Continuous learning

Learn.

Unlearn.

Learn 
continuously, 
eagerly, 
even enthusiastically, 
about 
the mechanical and 
technological aspects of 
your inner and 
outer worlds.

Unlearn 

the emotional and 

egoistic 

aspects of life.

Why unlearn these aspects?

Storing them, 
regurgitating them, 
building illusory layers,
drain brain energy and 
physiological energy 

(with stress hormones, e.g.),
causing suffering.

Just as one 
cleans, 
maintains, 
repairs, or even 
discards 
physical tools, 
one keeps 
one's inner tools -
mind, ego, and intellect -
free of impurities, 
complexities, and 
grossness 
for optimal learning 

through the
rapidity,
expansiveness, and
subtlety 

of response to

events.

Love is 
a lubricant, 
a microscope, 
a telescope, 
a fuel.

Individual love is 
stored, 
limited, 
exhaustible, 
rationed.

Divine love flows
inexhaustibly and 
incessantly,
but it can be blocked
just by individual 
mental, 
egoistic, 
intellectual 
closing.

Enough individuals 

closing their hearts, 
divine love cannot flow
through and
around them.

Enough reopening, 
divine love flows again.

Life is 

a moment by moment 

flowing.

The mind, the ego, the intellect - 
the instruments or 

modes 

of consciousness - 

sample,
block, 
dam, 
redirect, and 
make turbulent 
the flow of life.

That happens 
when instruments become 
more important 
than consciousness or 
life.

Hone 

all instruments and 

learn - 

for the joy and

love 

of learning. 

A little 

unstressed 

learning 

every day

in one life 

adds up 

tremendously.

Imagine 

continuous 

unending 

learning 

in all fields

across 

an infinity of lives.

Now imagine 

how much time and 

energy is being 

wasted!

Choices

Limited OR unlimited

Individual one OR infinite one, infinity

Separatedness OR oneness

Few relationships OR infinite relationships

Few to many humans OR all humans

Self-awareness OR self-forgetfulness

n=1, 1000, 1 million, ..., 1 trillion, ... OR just uncounted infinity, no n at all

Expand to larger and larger limits OR be unlimited

Individual, group, many groups OR wholeness

Dividing and trying to rejoin OR not dividing at all

Analysis and synthesis OR simple, natural acceptance, and doing

Manifested many OR unmanifest none

Separation OR union

Outward OR inward

Choosing OR being

Listen to heart, act with heart

Listen to your heart.

How?

Emulate women in seeing the big picture all the time.

How do they do it?

They accept everything or see everything, clearly and without distortion, with love, without blinkers or filters. [1]

Like space, the subtlest and least separative level of manifestation. [2]

Act with or from your heart.

How?

Emulate men in doing for themselves, by themselves.

How do they do it?

Alone, with intense energy, unmindful of consequences.

Like earth, the grossest and most individual level of manifestation. [3]

An ideal human, man or woman, should strive for both

- accept or witness Reality without distorting or filtering

- act tirelessly without worrying [4]

And accept or be and do with love flowing. [5]

NOTES

• What has to be accepted or done varies across human beings.
  
  
• Men and women vary in their fidelity to being in ideal acceptance and being an ideal actor. Good parents come closest.

[1] Especially mothers, who know the foibles of every child

 

[2] Posted by Daaji on social media 13 Mar  2025: 

Women are inherently creative; they sustain humanity.
They embody the original principle of space, which is deeply inherent in them.
This space signifies the capacity to accommodate -- to embrace and contain everything.
Space also symbolizes emptiness, a void where nothing exists, yet it holds the potential for everything.
Similarly, the feminine principle, like space, remains boundless, accommodating, and essential to the process of creation and existence.

 [3] Not tamasic-ally, not stuporously, not statically, but with tangible power

 

[4] Like a Feegle!

 

[5] Do-be-do-be-do with love.

Four levels of hearing - an analogy for mental devolution

 1. Total deafness (almost)
due to self-created coverings --
past and presently continuing.

2. Partial deafness
by continuing further creation of coverings
along with
partial hearing
from removal of self-created coverings.

3. Partial hearing
when removal of coverings
exceeds
replacement
by ongoing creation
which still cause
partial deafness.

4. Total hearing (almost)
from maximum removal of coverings and
minimal to zero ongoing re-creation.

For mental devolution,
think of
impurities and
complexities,
as well as
coverings
from the hearing analogy.
In Sanskrit,
per Babuji, [1]
malam,
vikṣepam, and
āvaraṅam,
respectively.

All three
skew or
screw up
one's understanding
through
biases,
stereotypes, and
habits,
resulting in
the tendency
for instant --
usually negative,
definitely individualistic
and separative --
reactions
in various situations.

Reactive action --
reactive thinking,
speaking, or
acting --
is in contrast to
responsive action,
either mindful and
careful
responses --
usually at first,
then
affectionate and
heartful
responses --
usually later.

Initially,
responding
will be
slower than
reacting.

Thinking and
doing,
especially
overriding
instant
reactive
habitual
thinking,
takes more time and
energy.

But the Indian spiritual tradition
seems to point to an interesting idea:
once the mind and
heart
are purified,
response time
will actually be
faster than
reactive time.

This increased speed is,
perhaps counter-intuitively,
associated with reduced ego.

So how does
a reduced ego
result in
individual actions
happening faster?

And how can
more selfless or
transcendentally beneficial
actions
such as the mahavratās (ahiṁsa, satya, ...)
occur faster than
selfish or self-centred reactions?

After all,
neuroscience claims that
the emotional or
the amygdala-brainstem subsystem
is the fastest part
of the human brain
since it has to work for
the physical safety of
the individual human being.
The "no time to think" idea.

The argument that follows
is more from experience
than theoretical logic.

And while it is
observational and
subjective,
it is the common experience
of meditators.
 

1. As one's
   self-created
   impurities,
   complexities, and
   coverings
   get removed,
   the speed,
   responsiveness,
   clarity, and
   expandability
   of one's inner instruments
   increases
   exponentially.
   
   
2. This allows
   ongoing,
   real-time,
   directing of
   one's inner and
   also one's outer
   instruments
   by a transcendental entity
   whose instruments
   are even faster.
   
   
3. An attenuated ego --
   minimal to zero --
   reduces
   the processing needed
   for a signal or inspiration
   from that entity
   to take effect.
   
   
4. When such inspirations
   have consistently beneficial results,
   trust becomes blind faith,
   in that one may not know
   (as an individual)
   how one's actions will turn out
   until after an event. [2]
   
   
5. Understanding
   the immediate situation
   is also speeded up
   because it is understood
   transcendentally than
   individually.
    
6. Even at the
   partial deafness or
   partial hearing
   stages,
   one can observe
   one's thinking
   shifting
   from individualistic
   to empathic
   to group
   to universal.
   
   
7. At the total hearing stage,
   one's actions tend to
   naturally be
   more beneficial to all
   than only for me.

In sum, inner instruments work faster at subtler levels 

without an individuating or separating ego,

resulting also in faster yet more altruistic actions 

across manasa-vāca-karmaṇa (thought-word-deed) levels.

NOTES

[1] Ram Chandra (Babuji). 1954 (2010 reprint).  Reality at Dawn. p. 55, Ch: Spiritual Training. Spiritual Hierarchy Publication Trust, Kolkata.

[2] Babuji reportedly used to wait for orders from "above" to be repeated 2-3 times to confirm that he was not fantasizing.

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.