Exercises
George
RHC
ON MEDITATION
Select a quiet and secluded place where you will feel secure and undisturbed for at least three quarters of an hour to one hour.
Sit in a chair or an arm chair with the back resting or, if you prefer, cross-legged on a cushion or a carpet. A straight body is preferable but without strain. In fact posture is of little importance. What is important is to feel at ease so that the body can be rapidly forgotten. Recumbent position is not advisable, except in case of illness or incapacity as it induces sleep.
Always begin the meditation by an inner call or a prayer, an aspiration towards the Divine.
A first method consists in watching the thoughts as they swarm about in the mind. Your mind is like a public place across which thoughts move in and out. A few attract your attention and remain a longer time. Observe their play without identifying yourself with any of them. You will become aware that your consciousness-that is your mental self-stands apart like a "Silent Witness" Separate from the movements of the mental nature in you. On one side this "Witness Consciousness", on the other the mental nature in you.
Because you refuse to identify yourself with the thoughts, their motion and insistence gradually weaken. The waves of the mental nature subside and after a time you enter into a state called "quietude" or "quiet mind". Thoughts still occur but they are subdued and do not disturb inner perceptions.
b) Another method of mental control consists in creating a void in your mind. It is quicker and more radical than the first but also more difficult. You have to banish altogether all thoughts from the mind. As soon as one comes in, push it out or discard it right away, before it has time to settle down. Not only should all reasonings be excluded in this way but all memories and associations too. Your mind enters gradually into the peace of "quietude".
You should know that such an attempt to forcefully control the mind results at times in an apparent increase of the mental chaotic condition. Don't be disturbed but persevere.
It is possible to bring the mind to a state of complete "silence". But it is a very arduous task and after all it is not indispensable, at least in Sri Aurobindo's "Integral Yoga", which does not aim at leaving the body in trance, but at reaching the same experiences in a perfectly conscious and wakeful state.
c) Mental control can also be brought about by concentration, that is the fixing of the mind on a single object so strongly that the mind unites, so to say, with the object. From this identification knowledge about the object arises in the mind. The best object of concentration, the most worthy of knowledge, is surely the Divine, the Supreme. It matters little whether it is the Impersonal or the Personal God or, subjectively, the One Self. An idea that will help you is "God in all, all in God and all as God". When the mind wanders away, you have to bring it back to its object quietly bur persistently. Here also you dissociate yourself in away from your mind.
You may also use a word, a significant sentence, a prayer, the silent repetition of which will quieten the most mechanical part of your mind. Such a repetition (the name of the Beloved) is frequently resorted to by those who feel a devotion for the Divine. It is best to use these three methods concurrently according to the need and as it seems easier at the moment. In any case regular practice is necessary every day, preferably at the same hour.
One day you will become suddenly aware of an inrush of unutterable happiness, a sweetness to which nothing in the world-no human joy or pleasure-can be compared. It is an impersonal state, without an object, and still there is a Presence, invisible but penetrating into the depths of the soul, or perhaps descending from the highest ranges of the Spirit.
All doubts have disappeared, problems vanished. Instead there reign security, confidence, certitude.
The world, things and beings no longer require to be explained; their very existence is their own justification. They "are"-from all eternity-and they will never cease to be, now or ever. Death has become an absurd impossibility.
Of the wonderful experiences that one I reaches in this state a number of descriptions have been given which vary according to the depths that have been reached, the aspects that came forward, the individual conditions and spiritual needs of the time and the accompanying occurrences (such as light, opening to a universal consciousness above the head, etc.). What is spoken of here is not visions-visions are of a quite different nature -but "states of mind" or rather "states of consciousness".
Mystics of all countries who have lived these experiences have given them various names: the Great Peace, the Lord's Peace, the Divine Presence, Discovering the True Self, the Blossoming or Blooming of the Soul, Second Birth, the Repose in Brahman, Entering into the One Reality, Cosmic Consciousness, Illumination, Direct Knowledge, Nirvana. ...A New Life is truly beginning. The inner world becomes more real than the outer world.
ON DISCIPLINE
The experiences just now described are fugitive! A short time after the meditation is over, they lose their living force and, in spite of all efforts at retaining them, they fade away. This transiency comes from the composite structure of our being. We are made up of several pieces each pulling in a different direction. Below the highest aspiration and will are the mental and the vital beings, then the material body, and each of these is itself a compound of many parts. All these parts react differently to the solicitations of the outer world. These cross currents blur the memory of spiritual experiences
The force, peace, light and bliss perceived or received during meditation can only remain alive all through our ordinary engrossing activities, if all the parts of our being are organized harmoniously around our central aspiration and will and accept their guidance. To this end a strict discipline is indispensable; it alone can allow this "unification" of our being and prepare it.
You will soon realize that unification is an arduous task. It goes against all normal habits which consider sense life as the only reality. A long and insistent discipline can however break down all resistance and bring about a transformation of our being, the crowning experience of which is a decisive reversal of our waking consciousness.
Here is an outline of Sri Aurobindo's "Integral Yoga", which perfectly answers this need:
"The personal effort required is a triple labour of aspiration, rejection and surrender,-
-an aspiration vigilant, constant, unceasing the mind's will, the heart's seeking, the assent of the vital being, the will to open and make plastic the physical consciousness and nature;
-rejection of the movements of the lower nature- rejection of the mind's ideas, opinions, preferences, habits, constructions, so that the true knowledge may find free room in a silent mind - rejection of the vital nature's desires, demands, cravings, passions, selfishness, pride, arrogance, lust, greed, jealousy, envy, hostility to the Truth, so that the true power and joy may pour from above into a calm, large, strong and consecrated vital being,-rejection of the physical nature's stupidity, doubt, disbelief, obscurity, obstinacy, pettiness, laziness, unwillingness to change, tamas, so that the true stability of Light, Power, Ananda may establish itself in a body growing always more divine;
-surrender of oneself and all one is and has and every plane of the consciousness and every movement to the Divine and the Shakti.
"In proportion as the surrender and self- consecration progress, the Sadhaka becomes conscious of the Divine Shakti doing the Sadhana, pouring into him more and more of herself, founding in him the freedom and perfection of the Divine Nature. The more this conscious process replaces his own effort, the more rapid and true becomes his progress. But it cannot completely replace the necessity of personal effort until the surrender and consecration are pure and complete from top to bottom."
SRI AUROBINDO, The Mother II.
The practical means of applying this comprehensive advice is within your reach, which does not mean that it is easy. Here it is:
Offer to the Divine, to the Supreme all events and circumstances big or humble of your daily life, accept them as they come, without any distinction between good and bad, pleasant and unpleasant. If you are sincere in your offering, in your surrender, your life will change utterly. You will discover that an unseen Hand (the Shakti) guides you, and has always guided you throughout the years. A new joy will rise for you every morning.
a) During your meditation you have experienced that your mental self can stand aloof from the mental nature in you and is therefore separate-on one side: you, your- self; on the other: your thoughts, ideas, opinions (are they really yours?).
b) You can now extend this dissociation to the realm of emotions and feelings. This is better done in the daily life itself. When you feel an emotion-disgust, anger, greed or passion rising in you, stand aloof and ob serve. You will at once notice that the emotion or feeling loses its grip on you or even vanishes. This realization brings you the means of controlling your (are they really yours ?) feelings, emotions, cravings -the vital nature in you.
c) Then comes the third realization, the distinction between you and your physical body-the most difficult of the three. Stand aside from your sensations and observe that your self is the same whether they come or go. Dissociate your self alike from the pleasant and the unpleasant or painful. Realize that none of them is able to move you unless you accept it and identify your self with it.
This disjunction between you and your physical reactions is difficult because you have been trained all your life to consider the physical world as the only reality. But once it is achieved, it brings to you an immense gain: the control over the physical nature in you, its obscurity and dullness, its instability and fragility. So long as this disjunction is not there, you are the slave of your body- once achieved you are its master.
The triple dissociation thus established will allow you to accomplish every action, even the most trivial, to the best of your ability, with great concentration, control and efficiency. You will perceive that, as Sri Aurobindo says, the Divine Shakti is pouring into you "more and more of herself", founding in you "the freedom and perfection of the Divine Nature". You will uncover a treasure of concealed Ananda, of which indifference, pain and joy are a triple disguise. She brings thus to you the key to perfection in Yoga and to the transformation of your nature.
It is an excellent habit to include a little reading in your discipline. Take up the books of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother that are available to you . It is not necessary to read much-half an hour a day suffices. Read slowly, read again if need be, then ponder over what you have read and think of it at times during the day. Try to put it into practice, to live it. You will thus gradually come in touch with Sri Aurobindo and the Mother's great Consciousness (they are one for us) and you will begin to understand the hidden meaning of their writings.
Are you troubled by sexual questions ? Try to build up a temporary harmony, without arbitrary repressions and suppressions. All this will little by little evolve and become clear and you will reach mastery in this domain as in others. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother's booklet on Love mentioned here below ( See section on site ) will show you the place of Love in the Creation and will help you to find out where you yourself stand. There is no uniform rule for all; each man or woman has to discover his or her own rule.
Go forward, have confidence! In this way you shall build up the unity of your being, and when this unification is achieved, transformation of your whole nature becomes possible. Years, lives no longer count for you, you have set yourself on the road to divinity .
Remember that the aim of the world's long evolution through minerals, plants and animals, and thereafter through successive human lives and civilizations is to make of men beings fully awake, individually and universally, that is to say conscious and master of all that happens in themselves and in the world around, and free from the age-long bondage to opinions, passions and sensations.
Larry Schultz
George
Don Salmon
Practices for the Quest
If he is not too proud to begin at the point where he finds himself rather than at some point where he once was or would now like to be, if he is willing to advance one step at a time, he may realize his goal far more quickly than the less humble and more pretentious man is likely to realize it.The Long Path represents the earlier stages through which all seekers after the higher wisdom will have to pass; they cannot leap up to the top. Therefore those stages will always remain valuable.The aspirant for illumination must first lift himself out of the quagmire of desire, passion, selfishness, and materialism in which he is sunk. To achieve this purpose, he must undergo a purificatory discipline. It is true that some individuals blessed by grace or karma spontaneously receive illumination without having to undergo such a discipline. But these individuals are few. Most of us have to toil hard to extricate ourselves from the depths of the lower nature before we can see the sky shining overhead.An intellectual understanding is not enough. These ideas can be turned into truths only by a thorough self-discipline leading to liberation from passions, governance of emotions, transformation of morals, and concentration of thoughts.He has to develop religious veneration, mystical intuition, moral worth, rational intelligence, and active usefulness in order to evolve a fuller personality. Thus he becomes a fit instrument for the descent of the Overself into the waking consciousness.Many a yogi will criticize this threefold path to realization. He will say meditation alone will be enough. He will deprecate the necessity of knowing metaphysics and ridicule the call to inspired action. But to show that I am introducing no new-fangled notion of my own here, it may be pointed out that in Buddhism there is a recognized triple discipline of attainment, consisting of (1)dyhana (meditation practice), (2) prajna (higher understanding), (3) sila (self-denying conduct).It is a fault in most of my writings that I did not mention at all, or mentioned too briefly and lightly, certain aspects of the quest so that wrong ideas about my views on these matters now prevail. I did not touch on these aspects or did not touch on them sufficiently, partly because I thought my task was to deal as a specialist primarily with meditation alone, and partly because so many other workers had dealt with them so often. It is now needful to change the emphasis over to these neglected hints. They include moral re-education; character building; prayer, communion, and worship in their most inward, least outward, and quite undenominational religious sense; mortification of flesh and feeling as a temporary but indispensable discipline; and the use of creative imagination in contemplative exercises as a help to spiritual achievement.There is a point of view which rejects the attitude that destitution and dire poverty are the only paths to spirituality and replaces it by the attitude that a simple life and a small number of possessions are better. The poverty-stricken life is usually inadequate and unaesthetic. We need a sufficiency of possessions in order to obtain efficiency of living, and an aesthetic home in order to live the beautiful life. How much more conducive to success in meditation, for instance, is a well-ordered home, a refined elegant environment, a noiseless and undisturbed room or outdoor spot! But these things cost money. However much the seeker may saturate himself in youthful years with idealistic contempt for the world's values, he will find in time that even the things important to his inner spiritual life can usually be had only if he has enough money to buy them. Privacy, solitude, silence, and leisure for study and meditation are not free, and their price comes high.To live a simpler life is not the same as to live an impoverished life. Our wants are without end and it is economy of spiritual energy to reduce them at certain points. But this is not to say that all beautiful things are to be thrown out of the window merely because they are not functional or indispensable.What earlier scholars translated as "nonacceptance of gifts" in Patanjali's Yoga Sutra, Mahadevan has translated as "non-possession." The difference in meaning is important. The idea clearly is to avoid burdens which keep attention busy with their care.What is really meant by renunciation of the world? I will tell you. It is what a man comes down to when confronted by certain death, when he knows that within an hour or two he will be gone from the living world--when he dictates his last will and testament disposing of all his earthly possessions.It is not the world that stands in our way and must be renounced but our mental and emotional relationship with the world; and this needs only to be corrected. We may remain just where we are without flight to ashram or convent, provided we make an inner shift.There is something crazy in this idea that we were put into the world to separate ourselves from it!The inability to believe in or detect the presence of a divine power in the universe is to be overcome by a threefold process. The first part some people overcome by "hearing" the truth directly uttered by an illumined person or by other people by reading their inspired writings. The second part is to reflect constantly upon the Great Truths. The third part is to introvert the mind in contemplation.He must be observant, must understand the heights and depths of human nature, human motives, and human egoism. He should do this because it will help him to know both others and himself, to serve them better and to protect his quest.He who enters upon this quest will have plenty to do, for he will have to work on the weaknesses in his character, to think impartially, to meditate regularly, and to aspire constantly. Above all, he will have to train himself in the discipline of surrendering the ego.Show me a man who is regular and persistent in his practice of daily study, reflection, and meditation, and you will show me a man determined to break the bonds of flesh and destined to walk into the sphere of the spirit, though years may elapse and lives may pass before he succeeds. He has learned to ask, to seek, and to find.As a preface to this reflective reading, he should put his heart in an attitude of humility and prayerfulness. He needs the one because it is the divine grace which will make his own efforts bear fruit in the end. He needs the other because he must ask for this grace. And however obscurely he may glimpse the book's meaning at times, his own reflective faith in the truth set down in its pages and in the inner leading of his higher self, will assist him to progress farther. Such a sublime stick-to-it-iveness brings the Overself's grace in illuminated understanding.From the first moment that he sets foot on this inner path until the last one when he has finished it, he will at intervals be assailed by tests which will try the stuff he is made of. Such trials are sent to the student to examine his mettle, to show how much he is really worth, and to reveal the strength and weakness that are really his, not what he believes are his. The hardships he encounters try the quality of his attainment and demonstrate whether his inner strength can survive them or will break down; the sufferings he experiences may engrave lessons on his heart, and the ordeals he undergoes may purify it. Life is the teacher as well as the judge.Every act is to be brought into the field of awareness and done deliberately.The discipline of the self, the following of ethical conduct, the practice of mystical meditation--all these are needed if the higher experience resulting in insight is being sought.Aspiration alone is not enough. It must be backed by discipline, training, and endeavour.He who wishes to triumph must learn to endure.From the intuitions that are the earliest guides of the seeking mind to the ecstatic self-absorptions that are the latest experiences of the illumined mystic, there are certain obstructions which have to be progressively removed if these manifestations are to appear. They can be classified into three groups: those that belong to the unchecked passions of man, those that belong to his self-centered emotions, and those that belong to his prejudiced thinking. By a critical self-analysis, by a purificatory self-denial, and by an ascetic self-training, the philosophic discipline generates a deep moral and intellectual earnestness which wears down these obstructions and prepares the seeker for real advance.The neophyte may stumble and fall, but he can still rise up again; he may make mistakes, but he can still correct them. If he will stick to his quest through disheartening circumstances and long delays, his determination will not be useless. If it does nothing else, it will invite the onset of grace. When moods of doubt come to him, as they do to most, he must cling steadfastly to hope and renew his practice until the mood disappears. It is a difficult art, this of keeping to the symbol in his serene centre even for a few minutes. It can be learnt by practice only. Every time he strays from it into excitement, egotism, or anxiety, and discovers the fact, he must return promptly. It is an art which has to be learnt through constant effort and after frequent failure, this keeping his hold on the spiritual facts of existence. He should continue the quest with unbroken determination, even if his difficulties and weaknesses make him unable to continue it with unshaken determination. It implies a willingness to keep the main purpose of his quest in view whatever happens. He must resolve to continue his journey despite the setbacks which may arise out of his own weaknesses and undeflected by the misfortunes which may arise out of his own destiny. The need to endure patiently amid difficult periods is great, but it is worthwhile holding on and hoping on by remembering that the cycle of bad karma will come to an end. It is a matter of not letting go. This does not mean lethargic resignation to whatever happens, however. He has got to maintain his existence, striving to seize or create the slenderest opportunities.The Quest is not to be followed by studying metaphysically alone or by sitting meditatively alone. Both are needful yet still not enough. Experience must be reflectively observed and intuition must be carefully looked for. Above all, the aspirant must be determined to strive faithfully for the ethical ideals of philosophy and to practise sincerely its moral teachings.Even though he learns all these truths, he has only learnt them intellectually. They must be applied in the environment, they must be deeply felt in the heart, and, finally, they must be established as the Consciousness whence they are derived.Make it a matter of habit, until it becomes a matter of inclination, to be kind, gentle, forgiving, and compassionate. What can you lose? A few things now and then, a little money here and there, an occasional hour or an argument? But see what you can gain! More release from the personal ego, more right to the Overself's grace, more loveliness in the world inside us, and more friends in the world outside us.It is not merely undesirable for others' sake for a man to engage in spiritual service prematurely and unpurified, but positively dangerous to his own welfare.The only authentic mandate for spiritual service must come, if it does not come from a master, from within one's Higher Self. If it comes from the ego, it is then an unnecessary intrusion into other people's lives which can do little good, however excellent the intention.When he came down into reincarnation, he came with the responsibility for his own life, not for other people's. They were, and ever afterwards remained, responsible for their own lives. The burden was never at any time shifted by God onto his shoulders.To understand the mysterious language of the Silence, and to bring this understanding back into the world of forms through work that shall express the creative vitality of the Spirit, is one way in which you may serve mankind.He must examine himself to find out how far hidden self-seeking enters into his altruistic activity.It is futile for anyone who has muddled his own life to set out to straighten the lives of others. It is arrogant and impertinent for anyone to start out improving humanity whilst he himself lamentably needs improvement. The time and strength that he proposes to give in such service will be better used in his own. To meddle with the natural course of other men's lives under such conditions is to fish in troubled waters and make a fool of himself. Only when he has himself well in hand is there even a chance of rendering real service. A man whose own interior and exterior life is full of failure should not mock the teaching by prattling constantly about his wish to serve humanity. Such service must first begin at the point nearest to him, that is, his own self.If he can keep his motives really pure and his ego from getting involved, he may find the way to render service. But few men can do it.It is not that he is not to care about other people or try to help them, but that he is to remember that there is so little he can do for them while he is so little himself.Help given, or alms bestowed, out of the giver's feeling of oneness with the sufferer, is twice given: once as the physical benefit and once as the spiritual blessing along with it.Philosophic service is distinguished by practical competence and personal unselfishness.I must cut a clear line of difference between helping people and pleasing them. Many write and say my books have helped them when they really mean that my books have pleased their emotions. We help only when we lift a man's mind to the next higher step, not when we confirm his present position by "pleasing" him. To help is to assist a man's progress; to please is to let his bonds enslave him.The seeker must live primarily for his own development, secondarily for society's. Only when he has attained the consummation of that development may he reverse the roles. If, in his early enthusiasm, he becomes a reformer or a missionary much more than a seeker, he will stub his toes.If he begins to think of himself as the doer of this service, the helper of these people, he begins to set up the ego again. It will act as as barricade between him and the higher impersonal power. The spiritual effectiveness of his activity will begin to dwindle.Because the ultimate issue lies with the grace of the Overself, the aspirant is not to prejudge the results of his Quest. He is to let them take care of themselves. This has one benefit, that it saves him from falling into the extremes of undue discouragement on the one hand and undue elation on the other. It tells him that even though he may not be able, in this incarnation, to attain the goal of union with the Overself by destroying the ego, he can certainly make some progress towards his goal by weakening the ego. Such a weakening does not depend upon grace; it is perfectly within the bounds of his own competence, his own capacity.Such inward invulnerability seems too far away to be practicable. But the chief value of seeking it lies in the direction which it gives to thought, feeling, and will. Even if it unlikely that the aspirant will achieve such a high standard in this present incarnation, it is likely that he will be able to take two or three steps nearer its achievement.
Don Salmon
Fundamentals
Stop wandering thoughts
The longest book on yoga can teach you nothing more about the practical aim of yoga than this: still your thoughts.One of the causes of the failure to get any results from meditation is that the meditator has not practised long enough. In fact, the wastage of much time in unprofitable, distracted, rambling thinking seems to be the general experience. Yet this is the prelude to the actual work of meditation in itself. It is a necessary excavation before the building can be erected. The fact is unpleasant but must be accepted. If this experience of the first period is frustrating and disappointing, the experience of the second period is happy and rewarding. He should really count the first period as a preparation, and not as a defeat. If the preliminary period is so irksome that it seems like an artificial activity, and the subsequent period of meditation itself is so pleasant and effortless that it seems like a perfectly natural one, the moral is: more perseverance and more patience.If the turning wheel of thoughts can be brought to a perfect standstill without paying the penalty of sleep, the results will be that the Thinker will come to know himself instead of his thoughts.Meditation is admittedly one of the most difficult arts to learn. The mind of humanity in its present-day condition is so restless, so wandering, and especially so extroverted, that the effort to bring it under control seems to the beginner to meet with disheartening results. Proper patience, right technique, and the mental help of an expert are needed. In most cases it takes several years, but from experience and knowledge there may come the skill and ease of the proficient meditator.It is useful only in the most elementary stage to let thoughts drift hazily or haphazardly during the allotted period. For at that stage, he needs more to make the idea of sitting perfectly still for some time quite acceptable in practice than he needs to begin withdrawal from the body's sense. He must first gain command of his body before he can gain command of his thoughts. But in the next stage, he must forcibly direct attention to a single subject and forcibly sustain it there. He must begin to practise mental mastery, for this will not only bring him the spiritual profits of meditation but also will ward off some of its psychic dangers.A rabble of thoughts pursue him into the silence period, as if determined to keep his mind from ever becoming still.Do not miss the object of your meditations and lose yourself in useless reveries.The moral is, find the object that makes most appeal to your temperament, the object that experience proves to be most effective in inducing the condition of mental concentration.The first quarter-hour is often so fatiguing to beginners that they look for, and easily find, an excuse to bring the practice to an abrupt end, thus failing in it. They may frankly accept the fatigue itself as sufficient reason for their desertion. Or they may make the excuse of attending to some other task waiting to be done. But the fact is that almost as soon as they start, they do not want to go on. They sit down to meditate and then they find they do not want to meditate! Why? The answer lies in the intellect's intractable restlessness, its inherent repugnance to being governed or being still.Command your thoughts during this first period of meditation; direct them by the energized will towards a definite and specific subject. Do not let them drift vaguely. Assert your mastery by a positive effort.In your meditations, stop thinking about the things that ought to have been left outside the door and start thinking about the Overself.The mind will rush off like a wild bull from the discipline he seeks to impose on it. If this fails, it will use temptations or diversions or pessimism.Think of the lama sitting in long and sustained meditation in the freezing cell of a Tibetan monastery and be ashamed of your own weakness.If the meditation is not to lose itself in empty day-dreaming, it must be alert.If meditation were to stop with ruminating intently over one's own best ideas or over some inspired man's recorded ideas, the result would certainly be helpful and the time spent worthwhile. It would be helpful and constructive, but it would not be more than that. Such communion with thoughts is not the real aim of meditation. That aim is to open a door to the Overself. To achieve this, it casts out all ideas and throws away all thoughts. Where thinking still keeps us within the little ego, the deliberate silence of thinking lifts us out of the ego altogether.The essence of yoga is to put a stop to the ego's mental activities. Its ever-working, ever-restless character is right and necessary for human life but at the same time is a tyrant and slave-driver over human life.One of the hindrances to success in meditation, to be overcome with great difficulty, is the tendency of the intellect--and especially of the modern Western intellect--to think of the activity to which it could be attending if it were not trying to meditate, or to look forward to what it will be doing as soon as the meditation ends, or to project itself into imaginations and predictions about the next few hours or the next day. The only way to deal with this when it happens is forcibly to drag the mind's attention away from its wanderings and hold it to the Now, as if nothing else exists or can ever exist.Catch your thoughts in their first stage and you catch the cause of some of your troubles, sins, and even diseases.The thoughts which intrude themselves on your meditation in such multitudes and with such persistence may be quelled if you set going a search as to where they come from.If the wandering characteristic of all thoughts diverts attention and defeats the effort to meditate, try another way. Question the thoughts themselves, seek out their origin, trace them to their beginning and reduce their number more and more. Find out what particular interest or impulse emotion or desire in the ego causes them to arise and push this cause back nearer to the void. In this way, you tend to separate yourself from the thoughts themselves, refuse to identify with them, and get back nearer to your higher identity.The first part of the exercise requires him to banish all thoughts, feelings, images, and energies which do not belong to the subject, prayer, ideal, or problem he chooses as a theme. Nothing else may be allowed to intrude into consciousness or, having intruded by the mind's old restlessness, it is to be blotted out immediately. Such expulsion is always to be accompanied by an exhaling of the breath. Each return of attention to the selected theme is to be accompanied by an inhaling of the breath.When thoughts are restless and hard to control, there is always something in us which is aware of this restlessness. This knowledge belongs to the hidden "I" which stands as an unruffled witness of all our efforts. We must seek therefore to feel for and identify ourself with it. If we succeed, then the restlessness passes away of itself, and the bubbling thoughts dissolve into undifferentiated Thought.He must first work at the cleansing of his mind. This is done by vigilantly keeping out degrading thoughts and by refusing entry to weakening ones.He must wait patiently yet work intently after he closes his eyes until his thoughts, circling like a flock of birds around a ship, come gently to rest.We habitually think at random. We begin our musings with one subject and usually end with an entirely different one. We even forget the very theme which started the movement of our mind. Such an undisciplined mind is an average one. If we were to watch ourselves for five minutes, we would be surprised to discover how many times thought had involuntarily jumped from one topic to another.The first problem is how to keep his interest from drying up, the second how to keep his attention from wandering off.When he has previously purified his character, he will naturally be able to sustain long periods of meditation without being distracted by wayward emotions.The passage in consciousness from mere thoughts to sheer Thought is not an easy one. Lifelong ingrained habit has made our consciousness form-ridden, tied to solids, and expectant of constant change. To surrender this habit seems to it (albeit wrongly) quite unnatural, and consequently artificial resistances are set up.To keep up the meditation for some length of time, to force himself to sit there while all his habitual bodily and mental instincts are urging him to abandon the practice, calls for arousing of inner strength to fight off inattention or fatigue. But this very strength, once aroused, will eventually enable him to keep it up for longer and longer periods.As the mind slowly relaxes, the number of thoughts is reduced, the attentiveness to them increased.Whenever the meditator notices that he has lost his way and is no longer thinking of his chosen subject, he has to start again and rethink the subject. This process of refinding his way several times may have to be repeated during each session of meditation.It will be a help to meditate more successfully if, at the beginning, the breathing rhythm is equalized so that the inbreath and the outbreath are roughly of the same length and if one draws the air in a little more deeply than normally and lets it out a little more slowly than normally.The so-called normal mind is in a state of constant agitation. From the standpoint of yoga, there is little difference whether this agitation be pleasurable or painful.If a student is not purified enough, nor informed enough, it is better not to endeavour to reach the trance stage. He should devote his efforts to the control of thoughts and to the search for inner tranquillity along with this self-purification and improvement of knowledge.The thought-flow may be stopped by forcible means such as breath control, but the result will then be only a transient and superficial one. If a deeper and more durable result is desired, it is essential to conjoin the breath control with other kinds of self-control--with a discipline of the senses and a cleansing of the thoughts.The aim is to work, little by little, toward slowing down the action of thinking first and stilling it altogether later.If the initial period of distracted, wandering, overactive, or restless thoughts irks him by its length, he should remember that this shows the state of his mind during most of the day.It is a custom among the yogis, and one laid down in the traditional texts, to begin meditation by paying homage to God and to the master. The purpose of this is to attract help from these sources.The mind is dragged hither and thither by its desires or interest, dragged to fleeting and ephemeral things.The undisciplined mind will inevitably resist the effects needed for these exercises. This is a difficult period for the practiser. The remedy is to arouse himself, "summon up the will," and return again and again to the fight until the mind, like a horse, begins to accept its training and learns to obey.In this interim waiting period nothing happens, only the thoughts bubble along as they usually do during an idle time, except that there is some strain, some constriction whenever he remembers that there is a purpose in his sitting here, a control needed to achieve it.He is to begin by giving a disciplined attention to the workings of his own mind.The body soon begins to protest against the unaccustomed stillness suddenly enforced on it: the mind soon starts to rebel against the tedium and boredom of the early stages, and the habitual unrest of both will have to be faced again and again.It is difficult, often impossible, to stop thinking by one's own effort. But by grace's help it gets done. With thinking no longer in the way, consciousness ceases to be broken up: nothing is there to impede movement into stillness.If the innate capacity is lacking, as it usually is, then the aspirant requires some skill gathered from repeated experience to shut out sounds which bring the mind back to physical situations.It is not only thoughts that come up in the form of words that have to be brought under control, but also those that come up in the form of images. So long as consciousness is peopled by the activities of imagination, so long does its stillness and emptiness remain unreached. That certain yoga exercises use either of these forms to reach their goal does not falsify this statement. For even there the method practised has to be abandoned at a particular point, or stop there by itself.The intellectual type tries to analyse what he does and sees in the attempt to understand it more fully. But the end result is that the transcendent part of the experience is lost; one set of thoughts succeeds only in producing another. He must be willing and ready to stop intellection at the start of the exercise. This is essential to success in meditation.Whatever method blocks the wandering of thoughts or the practice of intellectualism, whether random or continuous, may be useful so long as it assists concentration and logical examination is avoided. It could be a mantram, but not a devotional, intelligible, or meaningful one. It could be a diagram, a dot on the wall, or a door-handle.He must try to keep his mental equilibrium undisturbed by the hardships and unbroken by the pleasures which life may bring him. This cannot be done unless the mind is brought to rest on some point, idea, name, or symbol which gives it a happy poise, and unless it is kept there.It is not enough to achieve control of the body, its urges and its drives and its passions, splendid though that certainly is. His advance must not stop there. For he has yet to deal with his thoughts, to recognize that they come from his ego, feed and nurture it, and control of them must also be achieved.The first law of the disciple's life is to bring his own thoughts under law."To stop thinking is as if one wanted to stop the wind" is an old Chinese statement.The control of thought and its consecration to exalted themes will bring him more peace and more power.He must give himself a sufficient length of time, first to attain the concentrated state and second, to hold it.He finds that, however willing and eager he may be, he can sustain the intensity of struggle against this restlessness of mind only for a certain time.He must give his thoughts a decisive turn in the chosen direction every time they stray from it.Imagination is likely to run away with his attention during this early period. At first it will be occupied with worldly matters already being thought about, but later it may involve psychical matters, producing visions or hallucinations of an unreliable kind.Even when he is meditating, the aspirant may find that feelings, thoughts, memories, or desires and other images of his worldly experience come into the consciousness. He must not bind himself to them by giving attention to them, but should immediately dismiss them.Experiences and happenings keep attention ever active and ever outward-turned, while memories, although internal, direct it back to the physical world. So a man's own thoughts get in the way and prevent him from a confrontation with pure Thought itself.The ability to bring the mind to controlled one-pointedness is extremely difficult, and its achievement may require some years of effort and determination. He need not allow himself to become discouraged but should accept the challenge thus offered for what it is.The mind flutters from subject to subject like a butterfly from flower to flower, and is unable to stay where we want it.Blankness is not the goal
A mere emptiness of mind is not enough, is not the objective of these practices. Some idiots possess this naturally but they do not possess the wisdom of the Overself, the understanding of Who and What they are.Philosophy does not teach people to make their minds a blank, does not say empty out all thoughts, be inert and passive. It teaches the reduction of all thinking activity to a single seed-thought, and that one is to be either interrogative like "What Am I?" or affirmative like "The godlike is with me." It is true that the opening-up of Overself-consciousness will, in the first delicate experience, mean the closing-down of the last thoughts, the uttermost stillness of mind. But that stage will pass. It will repeat itself again whenever one plunges into the deepest trance, the raptest meditative absorption. And it must then come of itself, induced by the higher self's grace, not by the lower self's force. Otherwise, mere mental blankness is a risky condition to be avoided by prudent seekers. It involves the risk of mediumship and of being possessed.Vacuity of mind is not to be confused with perception of reality.It is only a limp, semi-mesmeric state, after all, and yields a peace which imitates the true divine peace as the image in a mirror imitates the flesh-and-blood man. It is produced by self-effort, not by Grace, by auto-suggestion rather than by the Overself."No more serious mistake can be committed than considering the hibernation of reptiles and other animals as illustrating the samadhi stage of Yoga. It corresponds with the pratyahara, and not the samadhi stage. Pratyahara has been compared with the stage of insensibility produced by the administration of anesthetics, for example, chloroform."*t--Major B.D. Basu, Indian Medical ServiceTo seek mental blankness as a direct objective is to mistake an effect for a cause. It is true that some of the inferior yogis do so, trying by forcible means like suppression of the breath to put all thoughts out of the mind. But this is not advocated by philosophy.To attempt the elimination of all thoughts as they arise, with the aim of keeping consciousness entirely empty of all content, is another method which some yogis and not a few Occidentals try to practise. It is not as easy as it seems and is not frequently successful. Philosophy does not use this rash method, does not recommend making the mind just a blank. There are two perils in it. The first is that it lays a man open to psychic invasion from outside himself, or, failing that, from inside himself. In the first case, he becomes a spiritualistic medium, passively surrenders himself to any unseen entity which may pass through the door thus left open, and risks being taken possession of by this entity. It may be earthbound, foolish, lying, or evil, at worst. In the second case, he unlooses the controls of the conscious self and lets into it forces that he has long outgrown but not fully eliminated--past selves that are dying and would be best left alone, subconscious impulses that lead into evil or insane hallucinations masquerading as occult perceptions or powers. Now it is correct to say that the mind must be completely mastered and that a vacuum will arise in the process, but this is still not the way to do it. The better way is to focus the mind so unwaveringly on some one thing, thought or image or phrase, so elevated that a point will be reached where the higher self itself suddenly obliterates the thoughts.The silence of meditation is a dignified thing, but the silence of a stupid empty mind is not.Merely being thought-free by itself may lead to psychic results. One has to sink back to a dynamic positive mental silence by starting meditation with a dynamic positive attitude.Eliminating thoughts and eliminating the ego during meditation are two different things. You should experiment with the various methods given in the books if you want to know which would help you most.
Su Tung Po: "People who do not understand sometimes describe a state of animal unconsciousness as the state of samadhi. If so, then when cats and dogs sleep after being well fed, they too do not have a thought on their minds. It would obviously be incorrect to argue that they have entered samadhi."Zen Patriarch Hui-neng: "It is a great mistake to suppress our mind from all thinking . . . to refrain from thinking of anything, this is an extreme erroneous view . . . your men are hereby warned not to take those exercises for contemplating on quietude or for keeping the mind in a blank state."The drowsy torpor of a lazy mind is not the true void to be desired and sought.The feeling of peace is good but deceptive. The ego--cause of all his tension--is still hidden within it, in repose but only temporarily inactive.Practise concentrated attention
Meditation has as its first object an increasing withdrawal of the mind from the things of this world, and also from the thoughts of this world, until it is stilled, passive, self-centered. But before it can achieve any object at all, attention must be made as keenly concentrated as an eagle's stare.The aim is to achieve a concentration as firm and as steady as the Mongolian horseman's when he gallops without spilling a drop of water from a completely filled glass held in his hand.Each exercise in meditation must start with a focal point if it is to be effective. It must work upon a particular idea or theme, even though it need not end with it.When it is said that the object of concentration practice should be a single one, this does not mean a single thought. That is reserved either for advanced stages or for spiritual declarations. It means a single topic. This will involve a whole train of ideas. But they ought to be logically connected, ought to grow out of each other, as it were.The genius is the product of intense concentration. All those who lack this quality, will also lack genius.Exercise: When wholly absorbed in watching a cinema picture or a stage drama or in reading a book with complete interest, you are unconsciously in the first stage of meditation. Drop the seed of this attention, that is, the story, suddenly, but try to retain the pure concentrated awareness. If successful, that will be its second stage.These concentrations begin to become effective when they succeed in breaking up the hold of his habitual activities and immediate environment, when they free his attention from what would ordinarily be his present state.He is able to reach this stage only after many months of faithful practice or, more likely, after some years of it. But one day he will surely reach it, and then he will recognize that the straining, the toil, and the faith were all well worthwhile.The first thing which he has to do is to re-educate attention. It has to be turned in a new direction, directed towards a new object. It has to be brought inside himself, and brought with deep feeling and much love to the quest of the Soul that hides there.The mind can be weaponed into a sharp sword which pierces through the illusion that surrounds us into the Reality behind. If then the sword falls from our grasp, what matter? It has served its useful purpose.There is an invisible and inaudible force within us all. Who can read its riddle? He who can find the instrument wherewith to contact it. The scientist takes his dynamo and gathers electricity through its means. The truth-seeker concentrates his mind upon his interior and contacts the mysterious Force back of life. Concentrated thought is his instrument.The effort needed to withdraw consciousness from its focal point in the physical body to its focal point in a thought, a mental picture, or in its own self, is inevitably tremendous. Indeed, when the change is fully completed, the man is often quite unaware of having any body at all.Patanjali points out that inability to hold a state of meditation after it is reached will prevent the arisal of spiritual consciousness as much as inability to reach the state at all.The mind must be emptied first of all content save this one paramount thought, this fixed focus of concentration.Let it be granted that the practice of concentration is hard to perform and irksome to continue for weeks and months without great result. Nevertheless, it is not too hard. Anyone who really makes up his mind to master it, can do so.When this concentration arrives at fixity and firmness which eliminates restless wandering, intrusion, and disturbance, the need of constantly repeating the exercise vanishes. It has fulfilled its immediate purpose. The aspirant should now transfer his attention to the next ("Constant Remembrance") exercise, and exert himself henceforth to bring his attainment into worldly life, into the midst of attending to earthly duties.The practice of yoga is, negatively, the process of isolating one's consciousness from the five senses and, positively, of concentrating it in the true self.With it maximum moral and mental consciousness is induced. There are two separate phases in this technique which must be distinguished from one another. The first involves the use of willpower and the practice of self-control. The second, which succeeds it, involves redirection of the forces in aspiration toward the Overself, and may be called the ego-stilling phase.All exercises in concentration, all learning and mastery of it, require two things: first, an object or subject upon which attention may be brought steadily to rest; second, enough interest in that object to create some feeling about it. When this feeling becomes deep enough, the distractions caused by other thoughts die away. Concentration has then been achieved.Just as we get strong by enduring tensions in the varied situations of life, so we get strong in concentration by patiently enduring defeats one after the other when distractions make us forget our purpose while sitting for meditation.Quietening the mind involves, and cannot but involve, quietening the senses.Concentration practice advances through stages. In the first stage that which is concentrated on is seen as from a distance, whereas in the second stage the idea tends to absorb the mind itself. In the first stage we still have to make hard efforts to hold the idea to attention whereas in the next stage the effort is slight and easy.The body must stop its habitual movement. The attention must take hold of one thing--a metaphysical subject or physical object, a mental picture or devotional idea. Only after proficiency is reached in this preliminary stage should the intellect seek an unfamiliar stillness and an expectant passivity--which mark the closing section of the second stage.If any light flash or form is seen, he should instantly concentrate his whole mind upon it and sustain this concentration as long as he is able to. The active thoughts can be brought to their end by this means.It is possible for a perfectly concentrated yogi to imagine away the whole world out of his existence!If the reverie attains the depth of seeing and feeling hardly anything outside him, being only faintly aware of things before him or around him, that is quite enough for philosophical purposes. A full trance is neither necessary nor desirable.He concentrates daily on the image which he desires to create and sustain in his mind.This work of pushing attention inwards, back to its very source, and the sense of "I-ness" back with it, is to be accompanied by thinking only until the latter can be stopped or itself stops. This work is then continued by a stilled and steady search. When the need of search comes to an end, the searcher vanishes, the "I" becomes pure "Being," has found its source. In these daily or nightly sessions, it is his work to turn away from the diffused attention which is his normal condition to the concentrated attention which is indispensable for progress, and to sustain it.It is not advisable to listen to music whilst working at a typewriter, doing creative writing, or reading to learn. The only exception is reading light, unimportant, or entertaining material--although even then it is still not advisable. This is because it leads to a divided mind; it creates tension, and what one is doing must necessarily suffer to some extent while trying to attend to the music.Reading a noble book helps because it concentrates the thoughts along a single track. It is thus an exercise in concentration.If his lower emotions and earthly passions are to be brought under proper control, will and reason, intuition and aspiration must be brought into the struggle against them. If his acts are to be his own, and not the result of environmental suggestion, if his thoughts are to arise from within his own mind, and not from other people's minds, he must learn the art of fixing them on whatever he chooses and concentrating them whenever he wishes.Give questers this order of Daily Exercise: (1) Prayer in posture; (2) Breathing in posture; (3) Affirmations in mantra--semi-meditation; (4) Full meditation.Because he needs to generate enough power to concentrate his mind on this high topic, a certain economy of energies is required and an avoidance of distractions.The same power of directing attention and concentrating thought which binds him to the worldly existence can be used to free himself from it.The cultivated and concentrated faculty of attention becomes the tool wherewith he carries on his inner work upon himself.The preliminaries of meditation must not be mistaken for the actual meditation itself. They are merely occupied with the effort to brush off distractions and attain concentrated thought whereas it is effortless, continuous mental quiet. They carry the meditator through the initial period of search; it is the higher state of consciousness which they induce.Such intense concentration can abolish time and annihilate space in it; thus reveries demonstrate their relativity and their mentalness.A useful exercise to help acquire concentration is to shut the eyes, direct attention toward some part of the body, and hold it there.We make use of conscious efforts only in order to attain subconscious effort; we fix one thought in meditation only in order to arrive at a state beyond all thought.The mind's great creative potency reveals itself in proportion as the mind's concentrativeness develops.Nuri the Dervish was an adept in meditation. When asked from which master he had learnt such skill, he said that a cat watching a mouse had been his guru.There are two different gazing practices used by the yogis. The first requires them to fix their eyes steadily on the end or tip of the nose; the second requires them to fix it on the root. The first leaves the eyelids closer together than the second. There is a third practice of a related kind in which the gaze is directed to the centre of the stomach, or navel.Meditation Exercise on Pulse-Beat: Take hold of the left wrist between thumb and forefinger of right hand. Locate the artery where the circulation of the blood can be felt. Concentrate attention on this pulse-beat undividedly.The state of concentration acquired during a worldly pursuit differs from that acquired during mystical meditation in that the first is usually directed toward outward things and the experience of sense-pleasures, whereas the second is directed toward inward being and rejects sense-pleasures. Thus the two states are at opposite poles--one belonging to the ego-seeking man, and the other to the Overself-seeking man.Whereas ordinary concentration keeps the attention still turned toward outward things and situations, that concentration which attains its third stage is transformed into contemplation. Here the attention is entirely inward-turned and toward the heavenly being, the holy of holies that is the Overself.There are two ways in which concentration is practised. The first is unconscious and is used by many persons to get their work done whether they be engineers or artists. They have to hold their mind to the job, the matter, or the duty in hand. The scientist may practise it, too, in analysing or in logically developing a theory or in linking up different ideas. The meditator uses concentration in a different way if he is at the first stage, which is the conscious and deliberate practice of concentration. It is then used without analysis, without discursive thought. It is simply held to a single object or idea. The attention is not allowed to wander away into developments of that idea or object. In short, the connections to other things are not made.Concentration, from the standpoint of mystical development, may be regarded as achieved when attention is kept on one idea all the time, without being divided up over several different ideas. It is not achieved if kept on one subject all the time through considering several related ideas--that is, ordinary concentrated thinking.He must train himself to possess the power to concentrate: first, on a single line of thoughts to the exclusion of all others and second, on a single thought.With the gradual settling down of thought and body, the mental stiffness which resisted concentration diminishes. He will be distinctly and vividly aware of this turning point because of the ease, and even delight, with which his mind will now feel its own exalted power.The spiritual life of man at this juncture is a battle against the outward-running tendency of the mind. To perceive this in oneself is to perceive how weak one really is, how feeble a victim of worldly activities, how lacking in the ability to concentrate perfectly even for five minutes, and how unable to hold the attention for the same length of time in the impersonal embrace of a philosophic theme.The Samurai of old Japan embodied a yoga technique in the fencing instruction. The novice had to develop the power of mental concentration, and then use it by picturing himself during meditation wielding the sword to perfection. Thus the body was broken gradually to the will of the mind, and began to respond with rapid lightning strokes and placings of the sword. The famous Katsu, who rose from destitute boy to national leadership of Japan's nineteenth-century awakening, went night after night to an abandoned temple--where he mingled regular meditation with fencing practice in his ambition to become one of Tokyo's master swordsmen.This power to sustain concentrated attention upon a single line or objective for a long time--a power so greatly admired by Napoleon--comes in the end to those who persevere in these practices.The fixed statue-like posture of the hunter watching a prey close at hand, refraining from movement lest he disturb it, eyes and mind completely intent on the animal, gave the yogi seers another object lesson in the art of concentration.He makes the novice's mistake of assuming that what is good for him, necessary for him, is equally good and necessary for others. But what is essential for mystical experience is one thing and one thing only--the faculty of fixing one's attention within and sustaining it.Through it you effect a change in your entire mental make-up. The mind becomes increasingly one-pointed. It is able to form quick decisions. Those decisions are usually correct because all the facts of the case are seen at once, as in a flash. It will give you an air of definite purpose, simply because in your external life you are merely working according to the purposes planned in quietude. Your every act becomes more real and vital. You gather self-confidence because you concentrate your mind on the one thing you are doing.His purpose must be utterly unified, absolutely single-minded.The attainment of reverie passes through two stages also. In the first, the mind is like a little child trying to walk but often falling, for the abstracted mood is intermittent only and soon lost. In the second stage, the mind is like an adult walking steadily and continually, for the abstracted mood remains unbroken and undisturbed.When the meditator tries to keep out all other thoughts except the chosen one, he puts himself up to a tension, a strain--because in most cases he simply can not do this and the failure which is finally admitted after repeated efforts then has a depressing and discouraging effect upon his Quest. Therefore, other and easier methods have been devised for beginners as a preliminary to the more difficult practices of concentration. Such methods include the steady gazing at a physical point, object, or place; use of a mantram, which is the constant repetition of a word or phrase or formula; Short Path affirmation which is the dwelling mentally and constructively on a metaphysical truth or ethical quality of character; and, finally, the practice of certain breathing exercises.He imagines a point upon the wall and concentrates all his being upon it until he is aware of nothing else but the point. All other thoughts have to be emptied out of his mind, all experience of the physical senses other than this sight of the point has to vanish.It is a useful practice, when the thoughts during meditation refuse to be concentrated, to turn them, too, over to the Higher Power--no matter to what event or person, situation or place they stray.When the capacity for concentration is intensified and prolonged, the man is then ready for the further phase which is meditation as such.A simple technique for meditation which has been used in Asia since the most ancient times avoids the use of any human being or any sacred mantram as the object of meditation. This technique in its most primitive form is to take a piece of charcoal and to draw a circle or a square on the wall of a room and then in the centre of the pattern to put a dot. The student is then told to concentrate his gaze upon the dot and to think of nothing else. The pattern is usually large enough for him to see it quite plainly when sitting a yard or two or even three from the wall. Nowadays, the same technique is used by making the diagram on plain white thick drawing paper and pinning the paper to the wall.The practice of using a physical object upon which to gaze in order to concentrate attention during meditation makes it much easier for those who are attracted to it. A metaphysician of Konigsberg, Immanuel Kant, used the same practice when working out his metaphysical theories. Sitting in his study, he would look through the window and fix his sight on a particular fir tree which was growing outside. One day it was cut down and removed and for some time thereafter Kant found difficulty in holding his line of thought without the accustomed fir tree to gaze upon. Indeed, Kant was such a creature of habit that every evening punctually at five o'clock he would take his walk. People in the city of Konigsberg used to time their watches by his appearance in the street, because he was invariably punctual in starting his walk.For those who have set up a high spiritual ideal and moral character for themselves and who have acquired sufficient knowledge through study or lectures about the principles and fundamentals of yoga, there is an excellent exercise which will help them through the elementary phases of development; but to others who are highly neurotic, mentally disturbed, approaching or under psychosis, it is not only not recommended, but would be dangerous. This exercise is to concentrate all the attention upon one object in the surroundings and to keep it there. All associated ideas, analysis, and thoughts about the object should be thrown out. It is not a matter of reflecting about the object, but of holding it in the view and in the mind to the exclusion of everything else.One can begin with very short periods of practice and go on slowly to longer ones, but when some amount of success has been established by the rigorous use of willpower the object should be chosen from some things elevating to the mind such as beautiful music or beautiful landscape. For the elementary phase, about fifteen minutes should be the maximum, but for this uplifting phase one may go on longer.
The practice of one-pointed concentration of attention for any purpose of an ordinary or worldly character or professional or technical nature can be carried to such a far point that it will influence the mind generally, so that when in the course of time the person evolves to higher aims and worthier goals he has ready to use and to bring into his efforts to attain those goals this concentrated power of the mind which is so valuable and so necessary for his inner growth.To squint lightly at the root of the nose is another form of concentration. It is a help towards withdrawing from the physical senses and entering either the psychic or the spiritual planes. The psychic pictures may be seen as symbolic or literal, and clairvoyance may develop. If these manifestations are rejected, and attention is drawn deeper into the void of space, freedom and joy may be felt. But if they are accepted, the creative faculty of the artist is unfolded.Meditation exercise (Lama Drati): Imagine a white dot in centre of forehead and keep attention held unmovingly on it for one hour. Or you can place it in heart. Better still, imagine the figure of Buddha projected in front of you, radiating white light. Or place the Buddha miniature-sized on your head. All these are called exercises to attain one-pointed mind. Only after this attainment can you properly do the more advanced exercises.What concentration means to the artist is what it means to the mystic. Only its object is different. The late Sir Henry Wood, conductor of the London Queen's Hall Concerts, told how, during the First World War, he never heard, whilst conducting, the sirens warning the metropolis of impending air raids. This is what rapt absorption means.The art of fixing the mind in free choice, of holding thoughts as, and when, one wills, has yet to be valued and practised as it ought to be among us. Overlooked and disregarded as it has been, it is like buried treasure awaiting the digger and the discoverer.It is important to give the mind a definite idea to hold and mull over or a definite line to follow and concentrate on. It must be positive in this early stage before it can safely become passive in a later stage.The mind can be influenced by the five senses only when it attends to them.At a certain depth of penetration into his inward being, pain of the body and misery of the emotions are unable to exist. They disappear from the meditator's consciousness.During the first period, which may extend to half an hour, when nothing seems to happen and the line of thought or awareness is wobbly and uncertain, discouragement irksomeness and impatience quite often overcome the practiser. They may induce him to abandon the session for that day. Such a surrender to defeatism is unwise. Even in the case of those who have practised for some years the tedious initial waiting period may still have to be endured. For it is the period during which thoughts settle slowly down just as a glass of muddy water slowly clears as the mud settles to the bottom. The proper attitude to hold while this process continues is patience. This is quite indispensable.How can a man unify his consciousness with the Overself without first putting his mind under some sort of a training to strengthen it, so that he will not let go but will be able to hold on when a Glimpse comes?Where attention is being fixedly held on a single topic by the power of a strong interest in it, there will be little regard given to the passage of time.Thoughts will drift past in ever changing variety, but he will learn to give them no attention even though he is aware of them.The act of continuous concentration--if carried on for some time--draws an extra and unusual quantity of blood to the brain. This causes pleasurable sensations which may increase to an ecstatic degree.The nasal gaze meditation exercise is both easy and quieting. It is mentioned in the Gita. The half-closed eyes look down on the tip of one's nose. They must not wink during the gaze or be closed. When tired, close them and rest. Avoid strain, staring, and popping the eyes wide open. The action should be one of relaxation, restful. All attention of an alert and concentrated mind should be fixed on the gazing. This exercise gives control over the optic nerve and contributes towards steadiness of mind.With sufficient, well-directed practice, he should fix the ideal of being able to attain a capacity of withdrawing attention from the world and concentrating it within himself without losing a single minute.His progress into the deeper state is retarded if, while trying to hold his attention on the chosen theme, he lets some of it remain self-consciously alert at the same time to what he is doing and what his surroundings are like.Any method which settles the mind upon a fixed subject, or concentrates attention upon a single object, may be used. But the result must be elevating and in accord with his ultimate purpose.With all attention gathered in, listen to the beating of the heart.When the mind is too active and thoughts succeed each other too quickly, as in the case of very nervous or very intellectual persons, physical methods are indicated for practice. These may be breathing exercises, repetition of a sound or listening to music of a repetitive nature, gazing at a landscape, figure, work of art, or symbolic pattern.Meditation succeeds to the extent that attention is controlled and turned inward. When this control becomes so intensive that neither sounds nor lights can break it, its concentration is complete.How beautiful is that detachment from unpleasant surroundings which the capacity to intensely concentrate bestows. And this is only one of its rewards. Efficiency in studying a new subject is another.The secret of concentration is . . . practise concentration! Only by arduous effort and persistent, diligent endeavours to master his attention will he finally succeed in doing so. No effort in this direction is wasted and it may be done at any time of the day.One can turn a mystical experience of as much as twenty years ago, or longer, into focus for attention in meditation, and thereby assist the memory to recall every detail of it.The practice of isolating consciousness and remaining centered in it, can be followed whether we are in solitary meditation or active in the world. In meditation it becomes the object of thoughts; in activity it becomes their background. The eyes cannot look at themselves, neither can consciousness: it is itself the subject and cannot be its own object. If the thoughts let themselves slip back into it--their source--the stillness of being is experienced. Staying in it is the practice.The mental detachment needed for this study permits him to shake off personal worries and pettier distractions. When he can fully concentrate in his thinking, sustained and unwandering absorption is possible.It is not essential for the meditator to be so sunk in his practice as to become entirely heedless of his surroundings.His attention should, in theory, be wholly concentrated on this single line of thought. But in practice it will be so only at broken intervals.Yoga demands that the mind occupy itself with one thought or one coherent line of thought, that attention be held fast to it, whether it be the thought of something abstract like God or the thought of something concrete like the cross.Through such concentrative thinking, we may reach peace. It is hard, certainly, and the handcuffed intellect will struggle in your grasp like a reluctant prisoner newly arrested. You must continue with your effort to develop conscious concentrated thought no matter how fumbling your first forays may be.The aim is to sit there totally absorbed in his thought or, at a more advanced level, rigidly concentrated in his lack of it.The word "centre" is a purely mystical term: it is unphilosophical. Where is the possibility of a central point in the mind which is so unlimited? But for practising mystics seeking to retire within, the centre is an excellent goal to aim at.Could one of these yogis practise his meditation while assailed by the deafening noise of a steel-girder rivetting machine operating outside his cave? Is it practicable to follow the advice of the Maharishee, which I heard him give a would-be meditator complaining about being bitten by mosquitoes, to ignore them? Let it be noted that no person who is trying to practise this art could be distracted if he did not attend to the sense affected, whether it be hearing aroused by a machine or feeling aroused by a mosquito.Shutting the eyes is only the first step toward shutting all the senses. That in its turn is only a step towards the still harder task of shutting out all thoughts and all ordinary everyday feelings.The five senses serve us well in the ordinary hours of actual life but tyrannize over us when we try to transcend it and enter the spiritual life.Within a few minutes of starting the exercise they feel exhausted. The effort to concentrate the mind is hard enough but to concentrate and introvert it at the same time is too much for them.The ancient yoga texts enjoin concentration of a steadfast gaze upon a small object until the eyes begin to shed tears. The result of such practices is a cataleptic state in which the mind becomes fixed and unmoving while the body becomes stiff as wood.It is not enough to carry the concentrated awareness away from outward things: it must then be kept there. This also is hard, because all tendencies rebel at first.His attention must be absolute and perfect if it is to be effectual and creative in producing this result.Concentration requires a capacity for continuous attention.Attention must not waver, thought must not wander. This is the ideal, of course, and is not approached, let alone reached, until after long practice.To keep the attention away from any other than the chosen subject is the work of this first stage. The better this is sustained, the deeper is the penetration into the subject.Whatever distracts attention openly and violently, like the passions; or subtly and insidiously, like curiosity; or preoccupies it with cares and anxieties, like business, is likely to interfere with the mind during practice sessions either in concentration or exaltation.Again and again he will have to collect his thoughts and bring his attention to the central point.Some of the old Buddhist monks, the histories say, reached samadhi simply by steadfast gazing upon the floor.All that lies on the margin of attention may remain there.There is no doubt that, in its early phases, the art of meditation makes demands for more concentration than most persons possess, that they soon tire unless their enthusiasm continues.Fixing the gaze upon a spot marked on a wall or an object near or far, is only a preliminary to fixing the mind on a thought.When consciousness is deliberately turned away from the world and directed inward to itself, and when this condition is steadily maintained by a purified person, the result is a real one.The stage of concentration is evaluated as having been established when it can be sustained long enough to let attention become sufficiently abstracted from surroundings, sufficiently absorbed in the mental object, and for the practice itself to be easy, unhindered, attractive.To achieve this kind of concentration where attention is withdrawn from the outer world and held tightly in itself, a determined attitude is needed of not stopping until this sharply pointed state is reached. All other thoughts are rejected in the very moment that they arise. If at the start there is aspiration and devotion toward the Overself, and in the course of the effort too, then eventually the stress falls away and the Stillness replaces it.He who is unwilling to endure concentration sustained to the point of fatigue will not be able to penetrate to the deep level where truth abides. But when he does succeed, the fatigue vanishes, an intense exhilaration replaces it.When he is going to practise any exercise--whether mystical or physical--his mind should be thoroughly concentrated on it and not on anything else. All thought and energy should go into it, if it is to be successfully done.When concentration attains its effective state, the ever-tossing mental waves subside and the emotional perturbations become still. This is the psychological moment when the mystic naturally feels exaltation, peace, and super-earthliness. But it is also the psychological moment when, if he is wise, he should turn away from revelling in personal satisfaction at this achievement and, penetrating yet deeper, strive to understand the inner character of the source whence these feelings arise, strive to understand pure Mind.To bring his scattered thoughts to heel, to give undivided attention to the intuitive feeling which would lead to the secret spiritual self--this is the first task.If it is to profit him, the student must not allow his meditation to become nebulous and vague.The will, driving the attention to a fine pinpoint of concentration, sinks through layer after layer of the mind till it reaches the noblest, the wisest, and the happiest of them all.It would be a serious error to believe that he is to continue with any particular exercise or chosen theme, with any special declaration or analysis or question, no matter what happens in the course of a session. On the contrary; if at any moment he feels the onset of deeper feelings, or stronger aspirations, or notable peace, he ought to stop the exercise or abandon the method and give himself up entirely to the interior visitant. He ought to have no hesitation and no fear in considering himself free to do so.When this gentle inward pull is felt, concentrate all attention, all feeling, and all desire upon it. Give yourself up to it, for you are receiving a visitation from the Lord, and the more you do so, the closer He will come.This is the stage of adoration, when the Overself's beauty and tranquillity begin to take possession of his heart. He should then cease from any further thinking discursively about it or communing verbally with it. It is a time for complete inner silence. Let him engage himself solely in beholding, loving, and eventually uniting with the gracious source of these feelings.There is a distinct feeling of something like a valve opening in the region of the heart.When that delicate feeling comes over him, he should hold on to it with all his concentrativeness and all his collectedness.There is a crucial time in the meditation session when the meditator goes into reverse as it were--instead of intensifying his attention on the idea or object, imagery, or sound, he lets go in surrender and rests. But it is not a rest in egocentricity. All has been handed over to the higher Self to whom he now feels close. Only at this point is he concentrated, calm, ready, and receptive to the Divinity.The moment he feels the beginnings of any movement towards the indrawing of thought and feeling away from externals, he should at once respond to it and let attention fall deeper and deeper into himself, even if for only five minutes. This is important because of the currents of Grace which are being telepathically transmitted to him in fulfilment of the existing relationship.If he is willing to submit to the Overself's gentle drawing, he must first be able to recognize it for what it is.The sensation of being drawn gently inside will be felt.He is to push attention from outside himself to inside. He is then to push away extraneous thoughts while he concentrates on the feeling-search for his innermost self.Better than any other practice is this deep in-searching.Consciousness must focus itself inward upon ascertaining its own source to the exclusion of everything else.The more he internalizes his attention, and the less he responds to the sense-impressions, the nearer he draws to the spiritual presence in his heart.The divine atom is that part of the body with which the Overself is most directly associated, and that is why it is placed in the heart, but of course, the Overself is associated with the whole body. There is a scientific explanation why the heart is the spiritual centre of the body and why the brain is the mental centre, and this is given in The Wisdom of the Overself.His determined, one-pointed attention keeps going down deeper and deeper into his own being.Varieties of practice
There are various practical methods of achieving the combined aim of remembering the divine and concentrating on the divine. Mantram-repetition is one of them. They are mostly elementary and well-suited to aspirants who are at an early stage of development. But these aspirants cannot stay there always. The time comes when they must seek and struggle for a higher stage. Full enlightenment can come only to the fully developed.Although there are some general features common to most techniques, there is also in each case something which is personally needed to suit the particular temperament, character, and status.Each method is merely a point of departure, not a place or arrival. It is a focussing of thoughts upon a special object or subject with a view to travelling later beyond all thoughts into the stage of contemplation.Most of these techniques are preliminary, intended to bring the mind into one-pointed concentration. They do not lead to the real enlightenment.There is no objection to elementary methods of learning to concentrate, that is, to mantram, affirmation, and breath control--provided it is recognized that they are elementary and therefore have their limitations. But when, as is so often the case, this is not known, not understood, or not thought to be correct, then illusions and deceptions are fostered. One of the illusions is that enlightenment, Truth, reality, has been attained. One of the deceptions is that this technique is all that needs to be done.We have tried to formulate methods and to adapt exercises which will enable the modern man to come into this transcendental consciousness without deserting the world and without becoming a votary of asceticism.It is a valuable exercise for those who are repelled by all exercises, to reach back in memory and imagination, in surrender and love, to some grand rare moment of mystical insight. They will not be repelled by this one, for it is so simple that it can hardly be classified among the exercises. And yet it is, with a value immensely disproportionate to its simplicity.The student should not feel bound to follow rigidly a devotional-meditational program laid down, as it needs must be, on general lines to suit a variety of people. He should feel free to express his individuality by improvising additions or alterations in it should a strong prompting to do so come to him.All these rules and suggestions are for beginners. In the end he will have to learn to be able to practise in any place and at any time.Let him experiment with many different exercises and so learn which ones suit him best and help him most.All these methods are simply mechanical devices for throwing the conscious mind out of gear.None of the elementary methods of yoga such as breath control and mantram lead to a permanent control of the mind, but they prepare the way and make it easier to take up those practices which do lead to such a result.So far as meditation is affected by their hidden operation, the tendencies draw one person by one way and others by another. There is no single road. Those who fail to advance in, or are unattracted by, discursive meditation, may use mantrams, symbols, and forms instead.Whether the seeker uses a Tibetan mandala (spiritually symbolic picture) to concentrate on, or an Indian mantram (continuous mental or muttered repetition of a verbal formula), the end result will be an indrawn state of consciousness, abstracted from the outside world, or else a deeper and more sustained remembrance of God. Like the other yoga methods, they are devices to achieve one-pointedness of mind.When selecting an exercise for practice it is well to begin with one that comes easiest to him.A new exercise, theme, or practice in meditation will naturally need more time than an old familiar one.The method of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi can not lead to enlightenment by truth, but it can lead to a very pleasurable temporary quieting of the mind.Explanations of the yogic chakras: He should treat them for just what they are, points in the physical body upon which to concentrate the mind. As he progresses inwardly, he moves up to the next higher chakra; but this kind of concentration yoga is not ordinarily recommended. It belongs to a special yoga which seeks the awakening of the spirit fire and that is a risky undertaking.In Tibetan Buddhist initiations of certain schools, the master uses his sceptre to touch those centres which are specially sensitive to receive the mystic power he is transmitting among them. After touching the head and breast, the importance of the nerve centre at the nape of the neck is recognized by receiving the third touch.After some practice, he will less and less consciously think of the technique and more and more instinctively follow it.The most balanced procedure is to alter the themes and exercises from time to time to meet the different requirements of his all-round development as well as the different intuitive urges and passing moods which may manifest themselves.The advocacy of meditation in a nonspiritual medico-psychological form would probably meet the situation of a number of individuals. However, there ought to be, side by side and along with it, another effort to advocate meditation in a religious and aspirational form for the sake of other individuals who are ready to emerge from narrow orthodoxy, but still wish to keep their religious faith. In both cases, it is necessary to point out that all kinds of meditation must be safeguarded by some effort at self-purification and at strengthening intellectual balance. Otherwise it may do harm as well as good.Even the large range of possible meditations upon spiritual principles, mental ideas, imagined pictures and physical objects does not exhaust the list. He may use his own body, too. The gaze may be concentrated between the eyebrows, down the nose, or upon the navel. The process of breathing may be closely watched.The instructions and directions which are of first importance must be separated from those which are merely second in importance, or confusion will result.Discussion of the methods of meditation, and critical scrutiny of its nature and results can only be of value, if not of interest, to the handful of initiates who have practised one of the methods and experienced some of the results. All others will be dependent on what they have heard or read about meditation. To them such discussion and such scrutiny will be either incomprehensible or unprofitable or bewildering.A continuous ringing of large heavy old church bells, if intently concentrated upon, may produce in a person appreciative of the music in them, a suitable starting point for introverting attention.The methods used to induce this absorbed trance-like state have been as many as they are varied, from the loud bull-like roars of the Pasupata yogis to the aesthetic whirlings of the Mevlevi dervishes.The witch-doctor who, or whose assistant, beats out a rhythm on his drum accomplishes a concentration of mind--a lulling of the senses and a recession from the world for his hearers, to a farther extent than they would have been able to accomplish for themselves alone.There are exercises which lead to this higher consciousness. By the power of will they concentrate attention; by pursuing an elevated topic they bring the latter to meditation; by patiently and perseverantly dropping the will which served so well, they attain the stillness of contemplation.Some of these techniques make the mind numb and thus arrest thinking: they are not only very elementary but also inferior. But for numbers of people they are the easiest ways and the most resultful. They have to be used by such persons as stepping-stones, not as permanent homes.There are various ways used by various seekers of putting the conscious mind out of ordinary action. The way of those dervishes who twirl around on their feet and, at the same time, spin around in a larger circle, is one of them. They eventually get vertigo and fall to the ground. They swoon, and thereafter may get a glimpse.The true inner use of the koan is correct and laudable. The mistake is to make its practice a cause of anxiety and stress. No. It should develop smoothly, thinking harmoniously and even logically, and thus reach the inevitable recognition that intellect can go no further. So the intellect stops working, resigns itself, and lo, acts no more (Wu Wei--inaction). The man then waits patiently and peacefully and acceptantly. The result is no longer in his hands. It must be now entrusted to higher power.Where meditation uses thoughts or images--logical sequential thoughts, or symbolical or realistic images--it is still the work of the man himself and therefore within the ego.As to whether meditation should begin with mental concentration or mental stillness, each practice is advisable at different times or during different phases of one's development. In the course of a year, the student may devote his work during some months to beginning with the first and during other months with the second. It is not possible to generalize about which one is better during any particular period; this depends entirely on individual circumstances. The best way to find out is to make an impersonal self-examination, and then follow one's own intuition.The creator of the Order of Whirling Dervishes used the gyratory movements and dance concentrations, with reed-pipe musical accompaniments, to bring them into the mystical experience. This is possible because body and mind react upon each other. To a lesser extent but in a different way, the same principle is used in hatha yoga. Both methods are intended to reach and awaken people who would find the solely mental, physically immobile meditation too difficult.They complain about the noise outside their meditation room but the noise of their ego inside it is louder. Their techniques are useful and preparatory but unless accompanied or followed by discrimination, knowledge, understanding, they fail to root out the ego, only lulling it and tying them to the espoused system, dogma, or credo.The different yogas are transitory phases which the seeker must develop and then outgrow.Those who feel the need of outward ritual and sacramental service should satisfy it, but those who find simple meditation with nothing added more attractive may progress in their own way.If some of the disciplines are no longer practical under the conditions of present-day living, others are still useful.The well-known helps to concentration such as rosaries, mandalas, geometrical diagrams, candle flames in the darkness, and, most popular of all, a mantram may be used by beginners but they are not necessary to fairly advanced students.Technique should suit temperament.There is available for us all a technical method in which may be found the means to achieve the refulgent moods of mystical inspiration.It is neither right or wrong to try to suppress thoughts in meditation exercises: what matters is to fit what is attempted to the particular object of the particular exercise. So there are times to let thoughts move and times to rein them in.The practice of tratak [continuous gazing] is intended to make the yogi blind to external scenes by attending to a single object; the practice of shabda yoga is intended to render him deaf to external sounds by attending to a single sound; and with sights and sounds cut off, he is well nigh cut off from the whole external world. Thus these systems of yoga are no other than techniques for inducing a concentrated inward-turned state.Dalai Lama on Tibetan tantra: "You push up Force through spine then lean backward mentally to meet it."To the alternatives of thinking with the head and thinking with the heart, the Japanese Zen master offers a third choice: "Think with the abdomen," he advises the practiser of koan meditation exercises. The Tibetan Tantrik masters offer even a fourth choice: "Think with the generative organ and sublimate its feelings." The Advaita Vedantins go still farther. "Think quite abstractly, not of the body at all," they counsel. Should all this not show that no method is of exclusive importance?The Eastern Church used, among other Hesychastic methods of making meditation more successful, the pressing of the chin against the chest.Once a professor at leading Indian universities, and then on attainment of independence a minister in the Indian government, the late Radhakumud Mukerjee was a co-disciple of the same guru who sent Yogananda, founder of S.R.F., to America! Once when we meditated together, Mukerjee swayed as he sat, moving head and shoulders from left to right in a circular fashion. At first this rotation was quite slow, but it picked up a little speed as it went on.Voodoo musicians and African witchdoctors use the rhythmic beating of drums to induce either the trance state or emotional crescendos.The desert fathers, the Egyptian eremites, have their Indian equivalents. Meditation without philosophy, without instruction, without knowledge, produces widely and strangely different results in different people.Some of these old yogas were curious, some alluring, and others horrible. Thus one required him to let his body enter regularly into sexual intercourse but to think all the time about the act's animal ugliness and evil consequences. He was to do this until the sight of a naked female body aroused revulsion, its white gleaming limbs seemed more hideous than attractive, and its invitation to coitus filled him with disgust. Another method required him to sit on a fresh corpse in the pitch darkness of a cemetery at midnight and think solely of the quality of fearlessness. These apparently were Indian versions of the attempt to take the kingdom of heaven by violence. In Bengal and Tibet they are still practised by some fanatics. Yet more aspirants are likely to fail with them than succeed. In the one yoga, such failures would result in greater sensuality than before and in the other in greater fear than before. Nevertheless their effectiveness may be granted. But, we ask, is it not better for civilized modern seekers to use more refined and less drastic methods?
Don Salmon
Here is something I think will be useful to many. I wish I had known it many years ago, as I struggled between the intuition that there is nothing to do, we are all Divine, Brahman is all there is, etc and the obvious counter view that so many of the greatest teachers (including Ramana Maharshi, who is sometimes thought to only teach what Paul Brunton is calling here the "short path") tell us to practice long and hard, to develop an ethical, responsible life, etc. I think Brunton makes this distinction quite beautifully here.
Tirclean Talk by P.B., June 1965: Short Path and Long Path
All ways of spiritual seeking divide into two classes. The first is basic, elementary, the second for more advanced people. The first for beginners is the Long Path. It takes a long time to get results, and a lot of work has to be done on it; much effort is necessary for it. The second is the Short Path. The results are more quickly got; it is an easier path, and requires less work. To the Long Path belongs the methodical yoga. It takes a lot of work to practise daily: building of character and removing of weaknesses and overcoming of faults, developing concentration of attention to stop the distraction of mind and to get control over thoughts, strengthening of willpower, and all the activities for the beginners. These are the earlier stages of meditation.
Meditation has two parts. The lower one belongs to the Long Path. Also, the religions are for the beginners and popular masses. They, too, belong to the Long Path. To the Short Path belong Christian Science, Ramana Maharshi's teachings, Vedanta, Krishnamurti's teaching, and Zen. They all say You Are GOD. The Long Path says instead: You are only a man. The one says that you are man and the other says that you are also really rooted in God.
Long Path--here is working through the ego. The student thinks he is the ego and develops concentration, aspiring to improve himself, getting more and more pure. He says: "I am doing this work." He is thinking that he is purifying himself and improving the quality of the ego. But it is still ego. He is rising from the lower to the higher part of the ego and becoming a spiritualized ego. He is looking for the Gurus (spiritual teachers).
Short Path--it is different because the idea "ego" does not come in, only the Overself, not the longing (which belongs to the Long Path), but the identification, not even aspiration.
Long Path has to do with progress and takes a time for it and therefore means moving in time, and it is the ego who is working.
Short Path is not concerned with time and therefore not with progress. Thinking only of the timeless Overself. No idea of progress, no desire, it does not matter. Real Self is always changeless. Progress implies change. All questions and problems disappear because the questioning (ego) intellect is not allowed to be active.
Now you understand the question of the Guru. On the Long Path the aspirant wants the Guru, he looks for a Guru, is depending on him, and the Guru helps him to progress. On the Short Path the Overself is the Guru and the aspirants depend directly only on the Overself. On the Short Path the Guru question does not come into consideration. Guru is outside themselves, but God is inside on theShort Path stage. The aspirants on the Short Path need not depend on a Guru. Intellectually they have freedom from the Guru. If a guru dies or disappears, they do not worry about it. There is a real reliance on God--no human being, but your Spirit.
Long Path--the aspirants are moving in shadows, there is not life but darkness, they are not in the light but in ignorance. Their reason is not enlightened. Because they are living in the ego they are living in spiritual ignorance, which is darkness.
Short Path--he lives in the Sunlight, because he lives in Truth, the only reality--like looking, being in the sun. As in Plato's story, he comes out of a cave, walking to the opening with his back turned to the opening of the cave, moving and seeing only the darkness. The other way is turning around to the mouth of the cave, seeing a little light, then more and more light. Even from the beginning there is still some light.
A question will be asked: Why does not every teacher teach the Short Path? The answer is: Because people have not got enough strength of character to give up the ego and are not willing to turn at once to the light. It is a sacrifice. To make this possible, the Long Path teaches them to make the ego weaker by graduated stages. In the Long Path the progress comes in, just to prepare them to reach a point where it is easier for them to give up the ego. This is one of the most important of the reasons. It makes the aspirant ready to benefit by the Short Path; otherwise he would not be able to travel on it. The second reason is because they have not the strength of concentration to keep the mind on the Overself. They may be able to keep it for one or two minutes, but they then fall back. Therefore it is necessary to develop the power of sustained concentration. Even if one sees the Truth, one must get the power to stay in the Truth and to be established in it.
Most people have strong attachments and strong desires for worldly things. These are in their way, obstructing their way on the path to Reality. This means that they want to keep attachments and desires that are coming from the ego, which they do not want to lose. Therefore the teacher gives first the Long Path, because most aspirants are not able to follow the Short Path. The Long Path exists to prepare them for it. There is no use for them to go on the Short Path if they have not got the philosophical understanding to practise it. Even if they were shown the Truth in the Short Path, they may, if unprepared by study and thinking philosophically, fail to recognize it. They have not learnt what Truth is and might not value it. They have no philosophical knowledge to see the difference between Truth or Reality and illusion or error. They have to understand Truth even intellectually. That is a part of the Long Path.
Another very important matter related to the Long Path: when people follow the Long Path and spend years working on it, many such persons after several years find they have not made the progress they have expected. In the beginning they have enthusiasm. They expect inner experiences giving power, knowledge, and self-control; but after many years they have not gained these things. On the contrary, tests, hard trials of the life come, death in the family, for instance, changes of the outside life, and so on. They are disappointed and say: "Why has God chosen me for suffering even when I follow the Path? Troubles come to me." They are disheartened. At this point one of three things may happen:
(1) They may give up the Quest altogether, for one year or many years, or all life long, and turn back to materialistic living.
(2) They may think they have taken to the wrong path, or are using wrong methods, or have the wrong teacher, and they look for another teacher and another way. But with the new teacher the results are the same because they are still within the circle of the ego. The ego prevents them from sufficiently deepening their state of light and wisdom.
(3) The third possibility may happen to them. When they themselves have tried so hard and did not succeed and feel too tired mentally and exhausted emotionally, they give up trying but they do not give up the Quest. They just sit passively and wait. Those who are in this last or third category are completely ready to enter the Short Path and should do it. Even beginners may enter the Short Path, but in practice they find it too hard.
The best way is from the beginning to make a combination of both. But this combination must be varied and adjusted to each person, because people are different. There is not one fixed rule for everyone. One person is suited for a little of the Short Path and more or longer of the Long Path; with the other person it is vice versa. With most people the combination is the best way. It depends partly on their feelings, their intuition, and advice given by teachers. In the end, everyone must come to the Short Path.
Contradictions between the two Paths: one is the ego and the other the Overself without ego. The Short Path is without plane, intuitive, like Sudden Enlightenment. On the Long Path they are looking step by step to get out of the darkness of their ignorance. The next important point: on the Long Path many students want experiences--mystical, occult, psychical ones. It is the ego wanting them and the satisfaction of progressing. The ego feels important. In the Short Path there is no desire for inner experiences of any kind. When you are already in the Real, there is no desire any more. For experiences come and go, but the Real does not. Now you see why the popular religions are only attempts to get people to make a beginning to find God, but are not able to go too far and too quickly. For those who are more developed and less bound to attachments, the teacher gives the Short Path. In the teachings of Jesus and Buddha we find both Paths. People have different stages of evolution and can therefore take what suits them. The teacher gives them what they understand from their level of understanding.
Popular religions are mixtures of the Long and Short Paths. But unfortunately they sometimes lead to confusion. In the Biblical sentence, "Before Abraham was, I AM," there are two meanings. The lower one means the reincarnation, the higher one means: I AM the Reality.
On the Short Path we do not care about reincarnation matters, we do not give them much importance. On the Short Path the aspirants need the philosophical study to understand only one point: What is Reality. It is necessary to understand the difference between the Illusion and the Reality. Every teacher's biggest difficulty is to get the students to understand that not only the world but also the ego is illusion. The aspirants do not know what the ego is. Therefore Jesus said: "If you want to find your true Self you have to deny yourselves," meaning deny the ego. Buddha said: "This is not I." The Buddha taught his monks to practise saying and thinking this mantram. There is much confusion about the two points if there is not the knowledge that all teachings fall into these two classes and if there is no understanding of the difference between them.
It is necessary to publish a new book. Even among people who have studied for many years, there is this confusion.
A very important point: because the ego lives in its own darkness, it cannot give light. The light may come only from the Overself, which is the Sun and Light of human existence. With the reason we can control the ego to some extent, but it is not possible to control the Overself. As regards Enlightenment, this is not coming from self-willed effort; it is coming only by what the Overself does to him. It is a matter of Grace--unpredictable--and it is the last secret. It is like the wind that comes you do not know where from and goes you do not know where to. It is a mystery. At the end we have to be like little children and leave our Enlightenment to the Father and give up our lives to him. On the Long Path the aspirant tries to improve himself. He experiences successes and failures, ups and downs. When he is disappointed, he gets melancholy. On the Short Path such a situation cannot arise, because he has faith like a little child. He has given up all his future to Overself-God and he has enough faith to trust to it. He knows he has made the right decision and therefore is always happy. He depends on this GRACE, he knows It, that It comes from the wisest being behind the world. Whatever will come, it will be the best. He is always relying on the Overself and having the joy in it.
The Short Path is a cheerful Path, a Path of happiness. Just before this begins, the aspirant may experience the Dark Night of the Soul. He feels utterly helpless, has no feeling of spiritual Reality. It is a melancholy time--no feeling of spirituality or longing for it. He is neither worldly nor spiritual. He feels alone and abandoned and separated by a wall from his Guru. He feels God has forgotten him. This dark night may last a short time or long years. He is unable to read spiritual things, or think about them. There is no desire for ordinary things either. He feels sad and disappointed and may even try suicide. In this unhappiness even those who love him cannot bring him comfort. In both hemispheres, Western and Eastern, there is a saying: the night is darkest just before dawn. He is on the lowest point. After that, the Short Path brings back the Joy--just like clouds moving away from the Sun.
The best advice is, first, that it will not last forever; he must have patience. Second, he must have hope. Then he reaches a better level than ever before. The Dark Night of the Soul does not come to every seeker. It is like a shadow thrown by the Sun. When the Sun appears in the subconscious, the shadows arise. But it is the beginning of a great inner change. It is not a wasted time; there is a great deal of work going on--but in the subconscious--to root out the ego. It is being done by the Overself. It is a sign of Grace, but the aspirant nevertheless feels unhappy.
In the Short Path there are usually much fewer exercises to practise. It is not necessary to sit down specially to meditate, but to try to be always in meditation. When you are busy outwardly, meditation naturally takes a different form than when you sit down for it. During the active part of the day, meditation takes the form of remembrance, always to try to remember the Overself: IT IS (That is enough). In the special meditation time our object is not to improve the character. During the meditation we have to empty our mind of thoughts as quickly as possible, let the mind become still. Ordinarily we live in our thoughts, in our little selves, even if the thoughts are spiritual. Therefore we have to keep away from all thoughts. If you want to think of the Overself, which is without any form, it is not possible. We try, but any idea, form, or shape is wrong. You cannot imagine it. So better not to try but to be still. You must not remain in the ego. "Be still [let go] and know that I AM GOD," says the Bible.
Wu-Wei, meaning inaction, not trying, is the highest teaching of Taoism and Zen and it means the same as what has just been explained. The Overself is already there. You as ego must get out of the way. Most people have to combine the Long Path with the Short Path--perhaps one day or one week (whatever the inner urge directs) on the Long Path and the other day on the Short Path. The attitude will be a passive one because all intellectual ideas have only a limited value. We must be now guided by our inner feeling of what we need, or by our intuition. If people ask whether they have to study, the answer is that the books deal with the thoughts. What they give is not the Truth, but only intellectual statements of it. It will only prepare them for a better understanding. When they study these books they will only get more thoughts. In the end they have to come to the point where they need no books. There are good books but we must always discriminate between wrong teachings and right teachings, which may get mixed together in the same book. This is the highest we can go with such studies.
When changing to contemplation, the thinking stops. This is the deepest point within oneself. This is why everybody has to search within himself and to find his own Path. It is not necessary to travel on the Long Path any longer time than that which prepares you for the Short Path. It is quite important to have living faith in the Overself and to become like a child and to have as much dependence on the Overself as a little child has on its parents. This faith should be in the power of the Spirit itself, not in any other human being. If the aspirant is constantly anxious about his faults or weaknesses, then he is on the wrong Path. He can try to remove them but cannot do this completely until he is able to give up the ego.
The basis of the Short Path is that we are always divine. It is with us already, it is no new thing, and we only have to try to recognize what is already there. (#2707)
Don Salmon
Progressive Stages of the Quest.
1. Glimpses and flashes of insight.
Consciousness is the unique element in every experience.
Once we learn the secret of our true nature we begin to perceive.
A ray from the Overself will shine upon our normal mind and transform and transfigure it. But moments of spiritual ecstasy are heralds of the high state which is yet to come when the Overself is taken fully into our councils and we have let go of the terrestrial ego with its dwarfed personal viewpoint.
2. Surrender of the ego.
To give up the "I" is very hard, yet that is our one and only task. The right attitude eclipses the ego and brings peace, whereas the wrong attitude enhances the ego and brings pain.
Habitually if unconsciously we split all experience into the world that is known and the I that knows it, into the "not I" and the "I."
Consider what happens when we become intensely interested in a story unfolding itself on a cinema screen. What happens during the deepest points of such concentration? For the time being we actually forget ourselves, and we drop the whole burden of personal memories, relations, desires, anxieties, and pettinesses which constitute the ego. Temporarily the "I" is transcended. The attainment of the Overself is nothing more than the ability to detach, not destroy, the ego at will.
George
Don Salmon
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Don Salmon
Phew! You're very hard on us Don. But you've definitely made me a fan of Brunton. Where do these numbered paragraphs come from?
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Track 24: Space of Awareness - Intro
DON: The Space of Awareness is a meditation exercise that's designed to give you a taste of the core experience of peace, calm, and contentment that comes as a result of being anchored in the hub of your wheel of awareness, and from there being present with all aspects of your experience on the rim of the wheel without getting caught up in them or attempting to alter them in any way.
Track 6: Space of Awareness
JAN: Take a moment to settle into a comfortable position with your eyes closed, and begin to take a few slow deep ocean breaths. With each exhalation, let yourself release tension from your body, release any thoughts or concerns that were occupying your mind, and any fears, desires, or emotions that were occupying your heart. Relax gently into the present moment –... letting go, getting quiet, preparing to turn your attention inward.
DON: Now, take a moment to bring to mind an image that evokes for you a sense of wide open space. It could be the clear expanse of sky from an airplane window when you’re flying above the clouds - or maybe the endless view in all directions from high on a mountaintop. Maybe it’s the immensity of the ocean, an open stretch of desert sand, or simply gazing upward into the infinite black of the night sky.
Choose one of those or some other image of spaciousness that appeals to you, and then sit quietly for a moment with your eyes closed, holding that image in mind, and let yourself experience the feeling of boundless space that the image evokes.
JAN: Now, staying aware of that feeling of spaciousness, bring part of your attention to your body. Move your attention into different parts of the body, noticing the various sensations that arise – at the same time remaining aware of the background of spaciousness against which you notice them. Notice the sensations in your head and the feeling of spaciousness all around your head. Be aware of the sensations in your arms and hands and the spaciousness surrounding the sensations. Notice the sensations in your torso…. your legs….your feet, and the background of spaciousness against which you notice them.
DON: You may notice that you can't identify a clear boundary between the sensations that make up the experience of your body and the sense of space around your body…
See if you can release the idea of a clear boundary, and bring your attention fully to the larger space in which these sensations exist…
Allow the sense of this larger space to expand until you lose the sense of it having a beginning or an end, abiding in wide open space…
JAN: As your sense of spaciousness expands, you may notice a quality of stillness or calm associated with the unchanging nature of the space, a feeling of simply being which remains unchanged while the sensations continue to move and change in various ways…
DON: Notice any sounds that arise and notice that they all occur within this larger space… whether near or far, the sounds all exist within the same open space of awareness …
JAN: Notice images and thoughts arising in your mind… these too are moving and changing in various ways, all within the larger space …
Thoughts, images, sounds, all arise in space, linger or move through it, and dissolve back into it, but the space remains, unchanged by whatever moves through it…
DON: Feelings, too, come and go – feelings of happiness, sadness, anger, joy, liking or disliking – constantly changing, yet…leaving the space untouched, unchanged…
JAN: Now turn your attention fully to the space in which the sensations, thoughts and feelings arise – the space of Awareness in which arise and dissolve all the sensations, thoughts, images and feelings that make up your experience in this moment.
DON: Staying aware of sensations, images, thoughts and feelings arising and passing away, notice the tendency of your mind to hold on to a particular thought or image, a particular feeling or sensation, trying to follow it, analyze or struggle with it... When you notice that tendency, gently let go, and let your attention rest in the space between thoughts, feelings, or sensations. As you release the tendency to hold on, a feeling of peace, calm, or greater spaciousness may arise with the letting go.
JAN: Let the feeling of wide open space continue to expand.
Notice how everything moves, changes constantly within the space of awareness – sensations, thoughts, feelings – all patterns of moving energy, arising in space, moving through space, dissolving back into space, leaving no trace.
WHICH IS MORE "REAL", A RAINBOW OR A TREE?
NOTE FOR FORUM READERS: in the original essay what precedes this is a story about a man who regained his sight after being blind for several decades. The fact that we construct our "world" is quite evident from seeing how this man had to relearn simple things like recognizing a face or discerning that stairs were not 2 dimensional)
You may have a few questions at this point. First, it may be hard to see how this applies to you, since you're not blind. But actually, the only difference between you and Virgil (or you and an infant) is the speed with which this process takes place. In fact, you (or your mind, or "brain") are performing the exact same, incredibly complex process of construction at every moment—with regard to each thing you see—and with regard to each thing you hear, touch, taste and smell as well. It's just that for you, it happens so quickly you're not aware of it.
Let's look at this process of construction in relation to the main ideas of this essay. If all we know is within our consciousness, and all the forms we perceive within consciousness are mind-constructed, what does it mean to say that something is "real"—that is, exists independent of consciousness altogether"
Let's start by examining the "reality" of a rainbow.[9]
A rainbow is an arching splendor of light and color, often spanning what appears to be a fairly large region of space. Imagine now that you're standing outside, looking at a rainbow against the backdrop of a wide blue sky, and consider the following question: "Is the rainbow 'really' there?"
When we ask of a thing, is it really there, what we really mean is, does it exist independent of my consciousness—would it still be there if I closed my eyes. So think about the rainbow—you know if you were to walk to where the rainbow seems to end, it wouldn't be "there;" after considering the question a bit more, you'll probably come to the conclusion (as scientists have) that what we call the "rainbow" is really something that only exists as a relationship between sunlight, moisture, and your visual awareness of it. But you might then be tempted to clarify this by saying, of course, the light and moisture are "really" there, but the rainbow is not.
Now consider a tree. At first glance, a tree seems quite different from a rainbow. You can not only look at it, you can hear the noise its leaves make in the wind, you can smell its resins and—perhaps even more important in terms of its "reality"—you can walk up to it and touch it, thus assuring yourself that it's composed of "solid" matter.
Now, ask the same question you asked of the rainbow: Is the tree "really" there" Remember what we generally mean when we ask if something is real is whether or not it exists apart from my consciousness—or more precisely, whether it exists apart from any conscious observer whatsoever.
If you think about it a bit more, you might say, "well, we know what "really" exists apart from my consciousness of the tree are the subatomic particles, or waves, or whatever you want to call them, that physicists tell us are the components of the "real" world. But we've already seen that scientists have come to the conclusion that these waves, particles, etc. are simply conceptual models they have constructed on the basis of perceptual experience. So whatever the "real" tree is "made of"—if "made of" is the right way to put it—is ultimately unknown. To keep it simple, let's call that unknown, "X."[10]
Now think back to the rainbow. A "rainbow," we said, does not exist by itself, but is rather a relationship between an observer and a combination of moisture and light. As different as the tree seems to us, it's exactly the same thing—at least, for the tree as we experience it. That is, the experienced tree, just like the rainbow, does not exist by itself, but is rather a relationship between an observer and—well, in this case, we have an unknown, "X".
To be specific, the brown color of the bark, the sound of the leaves moving in the wind, the smell of the resins, the solid "feel" of the tree—none of these exist independently of your (or some kind of) consciousness. Rather, they are a relationship between your consciousness and an unknown reality, or "X" .[11]
To really get a feel for this, you might want to bring to mind a number of objects you encounter regularly in your day-to-day life—your home, your car, the building where you work, etc. If you do this keeping in mind that all you know of them is within your consciousness—you may find the "texture" of your experience shifting, at least a little bit. To the extent this happens for you, it may be a bit easier to consider some of the possibilities suggested in later sections of this essay.
(11) Please note this is not intended to support a philosophy of idealism -- there is no claim being made here that consciousness "creates"the tree. The idea is much simpler -- the experienced tree is a relationship between your consciousness and an unknown "X"which does not depend for its existence on your individual consciousness. In this particular essay, I'm not aiming to support or refute idealism, nor any other particular philosophic view.
But there's an important question that you may have, that could prove to be an obstacle to taking this exercise seriously. You may wonder why I keep referring to that which is constructing experience as "mind." Isn't "mind" a relic of the superstitious, unscientific past? Doesn't everyone agree that "mind" is just a word for processes taking place in the physical brain? For example, in the passage above, Oliver Sacks explains that Virgil's difficulty lay in the fact that "his retina and optic nerve were active, transmitting impulses, but his brain could make no sense of them." Wasn't it Virgil's brain that was having trouble putting his world together for him? (and, within the contemporary physicalist framework, can we even speak of "Virgil" as distinct from his "brain" ?)
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Don Salmon
Nice. I was thinking of combining something like a "space" exercise + a treatment of experience similar to Donald Hoffman's. Similar, except he brings consciousness to the "X" aspect.
George
For instance, you read about atoms, a picture of spheres or fuzzy circles appear; you read about magnetism, you imagine glowing lines connecting two objects; you read about the Big Bang, you imagine an explosion; you read about "consciousness", you imagine...? And where do these pictures appear?
All of those pictures appear in awareness. You read about an "external world", but notice that all the representations, just like your other experiences, appear inside this space. Your idea of an external world is something which is forever internal. Or rather, neither.
Don Salmon
How solid and reliable is our sense of time or space? Suppose you are sitting on the bench by the pond, watching a leaf fall from the tree. Consider your image of the leaf at any particular moment. The “leaf” that you see in that moment is actually more than 1/100 of a second old. It takes several billionths of a second for the light to travel from the leaf to your eyes, then more time for your brain to process the light and construct the image of the leaf. So the leaf you “see” is a fraction of a second out-of-date. Where is the leaf at the moment you “see” it? Since the earth is moving around the sun at approximately 67,000 miles per hour, the leaf has moved quite a distance from where it was when the light which reached your eye was first reflected off of it.
Perhaps it is hard to get a sense of the relativity of space and time perception on this small a scale. Consider a distant star. When you look at the night sky, the stars you “see” may actually be thousands of light-years away from the point where you “see” them. Or, they may have ceased to exist many years ago. Not only do we forget that the sensory qualities of everything we see only exist relative to our human consciousness, but the time and place within which we see them is also relative to the way our mind functions.
Perhaps looking at our world construction in a still larger context of space and time could be helpful. Take a moment to imagine what the universe might have looked like as it took form after the Big Bang…
You may have come up with something along the lines of what Alan Wallace writes here:
As we attend to cosmology’s description of the evolution of the universe from the Big Bang up to the emergence of life on our planet, a series of images of these events are brought to mind. We may imagine something like a cosmic firecracker at the beginning, red-hot gases expanding in space; the formation of radiant, bright stars; a molten, lifeless planet; and finally nucleotides that mysteriously transform into living, conscious creatures.
Now, consider Wallace’s further comments:
Upon reflection, it becomes obvious that none of these images existed in nature, for they are human constructs based upon our conscious, visual experience. While texts on cosmology may display vivid artist’s portrayals of the formation of stars and planets, such images may be profoundly misleading. They presumably depict these events as they would have appeared if humans had been on the scene to witness them. But cosmology denies that human consciousness was present, so they never looked like those illustrations. Indeed, in a cosmos devoid of consciousness, they never looked like anything at all.[emphasis added] No images are appropriate. Nevertheless, they do come to mind; and the tendency is to reify them, to assume that they existed in a mindless universe all on their own. [i]
Don Salmon
Don Salmon
George
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* That all acts are intentional acts, with an implicit request which implies a result.
George
That you don't see with your eyes, not even your 'conceptual eyes';
you see with/from a region of awareness.
Don Salmon
From Krishna Prem's "The Yoga of the Katha Upanishad"
When we can feel ourselves that mys-
terious and apparently characterless being in which
forever float all the images of sensations and thought
that make up the universe, then and only then have
we identified our being with that of the Atman and then
only can we be said to 'know' it
***************************************************************
The Shanta Atman is utterly transcendent,
entirely free from those sense qualities by the help of
which we recognise and identify objects. How, indeed,
are we to know that which is devoid of all the distin-
guishing marks by which we know things ? We can
only do it by the path of negation, by rejecting in all
experience all the qualities which sense perceives, and,
it may be added, all the characteristics which the mind
thinks. What remains when this has been done is the
Light which supports them all equally, the Light of the
Atman. The sky is full of clouds but it is not to any
cloud that we must give our attention. Rather, we
must strive to realise what it is in which the clouds are
floating. But in truth, as Plotinus said, our way takes
us beyond knowing. The Atman is not an object of
any sort that can be 'known' by a subject. It is itself
the eternal Subject and consequently anything to which
we can point, anything which can be known as such,
is not that Atman but, at best, its reflection in something
else. The Akasha in which the clouds float can only be
'known' when we can feel the clouds floating in our
own being, when, that is, we have ourselves become
the Akasha. When we can feel ourselves that mys-
terious and apparently characterless being in which
forever float all the images of sensations and thought
that make up the universe, then and only then have
we identified our being with that of the Atman and then
only can we be said to 'know' it. No other type of
knowledge is possible. As another Upanishad puts it
"how should one know the Knower," save, of course,
by being oneself that Knower. Nor, having 'known'
it, is any verbal description possible to which objec-
tions cannot be taken. Such words as are used in the
text are but an attempt to express the nature of the
experience and must be taken as such.
It should not be forgotten that the Atman is not
something which is far away, "pinnacled high in the
intense inane."
It does not "lie away somewhere leaving the rest void;
to those of power to reach, it is present; to the inapt,
absent. In our daily affairs we cannot hold an object
in mind if we have given ourselves elsewhere, occupied
in some other matter; that very thing must be before us
to be truly observed. So here also, preoccupied by the
impress of something else, we are withheld under that
pressure from becoming aware of the Unity; a mind
gripped and fastened by some definite thing cannot take
the print of the very contrary .''^ (Plotinus, the Enneads)
The 'something else' that prevents our seeing the
Atman is of course the content of experience, the vivid
images of sense and even of thought. These are what
we attend to and to which we give ourselves. Hence
we fail to feel the Atman in ourselves, or, to speak more
correctly, we forget to identify our being with it.
For the Atman is here and now in all experience,
even the most trivial. Its full realisation may be a "far-
off divine event" for us who think in terms of time, but
it is present now, without it we could neither write nor
read nor understand these words or any others. At
the very back of our being, now at this moment, its
Light is shining and by that Light we see and taste and
touch and feel and think. It is of the very utmost im-
portance that now we should turn back to what we have
forgotten, for in that alone is our true being, a being
that is beyond this and all other universes (greater
than the Mahat) and which, when discerned, is known
with an utter certainty, surpassing all we count as know-
ledge, to be imperishable, without beginning or end,
the one Fixed thing in all creation's flux.
RHC
Although it’s possible to add images and music to Twine games, they’re essentially nothing but words and hyperlinks; imagine a digital “Choose Your Own Adventure” book, with a dash of retro text adventures like Zork. A free program that you can learn in one sitting, Twine also allows you to instantly publish your game so that anyone with a web browser can access it. The egalitarian ease of Twine has made it particularly popular among people who have never written a line of code — people who might not even consider themselves video-game fans, let alone developers. Chris Klimas, the web developer who created Twine as an open-source tool in 2009, points out that games made on it “provide experiences that graphical games would struggle to portray, in the same way books can offer vastly different experiences than movies do. It’s easy to tell a personal story with words.”
George
Don Salmon
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Don Salmon
To Dwell in the Psychic
To dwell in the psychic is to be lifted above all greed. You will have no hankering, no worry, no feverish desire. And you will feel also that whatever happens, happens for the best. Do not misunderstand me to imply that you must always think that everything is for the best. Everything is not for the best so long as you are in the ordinary consciousness. You may be misled into utterly wrong channels when you are not in the right state of consciousness. But once you are poised in the psychic and have made your self-offering to the Divine, all that happens will happen for the best, for everything, however disguised, will be a definite divine response to you.
Indeed the very act of genuine self-giving is its own immediate reward – it brings with it such happiness, such confidence, such security as nothing else can give. But till the self-giving is firmly psychic there will be disturbances, the interval of dark moments between bright ones. It is only the psychic that keeps on progressing in an unbroken line, its movement a continuous ascension. All other movements are broken and discontinuous. And it is not till the psychic is felt as yourself that you can be an individual even; for it is the true self in you. Before the true self is known, you are a public place, not a being. There are so many clashing forces working in you; hence, if you wish to make real progress, know your own being which is in constant union with the Divine. Then alone will transformation be possible. All the other parts of your nature are ignorant: the mind, for instance, often commits the mistake of thinking that every brilliant idea is also a luminous idea. It can with equal vigour trump up arguments for and against God: it has no infallible sense of the truth. The vital is generally impressed by any show of power and is willing to see in it the Godlike. It is only the psychic which has a just discrimination: it is directly aware of the supreme Presence, it infallibly distinguishes between the divine and the undivine. If you have even for a moment contacted it, you will carry with you a conviction about the Divine which nothing will shake.
How, you ask me, are we to know our true being? Ask for it, aspire after it, want it as you want nothing else. Most of you here are influenced by it, but it should be more than an influence, you should be able to feel identified with it. All urge for perfection comes from it, but you are unaware of the source, you are not collaborating with it knowingly, you are not in identification with its light. Do not think I refer to the emotional part of you when I speak of the psychic. Emotion belongs to the higher vital, not to the pure psychic. The psychic is a steady flame that burns in you, soaring towards the Divine and carrying with it a sense of strength which breaks down all oppositions. When you are identified with it you have the feeling of the divine truth – then you cannot help feeling also that the whole world is ignorantly walking on its head with its feet in the air!
You must learn to unite what you call your individual self with your true psychic individuality. Your present individuality is a very mixed thing, a series of changes which yet preserves a certain continuity, a certain sameness or identity of vibration in the midst of all flux. It is almost like a river which is never the same and yet has a certain definiteness and persistence of its own. Your normal self is merely a shadow of your true individuality which you will realise only when this normal individual which is differently poised at different times, now in the mental, then in the vital, at other times in the physical, gets into contact with the psychic and feels it as its real being. Then you will be one, nothing will shake or disturb you, you will make steady and lasting progress
Collected Works of the Mother, Volume 3, p. 123
Don Salmon
The Science of Living
To know oneself and to control oneself
An aimless life is always a miserable life.
Every one of you should have an aim. But do not forget that on the quality of your aim will depend the quality of your life.
Your aim should be high and wide, generous and disinterested; this will make your life precious to yourself and to others.
But whatever your ideal, it cannot be perfectly realised unless you have realised perfection in yourself.
To work for your perfection, the first step is to become conscious of yourself, of the different parts of your being and their respective activities. You must learn to distinguish these different parts one from another, so that you may become clearly aware of the origin of the movements that occur in you, the many impulses, reactions and conflicting wills that drive you to action. It is an assiduous study which demands much perseverance and sincerity. For man's nature, especially his mental nature, has a spontaneous tendency to give a favourable explanation for everything he thinks, feels, says and does. It is only by observing these movements with great care, by bringing them, as it were, before the tribunal of our highest ideal, with a sincere will to submit to its judgment, that we can hope to form in ourselves a discernment that never errs. For if we truly want to progress and acquire the capacity of knowing the truth of our being, that is to say, what we are truly created for, what we can call our mission upon earth, then we must, in a very regular and constant manner, reject from us or eliminate in us whatever contradicts the truth of our existence, whatever is opposed to it. In this way, little by little, all the parts, all the elements of our being can be organised into a homogeneous whole around our psychic centre. This work of unification requires much time to be brought to some degree of perfection. Therefore, in order to accomplish it, we must arm ourselves with patience and endurance, with a determination to prolong our life as long as necessary for the success of our endeavour.
As you pursue this labour of purification and unification, you must at the same time take great care to perfect the external and instrumental part of your being. When the higher truth manifests, it must find in you a mind that is supple and rich enough to be able to give the idea that seeks to express itself a form of thought which preserves its force and clarity. This thought, again, when it seeks to clothe itself in words, must find in you a sufficient power of expression so that the words reveal the thought and do not deform it. And the formula in which you embody the truth should be manifested in all your feelings, all your acts of will, all your actions, in all the movements of your being. Finally, these movements themselves should, by constant effort, attain their highest perfection.
All this can be realised by means of a fourfold discipline, the general outline of which is given here. The four aspects of the discipline do not exclude each other, and can be followed at the same time; indeed, this is preferable. The starting-point is what can be called the psychic discipline. We give the name ``psychic'' to the psychological centre of our being, the seat within us of the highest truth of our existence, that which can know this truth and set it in movement. It is therefore of capital importance to become conscious of its presence in us, to concentrate on this presence until it becomes a living fact for us and we can identify ourselves with it.
In various times and places many methods have been prescribed for attaining this perception and ultimately achieving this identification. Some methods are psychological, some religious, some even mechanical. In reality, everyone has to find the one which suits him best, and if one has an ardent and steadfast aspiration, a persistent and dynamic will, one is sure to meet, in one way or another – outwardly through reading and study, inwardly through concentration, meditation, revelation and experience – the help one needs to reach the goal. Only one thing is absolutely indispensable: the will to discover and to realise. This discovery and realisation should be the primary preoccupation of our being, the pearl of great price which we must acquire at any cost. Whatever you do, whatever your occupations and activities, the will to find the truth of your being and to unite with it must be always living and present behind all that you do, all that you feel, all that you think.
To complement this movement of inner discovery, it would be good not to neglect the development of the mind. For the mental instrument can equally be a great help or a great hindrance. In its natural state the human mind is always limited in its vision, narrow in its understanding, rigid in its conceptions, and a constant effort is therefore needed to widen it, to make it more supple and profound. So it is very necessary to consider everything from as many points of view as possible. Towards this end, there is an exercise which gives great suppleness and elevation to the thought. It is as follows: a clearly formulated thesis is set; against it is opposed its antithesis, formulated with the same precision. Then by careful reflection the problem must be widened or transcended until a synthesis is found which unites the two contraries in a larger, higher and more comprehensive idea.
Many other exercises of the same kind can be undertaken; some have a beneficial effect on the character and so possess a double advantage: that of educating the mind and that of establishing control over the feelings and their consequences. For example, you must never allow your mind to judge things and people, for the mind is not an instrument of knowledge; it is incapable of finding knowledge, but it must be moved by knowledge. Knowledge belongs to a much higher domain than that of the human mind, far above the region of pure ideas. The mind has to be silent and attentive to receive knowledge from above and manifest it. For it is an instrument of formation, of organisation and action, and it is in these functions that it attains its full value and real usefulness.
There is another practice which can be very helpful to the progress of the consciousness. Whenever there is a disagreement on any matter, such as a decision to be taken, or an action to be carried out, one must never remain closed up in one's own conception or point of view. On the contrary, one must make an effort to understand the other's point of view, to put oneself in his place and, instead of quarrelling or even fighting, find the solution which can reasonably satisfy both parties; there always is one for men of goodwill.
Here we must mention the discipline of the vital. The vital being in us is the seat of impulses and desires, of enthusiasm and violence, of dynamic energy and desperate depressions, of passions and revolts. It can set everything in motion, build and realise; but it can also destroy and mar everything. Thus it may be the most difficult part to discipline in the human being. It is a long and exacting labour requiring great patience and perfect sincerity, for without sincerity you will deceive yourself from the very outset, and all endeavour for progress will be in vain. With the collaboration of the vital no realisation seems impossible, no transformation impracticable. But the difficulty lies in securing this constant collaboration. The vital is a good worker, but most often it seeks its own satisfaction. If that is refused, totally or even partially, the vital gets vexed, sulks and goes on strike. Its energy disappears more or less completely and in its place leaves disgust for people and things, discouragement or revolt, depression and dissatisfaction. At such moments it is good to remain quiet and refuse to act; for these are the times when one does stupid things and in a few moments one can destroy or spoil the progress that has been made during months of regular effort. These crises are shorter and less dangerous for those who have established a contact with their psychic being which is sufficient to keep alive in them the flame of aspiration and the consciousness of the ideal to be realised. They can, with the help of this consciousness, deal with their vital as one deals with a rebellious child, with patience and perseverance, showing it the truth and light, endeavouring to convince it and awaken in it the goodwill which has been veiled for a time. By means of such patient intervention each crisis can be turned into a new progress, into one more step towards the goal. Progress may be slow, relapses may be frequent, but if a courageous will is maintained, one is sure to triumph one day and see all difficulties melt and vanish before the radiance of the truth-consciousness.
Lastly, by means of a rational and discerning physical education, we must make our body strong and supple enough to become a fit instrument in the material world for the truth-force which wants to manifest through us.
In fact, the body must not rule, it must obey. By its very nature it is a docile and faithful servant. Unfortunately, it rarely has the capacity of discernment it ought to have with regard to its masters, the mind and the vital. It obeys them blindly, at the cost of its own well-being. The mind with its dogmas, its rigid and arbitrary principles, the vital with its passions, its excesses and dissipations soon destroy the natural balance of the body and create in it fatigue, exhaustion and disease. It must be freed from this tyranny and this can be done only through a constant union with the psychic centre of the being. The body has a wonderful capacity of adaptation and endurance. It is able to do so many more things than one usually imagines. If, instead of the ignorant and despotic masters that now govern it, it is ruled by the central truth of the being, you will be amazed at what it is capable of doing. Calm and quiet, strong and poised, at every minute it will be able to put forth the effort that is demanded of it, for it will have learnt to find rest in action and to recuperate, through contact with the universal forces, the energies it expends consciously and usefully. In this sound and balanced life a new harmony will manifest in the body, reflecting the harmony of the higher regions, which will give it perfect proportions and ideal beauty of form. And this harmony will be progressive, for the truth of the being is never static; it is a perpetual unfolding of a growing perfection that is more and more total and comprehensive. As soon as the body has learnt to follow this movement of progressive harmony, it will be possible for it to escape, through a continuous process of transformation, from the necessity of disintegration and destruction. Thus the irrevocable law of death will no longer have any reason to exist.
When we reach this degree of perfection whic h is our goal, we shall perceive that the truth we seek is made up of four major aspects: Love, Knowledge, Power and Beauty. These four attributes of the Truth will express themselves spontaneously in our being. The psychic will be the vehicle of true and pure love, the mind will be the vehicle of infallible knowledge, the vital will manifest an invincible power and strength and the body will be the expression of a perfect beauty and harmony.
Collected Works of the Mother, Volume 12, p.3-8
George
Wow, VERY cool. I would think that adding music and visuals could make exercises more powerful too. Great one, thanks Bob.
George
REMINDER TO SELF
I set this thread up, but I’ve never actually posted the proper exercise summaries I intended to.
Will do some work on this over the weekend.
Exercises to include:
- Switching off your senses.
- Daily releasing exercise + spontaneous motion.
- The automatic arm-wrestling exercise.
- Overwriting yourself with empty space.
- Feeling out into the room.
- The 'where is your real hand?' exercise.
George
The 'Switch Off Your Senses' Exercise
This little thought experiment is be done '1st person', as if you are having the experience, rather than thinking-about it:
Sit comfortably. Now imagine turning off your senses one by one:
Turn off vision. Are you still there?
Turn off sound. Still there?
Turn off bodily sensations, such as the feeling of the chair beneath you. Uh-huh?
Turn off thoughts. Where/what are you now?
Some people are left with a fuzzy sense of being "located". This is just a residual thought. Turn that off too.
You're still there, you realise; you are a wide-open "aware space" in which those other experiences appeared. This background awareness is the only thing that does not change over time.
George
Daily Releasing Exercise
Twice a day, 10 minutes, lie down in the constructive rest position.
Completely let go to gravity. Give up totally, play dead.
If your body moves or thoughts come up, let them be. Just let them release without interference.
If you find your attention becomes focused on something, the same: just let go of your attention. Give up, again.
At the end of the session (don't worry about exact timing), decide to get up, but don't make any movement. Wait until your body moves by itself. This won't happen for a while, but during one session, it will.
- In general, resist the urge to interfere with your body and mind, to push it along. Settle back and let it run at its own pace.
This exercise allows your nervous system and habit to gradually relax out, for "stuck thoughts" and "incomplete movements" to work themselves out. The most important part is the letting go of controlling your attention - over time, the distribution of your attention over space will even out, become more open, and then dissolve into the background space.
George
To have control is/requires a release of control. We release ourselves into a direction, rather than push ourselves into a direction. That we feel that effort is required is a misunderstanding. For instance, we tense up our muscles in order to move, to 'feel ourselves doing it', but actually the tensing up gets in the way of our movement.
The Arm-Wrestling Exercise
Get a friend, challenge him (or her!) to an arm wrestle. Now, you're going to try two methods:
The first time, put lots of effort into it. Really and try to win that competition! Use all your power, all your muscle!
The second time - don't. Once in position, simply decide that you are going to win, and then leave your arm, your muscles, completely alone. Direct your attention elsewhere (into the space around you, onto the place you want to end up, the space behind your forehead - just keep out of your arm), and simply wait until you've won.
This illustrates that the attempt to control actually gets in the way of getting what you want, in this case. Make the decision, let the path unfold by itself. See here for an interesting tensegrity-based description of this.
This principle applies to mental problem-solving as well as physical action. Controlling the path by which you arrive at a solution restricts the possible solution and the speed and route of arrival. This includes logical thinking, for instance: The mind actually works better by being given a goal and working in the background - the path to that end-point can then be inferred, similar to highlighting the correct way through a maze once you know both the end-points. Forcing a step-by-step process is highly restrictive when it comes to creative problem-solving.
George
This exercise is a bit more esoteric. The notion, though, is to directly address the sense of location and separation that was revealed by the 'Turn Off Your Senses' exercise. Since our experience occurs "in mind", and the sense of separation is imply a floating 'feeling thought' that has developed through inference and habit, we can directly dissolve it.
However, directly dissolving something can imply focussing on it and an attempt to do the dissolving by effort, when what is actually desired is that the thought-object become re-incorporated into the background awareness. An alternative approach which avoids this is simply to target the desired state directly: by asserting/imagining open unstructured space instead.
This is a cut-and-paste from a discussion elsewhere (diagram for reference), but I'm including it since it is relevant to the idea of being "first cause" for your experience - and is a placeholder for something I'll expand on when I get the time.
Overwriting Yourself with Empty Space
What we really want to do is open ourselves out from habitual paths of experience so that more things are possible, and experience is opened and more free.
Basically, we want to overwrite our enfolded structures, our implicate level, with open unstructured space - complete possibility. We do this by literally switching our focus to the background awareness, and asserting as fact and adopting the shape of no structure, of 'dream', of open space.
When we do this, we feel the 'push back' of existing structures. It is tempting to use effort to push through this, but that's a mistake. It's not actually 'push back' you are experiencing; rather you're just becoming more aware of the existing structures. Asserting something makes you intensely aware of the contrast between your current beliefs and the fact you are asserting. Persist, and the enfolded traces will gradually dissolve; the implicate order will move towards the shape you are intending.
The final result is a sense of no-boundary and of sensations and thoughts and perceptions being the same thing, floating in a single open aware space. This was always the case of course; it was just obscured by 'felt sense' structures.
George
- Hold your hand in front of your face.
- Now, point to your real hand. (Obviously it is not the image you are seeing before you, that is post-perception, the real hand must be elsewhere.)
- If you end up pointing to your head (brain), pause - try and point to your real head.
- What is the hand you see made from?
Background Discussion
So, the exercise assumes the reader hasn't been contemplating these things in advance. He holds up his hand, but is told that - since by the model he probably accepts about perception, what he's 'seeing' is a result of light hitting the optic nerve being transmitted to the brain and then rendered into an image - the image he's seeing can't be his actual hand. So, where is his actual hand that he decided to hold up?
He can't point to it, because: a) the hand image isn't his real hand and b) the finger he points with is in the same predicament. He might then say, ah, this is all a construction inside my brain/head. So, encouraged to point to that - well, the same problem results. Thus, assuming there is a "real world" that "inspires" our sensory experience, when we try to point to it we can't, because it is somehow "outside of experience". If it is outside of experience, in what sense is it real? So what is the hand you experience made of? Yes, consciousness, or experience itself, or whatever.
Versus Materialism, Using Vision and Sound
One of the keys to this exercise working is because it avoids talking about photons and sounds waves. Every materialist accepts the notion of perceptions having an intermediary in terms of eyes and brains, and this works within that assumption to lead them to question their direct experience. It basically moves them from out there to in here to back out there again.
George
An Imaginary Conversation About An Imaginary Tree
If a tree falls in the forrest and nobody is there, doesn't it make a sound?
Well, no, because "sound" is a word indicating a human experience. And with no experiencer, there is no "sound".
Okay, but there's a vibration produced by the impact, yes?
Well, no, because "vibration" is another sort of observation, detected by feeling or by instrumentation. With no person or instrumentation beside the tree, there is no "vibration".
You might call it that, but in fact what there will be is a light illuminating on your equipment. The "vibration" will be a thought in your mind, as a result of that illuminated light.
But, if I go back to the forrest, I see the tree lying there, it must have fallen, even if I wasn't there!
No. Right now, imagine a tree in the forrest. Okay? Imagine that tree wobbling, tumbling, crashing into the ground. You are imagining the tree "falling", yes, experiencing the "falling" of this tree?
Okay, now - don't imagine that.
Did the tree still "fall"?
Peter Jones
George
What makes the forest more real than the sound of the tree falling?
Don Salmon
Don Salmon
When you become more sensitive to your body
you have the impression that
the inhalation-exhalation is no longer localised.
It is all around you.
It is important to see how we live mainly in our heads.
Think with your whole body,
feel with your whole body.
In the whole feeling, the global sensation,
you go into your room and touch your whole room.
You go outside and touch the clouds, the trees, the water.
You do not live in isolation.
In your radiation you are in communion with all things.
In this expansion there is no place for the ego
because the ego is a contraction.
Love is expansion, a feeling of spaciousness.
Jean Klein, The Ease of Being
103
We're going to try to emphasize breathing exercises as facilitating that kind of open, spacious awareness rather than trying to "create" an "altered state."
George
In the whole feeling, the global sensation,
you go into your room and touch your whole room. You go outside and touch the clouds, the trees, the water. You do not live in isolation.
christophe malvasio
too be relax you have first to be yourself ;)
for me meditation is when dreaming and thinking are mixed
now if you just want to experiment with reality try lsd
to contribute a little : a good exercise is to try to imagine a new civilization that solve all problems of humanity
Don Salmon
Instructions posted at Bill Walz' Monday night meditation class at the Friends Meeting House in Asheville, NC
Awakening Deepest Nature Meditation
Welcome
Sit
Breathe
Relax into your exhalation
Inhale with bright alertness
Settle into natural alert awareness – your deepest self
Let thoughts pass like clouds in the sky.
You are awareness, you are life
Sit
Breathe
Be the moment arising in awareness
Nothing more is needed
George
It was relaxing just reading that.
Robert Rodes
On Sunday, November 9, 2014 at 6:04:37 AM UTC-6, George wrote:
This thread is for us to post useful exercises, relevant to "perceiving the nature of reality", or simply for conceptual relaxation purposes, or even just relaxation. In the idealistic sense, of course.Further posts to follow...
RHC
Don Salmon
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RHC
ACIM: A Course in Miracles Workbook: Lessons 1-99
ACIM: A Course in Miracles Workbook: Lessons 100-199
ACIM: A Course in Miracles Workbook Lessons 200-365
Peter Jones
On Monday, 15 June 2015 18:38:15 UTC+1, RHC wrote:
. I think its fair to say that ACIM is a course in non-dualism using Christian metaphors.
Trajk Logik
So, if all these sensory symbols carry information about location that is consistently relative to a particular location - the head - then isn't it true that we have a body and our head is where the processing of sensory information takes place?
Don Salmon
Don Salmon
RHC
Trajk Logik
There is also this distinct will, or central executive as I like to call it, that directs it's attention in mental space. What it focuses on depends on the present goal, or intentions. This is what seems to be using the sensory symbols for achieving it's goals. It seems like a sensory information feedback loop, where I'm continually monitoring the status of the environment (which includes my own body - the most important thing to monitor), and triggering behaviors that bring the environment in tune with my goal, and monitoring the results, and making adjustments, and repeat. I think the body is what most people refer to when they say "I" and the will is what most philosophers refer to when they say "I", no?
I think that the strongest argument against this life being a dream is that it leads to an infinite regress. How would we know if the world we "wake up" to when we die isn't a dream as well, ad infinitum? If this is the case, the we'd have to redefine our words as well. Dreams would no longer exist and dreaming would simply be living in the real world - repeatedly.
Don Salmon
--
RHC
Don Salmon
Trajk - as per the arguments of Lehar in A Cartoon Epistemology one has to concede that the phenomenal head and the actual head are different things if we accept there is an actual, physical/material head at all.Hoffman makes a similar argument in Peeking Behind the Icons, that the phenomenal brain need not have any true relation to the nature of the actual brain. Or, in Bernardo's terms from WMIB (admittedly as I understand/remember it), the image of the process and the actual process don't need to have any resemblance to each - only the correlation needs to hold.
Sciborg
Trajk Logik
The dreams that I remember having seem to have a perspective, just as I do in real life. In real life and in dreams, I never experience my head, or even my neck. I experience my torso, shoulders, arms, hands, legs and feet all extending below my point of view. This is what I'm getting at. I'm asking why there is an inherent sense of location relative to the sensory experiences themselves if idealism is true and realism is false? I even said that we could remove the word "head" and Simon seems intent on using the word "head" in his dream exercise. When I said that we don't have to use the term "heads", Simon's exercise was no longer valid. But the idealist still needs to explain why there is an inherent sense of location relative to the sensory experiences themselves.
In dreams and real life I never experience my head, only a perspective, so how can I say whether the dream is happening in the real head or the dream head? They are both the same thing. My waking experience of the world is a representation of the world, as is the dream world. They are both produced as a perspective.
I can be awake and experiencing the world. While I'm doing this, I can day-dream. I can recall past events while driving a car to work. So, I have this experience of focusing my attention on certain things in mental space. When I need to focus on the road, my focus in mental space changes. Also notice that the past events that you are focusing on are faded, or less vivid, than the real event you are remembering. Your memory seems like an incomplete copy of that days events. If it were more vivid and real, you may confuse the memory with reality and forget you are driving at all and get into an accident. So, the way our memories and day-dreams appear compared to our experience of reality allows us to differentiate between them so we don't confuse day-dreams with reality (which is a mental disorder).
When I'm asleep, I don't have the brute experience of the world forcing me back from my day-dream. My day-dream actually becomes the world. There is nothing to compare it to because my eyes are closed and my body is in a sleeping state. It is well known that sensory deprivation causes hallucinations. Dreams could very well be hallucinations due to sensory deprivation. It seems that our brains instinctively create this model of attention (consciousness) when awake or asleep. The difference is simply where the information is drawn from to build the model (the senses or processed sensory symbols stored in the brain).
If idealists want to claim that the stars we see in the sky really exist how we see them, then they are really direct realists, as opposed to indirect realists who claim that, just as my experience of you doesn't exhaust everything it is to be you, my experience of stars doesn't exhaust everything it is to be star.
The only way I experience you is your text on this screen, and the reverse for you. Does the text on the screen exhaust everything it is to be you? Are you simply text on a screen? If you aren't then what it is to be you exists beyond not just my head, but beyond the text on the screen, and my experience of you is only a representation in a particular form (a visual experience of a pattern of symbols on a screen).
Don Salmon
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Don Salmon
Trajk Logik
My question is why do you feel localized at all? What is it that you are referring to when you say "I"?
I don't understand what a world of consciousness means either. I do understand what it means to be conscious in the world, though.
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