Dhyana Vahini - Post 14

Chapter V

 

Swami continues,

 

Take it step by step

 

“The lower step can be seen from the higher step, not the higher step from the lower. So, one should strive to go step by step, higher and higher — in other words, from the culture of the Atma to the culture of the will and thence to the culture of the moral conduct. Then, the enjoyment of the bliss of the Atma becomes quite easy and natural.

When the baby is unable to walk, the mother encourages it to toddle a few steps at a time at home before it is allowed to go on the road. Instead, if it is put on the high road first, how can it learn? Besides, what of the dangers of the road? 

So also, first the internal factors have to be strengthened, and then external factors, like moral conduct, become easy. Morals without the basis of internal uplift will not be deep-seated. So the cultivation of the attitude of the Atma is primary.

The aim of spiritual practice is to remove the motive, the wish, the attachment, the yearning for the fruit. Understanding this clearly, the spiritual aspirant must not give way to any dispiritedness, despondency, or feeling of failure or doubt. The aspirant must be patient and bear things with fortitude. 

Therefore, the aspirant must develop within themself enthusiasm, faith, activity, and joy. Keeping the great big result of effort constantly in view, the aspirant must boldly discard all difficulties and temptations. Since the latter are but short-lived and weak, with a little patience, they can be overcome with ease. If the aspirant is not vigilant and patient, all already-achieved success will melt away in an unguarded moment.

Spiritual aspirants, yogis, and renunciants (sanyasins) have to climb a ladder, the steps of which are: argumentation, no argumentation, analysis, non-analysis, agreement, etc. (sa-vitharka, nir-vitharka, sa-vichara, nir- vichara, samatha, etc.)

 

Introspection

 

A realized yogi writes on the above ladder, thus:

SAVITARKA SAMADHI

Concentration in which the options of word, meaning and understanding are confused is called Savitarka Samadhi or the Samadhi with argumentation.

If you concentrate and meditate on the gross objects, on their nature and in relation to time and space, it is Savitarka Samadhi (Samadhi with argumentation). It is Sthula Dhyana. You will get control over the object. You will acquire full knowledge of the object.

The 'cow ' as a word, the 'cow' as an object and the 'cow' as an idea, though different from one another, are cognised as indistinct. You begin to analyse. The characteristics of the word are different; the characteristics of the idea are different; and the characteristics of the object are also different. Everything has a name which has some meaning. 

When the mind apprehends a word and meditates on its meaning and form as well as on the understanding of both, and thus lose itself in the thing completely, it is called Savitarka Samadhi. 

NIRVITHARKA SAMADHI

Nir means “without”: nirvitarka samadhi refers to the state in which the mental alternations of shabda, artha, and jñana are suspended. The less-real components, shabda and jñana, fall away completely, while the mind is absorbed in only artha, or form, and loses its awareness of being the knower. 

SAVICHARA AND NIRVICHARA SAMADHI

The state of samadhi concerned with subtle objects extends up to Prakriti, the source of all manifestation.” In the nirvitarka example (meditation on the guru), the yogini’s mind penetrated to the subtle or tanmatric level of her object of meditation. But when the mind becomes immersed in this subtle level of the object thus revealed, and then begins to more fully explore that subtle object (as in the nada yoga example), this is savichara samadhi.

In nirvichara samadhi sattva guna alone is active. Tamas guna is suppressed, resulting in the inactivation of memory and any cognition of subtle form; and rajas guna is also suppressed, which stops the fluctuations in the mind’s cognitive process. For the first time true one-pointed concentration, the sattvic state of ekagara chitta, becomes possible. Even subtle thoughts do not occur.

SAMATHA

Samatha is a form of meditation practice that builds tranquility and calmness of mind. 

With samatha, one develops the ability to calm the mind and rest in a state of increased ease. This gives one the ability to practice mindfulness and see the experience without reacting so strongly. When thoughts and other experiences arise, he can observe them with a patient awareness and develop some insight. Samatha is a necessary practice to develop a calm mind that can cultivate insight and wisdom.

 

Swami writes,

 

Clean and feed the mind

 

Just as soap is necessary to make this external body clean, repetition of the divine name, meditation, and remembrance (smarana) are needed to clean the interior mind. Just as food and drink are needed to keep the body strong, contemplation of the Lord and meditation on the Atma are needed to strengthen the mind. Without this food and drink, the mind will just totter this way and that. As long as the waves are agitating the top, the bottom cannot be seen. When the waves of desire agitate the waters of the mind, how can one see the base, the Atma? The tottering causes the waves and is caused by want of food and drink.

So, clean the mind with contemplation of the Lord. Feed it with meditation on the Atma. Only meditation and spiritual practice (sadhana) can clean the depths of the mind and give it strength. Without purity and strength, the Atma recedes into the distance and peace flees.

 

Introspection

 

Here, Swami instructs for a combination of Dhyana and Bhakti.

Swami’s words is extremely relevant in this context where He writes, “clean the mind with contemplation of the Lord. Feed it with meditation on the Atma”.

For the single pointed meditation, for converging the mind on the object of meditation, Swami prescribes the dosage of Upasana and asks us to clean the mind with the contemplation of the Lord.

Rare indeed is a sadhaka who can directly take off in his dhyana / meditation on the “abstract” Atman or SELF in the very beginning itself. For “ cleaning the mind”, i.e., for stopping the mind from wandering to “ unclean” ideas and thoughts, contemplation on Lord through various modes of Japa, Sankirtana etc. is prescribed so that the mind is intensely focused on the Lord with form and at this stage, slowly, gradually, evolving to Dhyana or meditation on “ SELF” is possible.

 

Love.

 

Dhyana Vahini - Post 13

Chapter V

Swami writes,

 

"The contemplation of the Lord must proceed in union with the dharmic life. This type of life has no need for status, scholarship, or vanity. The latter only lead people astray. It is only through this life that the mind and the intellect can be controlled, the knowledge (vidya) of Atma cultivated, and the will sublimated.

A good character is essential for the realization of the Atma. In other words, all evil propensities have to be uprooted. Just as the army becomes dispirited and surrenders when the commander falls, so the army of evil qualities will surrender its arms as soon as egotism (ahamkara) is destroyed. 

The evil qualities are all natives of the realm of anger, so if that region is devastated, the soldiers can never again raise their heads. It is enough to accomplish this alone, for what can commander Egotism achieve without a single soldier to march under his orders? 

So, all efforts must be directed to destroy the realm of anger so that no commander can venture to let loose the hounds of war. Let each spiritual aspirant preserve the region of his mind in peace, by putting a stop to the rise of this commander and these soldiers. Let each spiritual aspirant bask forever under the smile of the ruler, the Atma.”

 

The eight gates

The destruction of the modifications and agitations of the mind is the prerequisite for getting an audience with that ruler. His reception hall has eight gates through which one has to pass for the audience: control of the inner senses, control of the outer senses, sitting posture, breath control, mind control, concentration, meditation, and super-consciousness (yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, prathyahara, dharana, dhyana, and samadhi).

Of these eight gates, meditation is the seventh and super-consciousness is the eighth. Meditation is the royal road to super-consciousness.

After the mind has been brought under control by these eight disciplines, the will can easily be developed. The will is the nature of the Lord; it is also referred to as the Lord’s ordinance. The Lord, by mere willing, can do anything immediately and easily. 

But one cannot realize this will as soon as it is entertained. The power of the will is the deciding factor. The will is generally not so overpoweringly strong; when one achieves that power, one gets something equal to the power of the Lord. That is the meaning of merger (laya). Such merger is made possible through meditation (dhyana).

 

Introspection

A yogi writes,

Dhyana [meditation] is the unbroken flow of awareness [ekatanata] of that [desha or object]. 

Ekatanata can also mean the unbroken extension or movement along something–in this case the subtle stream of Om. Meditation is the unbroken experience-awareness-movement within the subtle sound-mutations of Om. 

Meditation is continuity of the experience of the meditation-object in that are, a stream of identical vrittis [waves, modifications] untouched by any other vritti,” says Vyasa. 

To induce meditation we produce a stream of identical waves in the chitta by the mental intonations of Om until that stream becomes a continuous unitary flow of increasingly rarefied sound, a single object or wave that is “untouched” by any other thought or impression. 

Meditation (dhyana) is “a stream of identical vrittis as a unity, a continuity of vrittis not disturbed by intrusion of differing or opposing vrittis. This is dhyana.” So says Shankara. And He contrasts the beginning stage of meditation, dharana, with dhyana, saying: “Whereas in dharana there may be other impressions of peripheral thoughts even though the chitta has been settled on the object of meditation alone–for the chitta is functioning on the location [desha] as a pure mental process–it is not so with dhyana, for there it [the object of meditation] is only the stream of a single vritti untouched by any other vritti of a different kind.”

And How Such Dhyana leads to Samadhi

“The same [i.e. dhyana] when there is consciousness only of the object of meditation and not of itself [the chitta] is samadhi.” This sutra is extremely difficult to translate. It can also be put: “When that object of meditation alone appears therein in its true or essential form [swarupa] as shunyam [empty or void of all else, as a single thing alone], that is samadhi.”

Vyasa comments on it in this way: “Dhyana, when it comes to shine forth in the form of the meditation object alone, apparently empty of [or beyond] its own nature as a vritti, and [the meditator] having entered the being of the meditation object and become it–that is samadhi.”

Sankara’s expansion on this statement of Vyasa makes it clear that meditation is being spoken of: “Meditation, consisting of the idea-stream, having apparently given up being a stream of one idea [vritti], is radiant as the form of the object, just as a clear crystal shines out as the material on which it has been placed, and is apparently empty of its own nature, and when, ‘having entered the being of the meditation object,’ that being the cause of the thought [vritti], ‘becomes it,’ that very dhyana is samadhi.” 

That is, when the idea-stream of the repetitions of Om ceases to be a stream or movement and becomes the shining of the pure consciousness of the self (spirit), seemingly having become “empty of its own nature”–but only apparently so, for consciousness is the essential nature of all being–including God. And when the meditator has “entered the being of” Brahman and become It…that is samadhi. Sankara then concludes that meditation is “the method whereby what was a stream of ideas becomes, from entering the being of the meditation object, the very form of that object.”

When all other possible objects of awareness are excluded and the object of meditation is perceived in its essential form absolutely devoid of any connotations or even its nature as an object to be perceived–when it has become a “no thing” through absolute oneness with the meditator–that is samadhi, the culmination of meditation. Samadhi means oneness or sameness, the state when the meditator, object of meditation, and meditation have become ONE.

 

Introspection

This is the same as taught to seekers on the line “Aham Bhojanam Naiva Bhojyam na Bhokta” in the nirvana shatakam sessions.

Also,for the one who have carefully followed and absorbed to Attraction to Atma nivadanam series of talks, this is the same as focussing on Krishna, all other objects merging in Sri Krishna, with Krishna merging in the Devotee or Devotee merging in Krishna, elaborately dealt in the talks in the backdrop of the song  “Sai Aum Sai Aum Sai Aum - especially on the line Nayan Nayan me Sai Aum”

Swami continues,

Wish versus will

Some people use “wish” and “will” as if there was no difference between the two. This is very wrong. The wish is related to the tendencies (vasanas) embedded in the mind (manas). The will is related to the fundamental character of Atma. Wish means the craving to get something; will is the determination to acquire it.

Both wish and will are based on the moral culture of the individual. Once the Atma is cultivated, they can be sublimated accordingly. But if they are cultivated without the Atmic point of view, the faults and failings of the mind will get mixed up with what is wished for and willed for.

 

Introspection

After devoting 4 talks on Karma theme, it would be enough to cover the above invaluable lesson imparted by Swami in one line - WISH is Play of mind and WILL is intense Purushartha, pointed towards one single goal- SELF REALIZATION.

 

Love.

 

 

Dhyana Vahini - Post 12

Chapter V

People are engaged in various forms of cultivation, but the most important of these is cultivation of spiritual experiences. All cultivation is based on spiritual cultivation. It is the king of cultures. 

The king makes laws, but he is above and beyond them. So too, all rules and laws, all distinctions of right and wrong, of sin and virtue, of joy and sorrow affect only the individual soul (jivi) that attaches importance to the inexperienced mind (manas) and intellect (buddhi) and not to the Atma. 

So, cultivation of the Atmic experience, which is pure, convincing, and self-transcending, is essential for all. It is also easy, for the Atma is as the mother of all, and hearkening to the Atma is like the child hearkening to the mother. Everyone is competent to have that experience; in fact, it is everyone’s right to have it. That is why the Atmic discipline is being treated by me as so important.

The primary qualifications

The Atma is also known as Brahman, so learning the Atmic knowledge or Brahman knowledge (Atma vidya) is to be considered as the objective by every student.

Such students have to earn some primary qualifications. Then only do they deserve the status of studentship. These qualifications are: discrimination (viveka), renunciation (vairagya), and the six qualities that constitute a good character. Aspirants who have these qualifications can hope to attain the Atma with confidence and without much difficulty.

 

Introspection by a devotee

We have had couple of dedicated sessions/satsangh exclusively dealing with these 6 qualifications that Swami has mentioned here - Sadhana Chatushtaya!!

The same are explained in many posts under different theme in the blog. Readers may search with “sadhana chatushtaya” and they would be able to go through commentary on these 4 virtues/ primary qualifications.

 

Lead a dharmic life

The highest Atma (Paramatma) has six chief characteristics: 

1.     Complete wisdom (jnana), 

2.     Complete renunciation (vairagya), 

3. Divine beauty, the fullest splendour of power (Aiswarya), undiminished fame, and inexhaustible fortune. 

4.     His nature is full existence (sat), 

5.     Full knowledge (chit)

6.     Full bliss (ananda). 

These are also related to people through the Atma in them. So all humanity has a right to realize and enjoy these characteristics and this nature. That is its ordained duty. The travail of the world today is due to people not performing this ordained duty.

In daily life, the common person acts quite contrary to the dictates of the dharma of the householder (grihastha). People do not follow the path laid down by the scriptures (sastras) and by the law texts of Manu (Manusmrithi). 

They do not have an iota of truthfulness in them. Truth is the most holy virtue. So, leading a primitive type of life, people lose courage at the slightest upset and give up the adventure of life. People develop a kind of pseudo-renunciation. 

If only they would enter upon the householder’s life with the attitude of performing their duty, they would not need to run away from it and seek caves and forests for escape. Each can realize the Lord in their assignment of duty, in their dharmic life.

Introspection by a devotee 

Those who have been into sessions for many years, may actually wonder as to how Swami is writing/ speaking the same lines as their Preceptor who has been giving sessions for the last 10 years.

They have been taught of their dharma in various ashramas in which human beings exist at different phases of life and since most of them are in Grahastha ashrama, they have been taught very well on their dharma as householder and not once have they been told/ taught/ persuaded to leave any of their duties as householder. 

It is a total misapprehension that evolving spiritually, getting intensely into spiritual sadhana will take an aspirant away from his relations, his kith and kin , develop a detachment against those with whom the aspirant has to live in this world as a Grahastha.

In fact, proper understanding of one’s dharma, keeping all dharma within the over all, single dharma which is Atma Dharma leads one to practice total love with total detachment. Love and Detachment being apparently contradictory terms, it is difficult to understand as to how to practice love with detachment, unless one really evolves spiritually and experiences this “Love with detachment” without any deliberate efforts for the same.

 

Love.