Inner Freedom - structural definitions

"Structure" here means a mental counterpart of some physical storage or structure. Words like "veils" or "layers" have a physical meaning - as objects or parts. Complexities and impurities are other words usually used to describe changes or residues. But their physical connotations are less immediate and direct.

Below are two definitions of structures blocking jīvanmukti or inner freedom. Removing them and preventing their re-generation, much like treating a disease and building future immunity to its recurrence, result in mental freedom, or regaining the eternal that is overlain by the structures.

In Saṃskṛta, using Yoga and Rāja Yoga/Sahaj Mārg idioms:

1. prācīna saṁskāra bhoga
2. navīna   saṁskāra niruddha

In English, using Daaji's idioms:

1. Unwind/remove/clear old emotional residues and impressions
   
2. Prevent new emotional residues and impressions
   

In English using J. Krishnamurti's idioms (not a direct translation of Saṃskṛta phrases):

1. Relinquish existing self- and other- images
2. Prevent new self- and other- images

The light within

The light within is eternal and always there.

We just have to turn inward and look.

And discard our familiar shades and discomfort at seeing reality as it is.

For some, discomfort and strangeness become fear. Shading the light even more.

Why should we feel anything other than joy?

Or wonder?

Or gratitude?

The light within is truly our source and we are only going home.

Turn that changed gaze outward.

See that light within everyone and everything.

Simply look within first before looking without.

Take the "red pill."

But there is no real pain or hardship.

Just eternal strangeness.

Continually letting go, of the familiar.

Continually freeing, one's consciousness.

A little paradox or invertendo

A little paradox or invertendo.

Looking or attending deeper and deeper inside myself I experience more and more common things and states, and unifying me, with others outside me.

Looking or attending outside my body, I experience more and more things differentiating and separating me from others.

Yet if I go outside to subtler and subtler levels, I again find things and states that are common and fundamental.

But going to such subtler levels outside (finding bosons, e.g.), needs immense physical and mental energy, money and outside resources.

Going inward needs only interest. From interest, giving time, opening up to inspiration, letting go of mental strictures - all these follow naturally.

Understanding the natural rhythms of life - both inner and outer rhythms - comes mainly by going inward. Though outer rhythms are understood in a cyclical way - outer experience, inner pondering, inner experience, ponder, change expectations, experience, and so on. Understanding inner rhythms also involves a similar cycle, but outward attention is not needed.

The Real Problem

Here's the real problem of inward meditation.

When we spend all our time looking outward, we do not get an experience of the inward path. Simple, no?

Even if I sit with eyes closed, if I still think of other people or other things which are outside me physically, I am still looking outward.

My eyes cannot be turned inward to see inside my head, so I have to discard sights in order to go inward. Similarly for the other sensations.

Attention can be turned inward or outward. But if it keeps flitting between inward and outward, I am still vacillating and not able to go deeper and deeper inward.

Suggestions for meditation

Everything coming up mentally referring outside my body must be relinquished. This is the obvious, true, and completely ignored meaning of going inward.

But why relinquish? Because everything that drains mental energy - emotional hurts and pleasures - is based on things outside.

Stop chewing the cud of past events and worrying about future events.

Simply stay in the now, which keeps moving, flowing.

Let the attention move in time from second to second, but remain in the same place physically. If it has drifted away physically, let go of the distraction and the attention will come back on its own to where it was before, and where you placed it first.

This is meditation and training the attention and thus the mind.

(Please note this training is only the first step in Heartfulness meditation.)

A little exercise

(Please take a few seconds - pause - to experience each line and also pause at each comma)

Pausing, with eyes open.

   Becoming aware, of the present moment.

   Letting go, of past, and future, moments. 

   Letting attention dissolve, go to subtler levels.

   Paradoxically, letting physical senses become aware of everything happening, from moment to moment.

   Letting the attention jump lightly, easily, from sensation to sensation.

  Letting it drift lightly, continuously.

  Staying in the present, lightly, continuously.

   Again drifting,

     inward, subtler,

     outward, grosser.

Attention - thinking to feeling

Meditation is simply paying or giving attention to something without effort or with minimal effort. That thing could be outside or inside the body.

Orthogonal to inside or outside is the idea of limit. That is, that something is limited in space or time or both. Or that something is unlimited.

So something outside and limited, like a candle flame.

Or something outside and almost limitless or unlimited like universal space or universal life, by which I mean that from which all life in the universe has come.

For both inside and outside, for both the limited and the unlimited, when one uses attention the same way - with minimal effort - it is meditation.

As one rests one's attention on something, effort-less-ly, one learns about attention from practice:

• Over a brief meditation session, or a long session,
• over many iterations,
• over the ease of bringing the attention upon something at will,
• over the frequency of attention slipping away,
• over the quickness and ease of recovery to the starting object,
• and so on.

All this (and more) is training the attention through daily practice.

The choice of object decides whether meditation transforms one internally in specific ways or simply hones one's mental prowess.

A transcendental or unlimited object, inside or outside, means one's attention cannot rest on the object for a long time. It necessarily slips away.

A simple example - infinity of natural numbers. I can only hold about, say, 7 or 10 numbers in working memory at once. Beyond that, I switch to general patterns or generating algorithms or whatever helps me to think about the entire infinity of natural numbers at once.

From our own experience, and reports of unethical and immoral scientists, we know that meditation on an infinite object outside does not change us.

Not permanently.

But there are reports of people who have been transformed by meditating upon, or constantly remembering, some entity either immanent or transcendent or both (both within and without - technically called omnipresent).

Sometimes we ourselves have had a numinous experience. As we could not hold on to it as a continuing experienc-ing, it became a memory. It is still useful, for inspiring oneself and others, but one must go beyond a single, or even many, such past experiences. [1]

Feeling the meaning or presence is the next step up from meditation, simply, from thinking to feeling, when one's attention is completely filled by the object chosen to represent that presence. [2]

This complete washing out of attention is technically called samadhi. [3]

It is like tuning an old TV receiver manually and the screen then filling with images decoded from that tuned signal.

But here, when an infinite conscious presence is represented by the object of meditation, the TV screen of the attention and mind is taken over by that presence, which then works on increasing the sensitivity, resilience, and empathy of the meditator. Put differently, changing an old TV receiver from tuning into only the TV spectrum of frequencies to the entire electromagnetic spectrum. With analog and digital decoding as well!

Now, after enjoying and ruminating over it, please drop the TV analogy completely because a TV is not a conscious entity.

While there is indeed a mechanical or physical aspect to the meditative process, it is not rule bound in the way one would think if only one person were involved. As one goes deeper and deeper inside, separative factors (I vs. others) are replaced by factors more and more common to all conscious beings. For example, life and the source of life are about as abstract and common to all living beings as one can consider.

Thus, in a very simple way, one shifts from the definition of meditation itself to different objects of meditation and then from thinking to feeling.

NOTES

[1] One difficulty is due to the habituation ability of the body and mind. They like to feel and then put that feeling into memory to chew over later.

[2] The presence need not be infinite, at least initially. There is a gradation of objects from limited to unlimited to beyond.

[3] Per Sw. Vivekananda in his Raja Yoga, it takes 12x12x12 seconds, approximately 28-30 minutes of effort-less mental attention upon an object for its internal representation to fill one's attention. Once it happens many times, though, it can occur much faster, even reducing from minutes to seconds or less.

Working with saṁskāras

(Axiom - Human birth is for mental machinery to learn about itself, especially its natural limits - vast but not infinite, and work efficiently within them.)

Currently, our mental machinery is clogged by saṁskāras.

Saṁskāras are emotional residues of events. ~Daaji

Getting through events without such residues can be done in different ways, natural or forced.

Forced way - prevent or block heart feelings altogether, be like a stone.

Feelings + thoughts = emotions

Heart feelings+ "I" thoughts = mental emotions

~Sahaj Marg definition from Babuji and Daaji, and most likely why Babuji always emphasized feelings over emotions.

"I" thoughts both cause, and are caused by, saṁskāras.

Forced way implies forcibly detached, and a closed heart (cakra).

Natural way - have feelings as usual, but with zero/minimal "I" thoughts, separative thoughts, me-you-he-she-they thoughts. Tough when "I" thoughts occur so often and are encouraged and enforced from babyhood. Their reduction becomes an interim goal and zeroing the final.

Mechanical/technological/practical/objective thoughts are fine, though. They are necessary for the mental instruments to work properly. Or, such thoughts show mental instruments are working properly.

Feelings work at different levels, but are essentially non-verbal. They are experiential but instantaneous, not memory-driven. They affect both physical and mental instruments continually.

The conundrum is simple - how to be natural and continue to wish for naturalness, always. Even when naturalness is construed (incorrectly) as being arbitrary or random, and often nasty, if not evil.

The solution is equally simple. Consider that anything separative, especially thinking or acting against others, is "I" behaviour. As and when this becomes your own understanding, self-repair of your mental machinery will kick in.

Self-repair can take a long time. Lifetimes, even. And so must be unremitting.

Support from fellow travellers along your path (or even a part thereof), or of guides who have traversed your path multiple times, helps speed up the process.

Self-driven effort is subject to barzakh or curvature, essentially a push-back to be overcome by effort at a subtler level, if possible or if understood. Experienced travellers feel such efforts may reinforce the "I" thoughts, if done carelessly.

Saṁskāras are the simplest part of a complex and cyclical feedback mechanism. Yet, by focusing only on removing them, everything else clogging the inner instruments seems to unravel nicely.

As in sickness, there are two parts to removal of saṁskāras: cure and prevention.

Cure is also of two types - bhogam (complex and difficult) and cleaning (simple but needs daily practice).

Bhogam is unravelling saṁskāras through normal life events by witnessing. 

Witnessing is much easier said than done. The "I" as actor must be replaced by God. Or each and every act, including thinking, is offered as worship to God. Essentially, the responsibility is God's. I am only a witness to His actions through me. Everything is His - thoughts, emotions, feelings, words, physical actions. Good, bad, neutral. Everything, every situation, comes from Him too.

Witnessing is not easy to understand or practise. Unwinding takes a long time and witnessing or offering actions as worship can be derailed very easily. False yet plausible rationalisations are common. C.f. the story of the confrontation between the Brahmin who killed a cow and Indra, God of the motor organs. [1]

Cleaning in Heartfulness is called rejuvenation.

Reportedly Ramana Maharshi liberated, or in the first case, tried to liberate, a few dying devotees. He placed one hand on the head and the other on the heart and unwound all of the devotee's saṁskāras at warp speed. It still took hours the first time it worked, on his mother. [2]

A similar process occurs in the daily Sahaj Marg cleaning, which is, of necessity, gentler, self-driven [3] and done daily over years, yet, hopefully takes less than a lifetime to remove years and lifetimes of samskaras.

Babuji writes that, done correctly, seven months is enough. But Daaji says that reaching the Mind Region is a prerequisite, which entails going beyond dualities.

As sattva increases through meditative practices and going inward to more and more subtler levels, the ability to clean quickly and easily increases, i.e., more and more efficiently with less and less energy.

Prevention of saṁskāras is tougher because the changes in mental processing needed are even more drastic. The technique is essentially witnessing, at a greater subtlety. In Sahaj Marg it is called Constant Remembrance, of the Guru, as actor and source.

Generally, a positive and less-egoistic, aka sattvic, interaction creates lighter and/or fewer saṁskāras. The reverse for rajasic or tamasic ones. Heavier and more saṁskāras are obviously tougher to remove, but not so the lighter ones.

A simple analogy. A light amount of bland food is easier and faster to digest, allowing more time and focused energy for other things. Hence sattvic food in an ashram where going inward, and observing and changing inside are more important. Staying healthy is also necessary to do so. Thus, ingredients to boost immunity and help gut bacteria to thrive. Nothing icky, just pepper, turmeric, and other spices, buttermilk or yogurt, fruit and vegetables - fresh and seasonal.

Similarly, minimal creation of saṁskāras help in going more and more inward.

There are three main factors in saṁskāra creation - I (abhiniveśa) and obsessive desiring: positive (rāga) or negative (dveṣa).

Losing the first factor is the best. Minimal to zero "I" thoughts result in minimal to zero fresh saṁskāras.

Then, progressively milder likes or dislikes leading to detachment is the next best option. But this can easily be a source of prideful askesis and increase one's "I" thoughts.

I don't care what I eat. Do you?

OR

I don't care about ... But you do! (Or others do!)

Eating and diet, and all other activities, are not the issue. The related "me" thoughts are the problem.

Positivity towards others, e.g., at the levels of thinking, speaking, and physical acting, is mentally lighter than negativity, though habitual negativity - reactions - may occur faster. Positivity is definitely more expansive as well. Logically then, positive and lighter saṁskāras.

Minimal to zero storage of all saṁskāras is the crux of the issue.

Then one's responses and actions can and must change - from habitual to natural.

Habitual implies past actions, and past implies memory. Thus storage.

 

Natural implies immediate response or actions without colouration from past events. Inspired by our heart which has no memory. And the source of our life within the heart.

Yet when it is not easy to trust oneself, how does one trust God or Guru to inspire or drive our natural behaviour?

In little steps.

Bolstered by a light, free practice that shows daily results.

And by little, even unnoticed, changes adding up over time.

Enforced changes increase the "I". Those done of one's own free will leave lighter stains, easier to clean away. Positive, even enthusiastic, cooperation with commonsensical enjoined instructions is key to effectiveness.

And after all this weight-loss and now seemingly riding a bike without memory, brakes or a reverse gear, what do we do with our pure, simple, and light inner instruments?

A beautiful excerpt from a Babuji Whisper gives an answer:

Arriving at this destination is quite an achievement.

Thereafter, another trajectory will be proposed to each of you.

And if you want to, you will be able to embark on this new trajectory with full knowledge.

And from a recent powerful video of Daaji: [4]

We are all connected - intellectually, morally, and spiritually - through the invisible connection of our hearts, [which is] weaving us all into a common grand destiny.

The road to that destiny is paved by pioneers, hidden in plain sight, even from their own discerning minds.

The pioneers are catalysts of change.

Their silent acts of self-transformation will bring about a tipping point of consciousness that will change the future of humanity.

Together, their hearts beating as one will advance the way of love; that will elevate the human condition from belligerent rhetoric, growing intolerance, and rising inequity.

These pioneers represent the tip of the arrow in the silent revolution of consciousness.

And today, I introduce you to one of them: You

Mike drop.

NOTES

[1] The Brahmin claimed that Indra had killed the cow using his hands. Yet he refused to give Indra credit for the beautiful garden which he had created with the same hands! (IIRC, a Puranic story retold by Ramakrishna Paramahamsa)

[2] Subsection - Mother's Death

On the day of her death, May 19, 1922, at about 8 a.m., Sri Ramana sat beside her. It is reported that throughout the day, he had his right hand on her heart, on the right side of the chest, and his left hand on her head, until her death around 8:00 p.m., when Sri Ramana pronounced her liberated, literally, ‘Adangi Vittadu, Addakam’ (‘absorbed’). Later Sri Ramana said of this: "You see, birth experiences are mental. Thinking is also like that, depending on saṁskāras (tendencies). Mother was made to undergo all her future births in a comparatively short time." [28]

Also, from Path of Self-Knowledge (Arthur Osborne)

The end came in 1922 on the festival of Bahula Navami, which fell that year on May 19th. Sri Bhagavan and a few others waited on her the whole day without eating. About sunset a meal was prepared and Sri Bhagavan asked the others to go and eat, but he himself did not. In the evening a group of devotees sat chanting the beside her while others invoked the name of Ram. For more than two hours she lay there, her chest heaving and her breath coming in loud gasps, and all this while Sri Bhagavan sat beside her, his right hand on her heart and his left on her head. This time there was no question of prolonging life but only of quieting the mind so that death could be Mahasamadhi, absorption in the Self.

At eight o'clock in the evening she was finally released from the body. Sri Bhagavan immediately rose, quite cheerful. "Now we can eat," he said; "come along, there is no pollution."

There was deep meaning in this. A Hindu death entails ritualistic pollution calling for purificatory rites, but this had not been a death but a reabsorption. There was no disembodied soul but perfect Union with the Self and therefore no purificatory rites were needed. Some days later Sri Bhagavan confirmed this: when someone referred to the passing away of the mother he corrected him curtly, "She did not pass away, she was absorbed."

Describing the process afterwards, he said: "Innate tendencies and the subtle memory of past experiences leading to future possibilities became very active. Scene after scene rolled before her in the subtle consciousness, the outer senses having already gone. The soul was passing through a series of experiences, thus avoiding the need for rebirth and making possible Union with the Spirit. The soul was at last disrobed of the subtle sheaths before it reached the final Destination, the Supreme Peace of Liberation from which there is no return to ignorance."

[3] Sittings with the Heartfulness Guide or a trainer, group meditations or satsanghs are even more effective.

[4] The video is a promo for, and has quotes from, Daaji's Spiritual Anatomy book. The few sentences immediately before the quoted lines increased their power dramatically - for me - by giving more context:

The journey commences from the heart, the pulsing center that unlocks the portals of growth and enlightenment. The heart is the inner guide, the real guru, on the journey to the Absolute.

Inner space journey

Imagine you must command a manned spaceship taking off from Earth next week. 

• What physical and mental exercises would you do to get ready?
• What would you study for the mission in this week?
• What would you prioritise?
• If you are not sure of your return, what would you do to wrap up your life here?
• How would you check your preparations, however minimal they may be?

Going inward is similar in many ways. But there are huge differences, and some similarities:

• You have to restart using disused abilities. The sooner the better. You cannot go inward only by looking at or doing outward things.
• Mental srength and muscles build by going ever deeper and deeper inward
• But relinquish more and more outward - bodybuilding - stuff to go to subtler inner levels
• Yet, mens sana in corpore sano, your mental and physical instruments must function efficiently
• Ultimately, you have to let go of everything you know in order to become that which underlies not only you, but every living being in the universe
• If you cannot let go of "you", you cannot go to the subtlest level - as simple as that
• Everyone came - manifested - from the subtlest level, everyone can go back
• They simply must have interest in doing so
• There are many fellow inward travellers at various levels of subtlety
• You will be helped in ways you cannot imagine now
• You will, in turn, help others similarly
• This is a cooperative journey for all humans - keep good logs and share them
• Time is not a concern. If you let go immediately and sufficiently, you will reach the subtlest level right away.
• Staying at the subtler levels is a problem. Your instruments are not used to turning the other way.
• "Work as if you have all the time in the world, but none to waste"

NOTES

[1] Tip of the hat to Isaac Asimov's Fantastic Voyage.