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.

Spirituality and evolution

A simple proposition:

Every human being with a normal mind has the capability for two opposing attentions - outward and inward - with respect to one's physical sense organs. Most humans don't use the capacity to look inward and it atrophies. Spirituality is simply dusting off and reusing that capability.

When a certain percentage of humans goes inward regularly to subtler and subtler levels, human evolution will become spiritual as well as intellectual.

The rest of this post will be entirely theoretical for the atrophied :-)

Going deeper inward requires less physical energy and more mental relaxation, aka surrender.

One human is unlikely to fully grasp the extent of human knowledge. Somewhat similarly, one will never reach the ultimate inward levels of transcendental experience. Partly because, at that level, there will _be_ no separate "one" to have that experience.

Inward attention - longer, deeper, and broader - transforms one's perspective of oneself, from a separate entity to a more and more connected one at subtler levels. Going even further inward leads to a universally connected perspective. There is an even subtler perspective, of a transcendent whole with embedded physical bodies.

Stages in Vedanta - beyond time, space, and causation

In Living with the Himalayan Masters, Swami Rama talks about finding contradictions in the Upanishads and how he got them clarified.

First, the problem:

“The Upanishads appear to be full of contradictions. In one place they say that Brahman [the Supreme Reality, God as pure transcendence] is one without a second. Somewhere else they say that everything is Brahman. In a third place they say this world is false and Brahman alone is truth. And in a fourth place it is said that there is only one absolute Reality beneath all these diversities. How can one make sense out of these conflicting statements?”

Next, the resolution of the contradictions. First, the answers of Swami Vishnu, a sadhu at Uttarkashi. Next a paraphrase/explanation of those answers.

Answering my questions systematically, Swami Vishnu said that there are no contradictions in the teachings of the Upanishads. These teachings are received directly by the great sages in a deep state of contemplation and meditation.

He explained, “When the student starts practicing, he realizes that this apparent world is changeable, while truth never changes. Then he knows that the world of forms and names, which is full of changes, is false, and that behind it there exists an absolute Reality that is unchanging. In the second step, when he has known the truth, he understands that there is only one truth and that truth is omnipresent, so there is really nothing like falsehood. In that stage he knows that reality that is one and the same in both the finite and infinite worlds. But there is another, higher, state in which the aspirant realizes that there is only one absolute Reality without second, and that that which is apparently false is in reality a manifestation of the absolute One."

>>>>

[My paraphrase]:

When one starts practising, one realises that the world that is apparent to one keeps changing over time, yet there are other, more abstract, things that take longer to change. Extending this idea leads one to think that there must be a final something, an absolute truth, that never changes.

Then one considers the ever-changing world of names and forms as false, and behind it, an unchanging absolute reality. Or, the foreground is understood as changing due to the unchanging background.  [1. Changelessness in time => beyond time]

[A slightly different interpretation: that which remains unchanging - in time - after all changing layers or veils are removed, or that from which no more removal of changing veils or layers is possible , is Reality or Absolute Truth.]

In the second step, after experiencing this truth, one further realises that if there is an absolute truth, it must be the same at different places, and in fact, everywhere. Otherwise, there will be different absolute truths in different places. So if there is only one absolute truth, that absolute truth must be the same everywhere, and thus it is omnipresent. So there is really nothing like falsehood only in one or a few places and absolute truth behind it only there. [2. Beyond space]

At that stage one realises that absolute reality is one and the same in both the finite and infinite worlds, or in both the apparent and the real worlds, or in both the changing and the unchanging ones.

But there is still another, higher, state.

The aspirant realises that there is only one absolute reality without a second, and that that which is apparently false is actually a manifestation of that one absolute reality. [3. Not causation or creation of something completely new.]

[Thus, out of the limitless manifest many delimiteds which remain inextricably imbued by their source, which is both their efficient and material cause.]

<<<<

“These apparent contradictions confuse only that student who has not studied the Upanishads from a competent teacher. A competent teacher makes the student aware of the experiences one has on various levels. These are the levels of consciousness, and there is no contradiction in them.”

Swami Vishnu continued: “The teachings of the Upanishads are not understood by the ordinary mind or even by the intellectual mind. Intuitive knowledge alone leads to understanding them.”

I would quibble and say that intuitive knowledge means it is already present in, or accessible to, everyone. Having the experience brings it to their conscious awareness. But an open mind and surrendered heart, the humility described by Swami Rama, are needed to have and understand the experience.

The Psychologically-Quiet Mind

A quiet mind, or the mind-field of the self-realised, is not one without any thoughts forever. [1]

A psychologically-quiet mind blooms in, and due to, a spiritual path. Such a mind is without energy-sapping negativities or obsessions or useless spinning around its concocted images of itself and others. Yet it is dynamic [2], free, light, steady, and illuminative. Or pure, simple, and transparent [3]. If the body also attains a similar state, the Absolute can make the mind and body of such a self conscious of their own natural, effortless, living rhythms.

This psychological quietude can result through many ways. The external ways are generally divisive. Worse, their results, even if intense, are temporary. The internal ways let go of the outside totally or progressively. The results are self-validating, permanently transformative, and never-ending/infinite.

The mind is drawn to subtler and subtler levels and increased sensitivity. Detachment too, but only from that which separates, artificially and violently. The triggering elements of emotional turmoil are cleansed. Or like burnt seeds [4], they can no longer sprout.

NOTES

[1] Patanjali's Yoga Sutra 1.2: yogaḥ citta vṛtti nirodhaḥ results in 1.3: tadā dṛaṣṭuḥ svarūpe avasthānaṁ. Yet, Vyasa's commentary says not all vrttis cease in yoga. This may be taken to mean only those causing psychological turmoil cease.

[2] Stillness and quietude seem to go together. Yet, quietude, or better, calmness can accompany action, even mental action. Think poised action, without haste. Even better, efficient and effective action with interest, even affection.

[3] Babuji says without mala (impurities), vikṣepa (complexities), or āvaraṇa (veils or occluding layers).

[4] Like Vyasa, Babuji calls them dagdh beej.

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.