What is Meditation?

[Guest guest]

--- kuntimaddi sadananda <kuntimaddisada >

wrote:

 

> It is also true that

> mind cannot be made still by any process since the

> very process to make the mind still disturbs

> the mind from its stillness.

> This is the self-enquiry or

> who am I that the Upanishads have been telling

> us to find out which BhagavAn Ramana Maharshi

> emphasized in his sat Darshan - the vision of the

> truth.

> Observing the observer with such detached mind then

> becomes an intense dhyaanam which BhagavAn

> Ramana puts it as inquiring about the inquirer,

 

Pranams Sada-ji

 

Your lines remind me of a few lines from Maharshi's

wonderful Upadesa Saram

 

When an enquiry is underaken to the natureof the mind,

it is found that there indeed is no mind, since there

is a directness in the enquiry.

 

There are two forms of ocntrol of the mind - laya or

absorption and vinasa or destruction. The mind that

has attained absorption is born again, but definitely

not the mind that is dead.

 

For the seeker who enquires thus, "Where does this I

arise?' the I-notion drops. This is selfenquiry.

 

The same idea is found in the LaghuYogaVashishta as

well..

 

" Even the practice of one-pointed attention through

repeated sittings cannot conquer the man without the

help of faultless reasoning

The mind cannot be brought under the control without

the use of reasoning even as the vicious elephant in

rut cannot be controlled without using the hook

It is held that control over the mind is obtained

either by hathayoga or by reasoning. By exercising

forced control over the seats of knowledge and action

organs, a hold on them sometimes occurs, which leads

to the dissolution of the mind.

Study of the knowledge of the supreme Self,

association with the good, total renunciation of

desires, control of prana - these are as is well known

the perfect means to conquer the mind.

Those who apply hathayoga to control the mind while

such effective means are available resemble them who

abandoning the lamp apply magic ointment to their eyes

to dispel darkness. "

 

 

Hari OM

Shyam

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

--- Shyam <shyam_md > wrote:

 

> The same idea is found in the LaghuYogaVashishta as

> well..

>

> " Even the practice of one-pointed attention through

> repeated sittings cannot conquer the man without the

>

> Hari OM

> Shyam

Shyam - praNAms

Would be interested to know the relavent sloaks from yoga vashishTa.

 

Shankara provides vedantic meaning for ashTanga yoga in the AparOShAnubhUti, which is purely a

meditative text involving self-inquiry or Atma vichaara.

 

Hari Om!

Sadananda