Dhyana Vahini - Post 37

Chapter XIII

Cultivate good habits before concentration

Form (rupa) is fundamental for concentration and meditation. Even in the absence of the form in front of you, you should have the capacity to visualize it. This is not so difficult for those whose concentration is correct. But some practise concentration without first cultivating good habits and right conduct. 

That is a sign of incomplete knowledge. Concentration must have the pure qualities (sathwa-gunas) as the basis. The mind has to be purified by proper treatment of the character through good habits. Concentration must follow this purification process, not precede it. All effort for concentration without cleansing the mind is a sheer waste of time. Many great men have ruined their careers by aspiring early for concentration, without the discipline of good habits.

Make slow but steady progress

Again, in concentration you must be careful not to have as the object something your mind does not like, for however hard you try, your mind will not stay on it. Therefore, in the beginning, have some object that is a source of joy.

Sit in the lotus (padmasana) pose and fix your eyes on the tip of your nose. In the beginning, for a minute; then for three minutes; some days later, for six; and after some time, for as long as nine minutes. Thus, the concentration must be strengthened gradually, without undue hurry. In this way, it can be held for even half an hour, with the lapse of time. But do not force the pace. Slowly and steadily, the discipline must be developed.

With practice, the mind will get fixed, and the power of concentration will increase. To attain concentration and acquire one-pointedness, you must undergo exertion to some extent. You must fasten your mind on the Lord and keep off all other thoughts from the mental plane. By constant exercise of this type, your vision will be firmly fixed on the Lord residing in your heart. That is, verily, the goal, the full fruition of meditation.

Concentration, according to yoga scriptures, is the fixing of the mind on one object, without any deviation. Concentration alone can make meditation successful. Its very nature is one-pointedness; its power will negate hesitation. It is caused by spiritual bliss. The name is essential for meditation, for that alone can ensure quick success. Even if complete faith is not forthcoming quickly, the practice must not be given up or changed, for practice will certainly yield victory. Meditation is spiritual strength, the strength that will keep off the disease of worldliness (samsara).

Introspection

A follower of Paramahamsa Yogananda writes, 

Concentration Is Everything

The mind, in meditation must be so perfectly still that not a ripple of thought enters it. God, the Subtlest Reality, cannot be perceived except in utter silence.

Perfect peace requires perfect stillness of mind, just as the surface of a mountain lake requires complete calm if it is to reflect the sky. Only in deep concentration can you discover the hidden depths of your spiritual nature. 

Fortunately, concentration is like a muscle — the more you exercise it, the stronger it becomes. To increase your ability to concentrate, strive to make each meditation deeper than the one before. When you meditate with this kind of intensity, you will find your practice helped tremendously.

Simple techniques can help you concentrate more deeply

Knowing how important concentration is, people sometimes become discouraged over their inability to hold their minds steady in meditation. 

We need to realize, however, that completely quieting the mind is the goal of meditation, and not something we will necessarily experience right away. 

No one expects to master the guitar the first time he plays, and this is true for meditation, whose very mastery reveals Infinity to us. 

For countless lives we have allowed our minds to run free and undisciplined, like unruly children. How do badly behaved children act when you try to discipline them? They rebel, just as the mind does when we first try to meditate. 

So, we shouldn’t feel surprised if we experience a sense of restlessness or rebelliousness in the beginning. Our mind, however, will learn to behave — just like children do — once it realizes we’re serious.

Meditation Tips for Concentration

Swami Kriyananda offers the following suggestions on concentration from his book, Rays of the One Light:

The devotee, to protect the candle flame of his concentration from the gusts of restlessness, must try to banish from his mind all images, all worldly scenes, the words of others, the remembered episodes in his life, all thought of physical pleasures, his plans for the future. Nothing must tempt him to stray from his fixed purpose while his soul calls to God.

To protect his concentration from sensory invasion, he must first control his response to outward stimuli. He should train his will not to respond to sensations of heat or cold, comfort or discomfort, restlessness, or fatigue.

With a little discipline of the body at the beginning of meditation, and with the strong determination not to move or fidget about, the body’s demands will grow weaker. After even five minutes of this discipline, one may find it easy to sit for a long period without even wanting to move.

Most of the difficulty encountered in meditation is due to physical tension. Once tension is removed by the practice of deep relaxation, one finds meditation itself becoming increasingly enjoyable.

Again, with a little mental self-discipline at the beginning of meditation, one finds it increasingly easy to remain without thought.

Tell your mind firmly the moment you become settled on your seat to meditate, “This is my time for God.” If restless thoughts try insistently to engage your attention, reassure them, “We’ll discuss these things later!”

Love.

 

Dhyana Vahini - Post 36

Chapter XIII

 

The inert mind reflects the intelligence

Of course, the mind is inert (jada). Just as when water, inert matter, begins to shine when it is placed in the sun, the inert mind borrows effulgence from the Atma and appears as if it has consciousness (chaithanya). 

The intellect (buddhi) gets reflected in the mind, so it looks as if the mind is also intelligent, that is all. Its real nature is ignorance. The mind is not self-effulgent, like the Atma. The mind’s splendor is as the luminousness of insects in the rainy season. The Atma, however, is the sun of suns, the effulgence of all effulgence, the Supreme Light (Paramjyothi), the self-effulgent (swayam-jyothi).

Introspection

The essence of Drk Drsya Viveka has been captured in the above part written by Swami.

We learnt from the DDV session (available in YouTube channel) about the sequence of the seer and seen, starting from the grossest level and reaching to the subtlest level, as under.

Seer	Seen
Senses	Outer objects
Mind	Senses
Intellect	Mind
Atma (Consciousness)	Intellect

And Swami concludes with the line “The mind is not self-effulgent, like the Atma. The mind’s splendor is as the luminousness of insects in the rainy season. The Atma, however, is the sun of suns, the effulgence of all effulgence, the Supreme Light (Paramjyothi), the self-effulgent (swayam-jyothi).”

Swami continues,

Control the senses as well as the mind

The senses can do nothing by themselves. They are not independent. If the mind is brought under control, the senses can also be controlled. Some people undergo mere asceticism of the senses to control the mind! They are ignorant of the real discipline that is necessary. The real discipline is the destruction of desire.

However vigilant warders may be, a clever robber can still steal in a hundred amazing ways. So too, however skillfully you may try to control the senses, the mind will drag them to its side and execute its desires through them. Note how the sage Viswamitra, inspite of his austerities, fell before the wiles of the celestial nymphs (apsaras) sent by Indra to tempt him.

If only the outer door is closed and the inner door is left unbolted, calamity is certain. But if both the exterior and the interior doors are safely bolted, you can sleep peacefully, for no thief, however clever, will find it easy to enter and do harm. 

Therefore, the aspirant should establish mastery over the external senses. Then, the mind, immersed in the continuous succession of subject-object (vishaya) relationship, must be controlled by means of peace (santhi) and renunciation (vairagya). When that is done, one can experience real spiritual bliss (ananda) and visualize the Atma, in its real form. That is why Krishna once told Arjuna, “Those who aspire to have mastery over the senses must have full faith in Me.”

The senses are always extrovert in nature; they are greedy for external contacts. Therefore, they drag the ignorant perpetually toward external objects. So, the spiritual aspirant, endowed with discrimination and renunciation, must place obstacles in their outward path and suppress their outbursts, just as the charioteer, wielding the whip and the reins, does to the raging steeds. Uncontrolled senses cause great harm. People in their grip cannot engage themselves in meditation, even for a single second.

Introspection

A Monk of Rama Krishna Mission recounts the interaction of Thakur with disciples with respect to mind control, thus: -

“Devotees would often come to Sri Ramakrishna and unburden to him the contradictory feelings arising in their minds. They would say that the mind constantly swung from one extreme to another, from good to bad, with apparently no control or restraint whatsoever. 

In fact, this is the exasperation which Arjuna expressed to Sri Krishna: “The mind verily is, O Krishna, restless, turbulent, strong and obstinate. I deem it as hard to control as the wind.” (चञ्चलं हि मनः कृष्ण प्रमाथि बलवद्दृढम्। तस्याहं निग्रहं मन्ये वायोरिव सुदुष्करम् ।।Gita 6.34।।).

Sri Ramakrishna would console the devotees by stating that such inconsistencies and contradictions are part of God’s creation. He would say that God has created the world in a certain fashion, and one might notice that there are trees that bear sweet fruits and trees that bear sour fruits as well.

Thus, he would tell them that the world in its very nature is full of contradictions. Since we are the creations of God, we also experience such dramatically opposite feelings in our mind. 

He would then say, “But just as it is up to the people to reject the sour fruits and eat the sweet fruits only, it is up to the individual to control one’s mind through a proper and well-regulated method of spiritual striving.”

In fact, Sri Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita supported Arjuna’s view and said, “Doubtless, O mighty armed, the mind is restless and hard to control; but by practice and non-attachment, O son of Kunti, it can be controlled.” (असंशयं महाबाहो मनो दुर्निग्रहं चलं। अभ्यासेन तु कौन्तेय वैराग्येण च गृह्यते ।।Gita 6.35।।)

It is only by intense and relentless practice along with a certain degree of dispassion it is possible to bring under control the restless mind and go forward in our spiritual journey. 

One should be extremely alert and constantly discriminate between right and wrong or good and bad. God’s creation is so baffling that sometimes bad things appear alluring and attractive. Eternal vigilance is the price for spiritual progress.”

 

Love.

 

Dhyana Vahini - Post 35

Chapter XIII

Developing One-pointedness

The wayward mind wanders hither and thither,

but it is possible to fasten it on one fixed point by means of steady discipline and persistent training in spiritual discipline. This condition is called one-pointedness (ekagratha). It is also referred to as single-mindedness (dharana). The uninterrupted flow of oil from one vessel to another is a fine symbol of the mental process called single-mindedness.

For novices in spiritual practice, concentration appears to be very difficult to attain because, after some progress is won, they do not usually keep up the practice. Instead, they give it up; even though they do not have peace of mind on days when they desist from spiritual practice.

Concentration endows one with divine joy, wisdom beyond measure, inner vision, insight into the deeper truths, clearer understanding, and unison with the Godhead. This science of spiritual discipline (sadhana) is more wonderful than the three worlds!

Monkey meditation: harmful to spiritual progress

The mind plans and executes innumerable deeds and roams over vast expanses, all in the twinkling of an eye! It operates with unimaginable speed. It conceives an object and dallies with it a little, but it soon discards it for another more attractive object toward which it flees and about which it begins to worry!

The spiritual aspirant has to be ever watchful of this tendency of the mind. When the mind flits from object to object, it must be brought back to the right path and the right object. That is the correct spiritual practice, the path of concentration and meditation. 

If, however, the aspirant does not struggle to achieve this one-pointedness but leaves the mind to itself, following its vagaries from this to that and that to this, the process deserves to be called monkey-meditation (markata dhyana) — a type of meditation that is indeed very harmful to spiritual progress.

 

Force the mind to be one-pointed

In short, the chief purpose of concentration and meditation is to minimize the travels of the mind and force it to stay in one place. Holding it on that fixed stage, one should continue the spiritual practice for a long time. Then there is no limit to the peace and joy that one can have. 

For example, when you meditate on a table, your thoughts dwell on the wood, the size and measurements, the style, the mode of manufacture, etc. No other thought pertaining to anything else should be allowed. If the thought hovers round a cot, the idea of a table becomes hazy, and the cot is also imagined incompletely. Both get confused. 

The state of mind must be single pointed. So too, when the Lord’s form is meditated upon, the mind must dwell upon the form of each part and its beauty and splendor, and these ideas must be coordinated and combined into the complete picture.

That is the modus operandi of meditation. Persistent performance of this meditation will result in the emergence of a particular form. Contemplating on that form, looking at it and seeing it for days and days, finally a stage will be reached when the form will disappear, and you will forget yourself. That is the super-conscious (samadhi) stage. 

In that stage, if one feeling or ideation alone persists, it is called the superconscious state with ideation (savikalpa-samadhi). If no feeling or thought persists, it becomes what Patanjali, in the text on raja-yoga (Rajayoga-sastra), designated as the end of ideation (bhava-nasana).

While doing meditation, the mind should not be allowed to wander away from the target. Whenever it flies off at a tangent, it must be led back to the form meditated upon. 

Finally, if you so desire, all things can be subsumed in that form itself. Nevertheless, only one form must be meditated upon in the beginning. You should not change daily from one to another. Again, during the spiritual practice, you should not indulge in thoughts about things you do not like, that cause pain, or that shake your faith. If any such peep in, learn gradually to welcome them as beneficial and seek to grasp the good in them, instead of the bad.

Introspection

Swami has elaborately dealt with “single pointedness” in meditation, in today’s post.

Whether it is Bhakti Marga or Dhyana/Jnana Marga, this is the stage after which the real meditation takes off.

Mind runs into 1000 different thoughts because of the factors that influence our mind, broadly understood as our vasanas or deep rooted impressions and our attachment (Raga or Dvesha, Positive or negative attachment).

That is why, in all path, at the initial stages, an object is given as our goal, whether it is the enchanting form of Krishna in path of devotion or it is Jyothi or light, in the path of Jnana or any other object. 

The purpose of setting an object as the focus is to gather our mind, withdraw our mind from 1000s of thoughts and to bring our mind to one single thought on the single object set before us as the object of our meditation.

This is the intermediate stage in meditation process and only after the single pointed devotion is achieved, the real dhyana, the real experience in meditation begins to unfold itself.

Swami Rama has clearly given the difference between Dharana (Single pointed meditation) and Dhyana ( the real expansion that takes place once Dharana is achieved. 

He says,

“There is difference in dhyana and dharana. Dharana means making mind one pointed. Dhyana means expanding that one-pointed mind to Universality. Dhyana is expansion. Dharana is narrowing down. 

When all the waves of the ocean are swallowed by one wave that is called Dharana. You see. When there are no desires, no thoughts disturbing your one thought, which is thought of determination, that is called dhyana. Dhyana means expansion. That expansion should lead you to the Eternal, that leads you to samadhi.”

 

Love.

 

Dhyana Vahini - Post 34

Chapter XII

Master the wayward mind through meditation

Hence, one should first grasp clearly the habits and mannerisms of one’s mind and its tendencies and attitudes. Then only can one control it, gain mastery over it, and purify and develop memory, will, and imagination.

Waywardness is the natural characteristic of the mind. It is like the wind. That is why Arjuna described it to Krishna thus:

Oh Krishna, the mind is very wayward.

It moves very fast.

It is very powerful.

It is very difficult to bring it under control.

Chanchalam hi manah Krishna Pramaathi balavath dhridham

Thasyaaham nigraham manye Vaayoriva sudhushkaram.

Krishna replied, “Arjuna, no doubt what you said is correct. But by uninterrupted attention and discipline, and by the practice of renunciation, it is possible to control it. Hence, practise meditation as a first step.”

Introspection

A Question answer session with Swami Krishnananda ji answering to questions related to “renunciation” is worth going through.

Visitor: What place does renunciation have in the holy life – in this meditation that you have been speaking about?

Swamiji: What is your question?

Visitor: What place does renunciation have in the meditative process of realising one's true Self?

Swamiji: Can you tell me what your idea of renunciation is? What does it mean, actually?

Visitor: To be more interested in realising what is true, and one's true Self, than anything else in life.

Swamiji: No. If you are interested in realising your Self, you are saying that you are going to renounce something. Isn't it?

Visitor: I think that is the result of being more interested in it.

Swamiji: What are you going to renounce? What are the things that you would like to renounce for this purpose?

Visitor: It might be old ways of being, old ways of thinking, old ways of interacting with people, old ways of understanding things.

Swamiji: That is all right. But, actually, renunciation means renunciation of all the desires that are connected with the world of perception. Have you desires connected with this world? If they can be renounced, you have attained perfection. Old ways of thinking, and other things you mentioned to me just now – actually, the old way of thinking is the way of desiring things in the world.

Visitor: Yes.

Swamiji: And, if that can be overcome, and if you desire the Self only, and desire nothing external to the Self, you have renounced, really. Renunciation is not abandoning objects of the world, persons and things – but the longing for them. Now, many people are seated here. 

Can you say, "I have renounced them"? The question does not arise, because you have no connection with them at all. Therefore, the question of renunciation, also, does not arise. Like that, if you have no concern with anything in the world, then the question of renunciation, also, will not arise.

Visitor: Yes.

Swamiji: If you have got concern with something, then the idea of renunciation, or not renunciation, arises. You are concerned with the Self, as you understand it correctly. And if there is nothing else that can interest you, then you have renounced perfectly, and you have done the best thing in the world. That is my answer.

Visitor: Thank you.

Visitor: I have another question, Swamiji, about transformation – how does transformation take place in time?

Swamiji: What kind of transformation?

Visitor: Of the personality, of the old way of being, the old way of seeing things, and understanding things to the new way of being more interested in the Self.

Swamiji: Transformation is actually a state of consciousness. When you are aware of something, consciousness envelops that thing, and it takes the shape of that particular thing, whether it is a human being, or any particular object of the world. And, you are transformed at that time into the form of the object which you are thinking in your mind. 

But, if the object does not exist for you, as you have concluded just now – they are not matters of concern for you – you have nothing to do with anything in the world, and then the consciousness transforms itself into its own true nature.

If you are not concerned with anything – you are seeing so many people here, but your mind is not transformed into the shape of these people, because the mind has no concern with them – it is a blank looking and seeing, without any emotional connection. 

If that emotional connection with things is withdrawn, and your concern is centralised in the Pure Self, you undergo a metaphysical transformation, as they call it – a transcendental transformation – transformation into a form of God Himself, 

I should say. Instead of your consciousness taking the shape of a thing that it cognises outside, in the form of objects, etc., the centralised consciousness, with no concern external in space and time, gets modified into the form of the Transcendent Being, which is God-consciousness. 

(In short, losing the body consciousness in meditation is the real renunciation, where, the one who is striving to renounce, is renounced. Renounce the renouncer!!!)

Swami continues,

Impulses and desires have to be suppressed in order to get mastery over the mind. Desires excite the mind and make it rush toward the senses, as a dog runs behind its master. The individual (jiva), poor thing, falls into the meshes of illusion (maya) produced by the illusion-creating senses and the pleasure-pursuing mind! 

To escape all this agony, one should have recourse to meditation, freed from the clutches of desires and slavery to the senses. Do repetition of the name and meditation. Then you can also cultivate and develop your will, memory, and imagination along proper lines. 

Without meditation, it is not possible to control and master the mind. All other methods are as useless as the attempt to bind a wild elephant in rut by means of a thin and tiny thread! Meditation is essential to immerse the mind in the Atma.

 

Love.