The sneaky I and the practice of meditation

Normally, one's 'I' is thought of as one's physical body and whatever is inside. The 'I' may also define one's relationships with others. Liking something or someone also defines one's 'I', even more so dis-liking. Immediate, so-called instinctive, responses or thoughts also delineate one's personality, the I-me-my set of emotions, thoughts, sensations, actions, and memories in my conscious, subconscious, and unconscious.

One may also define one's 'I' by what one cannot or will not do, where doing includes thinking, speaking, and physically acting.

This is where sneakiness comes in.

In Living with the Himalayan Masters Swami Rama's Guru taught him graphically about perspective. [1] He suddenly hugged a tree and frantically begged to be rescued from it. It took a while for Swami Rama to calm down enough to realise who was grabbing what!

Now, think of meditation, an activity requiring little energy [2] and greater and greater relaxation over time. Its effects are palpable, but not instantaneous. In some ways, the effects are reductive, not additive, of the 'I'. Indeed after a particular stage, one has to deliberately relinquish the 'I'-sustaining thoughts in order to progress.

This may be one reason why people have trouble with meditation. They are so comfortable with their 'I' that they refuse to let go of it. Further, if meditation is defined as an effort-ful activity, they use the excuse of an inability for physical activity for not meditating and so losing their self-created 'I'.

NOTES

[1] The lesson was on mAya. mAya doesn't hold us, we hold it.

[2] In India, most things come with terms and conditions. If someone says, "It's easy to do that," there's generally some, or a lot, of context, background, and previous skill development left out. Meditation defined as effortless focus is not one of those things. When the focus is not effortless, one is not in meditation. In Heartfulness meditation, the situation is even easier, the source of the light in one's heart itself pulls one's attention inward and creates the effortless focus.

A universal prayer and I

Prayer generally involves two, oneself and another superior or higher self.

Then there is the aspect of for what one prays. One generally prays to get something or for the well-being of someone (which could also be oneself).

Then there are prayers at higher levels, for the well-being of every living being in the universe. One such prayer, very popular from the Sivananda Yoga classes, called a loka kalyāṇa or loka kṣema prayer [1], goes like this:

sarveṣām svastiḥ bhavatu [2]

sarveṣām shantiḥ bhavatu

sarveṣām pūrṇam bhavatu

sarveṣām mangalam bhavatu

Translated roughly as:

[May] well-being be everywhere {or ,May all be well}

[May] Peace be everywhere {or, May all be at peace}

[May] auspiciousness be everywhere {or, May things happen as expected, may everything occur naturally}

[May] fullness be everywhere {or, May all be content, may all lack nothing}

This prayer may be chanted with the idea that the outside world and everything/everybody there should become as prayed for. But, another, subtler, meaning is about one's attitude. How do I regard everything and everybody else - starting from one's immediate surroundings and one's family, to the entirety of one's species, to all living and non-living things?

By wishing positivity and a natural life (peaceful, contented, full, lacking nothing, natural changes and events) for everybody and everything else, my attitude and way of thinking changes by way of reduced biases, groupism/tribalism, envy, jealousy, and vengefulness. At least for the nonce, I have expanded my scope of tribe or group to the highest or largest conceivable possible.

Put differently, the state of my "I" has changed from immanent to transcendent. One way to gauge spiritual progress, therefore, is how easily one makes this change and how natural is one's attitude in such situations.

Notes

[1] A nice article on possible sources and variants of this prayer

[2] Pronounced normally as: sarveShaam-svastir-bhavatu. The ending 'ḥ' + beginning 'b' becomes 'rb' in Sanskrit. Much as two vowels, one ending a word and the other starting a word, are separated by an 'r' in English (law-r-and-order)

Ahamkara paradox - "I" needed to lose the I

Consider:

• I practise
• I realise
• My goal is liberation
  
• I want to be a better/spiritual person
• Babuji said, "Forget the I," not "Understand thyself."
• Spiritual practice is also about releasing/ignoring I (self-arrogating) thoughts
• Surrender to situations, don't respond selfishly
• Traditional Indian spiritualists rail against the "I" unremittingly
  

What are the characteristics of the I?

• self-arrogation
• self-image
• self-consciousness (c.f., shyness, introversion)
• a set of self-created, artificial, illusory thoughts

What if there is no paradox?

Assume that there are (at least) two stages in spirituality.

In the first, lower, stage, the I is actively needed. Why?

• immanent stage
• individual perspective
• sense of self needed to evolve consciously
• comparison of my self with other selves
• comparison of my self with itself at different times and contexts
• simplify or integrate many relative, context-dependent selves into a single coherent, consistent self
• be the same inside and outside
• be natural - don't think something and say something else
• yet - satyam bruyāt, priyam bruyāt
  (speak [the] truth, affectionately speak [it])
• actively work on becoming a more ethical and moral person
• accept the current situation as it is, but act positively to create different future situations
• acceptance presumes an "acceptor", and 
• choosing positive actions a "chooser"

In the second and higher, stage, the "I" is not needed actively. Why not?
 

• transcendent stage
• universal perspective
• jivanmukti (freedom from separate individuality)
• the divine inside and outside oneself drives one's evolution
• "I surrender" is not surrender
• Kabir's "prem galI" doha:
  
• Love's lane [is] very narrow; in it two cannot be.
• When "I" was, He was not; now He is, "I" am not.
• complete expansion and freeing of consciousness occur only if there is no self-image or self-consciousness
• the only freedom is the freedom is to do the right - Babuji
• no choice, hence no chooser necessary

The two stages need not be, and are generally not, sequential in time.
They may occur many times, and for differing periods, until the seeker reaches a particular level of purity, simplicity, and lightness. A seeker may have to deliberately shift down to the immanent stage regularly for some activities [1].
This may confuse the spiritual seeker.

Finally, a minimal I is still needed to use one's body and mind while alive: 

• I scratch my arm.
• That book is for me.
• I booked a flight to Chennai to reach in a few hours.
  

Notes

[1] Practice of maxim 10 (and maxim 9) requires self-examination at the individual level