put simply, "my" past events are unchangeable - dead. But their effects or residues in the mind-field cause "my" present events.

My past actions predict my present actions in the same or similar situations.

Cleaning in Heartfulness removes the mind-field residues at subtler levels, reducing the intensity of events. Total cleaning may even prevent events altogether.

Cleaning removes emotional residues - samskaras. I can act now without being bogged down by my past emotional reactions. But only I can let go of my tendency to act as I did in the past. This can be done only by acting differently. Again and again, repeatedly, until a new mental habit is in place for those situations.

Free will lies entirely in my present actions - thoughts, speech, and physical actions. But the range or spectrum of possible actions in situations is dramatically increased by cleaning.