Practising Meditation

[Guest guest]

Dear All,

 

This is a lecture given at the Caxton Hall, Westminister, on 21st October, 1967

on 'Practising Meditation.' It will show that there are common elements in all

meditation practices, such as withdrawing the mind and going within, stilling

it, taking a deep breath, and realising the ground of one's being, which is the

Self, or 'Atman'. The added advantage with Sahaja Yoga Meditation, is the easier

facility to go beyond the egoic mind, due to one's connection of

Self-realisation, which is an " en-masse evolutionary step " that is manifested

through it.

 

So, enjoy!

 

regards,

 

violet

 

 

Practising Meditation

 

IN THIS LECTURE on meditation we want to be strictly practical. And so we must

start with a reminder of what the mind actually is like in the experience of

each one of us - not as some theoretician says it is, but as it actually

presents itself to us here and now.

 

If we look at the mind, we find that it consists of a stream of thoughts and

sensations going on throughout our waking and our dreaming hours. William James,

one of the founding fathers of modern Western psychology, pointed out that there

were five obvious but important characteristics that one could notice about this

stream.

 

Firstly, it is a personal consciousness, apparently owned exclusively by

oneself. My own stream of thought is something private to my own personality and

there is no direct interchange of the thoughts of one person with those of

another. My mind and your mind are each exclusively our own. Secondly and

thirdly, the stream of thoughts is both continuous and also ever-changing.

Fourthly, it is largely preoccupied with the world of outer objects around us.

And fifthly, within the stream there is continually a process of choosing going

on. As the thoughts arise one by one, we select some and discard others. Like an

unconventional host receiving the newly arriving guests at a party, we welcome

or reject each new idea as it arrives on the mental scene.

 

This is true of the mental life of each one of us. Our mind, which we feel to be

part of ourselves, is a continuous, ever-changing stream of thoughts, largely

concerned with the sensations which reach us about the world around us, and from

this stream we are continually selecting particular things to which we wish to

attend.

 

This much then we all know from our own experience. As to the ultimate nature of

the mind or its exact relation to the body or the brain, we are on much more

controversial ground and there are still many different opinions and schools of

thought. But about these salient features of the mind's activity and behaviour

we can all agree, for we each experience it for ourselves.

 

Yoga has certain views about the nature of the mind. It regards it, for

instance, as a product of a subtle form of matter, an evolute of the energy

which is Nature, called 'prakriti' in Sanskrit, but it has a practical aim, in

regard to which such theoretical questions are in a sense somewhat irrelevant.

For it aims to enable a man to understand, to control and to transform his mind

into a precision instrument which will be capable of leading to an appreciation

(and a conscious realisation) of the spiritual truth. Yoga is, in other words, a

method of practical mysticism or, if you prefer it, 'experimental religion'. In

it - as in a scientific laboratory - we learn primarily by making practical

experiments.

 

But this is the ultimate goal of Yoga, and of more immediate interest and

importance to anyone approaching the teachings for the first time is what

short-term advantages it offers and what kind of difference it can make to one's

inner and outer life. In other words, what good can I expect to get from

practising Yoga here and now?

 

This is where we have to return to the mind as it actually is today, in William

James' description, a continuous stream of ever-changing ideas, clamouring for

our attention.

 

Dr. Shastri has said that, to begin with, to meditate means to apply thought

force consciously; to produce harmony both within and without; to obtain control

over the mind and the emotions, and to open up the faculty of intuition or

'buddhi'.

 

Yoga is a question of practical knowledge not theory; and practical knowledge is

obtained by actually doing things, not by merely talking about them.

 

Now we can only achieve a practical knowledge of our own mind by acquiring

practice in handling it, and in so doing we learn how to control it. Just as a

technician acquires skill by constantly handling or manipulating the instruments

of his craft, whether it be a lathe or a milling machine or a drill etc., so we

can begin to think skilfully by learning to control and manipulate the

activities of our own mind. Of course the mind is not simply a passive tool; it

is energetic and there is great power hidden in the continuous but ever changing

flow of ideas, of sense perceptions and concepts. It is a power tool. But like

any natural force, this energy runs to waste or may be actually destructive if

it is uncontrolled, undirected and unregulated. The converse is also true. When

we can control it, we have an important creative source of power which can be

used for immense good, both to ourselves and the world around us. This is the

basic principle of the yogic training.

 

So the first question is how can the mind be manipulated, by what can it be

controlled? In order to understand the principle of the meditation training, it

is necessary to say a little about the normal activities of the mind, according

to the philosophy of Yoga.

 

In the everyday stream of thoughts of which William James speaks, we can

distinguish two states, say the yogis. The first (the state of the lower mind or

'manas') is a state of doubt or vacillation which in its extreme form we could

best characterise by the word 'dithering'. In this state the mind is presenting

before us a succession of conflicting and contradictory suggestions leaving us

in a state of suspense and uncertainty as to which to accept and which to

reject. In Sanskrit two words are used to describe this state, 'sankalpa' and

'vikalpa', and they mean, respectively, doubtfully moving towards a tentative

'yes' and doubtfully moving towards a tentative 'no'. It is the state of the

host hesitating as to whether to welcome or reject the next guest! In other

words, the state in question is one in which we can't make up our minds about

something, a state, it may be said, in which we spend all too much of our time!

The other state which we experience (and which constitutes the higher aspect of

the mind or 'buddhi') is the state in which we come to a definite decision and

settle between the alternatives. It is in this state that all judgments are made

and all conclusions arrived at. Without it, the mind would become something like

a courtroom in which an interminable series of cases are being heard with

innumerable submissions by prosecuting and defending counsels but no verdicts

are ever arrived at and no judgments ever given. So, in spite of all the

activity, nothing actually gets done. If we think of a Cabinet which was always

discussing the pros and cons of any particular course of action but never came

to any conclusions, it obviously would not be a very effective form of

government in anything but an anarchist State. But the same indecision vitiates

much of our mental life, and it makes the mind ineffective and uncreative.

 

The aim of Yoga is to transform the mind and to gain mastery over the undirected

mental activity, and this is achieved in the first place by the exercise of the

will. It comes as a revelation perhaps to many people who have allowed the

stream of thought to flow onwards, like Wordsworth's Thames - 'at its own sweet

will' - throughout their waking life, to realise that the mind can be

consciously directed, that it can be stopped or started and that its direction

can be changed from this focus to that by an active decision. But the first

thing that the thinker learns is that the mind has a will of its own and that it

is by no means the obedient servant of his own personality that he took it for.

It is, in fact, like a thoroughly wild and unbroken horse that has not been

disciplined and, until it is broken in, it will be a potential menace. It would

be wrong to call it a standing danger to its rider - for it never stands still

for one moment - but it is certainly a continual threat to his equilibrium. The

Yoga training may be likened to the gradual breaking in of this steed of the

mind - and this analogy is indeed given more than once in the Eastern classics.

 

To do this we must be able to use the curb to rein it in, as well as the spur to

urge it on. And we shall only spur it on when it is going where we decide it

shall go and where we wish it to go.

 

This in essence and at its simplest is the starting point of the discipline of

meditation. It is a reining in of the mind and then a directing it to move

towards a desired goal of thought.

 

There are allies in this process and there are useful 'tricks of the trade'

which help one to achieve success in it more easily and more rapidly, and many

of these are incorporated in the Yoga training.

 

What are some of these secrets? The first is to form a regular habit of

meditation and not to allow the mind to find any excuses for breaking this habit

- which it will undoubtedly try to do, often with great ingenuity.

 

Decide on a regular time and place for the meditation period every day, making

only a reasonable demand and not setting an impossibly high target for yourself.

Say fifteen minutes at some convenient time in the morning. Then, having settled

on it, decide that you will stick to it for a given period of time - say a month

or two months - before deciding whether to go on or stop. It may even help to

write it down in your diary. In this way you will be able to make a real test of

the effects of meditation and judge the results of it for yourself by

experiment. And, quite apart from that, you will have taught your mind to carry

out your orders regardless of its momentary whims or inclinations, at least in

this one particular, and that in itself will increase your power to control your

mental faculties in other aspects of your life too.

 

Habit is a great lubricator of the machinery of the mind, and once you have got

it to work with you rather than against you, your task will be made a thousand

times easier. So a regular time and place for meditation is most desirable if

not essential. Of course, when you are a master of the art of meditation, you

can afford to break the habit and your mind will still obey you. But if you give

it leeway in the early stages it will very soon get on top of you and have you

do exactly what it wants rather than what you want.

 

Then the habit of right posture - one that can be comfortably held for some time

without strain and fatigue and without moving. This is the basis of each of the

many traditional meditation postures which have been used, but another important

feature of all of them is that the spine should be held straight. It is for this

reason that the traditional meditation posture is recommended - sitting

cross-legged on the ground with the spine, head and neck erect.

 

It will be obvious that the will plays an important part in the practice of

meditation and the training of the mind through Yoga. In fact success in

meditation or Yoga depends on cultivating an effective will, for the will is the

chief executive of the human personality. The emotions and the intellect may be

good planners, but none of their plans will ever be put into practice unless the

will carries them out. How can we strengthen the will? The Teacher has said:

'Patience and perseverence are the great physicians who give the tonic of

efficiency to the will.'

 

So much for the preliminaries - regular time, place and posture. Now for the

meditation itself.

 

Meditation consists essentially of consciously withdrawing the mind from the

distracting stream of impressions which flow into our mind through most of our

waking life. Withdrawing it means ceasing temporarily to pay attention to the

outer sense world and turning the mind in upon itself. Then having withdrawn it,

to still the mind - so that even the inner play of ideas and memories and

impressions is also temporarily excluded. The stream of thought is to be

temporarily stopped. Then the withdrawn and stilled mind is to be focussed onto

a chosen text or thought with a spiritual significance.

 

Deep breathing may be a great help initially to calm the mind and to aid relaxed

concentration of the mind. Like the unbroken steed that it is, the mind will put

up resistance and will perversely attempt to use any means to avoid going where

you want it to, so long as it thinks there is a chance of evading the control

and discipline of the will altogether. If you give it so much as an inkling that

it can defeat your decision, it will do its best to do so. So it is worth being

firm and persistent at the outset if you want to avoid difficulties in dealing

with your mind.

 

On the other hand, it is no good using undue force on the mind, any more than it

is to beat a horse. It is a bad way of training it. Treat it as a difficult

child or a mettlesome steed, recognising that if it is high-spirited, it will

probably be a better steed for you to ride when you have eventually broken it

in.

 

Having withdrawn and stilled the mind, a focus for meditation has to be

provided. This can be a text from a spiritual classic, or the symbol OM or the

Cross. Dr. Shastri gives many possible meditations to choose from in his little

book Meditation - Its Theory and Practice, together with detailed instructions

on how to set about it.

 

Meditation is not simply a kind of mental exercise like physical jerks, nor an

unfeeling practice. On the contrary we are all meditators at times, and everyone

meditates natually and spontaneously, without realising it, on that which they

love. In 'The Heart of the Eastern Mystical Teaching' Shri Dada says:

 

" Whatever we love, we try to keep present as a silent image in our heart and,

however distant the object of our affection, we are united with it on a higher

plane of matter as soon as we remember it with love. Meditation is the means

whereby the meditator tries to realise the presence of the object of his love in

his own being. In the Upanishads, Atman, the higher Self of man, is said to be

the object of the highest love; it is also called Bliss and in fact love and

bliss are but two faces of the same coin. For this reason, meditation with a

view to realising the presence of one's higher Self (Atman) in one's intellect,

is the most worthwhile attainment. "

 

One aim of Yoga is to lift the mind from the concrete to the abstract. Initially

the object of meditation is a concrete text or the form of a symbol or an

Incarnation, but the aim is to lead the mind to an appreciation of the abstract

spiritual reality which is manifest in the concrete form.

 

Choose a picture of the object of your meditation

(as an Incarnation of God or OM) and install it in

the region of your heart; then think of it with all

love; or look at a flame carefully and endow it with

the form of the object of your meditation and concentrate

on it in your heart.

 

In many ways the ordinary mind is like a flickering fire from which a constant

background of tongues of flame shoot forth as a stream of ideas, each

ill-sustained but continuous and ever-changing. To achieve a clear and steady

flame, 'like a lamp in a windless spot', is the ideal of the meditation

discipline of Yoga.

 

What is the value of meditation? There are two points to realise about stilling

the mind in meditation. The first is obvious and easily appreciated. So long as

the mind is agitated and distracted by a stream of irrelevant thoughts and

ideas, it can never achieve an uninterrupted concentration on anything, and its

efficiency must be correspondingly impaired.

 

To be able consciously to withdraw the mind from outer and inner distractions

and to concentrate it voluntarily on a chosen object is a great asset and must

lead to a more efficient use of one's instrument. It can be compared to learning

to ride a bicycle. Until one can both steer and balance on a bicycle, one's

attempts to ride it in any particular direction will pursue at best a serpentine

or zig-zag course; and it will be slow, probably painful, and punctuated by many

stops and falls. It is similar with an undisciplined mind. If you can't direct

it at will you will keep on ending up somewhere where you neither expected nor

intended to be!

 

But there is another point about stilling the mind which is less obvious and

more difficult to explain. And it is that the mind when stilled and restrained

becomes an altogether more sensitive instrument of cognition and can reveal much

more to us, not only about outer objects or ideas, but about the nature of

thought and the nature of that medium in which thought exists - the being of the

thinker himself.

 

The yogis express this point about meditation by using a number of analogies.

Before you can understand that Truth which gives freedom from ignorance called

'avidya', says Shri Dadaji, you must clean the glasses of your mind. The

faculties of thinking and feeling which make up the mind need to be purified and

cleansed, just as a pair of dirty glasses have to be cleaned if we are to see

clearly with them. The dirt on them, says Shri Dada, is egoity expressed as the

sense of possession, love of comfort, the urge towards pleasure and power, both

individual and national.

 

As this analogy clearly implies, there is more than distraction and agitation in

the unspiritualised mind which prevents us from seeing the Truth clearly. There

is all the subtle and not-so-subtle distortion produced in our view of things by

blind prejudices of one kind and another and also by the narrow self-interest

which masquerades in so many different disguises. Therefore we have to clean the

glasses of the mind. This purification is essential, say the yogis, if we are to

know the spiritual Truth. The dust of egoity on the mind is all the more

insidious because we are often hardly aware of its presence. But it obscures and

distorts our view of things. Ernest Newman tells the story of an

anything-but-retiring violinist who met an acquaintance in the street and talked

to him solidly for more than an hour about himself and his current achievements.

At the end of that time he suddenly turned to his friend and said: 'Well, that's

enough about me. Let's talk about you now. How did you enjoy my concert last

night?' It is a good illustration of what is meant in Yoga by the dust of

egoity! And unless the glasses of the mind are cleansed of this dust, our view

of the Truth is distorted.

 

But it is also true that in silencing the mind in meditation we are contributing

to that purification. Shri Dada tells the story of a yogi who gave one of his

pupils a glass of muddy water and asked him to purify it. The pupil boiled the

water, strained it and tried many other methods but eventually had to report

failure. Then the Teacher told him to put the glass down and forget about it,

and in a short time all the impurities had settled to the bottom and the water

had become crystal clear. So in meditation we are told to still the mind, to

leave it alone, so to speak, neither to wrestle with it nor to put before it any

ideal of our own, but to have the single aim of stilling it. Then what at first

may appear to be simply emptiness or darkness will reveal a new light, what the

Quakers call 'the inner light', and the meditator will become aware of it as the

light by which all thought takes place.

 

Most of our everyday thinking is concerned with the external world, with the

objects and events which surround us in ordinary life. But the end in view is to

go beyond the stream of empirical thought and to reach the substratum of

thought.

 

Man's real Self is the object of the highest love and its intrinsic nature is

bliss or happiness, say the yogis. Shri Dadaji tells his pupils:

 

" Be introvertive, not necessarily in self-analysis, but in discouraging the

whirl of sensations, thoughts and emotions. Anything that tires you is not of

Atman and you should try to take your mind above the realm of the trio of

thinker, thought and thinking. "

 

In the daylight of sense perception and distraction man cannot see the star of

Truth; it is hidden by the daylight, and so the yogi withdraws into the darkness

of meditation. What is it that blinds us in the daylight? It is the haze

produced by the dust in the atmosphere. If we can draw ourselves beyond the dust

of the atmosphere we shall be able to see clearly the more distant stars and

nebulae in the firmament of Truth.

 

There is one further important point which must be made about meditation and

about the knowledge to which the yogis say it leads. Most knowledge is something

brought to the mind from outside. It is acquired from the messages and

impressions sent in by the five senses. Even if it is a system of ideas, rather

than sensations, of conceptions rather than perceptions, it is in a sense

something imposed on the mind from outside and therefore something which the

mind can lose again. But the Self-knowledge which Yoga promises is not something

imposed on the mind. It is the mind turning in on itself to discover that

element in which it lives, moves and has its being, and this element is the real

Self of man.

 

A spiritual Teacher in the East was approached by a pupil, who was a fisherman,

who asked him how he could achieve enlightenment. The Teacher gave him a sieve

and said that achieving enlightenment was like filling the sieve with water, the

mind was like the sieve and when it was full then enlightenment would be

achieved. It sounded a very disheartening piece of advice. But the pupil had

great faith in the Teacher and he meditated for a long time on what this saying

could mean. But he could not solve it himself. Eventually he went back to the

Teacher and said: 'If illumining the mind is like filling the sieve, then how

can illumination ever be achieved?' In answer the Teacher took the sieve from

him and said: 'Very easily, I will show you.' He went to the edge of the water

and lowered the sieve into it and the pupil saw that it was full.

 

The yogis teach that enlightenment is not something that is foreign to man. It

is a conscious realisation by him of the nature of his own being. He lives like

a fish in the water of a greater spiritual reality. Like the fish he is unaware

of it because he can never get outside it. It is to realise that fundamental

element of his being, called in the philosophy his real Self, Atman, that Yoga

is practised.

 

Freedom through Self-Realisation

A.M. Halliday

A Shanti Sadan Publication - London

ISBN 0-85424-040-3

Pgs. 183-194