Articles for Saadhana

Harih Om Tat Sat. Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.

First of all, I would like you to understand that meditation is an exclusive inner practice. I think I feel like repeating this sentence atleast one hundred times. Whatever you do will not become meditation unless it is completely focused on your mind and intelligence which are inside the body we can say. Actually, they are not part of the physical body. The physical body is matter and energy and aggregate of both. All the matter and energy do not have anything like sentience; they are inert like steel, clay, aluminium, stone etc.

Our body consists of what - bone, skin, hair, water, blood; all these are matter. Like earth, water, air, energy like fire, we are hot also. Both matter and energy do not have any power to feel or sense. At the same time, we have feeling, sensing etc. It is not given to us by the body. It is given to us by the inner presence which functions as the mind and intelligence.

By meditation, what we are trying to bring about, not changes in the biological body, but changes in the inner personality of mind and intelligence. So meditation is always a mento-intellectual pursuit. Will you accept this and understand?

So in order to meditate, what therefore should first be done is keep the body still and not active. That is why we pick up an āsana and sit on it cross-legged, interlock our fingers, put them on the lap and try to be as erect as possible. Then close your eyes. You cannot close the ears and sound. Let it be open because one organ being open is good; it is necessary also.

In meditation, it is a mental intellectual practice. You should not use any other part. That is why pooja is not meditation, prayer is not meditation, āsana is not meditation, mudra is not meditation, prāṇāyāma is not meditation, yoga-kriyās are not meditation.

Meditation means the whole body should keep quiet. In my life, I have meditated sitting, I have meditated standing on my head, I have also meditated totally lying. I will put one foot over the other and I will put the palms like this. People will say they will sleep off, but I have never slept off. So in my instruction for meditation I always say sleep well and comfortably. When you have slept enough, where is the question of sleeping further?

When you are putting your body intact on the floor, but don’t lie on a bed, I would like you to lie on a mat or maximum a bedsheet folded two or three times, that’s all, not more than that, and do not have any pillow. It is called śavāsanā. It is an āsana just like that of a dead body. Then you get the whole of your mind. You don’t have to spend time and attention on keeping the body erect. And you will not also complain, “Swamiji, I am meditating and my head is drooping”. No, no, not at all!

After this, what will you do - you should apply your mind, apply your mind, apply your mind. So in Bhagavad Gita in the sixth chapter, the first part speaks about preparing an āsan, sitting there, keeping the body, neck and head erect, then looking at the tip of the nose. All these are physical disciplines. But in actual meditation, these are not necessary at all. Even in our Vedic life, there is no reference to āsana. We only have a wooden plank to be supporting our buttock, our feet will be on the floor and the āsana will be on the plank. That gives you a better pose and people go on chanting, chanting, chanting, chanting, chanting. So the Vedas chanted in their own specific form and tune that generally implies prāṇāyāma. They don’t have to practice it separately. When we recite poetry, one line of a poetry if you recite properly, a lot of breath has to be held.

Asti svastyayanam samasta-jagatām-abhyasta-lakshmī-stanam. See, unless you hold your breath you will not be able to chant.

Asti svastyayanam samasta-jagatām-abhyasta-lakshmī-stanam

Vastu dhvasta-rajas-tamobhir-aniśam nyastam, See, I lack breath now, purastād-iva.

So in chanting, you automatically get breath control. So prāṇāyāma is separately not necessary. And our voice is very close to the mind; letters and words cannot come out without mental application. Naturally conversely, the opposite of it is also true - through sound you can handle the mind. You chant the śloka properly - that means mind application, then listening to it - mind application, verifying the ucchāraṇa, the pronunciation - mind application, and associating the meaning.

When you pronounce the letters,

Brahma-pratyaya-santatir-jagadato brahmaiva tat-sarvataḥ

This one line if you chant 25 times, you will find all the mind control possible.

So in actual meditation, you take a physical pose and finish it. No more thought about the body. Then you enter into the mind arena, the mind quadrangle so to say. How will you enter? You can enter there only with a thought. That is why I say optional thought. You enter there through a thought; it is not a physical entry.

Whatever Nāma you have you chant or whatever mantra you have been given, you chant the mantra. And try to preserve the mantra like a little child on your palm. There should be no force; it should be a fascile process. Never use force. Chant, chant, chant, it is not chanting but revolving the mantra in your mind, revolving, revolving, revolving. When you start revolving, there may be distraction. Therein lies meditation. When distractions come, don’t fight with them, preserve your mantra. When it goes, preserve your mantra.

Suppose the distraction is very deliberate, then spend a little time with the distraction and argue within yourself, “Yes this is it, I shall come back to it. Leave me for the time being”. Spirituality says that meditation does not settle properly when you have three desires - One is bodily desire, then scriptural desire and worldly desire, deha vāsanā, śāstra vāsanā, loka vāsanā. So these three you should not have.

So when the distraction comes, try to identify it and then reassure yourself that these vāsanās are hindrance. So if you spend a little time on the hindrance, it will subside, then come back and start your own practice.

If you are able to keep your practice for 5 or 6 or 7 minutes, what I want to say you may not believe, your mind itself will stop, the chanting will stop. That is what we want. We want the chanting to stop - means what? There will be nothing in the mind. There will be no thought process at all. When that stage is reached, never question, never try to distract. Simply remain there. It is actually a sleep but within wakefulness. Sankara would put it this way:

Your vritti should be without any vikāra, change. But without vikāra, what should you do? Brahma vṛtti should be practised. When without disturbance, without distraction, Brahma vṛtti remains in your mind, that Brahma vṛtti itself will be vṛtti vismaraṇam, that Brahma vṛtti also will be dropped. So you get the mind to think in a certain manner, and that certain thinking remains for a while, no distraction, that also stops means the mind process itself stops. This is called samādhi. Samādhir-jñāna-samjñakaḥ.

It may remain for a while, how much you cannot say, because when the mind itself stops, thought process itself stops, you lose touch with time, place and personality. When you wake up, you can say how much if you look into the watch. Otherwise no method of saying at all. Can you say how much you have slept? It may be 5 minutes, 50 minutes, 500 minutes.

When the vṛtti vismaraṇa comes, never disturb it. When thought process comes, if you like to continue, you continue or get up. This vṛtti vismaraṇa state will generally increase. How long will it take and how long can you increase? After all, we are within, living within the fold of nature. So nature cannot put you to 10 hours, 15 hours, 20 hours, 100 hours of meditation. It will be a disruption for everybody. So you can get one hour, one-and-a-half hours, maximum two hours. One hour, anything above this way, plus or minus is okay. After that, it should be a life of wisdom, jñāna. What is that jñāna?

What happened to me? I was chanting out of my own option and will. The chanting stopped; there was total forgetfulness or disconnection. What happened to me? Who disconnected me? Where was I? What is the difference between the disconnected state and the connected one? Where did I go? When there are thoughts, I say there are thoughts. When there is no thought, what shall I say? ‘No thought’ is a negative description. What is a positive description? What is that judged on its own basis? To find an answer is your skill, discretion, astuteness, alertness etc. There are some people who remain like this for the whole janma and they are not able to discern it.

You are finding the very source of the mind and thought. When you find the source of the mind and thought, what do you mean? Is there anything further to know? You have to know that all other things are from this.

Brahma-pratyaya-santatir-jagadato brahmaiva tat-sarvataḥ.

The world which is born of Brahman, it is always Brāhmic, Brahman. If all your mind and thought processes have come from this source, then all the thought processes are nothing but this source - can you come to that conclusion? If you can, then have it and work on it. Then what is the goal? It is in Brahmavidya Abhyāsa (Book authored by Poojya Swamiji).

This akṛtrima ānanda, unartifical bliss will have to be practised, practised, practised, practised as much as you want, so long as you can, until at last you are able to reach there any time at will.

I am speaking to you. I stop speaking. When I stop speaking, do you know what happens to me? My whole body i.e. the perimeter of my biological personality, that whole body becomes luminous, vibrant, sensation-full. There is no difference between the eyes and nose and then the ear, the mouth, the hands, and the feet. It is just like an iron ball put into a furnace and completely heated, when it becomes heated what will happen to it? It will become red hot, fire itself. But what has become fire - the iron ball. Is the iron ball visible there? No. What is it now? It is virtually iron. Like that, the whole body will become luminous. There will be no thought of “There is the mind, there is the thought, this is disturbance, that is disturbance, thoughtful, thought-free”, no such discussion will be there.

Vaśyo yāvat-kṣaṇāt-pumsaḥ prayuktaḥ sambhavet-swayam ||

I don’t know why I say this; you have asked me so I say. I am a fool, that is why I say this.

So meditation will not become a protracted or a specially prepared effort. Anytime you can get into that original state, simply. Now this is the climax. Then what next? Sankara puts it this way:

Once you have gained this mastery, where the difference between the source of the mind and the mind, that difference loses itself, then even for half-a-second you won’t remain without Brahma-vritti like Yathā tiṣṭanti brahmādyāḥ sanakādyāḥ śukādayaḥ, Brahma and the others, Sanaka and the others, Suka and the others, three rows of people. My dear souls this is jñāna, Brahma jñāna. It is attained in this manner. To me all of you have come here only for this. But whether you try for it, try to understand it that way, practice it, try to evaluate yourself, verify yourself, and find out what are the obstacles to your wisdom.

Can you say ‘I am’, ‘I am’, ‘I am’, ‘I am’, ‘I am’, ‘I am that am-ness’, ‘I am that I-ness’, no matter what I do, what I speak, what I think, the ‘I’ and the ‘Am’ do not change. And I am happy with any experience. I am not looking for a specific experience. Now all these things will have to grow from your meditative absorption.

Harih Om Tat Sat. Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.