One-liners on Heartfulness core elements

Perspective 1:

• Clearing a communication channel - cleaning
• From myself, via that channel, flowing away, but inward - prayer
• To myself, flowing from inside - meditation

Perspective 2:

• Clearing the subconscious - cleaning
• Communication to superconscious - prayer
• Communication from superconscious - meditation

Perspective 3:

• Individual - cleaning
• Individual to transcendental - prayer
• Transcendental to individual - meditation

Seeds to understand progress

Daaji gave a simple and increasingly subtle sequence:

From I to We to Thou

This fits wonderfully into all the daily practice elements too!

I - Meditation

We - Cleaning

Thou - Prayer

Just seeds, but beautifully expandable!.

One simple expansion, vis-a-vis subtlety:

- I keeps changing with each meditation, going to subtler and subtler levels.

- We, or my relationships with others, keep changing to become more and more natural and simpler with each cleaning at subtler and subtler levels.

- Thou or the Divine within (the innermost Self, for the theistically-challenged) is able to "talk" or "respond" better to me with prayer at subtler and subtler levels.

Another expansion, in terms of increasing priority or importance:

Meditation < Cleaning < Prayer (I  < We < Thou)

Setting up a lifelong meditative practice

TL;DR: Flow of Sahaj Marg/Heartfulness practices - both daily and weekly - must be natural and become increasingly lighter for lifelong practice. Simple interest or curiosity, and enjoyment are sufficient.

What I have observed is that long-time abhyasis, including me, have trouble with

• the why aspect of the practice,
• the self-assessment of progress,
• which technique(s) to use when, and
• understanding that sporadic intense efforts (somewhat like all-nighters at college) are counterproductive in this field which needs daily, but increasingly lighter -- and lifelong -- inputs.

Sahaj Marg [Heartfulness] is simple, but not easy.
~Chariji

The reason for difficulties with regular daily practice boils down to something equally simple -
lack of priority as daily tasks or activities.

Prioritization comes naturally from

• simple interest,

• a desire to repeat some familiar and pleasant experiences daily, and

• a desire for new and unfamiliar experiences daily - those which pique the interest again.

Essentially, a meditator goes blind and deaf into a strange territory of vibrations. Sensing works very differently here.

The inner guide helps unfailingly, but that help may not occur the way one wants or expects, and more importantly, the help can also be felt only with an increase in sensitivity.

Sensitivity in turn increases only with a) repeated practice in turning attention inward while detaching it from outer sensations and (inner) memories (thoughts, emotions, sensations, etc.). In other words, daily meditation.

Sensitivity also occurs only when b) the consciousness or attention can both move or expand freely, and rest equally freely. For this free movement and light rest, daily cleansing away of emotional weight, or emotional residues, of past events is absolutely necessary.

Inner sensitivity also occurs only when c) an inner connection is used so much that it becomes palpable. Put differently, signals or data or inspirations come through that inner channel. But they must be regularly and actively solicited, received, and used. This is done by the daily prayer.

Individual sittings with a meditation trainer/preceptor cleanse deeper and subtler samskaras from the farther past, and give glimpses and tastes of subtler levels and conditions.

Meditation trainers are interchangeable. The best trainers anyway try to step aside, or let go of their agency for inner work, so that the abhyasis' inner connections are free and clear, allowing them to draw through those channels whatever they need for spiritual progress.

In a sense, a trainer is only a thermometer or some such measuring instrument for the inner connection. Or perhaps a hose, controlled by a gardener who changes the flow as needed.

Still, since it is difficult to let go of outer or outward relationships with other humans, one can aim for minimal scheduling effort and set up a weekly routine with the same preceptor for individual sittings . This gives maximum time and effort to the inner journey.

The last element, satsangh or group meditation with others, again should be as light and natural as possible, with maximum attention given to the inner journey and minimum attention to social interactions. Interactions, though, let abhyasis understand their
- inner journey,
- inner connection, and
- inner peace better, and
- gauge how many deeply-buried samskaras still remain to be cleaned away.

In sum, there are

• individual at-home practices,

• paired practices, and

• group practices.

All are intertwined and have complementary effects.

Understanding

• why to do,

• what to do, and

• when to do

different parts of a practice are crucial.

But simple interest, curiosity, and

• a light,
• positive,
• unstressed,
• enthusiastic or heartful, and
• caring or mindful,

attitude yield wonderful understanding and motivation.

 NOTES

Crucial for transition of attention from inside to outside and retaining the meditative condition are:

• progressively turning attention inward --surround sounds/sensations, relaxation-- and
• developing awareness of the gifts of meditative practice through the AEIOU and balancing exercises

Also crucial for motivation and palpable spiritual progress are:

• bhaṇḍāras through ecstatic large-group meditations and the physical presence of the Guide.

But they are not covered in this post on why a lifelong meditative practice should be (re)set up at all.

Obtuse seekers

Spirituality is easiest to understand with practical, day-to-day physical analogies.

E.g., change of direction - inward vs. outward

Some other ideas are needed to flesh it out, though.

Attention is one. So is vantage point.

Putting these three together, one can define the spiritual journey as the journey resulting from changing the direction of one's attention from outward to inward with respect to the vantage point of one's body.

Subtle vs. gross does not quite fall as simply into a physical analogy, but Babuji gives a wonderful example - trying to use a crane to pick up a needle. The need to use something else - fingers - that are at the same or subtler level of dimension as the needle is immediately obvious. Yet, one's attention does not, and should not, get stuck at the level of "fingers." Regular practice for further subtilization to perceive much subtler objects and conditions and patterns is a must.

Per Daaji, Masters give or plant seeds internally. Such seeds have to be nurtured by spiritual practice for flowering and fruiting and further seeding to occur. Again, a physical analogy, but one that must be used carefully.

 

A similar physical analogy given is that of a planting a spark, which must become a flame and fire. And yet, Babuji prefers the final fire to be an electric one that gives intense heat without smoke. Here the analogy changes from organic growth to immediate manifestation!

And what does all this have to do with obtuseness?

Analogies are fine for an initial understanding of what is happening internally through regular practice. They must be discarded or forgotten after a point to avoid limiting, straitjacketing, or preventing the very real transmutation of inner attention, observing instruments, if you will, from gross to subtle, from crane-jaws to fingers.

Indian dārśanikas, aka philosophers, have given primacy to one's own dynamic experienc-ing over one's understanding or conceptual frameworks based on the continuing experiencing process called living. (The limited static physical analogy used is eating mangoes vs. talking about them.)  One's own conceptual frameworks come second - along with activities for using, building, modifying, and destroying them. The least importance is given to the experiences, and reporting or conceptual frameworks, of others. This gives tremendous freedom and encouragement to a spiritual practitioner to trust herself, but frightens a nonpractising intellectual out of his wits.

Obtuse seekers imagine that they can reach great levels of subtlety simply by knowing or repeating terms that spiritual geniuses used to describe their experiences.

There are two immediate problem:

 

a) the terms are verbal reports of a subtle inner experience and inherently grosser than the experience itself, and 

 

b) a report freezes a dynamic extended experienc-ing in time and space.

 

(In science, this is called sampling and is done many times over an extended period. Here, done just once.)

There is at least the saving grace in India that terms, especially Sanskrit ones like the mahavākyas, can be used as seeds for contemplation and may result in regeneration or replication of another's experienc-ing. This is however not guaranteed if the practitioner has stuffed his head with undigested commentaries and exegeses of such verbal reports. Letting go of conceptual straitjacketing is an absolute necessity for experienc-ing to occur.

Another simple and unfortunate example of obtuseness is lack of awareness of mental processes. There is no need to go to very subtle levels either.

A seeker who does not understand that "I" and "you" refer to physical bodies and objects in the outside world is going to have trouble reaching a level subtler than the physical. And if they compare, criticise, or even compliment others, they are still directionally challenged. They think they are looking and going inward, but their gaze is still frozen outward.

Relinquishing verbal descriptions and conceptual frameworks is absolutely necessary at very subtle levels, even if they were useful as encouragement initially. Such relinquishing happens naturally when the chattering emotional mind shuts down. Obtuse seekers, though, imagine that something has gone wrong!

There is a great deal of intelligence involved in spirituality, but it is not the usual intelligence that comes from intellectual wrangling. Instead it arises creatively and spontaneously, and even effortlessly, when the limited ego is relinquished. This relinquishing when it occurs naturally is true humility, not the artificial suppression or denial that obtuse seekers extol.

Sleeping in satsangh

On falling asleep and snoring in Sahaj Marg satsanghs.

First the traditional understanding why an upright alert posture is part of samadhi from Talks with Ramana Maharshi.

Talk 391

The same sannyasi visitor, Swami Lokesananda, asked about samādhi.

M.:
(1) Holding on to Reality is samādhi.

(2) Holding on to Reality with effort is savikalpa samādhi.

(3) Merging in Reality and remaining unaware of the world is nirvikalpa samādhi. [See table]

(4) Merging in Ignorance [tamas] and remaining unaware of the world is sleep. (Head/neck bends in sleep but not in samādhi).

(5) Remaining in the primal, pure natural state without effort is sahaja nirvikalpa samādhi.

D.: It is said that one remaining in nirvikalpa samādhi for 21 days must necessarily give up the physical body.

M.: samādhi means passing beyond dehātma buddhi (I-am-the-body idea) and non-identification [or giving up identification] of the body with the Self is a foregone conclusion.

There are said to be persons who have been immersed in nirvikalpa samādhi for a thousand years or more.

However, in Sahaj Marg, at first, samādhi is the spiritual condition of the outer Master transmitted to the inner Master within the abhyasi via prāṇahuti.

Initially, the abhyasi's inner instruments cannot perceive or sustain the Master's condition. They relax and so do the outer instruments, resulting in a state akin to physical sleep.

But mental and spiritual work still continue for the duration of the satsangh or sitting.

Therefore, there is no Merging in Ignorance as in 4) above and this is why abhyasis slumped over are not really sleeping mentally.

With repeated merger in the inner Master's condition, abhyasis are able to reach and sustain subtler inner states by themselves. Then, Master's mental efforts also reduce and the abhyasis are physically relaxed but not sleeping.

However, not reaching subtler levels and falling asleep during satsangh/sittings could also be due to one or more of these mundane reasons:

• lack of regular practice
• lack of proper sleep
• physical or mental exhaustion
• overly comfortable with current mental levels and so unwilling to let go

Rarely, one may also fall asleep for the reasons below. Usually though, the resulting state - not getting absorbed at all - is the exact opposite of sleep!

• fear of unknown subtler levels or fear of losing the "I" of known levels
• lack of trust in the inner Master

The integral heart-mind

In a Q&A after satsangh on Mon 14 Oct 2024 @ Param Dham, BLR, KA,Daaji referred to Dr KCV's article on Eclipse of Conscience.

Covering developments in the understanding of Truth in India, the article is an intellectual tour-de-force and a traditional Indian philosophic perspective of a vital existential problem.

But it did not touch my heart like Daaji's simple summary - heart and mind are not different.

"Mind is the superficial part of the heart and heart is the deepest core of the mind."

Daaji's depth and subtlety of understanding truly amazes me, time and again!

You see, I keep going back, again and again, to why Chariji - who is supposed to have read a book a week, and serious nonfiction at that - kept insisting on ignoring the head and focusing on the heart.

After reading Dr. KCV's article, I did not wind up with these simple practical ideas of Daaji that yet cover various levels of subtlety.

1. Heart

• heart @ peace is peaceful - silent, untroubled, natural
• heart not @ peace is disturbed - thudding, uncomfortable, heavy, racing, etc.

2. Mind

- similarly for the mind @ peace and not @ peace

• Peaceful mind
• 1. silent most of the time
• 2. when thinking is needed:
• 2a. clear, positive, uplifting, definite thoughts and emotions
• Mind not @ peace?
• 1. Noisy
• 2. Confused,
•        mixed positive and negative, and      
•        mostly negative, downer, 
•        vacillating thoughts and emotions
• 3. Stuck or stumped, depressed

3. Heart and Mind

    Both mind and heart must be  

•   peaceful, positive,
•   active, dynamic, and
•   harmoniously in sync - with each other

    How to achieve sync?

• Keep switching attention
• - between heart and mind
• - until both are peaceful.

• Start with the heart.
• Is it @ peace?
• If not something is wrong and you have to figure out what - using the mind.

• Then the mind.
• Keep thinking, brooding, 
•           deciding, judging,
•           doing any and all mental activities
•  until the mind is satisfied.

• Again, check your heart -
• is it ok with your mind's conclusions and understandings?

• Repeat until both are silent, @peace.

4. Heart and Mind are simply

     single unified oneness.

• What comes in
•     through or up from
•   the heart -
•      the resulting inner activities
•   make up the mind.

• When all samskaras are removed, 
• emotional activities -
• reactions triggered by heart-feelings -
• should be blissfully missing.

Again, peace. In stillness or in activity - it doesn't matter.

Prana pratishtha and meditation

https://youtu.be/4hQdRTKlf2g

On 4 Sep. 2024, Daaji gave a wonderfully clear explanation for how people benefit from temple visits and so continue to go.

In the same Q&A, Daaji said that meditation takes us further into our superconscious mind, while cleaning takes us further into our subconscious mind.

He also gave a new perspective - superconscious is about the future and subconscious is about the past.

Imagine (continued)

 [Level 2]

The child within waits,
lovingly and joyously,
with its gifts,
all the time.

It doesn't remember
your previous gratitude, or
your past indifference, or even
your unthinking hostility from yesterday.

All you have to do
to get the gifts
- love and joy, and peace -
is to turn your attention inward.

[Level 3]

The child within is your own Self.

It gifts Itself to you.

You may know about surrendering to God.

Little do you know, or appreciate, that in manifesting you from Itself, God is already surrendered to you.

Imagine

Imagine a little child who waits joyfully and lovingly, every day, to give you a gift.

Now imagine you don't even look at the child. Wilfully or absent-mindedly, you ignore the child.

Or, you take the gift, but toss it aside without acknowledgement or with a curt, "Thanks."

How would the child feel?

Your inner Self is waiting for you every day in your own heart. No, every second!

Turn your attention inward at least a few times a day.

Accept the gift and feel the joy and love of the giver flooding through you.

Open the wrapping tenderly and admire the thoughtful, perfectly-crafted gift - exactly what you need today.

Meditate.

Savour the condition gifted to you every day.

Let its perfume waft through you and fill your entire day.

NOTES

Expanded from one of Daaji's early talks about how a Guru feels when seekers don't practise. Or when they misbehave during satsanghs.

Also one way of regarding God - as a child.

Citta as attention

When citta in the Patañjali Yoga Sūtras is translated into English as attention, the connotations of that simple word make the  sūtras defining dhāraṇā, dhyāna, and samādhi  easier to understand.

dhāraṇā

deśa-bandhaḥ cittasya dhāraṇā - 3.1 PYS

location-binding of attention - dhāraṇā

Binding one's attention to a location - dhāraṇā

(Initially, this binding must last for 12 seconds for attention to be termed dhāraṇā)

What is location?

Location could be in space.

E.g., generally the object of attention is somewhere with respect to your body - outside it, upon it, inside it. It could be the entire body too, but that is more difficult. So generally a small object in space.

Location could be in time.

E.g., we think or plan or give attention to the future. Or worry about it. In the other direction, nostalgia is paying attention to the past. So is regret, or guilt. Again, generally a single event or a set of small events that can be held easily in working memory.

But there is a little-understood subtlety for both location and time. The entire attention or attending activity happens in the mind-field and in the present. We only work with our mental images or our memories of them. Even if the location is just a foot away, my attention does not go out of my body or brain and plop down on that location.

Remember the story of Gaṇeśa and Kārtikeya competing to go around the world and Gaṇeśa wins the prize by going around Śiva and Pārvati - his representations of jagat?

This is what happens with attention, whether it is upon an outside sensation or an internal, mental, event. In both cases, attention works on their internal mental representations or encoding.

Reflex or subconscious actions, while very fast and not analyses, are still the results of outside triggers and due to a circuit from sensory to motor neurons.

Location could be an abstract idea or a vision. Attention even on those occurs with an implicit, underlying, basis of space (inside my mind or brain) and time (thinking today, right now).

Location could be anything, really.

Emotions or feelings, a mental state.

Or physical activities.

Drinking tea.

Eating a sweet.

 

The generality of this sūtra is amazing. From this, one can get to obsession, positive or negative. That is simply attention resting or stuck involuntarily somewhere, or on someone, or something, for 12 or more seconds, and thus dhāraṇā.

Attention can also be grabbed by something striking or unusual. This is the idea behind advertisements which try to stand out from the normal. Please note that these are outside and also that they try to induce dhāraṇā, by trying to hold your attention for 12 seconds, if not longer!

dhyāna

tatra pratyaya-ekatānatā dhyānam 3.2 PYS

That [attention-binding resulting in] cognition-monotony - dhyānam.

That [attention-binding resulting in a] single-unvarying-stream [of] cognition - dhyānam.

Here, attention keeps resting on its object [mental representation] without shifting elsewhere and causes a steady single flow of cognition.

Consider the analogy of movie films. When snapshots taken at high speeds are replayed at speeds higher than 60 frames per second, our eyes or brain doesn't notice the discontinuities and movement appears continuous.

Similarly, our attention may rest on something, move away, and come back quickly without our noticing. This is normal thinking. But if it stays for just 12 continuous seconds, that is dhāraṇā. If that 12 seconds extends to 12x12 or 144 seconds or ~2.5 minutes, that causes the cognition flow called dhyāna. This light, free, effort-less - yet wilful - resting or training of attention for such short periods results in the flow of cognition called meditation. 

dhāraṇā can be, and is done, very easily every day without conscious awareness. dhyāna, while not uncommon on a daily basis, is more likely to be sets of discontinuous dhāraṇā where the discontinuities or breaks between 12+ seconds of attention are not noticed.

Of Patañjali's aṣṭa-aṅgas (8 stages), in the stages or aṅgas listed before pratyāhāra, attention is outward - beyond the body, on others, on other things, different from me.

In pratyāhāra, there is a shift or turn from outward - bahiraṅga - to inward - antaraṅga.

And the rest are completely inward or mental processes.

The inwardness of dhāraṇā-dhyāna-samādhi should be understood very clearly because while they can indeed occur during outward activities or engagement, they are defined by the quality of mental attention during the activities, and not by physical or mental activities themselves.

samādhi

tad-eva artha-mātra nirbhāsam svarūpa-śūnyam iva samadhiḥ 3.3 PYS

That-itself  meaning/essence/perception-alone shining [with] self-ness-void [of mind] itself - samādhi.

 That [single-unvarying cognition stream] itself [results in] meaning-alone [of object of meditation] shining with null self-ness/activity [of mind] itself - samādhi.

 

Here, the meta activity of the mind ends, i.e., the mind stops thinking about what it is doing, that it is paying attention or in a cognition flow. Or at least it pauses for a long while!

That is, shifting between the activity itself - attention on an object of meditation plus cognising it - and thinking about the kind of mental activity (attention to what I am doing) halts. Then, only the object's meaning or essence floods the mind-field completely.

saṁyama

trayam-ekatra saṁyamaḥ 3.4 PYS

Triad/triplet-as-one - saṁyamaḥ [union/summation process]

Imagine the quality of your attention as it rests easily, lightly, happily upon something for a brief while, which then becomes a short while, and that in turn becomes a long while. 

Specifically, for 12, 12x12, and 12x12x12 seconds. Or 12 seconds, ~2.5 minutes, ~half an hour.

It is easy to appreciate that the frenetic taking in of sensations slows down. It's like someone telling you,

"Ree-laaaa-xxx...

Take a deeeep, sloooow, breath...

Caaalm dooown... 

And now...

look at that object."

Imagine then that same restful, peaceful, light, effort-less attention continues to stay on that same thing for a longer duration, and then for a really extended duration. Attention becomes cognition and then a silent mind-field imbued and flooded by meaning or essence.

Imagine the quality of your attention at the end of that extended duration!

Now imagine doing that with tenderness, affection, love for an extended duration - almost half an hour. What would your mind and brain and heart be like?

Finally, after practising for many, many, many half hours,

say a 1000 or even just a 100 of them,

imagine that you can build up to that same quality of attention in minutes or even seconds.

You have then compressed

12 seconds of attention = dhāraṇā -

extending to 144 seconds of attention = dhyāna -

extending to 1728 seconds of attention = samādhi,

I repeat,

compressed 1728 seconds of clock time worth of

binding-to-cognition-to-mind-field-flooding,

into a few minutes or even a few seconds of clock time of samādhi-quality attention.

Imagine samādhi - your entire mind-field flooded by the essence or meaning of an object - in seconds! Well, OK, in minutes :-)

This is saṁyama.

Meta modes - 'I' or subject, 'am doing' or 'verb'-ing - do not kick in now, implying greater efficiency in mental processing.

Attention - grabbed, placed, or moved

Attention may be considered roughly as conscious awareness of something.

Normally, our attention flits around involuntarily because it is grabbed by a series of things. 

And generally grabbed by something outside - or even inside - the body due to incoming sensations. These sensations are due to energy of some kind, reflected or generated from things. This energy impinges on our sensors or sense organs. Attention grabbing may also be considered as attention triggering by sensations.

Attention can be placed on something inside or outside the body at will.

Some level of subtler thinking is involved, e.g., a multi-step process or a goal. As simple as getting up from a chair to answer a doorbell, to as complicated as completing a degree course.

Attention is generally a mix of being grabbed and being placed at will.

Attention seems to be discontinuous, moving from object to object. But awareness may be conscious - say at a particular level, sub-conscious - "below" that level, or super-conscious - "above" that level.

If attention then moves across these three levels, it seems sensible to imagine attention may be of sub-conscious or super-conscious awareness when it is not at a conscious level. If so, instead of discontinuous attention - attention applied for a while, left hanging or paused for another while, and then applied again to the same level - it is actually continuous, albeit across different levels. But that part or ability of attention which differentiates normal from sub- consciousness, and normal from super- consciousness, is missing. Missing to such an extent that it seems attention itself is missing.

Meditation by resting attention on something ungrabbable such as an infinite object results in expansion of awareness across the three levels. Per Daaji, this expands the boundaries of the conscious level of attention into the super-conscious and sub-conscious areas, thus reducing them a little.

Daaji has also raised the interesting idea that when one's attention goes further into the super-conscious, the present conscious level may become the subconscious.

Practically, meditation on something infinite with few to zero physical features improves one's ability to place one's attention on dry, abstract concepts.

In sum, attention keeps shifting from object to object, not only at the same level, but also across levels. Much of the time, the shift is involuntary - attention is grabbed. But one can also train one's attention to stay where one wants or move it around at will.

Everybody meditates every day

Meditation = 2.5 minutes of effort-less attention.

12x12 kShaNa or seconds.
~Sw. Vivekananda, Raja Yoga

Given that, everyone meditates every day. E.g., a good cup of hot coffee drunk with relaxed enjoyment and attention throughout is also a meditation.

So what's the difference in spiritual meditation?
1. Object of meditation is inward, not outward
2. It is infinite

(E.g., Heartfulness meditation is on the heart and the source of all life energy/prāṇa within. 

pūrṇāt pūrṇam udacyate - infinity taken from infinity leaves infinity.)
3. It is transformative.

[Spiritual] Meditation is effortless attention on an infinite object.
~Daaji

So practising meditation is not the problem. Everyone already does that every day. But inadvertently. Not systematically.

Meditation by giving attention
a) in a different, unfamiliar, direction, and
b) to a different, unfamiliar, object of meditation?

That is new and needs practice.

When the object is infinite,

attention or simple awareness also morphs:
from thinking to
 feeling to 
 being to 
 becoming and 
 beyond.
~Daaji

Practice vs. knowing

Why practice is necessary

Not practising is like only reading and thinking you know everything about a place without actually living there.

When you live somewhere for years on end, you are changed physically and emotionally by the experience. If nothing else, your body picks up the microorganisms there and your mind the emotional microbiases there.

Simple examples - few ad hoardings in Chennai city limits compared to Bangalore. Or cleaner, neater standup cafes in Bangalore vs Chennai. Or incessant though possibly unconscious emphasis on an idealized physique in Southern California vs. Arkansas. Greater body-orientedness in the US vs. greater intellect-orientedness - especially memory-orientedness - in India.

Intellectual understanding is one thing. The physical and emotional implications of practice are very different.

It is also simple logic. If you want to pay attention inward, you must turn your attention inward. If you say that I know everything that will happen at the personal and cosmological levels based solely on someone else's experience, you don't really know.

A simple, but profound, example: can you hold in mind - simultaneously - views of all the sides of a table?

Such an experience is normally impossible, one keeps bringing memories of different sides into awareness sequentially. Or projecting symmetrical views of the visible sides onto the sides non-visible.

Similarly, inward experiences should not be, and are not,  like your outward experiences after some point. If they are, then you are not going beyond memories (admittedly internal) to fresh, dynamic, and continuing inner experiences.

Holding on to memories and chewing their cud while dealing with incoming sensations is like simultaneously accelerating and braking a vehicle.

Here your mental system is the vehicle. Just as the physical vehicle is unable to respond properly given opposing inputs, your mental or inner system is also unable to respond naturally and effortlessly when the memory circuit drains off energy all the time.

Going inward requires:

1. a high degree of acceptance - this I am,
2.  a high degree of trust - this I need not be, 
3. a high degree of courage or an indomitable will - anything other humans have done, I also can and will do,
4. a certain open-mindedness - I don't know now, and
5. a certain willingness to change - but I can learn and I will learn.

(Other things such as Nature helping your inward evolution can only be understood through experience.)

There is no need for un-reasoning belief. But there is also no need for un-relenting disbelief in one's own experiences. That is another subconscious conditioning or brainwashing. And that leads to a lack of desire to practise or experience at all. After all, why practise if I believe that I won't get believable / pleasurable / useful experiences?

Only practice and waiting patiently to understand its results at all levels will be helpful for self-validation. (Yes, there are caveats, but don't waste time in quibbling or, more importantly, hanging on to eternal disbelief.) Results also manifest and/or stabilise over time at the beginning. Then they settle down faster. Again, this needs to be experienced, not understood intellectually.

Most people prefer to listen or read, perhaps think and/or discuss, but not to practise. They are stuck at the first step or second step of this trio:

1. śravaṇa, listening or reading,
2. manana, mental/intellectual contemplation to fit understanding from śravaṇa into existing conceptual frameworks or into an entirely new one altogether, and
3. nididhyāsana, having the actual inner experience or im-perience corresponding to śravaṇa and manana.

Move on to the third stage to get the complete experience. Do note that this is needed for each condition and each stage.

Lakshman Joo wrote that in Kashmir Shaivism, just experience is not enough. Intellectual understanding is also needed to hang on to spiritual conditions and places.

Similarly, Babuji wrote that gurus who have both theoretical understanding and varied practical experience are the best. They can guide their students better than gurus with only theoretical understanding or only practical experience.

Learning to live

In a way, what we have to learn in life is very simple.

Learn to make the use of all our physical and mental instruments natural and effort-less, not forced and strenuous.

Use the mind as needed, not as habituated. And let it rest when not in use. Not spinning fruitlessly, chewing up energy.

Use the heart for instant answers, but understand that the heart only returns a yes or no. If silent and peaceful -  yes. If disturbed or heavy - no.

Sync that with reasoning. Think and analyse and understand till the mind-intellect  is content and at peace, then all your inner instruments are working naturally and optimally.

Nutrition is another subject with many fiddly balancing details, but essentially, give the body the nutrients it needs and it will work naturally and effort-less-ly, letting your heart and mind evolve as they should.

Mens sana in corpore sano covers it well.

A rare confluence - from inner peace to world peace

A huge tidal wave is building up in spirituality this year.

Some 300 spiritual organisations are coming together in a rare confluence at Kanha Shanti Vanam next week - 14-17 March 2024 - for integrating their efforts at the spiritual evolution of humanity. Details at
https://www.globalspiritualitymahotsav.org

Daaji, the Guide of Heartfulness - the hosting organisation, is both a visionary as well as highly detail-oriented. Should you wish to really delve into spirituality, there is no better guide to support your inward journey.

He is also making jivanmukti a reality. Not siddhi or superhero aspects, but evolving - or devolving - from animal man to humane man and beyond. Shifting from thinking, worrying, and praying to remove life's problems to handling any problem thrown at you with courage and confidence, in your own Self within.

Daaji is not merely a paarasmaNi - a philosopher's stone - of spirituality, but someone who makes others into paarasmaNis. That idea, and its scope, is itself awe-inspiring, but the speed and systematic way he is making it happen is astounding.

His project and organisation are far beyond outmoded parochialism and religion. It is a true revolution in sadhana because the onus and the controls are entirely in the hands, mind, and heart of the practitioner. But the real support is also entirely inner so you have to experience and learn something totally different - a communication language devoid of words and images. Something to be experienced, not explained.

Becoming conscious of your inner self is not trivial, but because it only involves a change in mental priority, neither is it difficult. If anything, the difficulty lies in letting go of familiar complexities to reach unfamiliar, though elegant, simplicity.

But the elegance will reveal itself only when you relinquish more and more. Not consciously, merely by not recreating your conditioning when its past residues slough away naturally - through your daily sadhana.

If you are seriously practising a spiritual method, you don't have to change anything. Just share your peace and joy with others - anonymously. Mentally.

But if you, like many human beings, have only wondered about mystics and mystical experiences, now is the time to start practising.

Or to renew your practice, enthusiastically, if you are doing so desultorily.

Practise - not to achieve those exalted states, but to reveal their existence and wonder at the eternal beauty, peace, and joy within.

Within yourself.

Optimal vs habitual

It is possible to get to a state of minimum or optimal energy usage of one's brain and mind for emotional activities.

Emotional activities create and sustain saṁskāras - emotional residues, or heaviness or grossness in our mind and consciousness.

They in turn make it difficult to act (think, speak, do) lightly and freely. In one way, it's like walking carrying two heavy suitcases. In another way, it's like walking along a path and constantly stepping off into a side track to investigate something related to that encountered on the path. Imagine doing this every few steps!

Primarily, physical or brain strain - excessive energy use, worry, etc. - comes from always, or even mostly, thinking, talking, and doing with others.

Especially comparing, analysing, judging - yourself with/against others, others with/against others.

Or relationships with others - making, breaking, changing, maintaining, quantifying, categorising, and so on.

Please note that others are necessary, and so are relationships with them.

I see all emotional activities as resulting from paying too much attention outward, and know from experience that that can be reduced using some simple techniques or tools.

There is, for example, an outward way and an inward way of dealing with others.

One simple technique from the set is to hand over all the things causing worry and strain to someone, or something, inside you, which can, wants to, and does, support you.

Then you simply sit back (mentally), relax, and enjoy your life like a child or a baby!

Remember, though, that a baby learns, continuously, effort-less-ly, naturally.

But reaching this stage takes time and some degree of commitment to this handover.

Total commitment is called blind faith. It develops from an initial trust, experimentation and observation, seeing first if life can work at all with that handover, and then, whether it continues to work. If it does, trust becomes belief. Then, even in crises, if the handover stays, naturally, belief can become faith.

This doesn't mean zero brain or mind use. Just effective use, as needed than as habituated.

One still learns from the inspiration and observation of how situations work out with the insider in charge.

Planning and whatever else I learned about intellectual work must still occur.

Like implementing a plan, monitoring its progress, post-mortem analysis, and so on.

This tool is a continuous process, though mentally its usage range (or natural sequence) is never, seldom, occasional, frequent, constant.

There will still be times when I yank back emotional "control" due to habit or lack of trust or desire for the rush of energy from anger or other negative emotions. Or any other reason.

This is normal, and expected, as one moves from never to constant.

I simply hand over agency inward again, once I get back to a stable mental state.

Techniques from the Heartfulness/Sahaj Marg system are cyclical, and interconnected.

Thus, daily meditation helps in going deeper or subtler, and so cleaning away deeper or subtler saṁskāras.

Daily cleaning helps in meditating daily better - faster, longer, subtler - by removing surface emotions and emotional thoughts. And, daily meditation brings up more and more things to the surface.

Daily prayer helps in connecting inward, turning from outward. To, or with, that which is already within myself.

Then, I can detach myself better from outward situations for better understanding. 

I can also meditate and clean wherever I am. And whenever I want or need to, as well.

Remembrance, the first technique, should arise naturally from the daily core practice elements.

Those three are critical.

Just do it - daily.

Then add AEIOU, etc. after each element.

And simply relax, just be.

Whatever thoughts and ideas you need will come up.

The Heartfulness techniques for practitioners are not new or original. They are based on the oral tradition of Raja Yoga, and even more ancient sources, possibly the Ṝg saṁhitā, and definitely the Upaniṣads as well as the Bhagavad Gīta.

But transmission by the Guide? The scalability and real support for millions? That is something else altogether! But it must be experienced, not just talked or thought about.

Dependence and rubber duckies

(Very much an informal blog post. Much background knowledge and troubles are assumed.)

Depending or clinging mentally to anyone other than one's inner Master in one's heart is like a drowning person trying to stay afloat using a rubber ducky in a stormy ocean. Both you and the ducky will go down. But the ducky may still come up after you drown! So it can float and survive alone in stormy seas, but it is not made to help others through emotional or physical turbulence.

(A preceptor should ideally help abhyasis to help themselves emotionally by being a good listener. Let them talk it out, calm down, and think for themselves. Paraphrasing may be helpful. Still, sittings are much more effective than conversations because deeper level stuff blocking effective use of one's intellect and will is removed. And only one's own understanding, motivation, and decisiveness are truly helpful.)

Clinginess to others is from tamas overriding sattva.

Sittings, again, and meditations help increase sattva. Even a few seconds of meditation can change the proportion of sattva-rajas-tamas.

Watch your own behaviour and then intervene spiritually in your life through cleaning, meditation, and prayer. Still try for ahimsa at thought-talk-act levels.

Prayer is best done before an event.
After, cleaning and meditation.
During, remembrance.

You have tremendous energies. Direct all of them towards the inner Master by being dependent mentally only on him and simultaneously being independent of all others. Accept from them and give to them, yes, but don't depend on them emotionally or spiritually.

Reserve dependence only for the inner Master. He is the only rubber ducky that can grow or shrink as needed for you to stay afloat through the wildest storms!

Attention framework or learning from babies

Everything in life can be simply, even trivially, described as
learning to use attention and
actually using attention.

A baby probably has the greatest effective attention of all human beings. It has no psychological hang-ups, no filters, no images of itself or others. Using all its senses, or paying attention to all of them [1], it builds up tons of data about its body and the world outside. It also learns to use that data in its relationships with other things or other humans. Intonations, dialects, vocabulary and emotional reactions of others are learned effortlessly without any biases.

Essentially, a baby's attention rests easily and moves equally easily as needed for its development. Until it is conditioned or trained or stopped from using its attention easily. Example? A baby playing with its poop :-D It learns very soon, perhaps immediately, not to do so from the resulting negative excitement and exhortation!

From a toddler on, a self-image appears, generally from the assessments of others as well as self-created. And images of others. All from attention outward and the resulting inward feelings or emotions. There is little systematic exposure to different situations or analysis.

It is not difficult to envisage simple training in inward attention.

First understand how attention is directed through simple observation directed at three "locations":

i) at the outside world,

ii) at the interface (sense and motor organs),

iii) at the inside.

Paying attention to the first two locations is needed to understand when something that seems to be inward or inside is actually arising from --representing-- something physically outside. Or the body itself. Thus, thoughts, emotions, memories, etc. about others physically separated from you all imply outward attention.

Training attention on the outside world

For training attention on the outside world, use this simple technique - look, listen, smell, taste, and touch without prejudice or bias or analysis, exactly like a baby.

Since vision is the most important sense for humans, simply look around, letting the eyes linger and drift easily, without analysis. This is actually mental training of attention, expressed physically. Without thinking, if possible. Then, close the eyes, and listen. Again let attention drift from sound to sound, to whatever comes up. Rest without bias, move without bias. Smells often cause visceral or instinctive and usually negative reactions. It is not easy to train a detached attention to smells. Similarly for taste and touch.

Training attention on the body

Then pay attention to the body, or to the sensing and acting instruments themselves. A full-body relaxation technique does the trick here.

Training attention on the inside world

 Lastly, pay attention inward. To thoughts, feelings, ideas, memories. Again, let things bubble up into conscious awareness instead of moving one's awareness around. This undirected/unwilled movement is important. That builds up the ability to look at --and accept-- oneself with ever-reducing subjective bias. This clarity is needed to see things as they are and not as they should be -- as one wants them to be.

(TRAINING ATTENTION AFTER HEARTFULNESS PRACTICES

In Heartfulness, we distinguish between one's heart and mind. The latter, no matter how blazingly quick, is still single-threaded in its thinking action. The heart, OTOH, is massively parallel and always present, but quite shallow. It feels and reacts or responds, but does not think. Thus, attention training here simply means attention upon the head and chest areas or volumes.

First, one has an inchoate awareness, a simple feeling, if you will. Next, with daily repetition of attention, comes habituation --getting used to the feeling-- followed by descriptive thoughts or words or verbalization.)

Initially, though, paying attention inward is troubled by memories - verbal and emotional - of past events and other people. The emotional aspect of memories may even cause physical reactions along with thoughts and feelings. Once such reactions, thoughts, and feelings no longer arise, attention rests effortlessly on inner silence and peace.

Finally, resting attention on different mental objects.

• From limited to unlimited.
• From little things to vast things.
• From colour to lack of colour. 

Then, on sounds, and their results internally.
If using technical sounds like mantras,
moving from
audible or mumbled repetitions to
mental repetition to
other inner things like the bhāva or the feeling or the presence arising from a mantra.

Please note that in Heartfulness meditation,
there is a direct jump of attention inward to the Divine presence within,
from the very beginning.

In sum, remedy the wrong training in inward attention
by following a simple logical sequence of
regularly moving the attention
from outside to body to inside.
And do so like a baby!

Now, how to use this trained attention?

Here are two significant uses:
i) evolving attention upon the mind and heart, and
ii) synchronising the heart and mind.

In the first, one's mental attention becomes lighter and faster, and
one's heart attention becomes more palpable or
one becomes more sensitive to one's heart.

Synchronising the heart and mind simply means learning to use both for solving problems or making decisions.

NOTES

[1] If allowed. A baby tries to examine something using all five senses, but is stopped from tasting or sniffing most of the time. It also tries to build up its motor skills simultaneously by grabbing or throwing things! A very active baby or child is considered naughty. The underlying issue is not giving a baby or toddler a safe, prepared, learning environment.

Superconscious inspiration or subconscious intuition

Simple ways to distinguish superconscious inspiration from subconscious/unconscious intuition. (Daaji's terms [1])

Both inspirations and intuitions may come during closed-eyes meditation or whenever the mind shuts down - through tiredness, accepting its inability to grasp something, switching to a subtler level, and so on. Sometimes though, an excited or hyperactive mind may also have creative ideas. Both occur outside the usual conscious mental processing and may be considered abnormal mental states.

But superconscious inspirations are beyond current and past human knowledge while subconscious or unconscious intuitions are beyond just my own conscious knowledge. A subtle implication is that once I have an inspiration, it becomes part of me, and thus part of my conscious, subconscious, or unconscious awareness.

Subconscious intuitions are mine, as in whatever I have built up in my life.

Unconscious intuitions are also from others - family, friends, and so on, encompassing all humanity. And if you accept past lives, from them as well.

How to distinguish inspiration and intuition

1. Inspiration:
   Anything completely new and original, especially a solution or idea not found in standard references, or even a different emotion/mental condition - superconscious inspiration
2. Intuition: 
1. Any solution or idea or emotion, perhaps new at the moment, but remembered later. Read, watched, otherwise experienced, but forgotten - subconscious intuition.
2. When later found in standard references or described and found elsewhere on researching - unconscious intuition.

Since verification by research is needed, one may not be sure whether it is inspiration or intuition at once.

Why does it matter?

A superconscious inspiration makes our consciousness subtler and inspires us positively, even transcendentally. Most, if not all, people would accept it is for the good of everybody.

A subconscious or unconscious intuition may be positive, negative, or neutral. Since it is based on past events, it need not be helpful. When used to remember technical solutions and positivity or past inspiration, dipping into the sub-/un-conscious is useful. For reinforcing past negativity and behaviour, it is not.

NOTES

[1] Daaji in Evolution of consciousness series

Meta, sat-kārya-vāda, and simple awareness

SUMMARY (TL;DR)

The mind is a reflexive entity, i.e., it can look at and analyse itself.

Yet, what if there are multiple levels in the mind, ranging from grossest to gross to subtle to subtlest?

To observe and analyse one level, attention has to reach a level subtler and also causal to that level. Or, awareness has to become subtler.

Reflexivity in this sense does not exist for the ātma since, by definition, it is pure (no impurities => zero distinct or separate parts), simple (or indivisible), and absolutely subtle.

This explains very simply why such a thing, the ātma, cannot become an object or observed.

META

"Meta" started out meaning "after". So meta-physics, which now connotes knowledge "above" or "about" (physical) knowledge, initially referred to Aristotelian books or texts that came after his texts on physics.

The currently popular connotation, with reference to a set of activities, means a more abstract level of activities describing or manipulating them. For example, counting or arithmetic, when abstracted becomes algebra. That is, 1-2-3-4 or 8-9-10-11 or even 10005, 10006, 10007, 10008, can all be expressed algebraically, and more generally, as n, n+1, n+2, n+3.

Why abstract or generalise? A variety of reasons. For easier manipulation. For coming up with a single solution to a similar set of problems. For concise representation of a pattern. For easier learning and teaching.

Layers of abstraction and generalization build over the years, followed by reduction of layers as people return to the underlying physical or actual data and find out simpler patterns and simpler representation.

This analysis may also be considered meta with respect to meta itself!

SAT-KĀRYA-VĀDA

sat-kārya-vāda is a simple idea with an overemphasis on subtle implications that has overwhelmed its simplicity. E.g., a clay pot. Going from physical cause to effect is from clay to clay pot. Looked at differently, a clay pot is imbued with clay even after it is made. Or clay is still present in a clay pot, though baked and no longer a ooey-gooey mass.

A subtler, though still obvious, implication is that all things made of clay contain clay. A not-so-obvious implication is that all clay things can be returned to their initial ooey-gooey state. Similarly for gold articles being meltable back into an unformed gold mass.

A subtler implication is that since all known clay vase forms came from clay, all forms of clay vases made till now, and those yet to be made, exist in clay. This, though, is obvious from the name "clay article" meaning made of clay.

(So far, so good, obvious and commonsensical.

But what if this is extended to organic products? Does every sort of organism exist in some general, undifferentiated, mass - or maybe soup - of organic matter? Or are there only certain organisms that can be produced, or better, that can evolve or manifest from that mass? How subtle should that mass be and how few elements need there be in that mass?

And an even more intriguing idea. What if all organic and inorganic things can manifest or evolve from a single mass? Isn't this the idea of the singularity underlying the Big Bang? Or that there were less than a handful of particles or energy fields then?)

This much as background.

REFLEXIVITY

Now, consider reflexivity. This is a "meta" activity in which one looks, analyses, judges, etc. oneself or one's actions or thoughts. Confusion about actions - what to do or say, or how to solve a problem, i.e., how to think - arises when reflexive (inward and circular or looping) activities are mixed up with actually doing the actions.

(Thus, one may decide what to do to achieve a goal. Then one must execute one's decision or plan. And after execution, check if the goal has been reached. Then, even if execution is not according to plan, reaching the goal may be enough, while how the goal was reached may not be important. If the goal is long-term, say many months or years, one may set interim goals, and stay on plan by checking every so often that they are being met.)

META and SAT-KĀRYA-VĀDA

What is the connection between meta and sat-kārya-vāda?

Consider algebra - it is at a subtler level of thinking than arithmetic. Thus meta. And if one does some assessment or monitoring or scoring of one's own arithmetic or algebraic activity, including thinking of oneself as the doer, that activity becomes both reflexive as well as meta.

Now, consider the idea that arithmetic does not evolve into algebra as a meta activity, but instead that algebraic patterns, or an algebraic level of thinking, is a necessary precursor to understanding arithmetic patterns. This somewhat convoluted and back-to-front idea can be associated with the sat-kārya-vāda notion that just as physical effects come from physical causes, so do non-physical or mental effects from mental causes.

Please note that in Sāṁkhya-Yoga, mind and mental are also material, and mental activity is not the same as conscious activity. Thus, mind, and even intellect and ego, may be considered mechanically and algorithmically.

Putting them together, there are levels of thinking or mental levels which go from grosser to subtler as one goes from the outer physical world to mental inner world. One level is subtler than another if it is the cause of the other. Or if the other level manifests from the first. Subtler or meta activity occurs when attention shifts from one actual material - though mental - level to its causal level. It seems reasonable to assume that attention can also jump to non-sequential, yet ancestral, causal levels, perhaps to even the subtlest root causal level.

SUBJECT-OBJECT AWARENESS  FOR ĀTMA

Two more points.

Consider this sentence: "I throw the ball". "I" is the subject, the ball is the object, and there is an action "throwing" by the subject "I"  upon the object. The awareness of subject, object, and action is a meta activity, and from the reasoning above, at a subtler level than the physical or mental activity. 

Now, if the highest or subtlest mental level or activity is reached, can there be any meta activity? An activity above the highest?

So all this reasoning was to get to a simple idea - there is no meta level for the higher self - ātma or puruṣa. Since, by definition, it is the subtlest level of a living being.

From an advaitic point of view, ātma (= brahman) is subtler than the mind. It cannot have awareness of itself as either subject or object as, being without parts or levels, there is no part or level to know another. And it just is, or there is only being, no doing.

From a Sāṁkhya-Yoga perspective, it is even simpler. All activity, including mental, physical, meta, etc. occurs in prakṛti. Puruṣa has no mental activity since it is eternally separate from prakṛti, even while illuminating its activities. And being partless and without levels like the ātma, again, there is no subject awareness.

Inner Freedom - structural definitions

"Structure" here means a mental counterpart of some physical storage or structure. Words like "veils" or "layers" have a physical meaning - as objects or parts. Complexities and impurities are other words usually used to describe changes or residues. But their physical connotations are less immediate and direct.

Below are two definitions of structures blocking jīvanmukti or inner freedom. Removing them and preventing their re-generation, much like treating a disease and building future immunity to its recurrence, result in mental freedom, or regaining the eternal that is overlain by the structures.

In Saṃskṛta, using Yoga and Rāja Yoga/Sahaj Mārg idioms:

1. prācīna saṁskāra bhoga
2. navīna   saṁskāra niruddha

In English, using Daaji's idioms:

1. Unwind/remove/clear old emotional residues and impressions
   
2. Prevent new emotional residues and impressions
   

In English using J. Krishnamurti's idioms (not a direct translation of Saṃskṛta phrases):

1. Relinquish existing self- and other- images
2. Prevent new self- and other- images