Understanding the inner universe

 I wonder.

The simple notion that there is a universe inside each of us seems difficult to get across.

Or, that, to know it, one turns inward.

That it reveals itself is really the most difficult to understand, let alone accept.

Or that our biases and preconditions, built up so carefully over the years, colour and even block revelations.

Or that its rules are different.

After all, we're so used to the idea of struggling to attain things in the external universe. Of adding to our minds. Relinquishing is tough. Especially ideas and concepts, of ourselves in relation to others.

Acceptance and grace

Choose cheerfully and totally;

either you accept your life and advance in wisdom,

[OR advance in wisdom, by your practice, and accept your life]

or you refuse and stagnate,

and then you have the same road to walk, minus the grace.

Paraphrased from Babuji's message of Sunday, August 1, 1999 – 10:00 a.m. Entire (edited and original) whisper below.

[Edited]

Whispers from

The Brighter World

Beloved Master 

Revered Babuji Maharaj

Sunday, August 1, 1999 – 10:00 a.m.

To you we ask - endure your current life, and as much as possible with a smile. Cheerfully.

Many of our aspirants are disappointed; they thought that having a Master and being on a path like Sahaj Marg would eliminate all their family and health problems.

But if you all were to know our lives well, you would have seen that we were not spared.

You settle up the remainders of previous lives and the mistakes made in this one.

No path, no Master, whatever his stature, will be able to resolve all your small problems to your liking. The objective - of the path - does not lie there. You must understand it.

If you follow us with the motivation to remove life's problems - that will not happen, you will be disappointed.

Our goodwill cannot make you walk on a path of roses.

The roses of life, you do get them, but also their thorns.

Study the lives of all the great Masters who punctuated history, and see what they experienced to reach the highest level of holiness, and all that they went through.

It is only by going deeper and deeper inside yourselves that you will find not only answers, but also the strength to endure what you have to go through in this life.

Without this obligatory process, evolution is not possible.

Choose cheerfully and totally:

either you accept your life and so advance in wisdom,

(OR advance in wisdom by your practice and accept your life)

or you refuse and stagnate,

and then you have the same road to walk, minus the grace.

Babuji

[Original]

Whispers from

The Brighter World

Beloved Master

Revered Babuji Maharaj

Sunday, August 1, 1999 – 10:00 a.m.

To you, we ask you to endure your current life, as much as possible with a smile.

Many of our aspirants are disappointed; they thought that having a Master and being on a path like Sahaj Marg would eliminate their family and health problems.

If you all knew our lives well, you would see that we were not spared.

You settle up the remainders of previous lives and the mistakes made in this one.

 No path, no Master, whatever his stature, will be able to resolve your small problems to your liking.

The objective does not lie there. You must understand it. If you follow us with this kind of motivation, that will not happen. Our goodwill cannot make you walk on a bed of roses.

The roses, you have them, but the thorns too. Study the lives of all the great Masters who punctuated history, and see what they experienced to reach the highest level of holiness, and all that they went through.

It is by going deeper and deeper inside yourselves that you will find not only answers, but the strength to endure what you have to live.

Without this obligatory process, there is no possible evolution.

You should resign yourselves; either you advance in wisdom and you accept your life, or you stagnate and refuse, and you have the same road to walk, minus the grace.

Babuji

The absolute - time, space, and causation - redux

[Background: Stages in Vedanta - time, space, and causation]

The phrase - time, space, and causation - is often used by Vedantins to refer to Brahman or the Absolute as something beyond the three. But without clear definitions or real-world or commonsensical examples, people like me simply read and imagine a funny state of enlightenment! One without basis in understanding, let alone experience.

An attempt at a logical explanation:

Time is better phrased as Change since time does not work without change. Change of one thought to another makes one aware of thinking, for example. If the number and variety of one's thoughts increase, one perceives the thinking instrument or thinking mode is working faster or in less time.

Many terms used in time are recursive and difficult to define from first principles. E.g., duration or length of time or a unit of time is based on counting a repeating event. So many oscillations of a Cesium atom is one second. How do scientists know the Cesium atom oscillates eternally and so the number of oscillations is constant without referring to or measuring the time taken? Think about it!

It is easier to understand change, though. Change could be with respect to anything - space, time, thoughts, ideas, parts of one's system, direction, movement, and so on.

From observing constant change comes the idea of something that does not change at all, and is the backdrop against which other changes occur. E.g., when an object moves from one place to another, there is change in space and time. When it stays in the same place, there is change only in time. When it stays the same as directly observed over thousands of years and as indirectly observed over an even longer time, one may consider it eternal or even beyond time.

Now a problem is nothing tangible or physical seems unchanging in time. Even if change is gradual and over millennia, it still occurs. So humans started abstracting away things or attributes that change. At the same time, they had revelations or inspirations, or even better, internal experiences of subtler and subtler states with fewer and fewer attributes. This led to something having only three basic and very abstract features (not even attributes which may change): 

• it exists or is existence itself
• it is consciousness itself, and
• it is bliss itself.

Perhaps, these three can even be combined or reduced by saying consciousness and bliss exist eternally, before time. (Or perhaps not, see below). By eternally we mean quite simply that everything we sense and think about - around us and inside us - comes from something that exists positively (i.e., not absent or virtual or non-existent) before Creation and returns to it at Dissolution.

There is a very subtle problem here. Why should Creation, or better, Manifestation, occur at all? And if Brahman is static, what causes it to move and become this incessantly moving universe? There is no satisfying answer. Just two observations, or experiences, of eternal stasis at the transcendental level and eternal movement otherwise.

Thus far about Change and Time.

Space is independently arrived at, by observing things that have a limited shape or body, and then seeing spaces - empty areas or volumes between those things. Initially, air was probably considered as space. Later, air and space get separated since that which occupies space - matter, including air - moves around while space does not. Thus space manifests first, and then the things that occupy it manifest.

So far, so logical.

Going to an even subtler level, from the idea of existence itself comes something a bit more concrete and amenable to objective measurement (distance, direction, dimension, etc.). And here's the amazing part - since space manifested from Brahman - existence, consciousness, bliss - space gets them for free. That is, space now exists, is conscious, and is "bliss-y". Anything else that manifests also has these three features. Except that the degree of Consciousness and Bliss may vary. Arguably, I as a human - a volume of space encased in flesh and blood - am more conscious than a bit of outer space. And more bliss-y, as in more intensely happy.

From Change, leading to time and space, has come the idea of something beyond time and space. Now for causation.

When something is beyond time, or exists before time started and after time ends, it is beyond our usual notions of cause and effect. Normally, we look at simple, short intervals of time for cause and effect. Thus, I move my hand and hit a glass, which falls down, and breaks. So, my hand is the cause of the breakage of glass. Or if I am a glassmaker, I might make a glass and replace the broken one. Again cause and effect. Now, if something exists eternally - beyond Change or Time, would the question of its cause - how, and so when it occurred - arise at all? Obviously not! And hence, that something is beyond causation as well as beyond space and time.

Please note I don't claim this argument is the Truth or Reality. Just that it is possible to understand why time, space, and causation are oft-repeated like a mantra in Vedantic commentaries. And is more commonsensical than one would suppose from the bare phrase.

Commonsensicality of laya

 In Sanskrit, laya means mergence or even dissolving. In spirituality or yoga terminology, laya has a very specific or technical meaning, a grosser effect dissolving into its subtler cause. This technical meaning and how laya occurs is easy to understand with an everyday example.

If I move a few chairs around for guests, I work at mental and physical levels. I - and they - may move the chairs more than once as well. In this set of actions, I think, I decide, I move a chair, I look and act physically, and I gauge and compare, and I move again, and so may the guests. But all this happens quite fast, and indeed, breaking down the mental and physical activities as I have done may actually take longer to read and understand!

We switch between physical and mental activities all the time without thinking about how we do it. Switching from physical to mental or going up or going to subtler levels of thinking is laya. It is not a physical or even a mental dissolving in the sense of an actual transformation (though that also happens). It is simply our attention going from one level of activity to its next or earlier subtler levels. This can happen even at physical levels - moving chairs generally to one location and then turning them to form a circle, for example, are grosser and subtler physical acts, comparatively. They require more and less effort, respectively. That is, more and less energy. 

It is easy to understand that mental activities take less energy than physical activities. But the continued reduction in the amount of energy as attention goes to subtler and subtler levels may not be as obvious.

What does this mean in the context of meditation? Attention moving from the world outside one's body, to one's organs (indriyas), to one's thoughts, to thoughts at subtler and subtler levels - in terms of greater and greater abstraction, less and less detail, more and more universality - transcendence - is laya. Babuji gives a simple sequence - actions to thoughts to ideas.

Those who only look at spirituality and think about it without practising it may have the idea that laya is a one-time activity. One goes up to the highest level once and that's it! Boom! Enlightenment! Life changes forever! That does happen, but not exactly as expected.

Unless one also stops existing at physical and mental levels, activities must obviously continue at those levels after reaching even the highest level. (There's also the slight problem that the highest or subtlest level keeps receding - there's always a higher or subtler level!)

Having reached a subtle level, it makes sense that one has to return to that level regularly to remember what it's like. One secret of spiritual practice is that reaching a state once, no matter how, is enough to reach it again just by willing it. But its experience may not be the same.

Laya is simple in many ways. Its theory is both elegant and reassuring. Elegant in the simplicity of the reduction of effort. Reassuring in that since we have come through those subtle levels to become who we are now, we can return at will. Secondly, and more theoretically, all subtler cause states are active in a grosser effect state. A simple example is an electric light in which subatomic particles or energy continue to be active at the subatomic level even when the light is switched on. And when it's switched off. In Babuji's terms, an idea continues to be active while we think and act. So the idea of a meeting drives thoughts and activities, including arranging chairs in a circle. We may not keep reiterating the idea while thinking or acting upon it, but it's still there.

Progress in laya

The general approach in spiritual progress is:

1. turn attention inward
2. move or let the attention flow to subtler levels progressively
   
3. receive the communication or inspiration from the Absolute more and more clearly

Another perspective:

Dissolution or laya of effects into their causes until the ultimate cause or level is reached. This merges 1. and 2. above since dissolution requires going from the grosser (outer) to the subtler (inner).

Consider this sequence of subtle causes manifesting gross effects, from traditional Samkhya:

1. unmanifest pradhana or prakrti, unmanifest guṇas
   
2. mahat (sattva-predominant, rajas-tamas minimal)
   
3. ahaṁkāra (sattva+rajas, tamas minimal)
   
4. manas (sattvic ahaṁkāra) and
   tanmātras (tamasic ahaṁkāra)
   - impelled by rajasic ahaṁkāra
5. jnanendriya and karmendriya (from manas) and
   pancabhūtas (from tanmātras)
   

A subtlety at the end of this sequence makes the practice of Samkhya - progressive laya - elegantly logical and consistent. All three elements in 5. refer to the sensing and acting of a jiva, an embodied entity, in a "sensed world". Thus, pancabhūtas, matter and/or energy outside a jiva, are known to it only by inward sensations resulting from their impinging on its sense organs - jnanendriyas. Outward interactions with matter and/or energy occur through the karmendriyas.

 Consider a similar sequence, from science:

1. Energy fields
2. Subatomic particles
3. Atoms
4. Molecules
5. Elements, compounds, visible matter - gas, liquid, solid
   

To go from the grosser to the subtler requires greater and greater input of material energy, as from solid to liquid to gas, from gaseous matter to molecules to atoms and so on, to energy fields.

This could be why spiritual seekers, especially the scientifically-minded, believe more and more mental and/or physical effort is needed to go to subtler levels. On the contrary, relaxing more and more in meditation is the real meaning of surrendering more and more. Keeping up the artificial barriers of individuality and holding on to just my mental stuff takes much more effort than letting go.

(Important Note: The physical body does not change appreciably during the spiritual journey. It may become more sensitive and healthier as various kośas synchronise and eating habits become regular and better. But mental or non-physical changes won't automatically result in a fitter or healthier body.)

A systematic inward journey to subtler levels in sāṁkhya-yoga is simply this:

First pay attention to the outside, one sense organ at a time if you like, but letting the attention of each organ drift easily from sensation to sensation. E.g., the sounds around you, without analysis or visceral mental reactions - liking or disliking. Simply let your attention drift to whatever draws it.

Next, pay attention to the sensing organs themselves. Systematic physical relaxation from feet to head will do this effortlessly.

Then move inward even further to the mind, manas, itself. The easiest way is by choosing an infinite or transcendental object, especially one that goes beyond verbal limits, and resting the attention on that. An increase in subtlety and successive laya [1] will occur naturally. This and the following three require guidance. [2]

Next the ego, ahaṁkāra.

Next the discrimination, buddhi.

And finally back to a balanced state. But like a salt doll, which goes into the ocean and loses its tiny amount of individual salt, while "getting" all the salt of the ocean, there's no "I" left to discuss its state.n

Ispiration/communication from the Absolute - 3. in the first sequence at the top of this post - is a matter of experience.

NOTES

[1] In the Sahaj Marg spiritual journey, Babuji describes laya as divided into multiple stages which repeat at each point.

[2] The Heartfulness Way/Sahaj Marg practices, especially meditation and constant remembrance, use this technique with the inner Master as the guide.

Perspectives of progress

Attention outward to attention inward.

Inward attention on thoughts and thoughts about thoughts - meta-thoughts.

Attention on feelings without thoughts.

Attention on just being or witnessing.

Reduced energy use of the brain.

Peace at various levels - from a pause in turbulence to an end of turbulence of various kinds.

Peace in the five sheaths - physical and energetic sheaths - smooth, effortless breathing, no aches or pains, relaxation, systems, muscles and nerves working as expected; mental; understanding/wisdom; bliss/being/witnessing sheath.

Immanence to transcendence - a humongous shift.

From transcendence to immanence at will.

Tamasic to rajasic to sāttvic.

Cycles of tamas - rajas - sattva dominance, across levels or points.

Granthi to chakra to padma - static knot to dynamic whirlpool to virtually non-existent open lotus.

Cycles of sameepya - salokya - saroopya - sayoojya across levels or points.

Turbulence after peace. Subtler peace after turbulence.

Increased sensitivity from spiritual practice creating sharper and deeper reactions to situations. Then, accepting the situations and learning to relax, consciously avoiding reactions.

Understanding, after an event. Understanding, during an event. Understanding, even before an event. Ties into reactivity and sensitivity.

I - she - they - pronouns and ego

Consider these pronouns :

He, she, they

Do 'he' thoughts, thoughts about someone, bring up 'not I' - "he's not I" - and thus 'I' thoughts? Thoughts of comparison: positive, negative, or even neutral/objective comparison?

Using '=>' to mean 'implies':

he => not I => I?

How about:

she => not I => I?

Or:

they => not I => I?

E.g., he is nice, he's not me, I am not nice. Or vice versa.

She's not nice, she's not me, I am also not nice.

They're blue-skinned, they're not me, I am brown-skinned.

(I am forced to use 'me' to satisfy English grammatical rules. But I hope the idea that 'he' thoughts can generate 'I' thoughts is clear.)

Other variations [1] on such thought sequences:

him => not me => me

her => not me => me

they => not me => me

his => not mine =>mine

hers => not mine =>mine

their => not mine => mine

All right, so what? Isn't this normal?

That's precisely the point. It doesn't have to be normal. Such thought sequences, especially by deliberate indulgence, bolster the sense of ego.

Simple awareness is sufficient to change.

Why change?

To reduce the energy wasted, on useless and even demotivating comparisons, especially on negative thoughts, and by the resulting physical stress. Using the brain efficiently also reduces one's ego!

Going inward for spiritual evolution is all very well. But if all we do by going inward is outward thinking, about others outside, that doesn't help us in removing our self-created layers of impurities and complexities. Again, it reduces the brain's efficiency.

NOTES

[1] based on "ego" implying "I, me, and my/mine" thoughts or emotions