Saturday, July 13, 2013

(July 13,2013) Sitting for Meditation

Sitting for Meditation
Divine Life Society Publication: A Brief Outline of Sadhana by Swami Krishnananda

The conflict which is characteristic of life is due to the apparent irreconcilability obtaining, as it were, among the subjective side known as the adhyatma, the objective side known as the adhibhauta, and the transcendent side known as the adhidaiva. In ordinary language, we may say that this is the conflict among the principles of God, world and soul, whose internal relationship is never clear to anyone’s mind.

The very existence of the adhyatma or the subjective side, and the adhibhauta or the objective side, is determined and transcended by a superior inter­connecting divine principle known as adhidaiva. The adhidaiva is not a third principle apart from the adhyatma and the adhibhauta. It does not mean that the god is sitting far away from ourselves and from the world, because the principle of divinity we call God, the transcendent element, is hiddenly present on both the sides of expe­rience – the subjective adhyatma and the objective adhibhauta – in such a manner that in bringing about an organic connection between the two terms, the subjective and the objective, the individual and the world, it not only constitutes the very stuff of the world and the stuff of the individual, but ranges far above both these principles.

God is in us, and also not in us. He is in us, because He is the Self of our being; He is not in us, because He is transcendent to both ourselves and the world. A comparative illustration, as I mentioned, is the ocean and the drops. The ocean is not the drops, but the ocean is the drops.

The withdrawal of consciousness from the externalized self, and bringing it back to the internalized self, is the first step in the raising of the self by the Self. The cause raises the effect into itself. How would we achieve this? It is by a logical application of sensible understanding that we cannot be other than what we are. This discrim­inative understanding should help us in centering the consciousness in the cause, rather than in the effect that is the object of concentration. Then we withdraw our consciousness from the world into ourselves, and then also raise ourselves from our personality to the adhidaiva principle, the transcendent Creative Principle.

The whole is the action of God. “I have done all the things myself. You be an instrument.” (Gita 11.33). The total action, which is the action of God, is the principle that operates in our endeavor to raise the internal self to the Universal Self. Therefore, in this meditational exercise of the rising to the transcendental conscious­ness above internal consciousness, activity of the ordinary kind ceases completely. This is an actionless action.

The objects appear to be very important. That is the first stage of human involvement in the world. Higher than the objects are the perceptional faculties, the sense organs. What we call the object is not a solid substance. It is a form that has been assumed by the mind when certain concentrated parts of space and time are cast into the mould of the mind itself. The senses, therefore, are superior to the objects; superior to the senses is the mind. Beyond the mind is the reason, or the buddhi. Beyond the reason or the buddhi is the Cosmic Intellect, then the supreme cause of the universe, called Mulaprakriti  and then the Absolute Being. Beyond that supreme state, nothing is. It is the final goal of everything.

In the exercise called spiritual practice, first of all, there should be time for us to sit and pray and meditate.

Vasishtha, a great sage, speaks to Rama in the Yoga Vasishtha: Control of the mind being very difficult, do not jump into the highest peak of it at once. Give one sixteenth of your mind to God, and the rest to the world and the business of life. The mind will not feel disturbed by this, because the lion’s share has come to it and you have given only a little bit to God. It doesn’t matter; even that is good enough.

This prescription of Vasishtha is to see that the mind is not disturbed by any kind of renunciation activity. You should not reject anything. You must go so slowly that you do not know what is actually happening. After some time, give two six­teenths to God, and the balance to the world. Like that, go on increasing the proportion you give to God more and more, and less and less to the world, until a day will come when your absorption in God-consciousness will bring you such satisfaction that you need not go to the objects of the world for secondary satisfaction.

The time for meditation is not any particular hour of the day. It is that time when you are really relaxed, free from any kind of occupation. The convenience of the mind is the time, not the clock time. So, it is the quality of the approach that is more important than the quantitative assessment of it. If possible, have the same place for meditation.  The place where you sit gets charged by the meditational effort, and if it is done every day, the spot on which you sit, together with the time during which you sit, join together and cooperate in bringing about concentration of the mind.

The third thing is the method – place, time, and method. Whatever method you are adopting in meditation, it should be continued every day. You should not dabble in different kinds of techniques – one day concentrating on the breath, another day on the trikuti, the third day on the heart, the fourth day on the Ishtadevata, and the fifth day on some Upanishadic passage. This should not be done. Whatever is condu­cive to help concentration of mind, that method is final.

The object of meditation should be finally chosen. It is the most dear thing for you. The Ishtadevata is the dearest thing that you can think in the mind. No object in the world can be regarded as the dearest, because every object is perishable. You infuse divinity into the concept of your deity, and feel its presence with great intensity of concentration. Since there is the immanence of God in everything, any point in space can be the object of meditation. If you touch a part of the wall of your building, you have touched the whole universe. People keep symbols for meditation in front of them – portraits, diagrams, mandalas, yantras, tantras, mantras, idols – as symbolic representation of a concentrated point of divinity in any particular spot. The world concentrates itself at every point of space. It converges even into an atom, and the whole energy of the universe can be seen present concentrated even inside an atom, as people have learnt today, to the disaster of mankind.

Just as when sunlight is focused through a lens it becomes very hot and is capable of burning objects, so this concentrated consciousness becomes very strong, and compels the universal forces to converge at one point. Thus, any god is good; any idol is good; any symbol, any portrait before your mind is good enough. Whatever you intensely concentrate and feel in your heart will materialize itself. The power of thought is such that it gets materialized into form by the intensity of the effect.

You raise the lower by the higher, and raise the higher by the highest. Raise the effect by the cause; raise the cause by the highest cause. Raise the outside by the inside; raise the inside by the universal. Meditation in the beginning is external, conceived as an object located somewhere in space and time of the world. Later it becomes internal, a point in the personality of one’s own self. It can be the heart center, or any kind of chakra, as people call it, or the center of the eyebrows. From the external concept you come to the internal concept; then you go to the universal concept, inclusive of both.

The world on one side and yourself on the other side – this is the epic of all the religions of the world. Conflict between yourself and the world outside is the war; this is the battle. This is the business of life. The conflict between oneself and the outer world is the transaction that is going on in markets, whether it is economics, financial, political, social, or whatever. Everything is a conflict between oneself and that which is not oneself. It is resolved only by an element which is above both the outer and the inner.

A hard job is this, as right from childhood you have been brought up in a false atmosphere of possessiveness, and intense likes and dislikes; and the old habit still continues. However much you may try to understand the Gita, and try to meditate, the idea of possession, property and relation will not leave a person.

The self-controlled mind’s wish is indestructible. When God thinks, it should take place. And God thinks through us, also; through the Self within us, it should take place. There should be no hesitation when you sit for meditation: “I have chosen the right path, I have chosen the right method of meditation, and I have also the correct perspective of it. The purpose of meditation is also clear to me. There is nothing wrong in the technique that I am adopting; therefore, I should achieve success.” Then, you will be successful.

All prosperity will follow you if the mind gets tuned up to the Cosmic Mind. Any music, any talk anywhere can be heard through the receiver set of your radio, provided the wavelength is tuned to the waves moving on the space, which are transcendent. Similar is the way that you can concentrate your mind on the Cosmic Mind. The Cosmic Mind raises the lower mind; just as the lower mind raises the world into itself, the lower mind is raised by the Cosmic Mind.

A simple thing is told a hundred times in the scriptures, in various ways. It is just a withdrawal from the outer to the inner, and a withdrawal from the inner to the universal (transcendent). The whole of sadhana is only this much. It is a simple thing, but it is a most difficult thing. The whole of spiritual practice is here. But adamant is the ego. It will not permit it. It will say, “No, this is not possible. I am not meant for it.” For this purpose, a daily hammering of the mind into this concentrated purpose should be done. A daily session of meditation is necessary.

Continue to read:
A Brief Outline of Sadhana by Swami Krishnananda

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