concentration vs... witnessing....

[Guest guest]

>>

If I chant OM, I feel bliss, but when I don't, all my stuff comes

back sometimes, or sometimes it doesn't, but I guess the other way

would be to just label all the stuff and in the accepting of it...

it will stop coming back....

 

anyone have any thoughts on this?

>>

Both Concentration and Witnessing are accepted meditation practices

and both techniques may be practiced by the same person at different

times.

 

It's great you feel bliss when you chant OM because you're ahead (as

I understand) of a vast majority of aspirants. Remember that for most

people, when they down to meditate, all they get are distracting

thoughts.

>From my experience I have found that once you get pleasantness or

joy or bliss, it's the carrot that will drive you back to

meditation. 'stuff coming back' is inversely proportional to the

intensity or joy or pleasantness experienced during meditation (i am

including japa yoga (chanting) also as meditation). On some days when

you get deep meditation, the pleasant effects will last well into the

day and you will feel relaxed, carefree - other days nothing much may

happen.

 

Sri Madhusudana Saraswati in His Gita Commentaty (Ch 6.15)

discusses 'Sraddha-virya-smrti..'(Yoga Sutras)'. sraddha implies

delightfulness(of the mind) with regard to Yoga. Indeed that protects

the yogi like a mother!. From that springs virya, enthusiasm...

 

Sundar Rajan

[Guest guest]

"Paul J. Cote" <pjcote@l...>

Fri Apr 27, 2001 5:15 pm

concentration vs... witnessing....

 

 

I have found peace in doing Japa Yoga... Nevertheless, I read an

article by a Zen Master where she purports that concentration doesn't

really clean anything up cuz you never deal with your stuff, but it

is better to feel the knot of your ego and deal with it, welcome it,

so that you can become one with it... ( I guess) and it sort of melts

and then it shouldn't come back... whereas if you just do

concentration (maybe japa is concentration, I don't know) then, your

stuff keeps coming back, because you never deal with it....

 

Does anybody have any opinion on this stuff?

__________

I will pass my response to other lists as well.

 

There are no universal formulas that fit everyone. Japa Yoga helps in

concentration. Concentration can lead to increasing sensitivity to body's

energies and the actualization of Mantra practice facilitates gradual

movement of the contents of the unconscious to the surface to be assimilated

in the conscious personality. At another level, Japa Yoga can lead to Super

conscious states, so one can investigate the nature of consciousness in

waking, sleeping, and dreaming.

 

As pointed out by Ramana Maharshi, witness consciousness and Japa Yoga

(mantra practice), or any other spiritual practice are not mutually

exclusive.

 

When the witness consciousness has nothing left to witness for a time period

(due to large gaps between successive thoughts), then the witness disappears

into the Heart, Recognizes It Self as the Heart, and the Heart Reveals It

Self As Pure Being At Perfect Rest.

 

The Self-Witness with nothing to Witness, The Self-Seeing with nothing to

see, The Self Knows It

Self as Pure Consciousness, Pure Existence, Pure Joy. Sat-Chit-Ananda. Pure

and Simple. Whole and without divisions.

 

This is not the self of Buddhists which is made of different elements and so

on and on some subtle level or anything.

 

It Is simply THAT, prior to all possibilities. Here all possibilities

disappear entirely. It is utterly beyond the void of the Buddhists, although

one can call it Shunya, without loss of meaning. It is beyond the self and

the non-self and all that. It cannot be captured by thought. Who remains to

understand it when the Self shines forth, and yet It Reveals It Self

Perpetually in all conditions and states as simple Being-Awareness! As Sages

have said, To Know It, Is To Be It!

 

It Is From Here that the Cosmos emerges and it is into THAT, everything

disappears.

 

Love to all

Harsha