Daily sadhana forever

Why daily sadhana? And why lifelong?

Experiencing the Infinite is an infinity of experiences. Infinitely-different experiences.

 

Surrendering to meditation changes its daily experience. Sometimes slightly, sometimes completely.

 

All inner experiences are needed. The more, the better.

 

Savour the condition after meditation.

 

Too many seekers, even sincere ones, are in a frenetic rush for the next experience, inner or outer. Undigested experiences also cause problems like an unsettled, torpid, or over-driven mind.

Savour systematically [1]. First pay attention to the condition, with or without words. Then, expand or enliven the condition by sharing it. Then, digest or assimilate it, until it is steeping subconsciously. [2]

Alternately turning one's attention outward and inward and outward again, supports the transition from a deeply absorbing meditation to the usual workday state. Or, try to pay attention - without the least strain - to both the inside and outside simultaneously.

Ultimately, one's inner, non-physical, layers should be able to switch to their most subtle or most gross states easily and quickly. At a subtler stage, there should be general, ongoing awareness, of everything. Daaji uses the phrase"360-degree awareness".

 

Your inner layers are not infinite. Experiencing the Infinite within completely needs an infinite number of experiences. Put differently, the spiritual journey is infinite.

NOTES

[1] like coffee tasters - How professionals taste coffee

[2] Daaji's AEIOU exercise, expressed differently

Bottom-line of meditation

 Bottom-line of meditation:

- what am I thinking or emoting or sensing?

- is it my starting object?

- if not, let go of it, gently.

Meditation then blooms, flows, explodes, dissolves, and does everything else by itself.

Attention and meditation

When 'consciousness' is replaced by 'attention', one looks at spirituality differently.

Attention is more neutral.

Attention also explains meditation much more easily than concentration or even focus.

I pay attention, or something grabs my attention. That something could be positive, negative, or neutral.

In Yoga and Sahaj Marg philosophy, Nature provides experiences to unwind my samskaras - all of my personal, interpersonal, and collective samskaras.

In or out of meditation, my attention is drawn easily to things I like, even more easily to those I dislike, or just to familiar things, because of my samskaras and tendencies.

Letting the samskaras unwind by letting my thoughts, emotions, or physical sensations - arising from the "heat" or energy of my attention - escape without grabbing hold, or by my remembering to release if grabbed, allows my attention to go back to its previous object. Hopefully that object is indeed the object of my meditation.

It is easier to understand the training of attention through meditative practice than training of the mind or expansion of consciousness. Attention doesn't encompass so many different overlapping ideas. Still, the quality of attention could be subtle, tight, heavy, light, torpid, distracted, clear, etc., depending more on its object than its supposed giver.

Meditation helps you to learn to sustain your attention with minimal effort through a simple two-step practice.

1. Start with attention on an object and 2. let go of everything else that pops up and moves your attention willy-nilly. This letting go also fosters the ability to switch attention easily and without stickiness.

What can we do with this effortlessly sustainable and effortlessly switchable attention? Anything in the world, really. But, in gratitude to those who so generously and freely regenerated in us this ability, we share this training with others freely.

Once our attention is effortlessly sustainable, we can also train it on subtler and subtler objects or concepts. E.g., Daaji talks about the 5 C's of the Heart Region: the feelings of contentment, calmness, compassion, courage, and clarity - and their opposites - discontment, restlessness, anger, anxiety, and confusion.

One way to measure spiritual progress: observe or witness your feelings in various situations and note how much closer they are to all the 5 C's. 

In the Mind Region, attention may be on the immanent and its opposite, the transcendental. Then the ego flows effortlessly between its separative and zeroed-out modes.

In Heartfulness/Sahaj Marg, we start with attention on an infinite object, one of the subtlest possible, light without luminosity - light without 'light'ness. Much like a Zen koan, it is impossible to grasp intellectually (though one can get to an asymptotic understanding), making it easy to witness the quality of attention itself, and its changes in every meditation.

Evolution and Samkhya-Yoga philosophy

There is a hyper-realisitic philosophy called sāṁkhya (literally, from categories or from numberings), which posits an evolution (or descent, depending on your point of view) from two sets of infinities.

One infinity is a unitary set called prakṛti (Nature/Manifestor) or pradhāna (Base/Foundation) [1]. From this infinity manifests everything non-conscious, including mind [8], body, and material universe.

The second is a set of infinities called puruṣa's. Like the sun radiates light, each puruṣa radiates consciousness. Every living thing is a unidirectional combination of one puruṣa and a part of prakṛti.  Consciousness illuminates, but is untouchable by, the non-conscious. Vaguely similar to sun rays illuminating the earth. [3]

Now to evolution of the universe or multiverse. Think of a puruṣa as a consciousness source which purifies one part - a jīva (you or any living creature) - of an ocean of prakṛti. bhog, samādhi, and whatever else makes this purification happen for you as a jīva is by your surrender to this activity with minimal conditioning [4]. You, as an ocean current or whirlpool, are able to tune into the incessant inspiration from your puruṣa better with more and more purification. Your actions become more and more natural and less and less conditioned by subconscious and unconscious tendencies (vāsana's) and emotional residues (saṁskāra's).

Spiritual evolution of humans is purification of a significant part of the non-conscious ocean - a particular threshold of jīva's (humans, e.g.) attaining self-realisation, with its ripple effects.

Self-realisation, IMHO, is getting off the seesaw of habitual likes and dislikes (Babuji's Heart Region) and letting the seesaw of I and the Divine (Babuji's Mind Region) rest permanently on the side of the Divine. Kabir has a nice couplet for the latter:

     Love's lane is exceedingly narrow; it can't hold two.
     When 'I' was, the Divine [5] wasn't; now the Divine is, 'I' am not. [6]

I like sāṁkhya because it explains very elegantly a confusing Vedantic idea - I don't have to do anything as I am never bound - by splitting the I into conscious and non-conscious I's. The puruṣa 'I' is eternally free and unblemished. The prakṛti 'I', my bit of ocean, is what changes, maybe from iceberg to water to vapour to space! 

prakṛti as a whole goes through cycles of simplicity and complexity, purity and impurity, lightness and grossness, across cycles of manifestation and unmanifestation, which cause evolution at a multiverse level.

sāṁkhya is atheistic as there is no need for a whimsical God to plan or direct anything. It is close to science in the idea of natural evolution occurring due to individual actions. ṛta (root of rhythm?), or collective karma at the level of the infinite prakṛti, instead of random chance as in science [7], also drives evolution. But ṛta is not arbitrary, and applies even to higher beings.

yoga/rāja yoga philosophy adds the concept of a special puruṣa, an eternal Guru or Guide, not subject to grosser mental effects even when it does associate with (a part of) prakṛti and incarnates in a physical body.

yoga is traditionally considered the practical aspect of sāṁkhya theory. Its practices or techniques take one's mind gradually from a mostly outward focus to an inward focus and then to one that can go both ways equally easily.  Inward focus is of many levels or stages, and one key principle of sāṁkhya - an effect manifests from a cause - is used in the technique of resolving (Babuji's laya) a grosser effect thought layer into a subtler cause layer.

In Sahaj Marg, dissolution/resolution is done through cleaning. And in meditation, by letting the (almost?) infinitely subtle transmission of the Source of Divine Light guide your attention towards Itself, or your mental vibrations towards Its own level.

NOTES

[1] Babuji's bhūma [2] seems to be both pradhāna and puruṣa's, in a latent state

[2] From the chāndogya upaniṣad (7.24.1)

[3] Sun rays do enter into physical reactions as energy, even while illuminating. Consciousness rays, qualitatively different, cause understanding or wisdom in a layer of prakṛti, but it's a unidirectional relationship.

[4] Some conditioning is needed while living in a physical body, in a specific society, at a particular level of technology, kind of social stage (child, parent, elder, sage), etc.

[5] Kabir says 'Hari' for 'the Divine'.

[6] "'I' isn't" is technically better than "'I' am not", as 'I' is considered to be a set of "I, me, or mine" thoughts.

[7] Perhaps statistical random chance is indeed ṛta for gases!

[8] Mind, intellect, and ego (manas, buddhi, and ahaṁkāra) are considered non-conscious or jaḍa.

Samskara, Stithaprajna, and Robots

Think of an event which happens regularly every day.

A normal event.

I like or dislike it. [1]

The "like/dislike" creates an emotional residue - a saṁskāra. The "I" makes it my saṁskāra.

Technically, the first is called rāga/dveṣa and the second ahamkāra or abhiniveśa. Those naturally in a state beyond likes or dislikes and unconcerned about their self-image and other-images [2] have sthitaprajña - settled wisdom.

From philosophical to material, theory to real life.

How is a sthitaprajña different from a robot (or even a machine)? After all, both are naturally incapable of rāga and dveṣa and have no abhiniveśa, the subconscious fear of losing their self, mental or even physical. [3]

The answer, I believe, is love. Transcendental love flows always, but at its purest and most elevating through a sthitaprajña.

 

 

NOTES

[1] I may like or dislike only some part of it, or all of it. Also, I may like/dislike myself or the others [2] who are in the event. Trivial likes or dislikes, and their emotional residues, don't have long-term effects on one's future.

[2] I create a mental image not just of myself, but also of others. Some parts of those images are useful in normal life. Most are not just useless, but also false.

 

[3] Arguably. A robot programmed with Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics will strive to protect itself in normal circumstances. Also, machines are designed to shut down if their inputs are too high or too low, outside operational parameters.

A meditation pastiche

Meditation is not esoteric, it's simply your mind in effortless focus, as when you're enjoying a cup of coffee or a favourite ice-cream.

Spiritual meditation is indeed esoteric as it is effortless focus on an infinite object, which does transform us.

Spiritual meditation is difficult to practise only because our minds are habituated to effort-ful thinking. Like trying to sleep when wired up mentally. Yet, instead of taking a pill to dull the mind, one can relax by regular practice.

The natural mental state is that of lightness, simple observation, and purity. Our habitual, even obsessive, overuse of the mind creates unnecessary layers of biases, complexities, and heaviness or grossness. Use, not abuse, is needed. 

Bringing the post-meditation state into normal life is more important than just spiritual meditation. An exercise of deliberate transition like Daaji's AEIOU helps immensely. 

A lot of mental activity that drives our behaviour and thinking is subconscious. Meditation, and more so, Heartfulness cleaning, bring up its contents to our conscious awareness. Letting go of what comes up in a detached way clears our subconscious. But we must then deliberately fill our subconscious with positivity. This is easily done in Heartfulness by inviting transmission. 

The superconscious must be experienced, not read about. It is my innermost self, so the only thing blocking its awareness or experience is my self-created mental layers. Repeated meditative experiences expand my understanding of the Infinite. But the joy of meditation lies in the ever-new, ever-fresh, effortless experience.

A slightly different perspective

Meditation is effortless focus on an object. Every normal human being meditates every day, when they do something as simple as drinking a nice cup of coffee or tea. Their minds are in a natural state of flow, resting without strain on what they are doing. This can be extended to any activity that one likes to do. Going for a walk in a nice park. Petting a dog.

It's easy to meditate, or think easily, about a concrete, physical object. Normally, one's attention is naturally drawn easily to something that one likes (and perhaps even more easily to what one dislikes!)

But what about a subtle object of thought?

Something non-physical?

That is generally thought to be tougher.

Yet, here is the paradoxical basis of meditation as relaxation. The subtler the object, the gentler the effort. Straining or tightening the mind makes it difficult to grasp or accept a subtle idea, especially one that changes your conceptual frameworks or exposes your biases.

Babuji said that it's like using a crane to pick up a needle.

Going from activity - to thought - to idea - needs lesser and lesser effort, lesser and lesser energy.

That implies letting go of complexities, which stop us from:

• seeing the forest for the trees, 
• seeing underlying patterns in the myriad details of daily incidents, and
• letting go of negativities or impurities or veils or biases in our images, of others and of ourselves.

Strangely, relaxation takes more time and willpower than activity. We have to go against our training from birth to think, actively and incessantly; to keep the mind eternally busy. It is easier to give a higher priority to an external activity.

Learning something subtle, something new or different may require skill and effort, diligence  and patience, but it need not be emotionally stressful. Then it becomes abuse of the mind.

Daaji said that pausing [while doing spiritual work] is very, very important. I think it helps us to understand that unremitting activity is not necessary. It also allows you to work deliberately, and carefully.

As simple as possible but no simpler*

Possibly the simplest conceptual model [0] of spirituality.

Start from what is self-evident - the physical body and things in the space outside it. Science and spirituality [1] have no quarrel thus far.

Now consider the complicated world of consciousness, mind, intellect, five-fold sheaths, three-fold bodies, layers, and what-have-you. Stripped down to its barest essentials, it is something that is not the physical body, but has definite relationships with it. [2] Science agrees, but considers the non-physical part to be created from or by the physical body.

Spiritual paths generally agree that there is something beyond this non-physical part, beyond the mind and intellect - infinite, un-graspable/unknowable, beyond time and space. It can yet be experienced - in a limited way - inwardly. Those who have experienced the Unknown have given some descriptions or analogies [3], especially using a series of increasingly subtler physical ones, and then negating or transcending each one. E.g., from earth/solidity to water/liquidity and so on to space/immanent and transcendent.

 The simple model looks something like this:

UNKNOWABLE/INFINITE/DIVINE

======================

NON-PHYSICAL PART

==============

PHYSICAL BODY

===========

OUTSIDE

One explanation for the non-physical part is that it is an interface between the Unknowable and our physical body. [4] The interface has two sides, one adjacent to the Unknowable, and the other next to the physical body. Limited and contextual descriptions of the Unknowable say that it is pure, simple, and subtle or light. Naturally, the interface should also have similar qualities on that side. The physical body's qualities normally appear in stark contrast to those of the Unknowable and such is also the interface next to it.

A naive idea would be that the interface is very thin. But usually, there is a gradient from pure, simple, and subtle to impure, complex, and gross, as one's mind or non-physical part (NPP) "moves" from the Unknowable to the physical body. Put differently, from the "inside" to the "outside".

The simplest explanation for our present state is that the focus of this interface has become weighted towards the outside. So it ignores or is unable to receive, let alone process, impulses or signals from the inside correctly. All spiritual practice is about moving the focus inward for longer times and with greater stability until the interface is permanently weighted towards the inside. Paradoxically, this needs less effort than going outward because purity, simplicity, and subtlety were the original and natural states. [5] Yet another paradox is that the inward journey of each individual's NPP is reported as commonality and unity, even transcendence, [5] while the outward journey leads to differentiation and separativeness, competitiveness and groupism.

Much spiritual jargon comes from complicated, incomplete, and inconsistent explanations of spiritual experiences or reports thereof. I have not considered the focus or movement of the NPP laterally, across human beings. But such focusing may be done more effectively once the inward focus is settled and it becomes easier to see patterns, or in other words, keeping in mind the forest while dealing with individual trees.

NOTES

* Ascribed to Einstein, Everything Should Be Made as Simple as Possible, But Not Simpler
gives a detailed history.

[0] A more "structural" details of model in Two bodies or what do we really know?

[1] Some spiritual paths consider the objective or material world outside to be unreal or at least unimportant.

[2] E.g., reading these words requires you to process them physically as well as non-physically. Understanding, vocabulary, memory, intellectual processing, etc. uses physical energy and time, as well as abstract or non-physical processing.

[3] Given the differing times and cultures, these descriptions have differed. Garbled and misunderstood communication of the descriptions caused further confusion.

[4] See Mind Sandwich for a similar perspective.

[5] According to spirituality. Since science has no measurable proof of the Unknowable, and considers the NPP to have originated from the body, it logically considers numinous or transcendental states to be later developments of the NPP.

[6] Trying to describe something that is simultaneously immanent and transcendent is a major preoccupation of the early Upanishads.