MEDITATION

What is meditation?  Why meditation?  What to meditate on?  How to meditate? 

These are the questions to be answered if one has to completely understand this state of Meditation.  When you take up a thought-process on any topic, you are intensely thinking about it, analyzing it inwardly and you come to a conclusion.  At this time, if anyone calls you or disturbs you, you get irritated because your thought process is disturbed.  Why?  Because, your attention to the thought process is distorted by this disturbance from outside.  This means that when you think of something your attention is fixed on the object of thought (that something) to the exclusion of all other thoughts and you are in the state of  “concentration” (a “one pointed attention”.).   Thus, to concentrate is to view or think attentively on any particular one thought to the exclusion of all other thoughts. This is correct so far as the subject of concentration is an object.

 What happens in this process?  Your entire mental & intellectual faculties are made to get fixed on one direction to the exclusion of all other mental & intellectual activities.  Have you not, for some time at least, felt that you are losing your identity with the feeling of I-ness?  That is I am doing this, I am doing that, I am thinking, I am concentrating etc. feeling.  You merge yourself with this process?   The identification with the body, mind and intellect is lost for a flicker of a second at least.  Are you able to understand this loss of I-ness?  Then your concentration is complete.  So what is Concentration?  Or What is the purpose of concentration?  When you want to understand anything or its real nature, you have to think about it or in terms of it attentively to realize what it is or what it means. When thus you think about only one object or thought to the exclusion of all other things or thoughts, you are in the process of concentration or one pointed attention.  This is absolutely necessary even for understanding a material object or object of senses.

 Now let us talk about Meditation or Dhyaanam.  Normally this word is used for the process of one pointed attention or concentration directed towards understanding or realising the SELF in us.  Some refer to it as “control of mind”.  It is not so, because, the moment you try to control mind, it will zoom into a large dimension, just as when you try to restrict a child, it will revolt.  Never control anything.  You should regulate or give direction to the mind.  Lead the mind to your line and not control it.  This leading or giving direction to the mind will make it get fixed in one thought , automatically excluding other thoughts.  Thus, you are making the mind shrink from its real status.  Thus, reduce the vigour of mind slowly on a regular basis till it loses itself.  This is the process of Meditation.  This is slightly different from concentration and a step above concentration, because in concentration your mind remains in “one-thought” and in meditation it “loses itself” ultimately.  Once the mind is lost, i.e. once the identification with mind is stopped, then reveals the SELF as ever existence or bliss.  In meditation, you are not in your mind, the characteristics of mind is absent whereas in concentration the mind is present but in a subtle form, totally reduced to a one point object.  In Meditation there is no object or thought, it is the status of revelation of SELF without any object.  The subject alone shines and no object is present.  The difference is very subtle and difficult to assimilate.  In concentration, there is heat and strain but in meditation it is cool and there is relaxation.  Why relaxation?  Because there is no process of thought or no relation between subject and object.  There is no dwaitham but only adwaitham.   Dwandhwa brings delusion and Ekam (one-ness) brings knowledge.  This is called Meditration. 

Why meditation?  If we are able to regulate the mind to a one pointed attention on an object and thereby get revelation of the answer to our question about that object, it is clear that there is something known (the object) and therefore there must be someone as the “knower”.  We are able to analyse and understand the object by concentration, but have we known the “knower” who knows about or understands about the object?  You may say “I am the knower”.  Right!  Don’t you want to know this “I”, the knower in you?  Who is he?  or what is that? Where is it situated?  What is the nature or characteristic of this “I”?   Is it possible to know an object without the knower?  Don’t you entertain such questions?  Yes, but you are not aware of these questions rising in yourself because they are moving fast and you do not notice it?  Think, don’t you get these questions in your mind?  Now, you agree with me that the subject  (the knower) is different from the object (the known).  When you understand the object, it is natural to have an instinct to know the “knower”?  Now, the object we said is external – the product of our senses.  Object is always sensual.  Don’t you agree?  But, the subject “I” is not sensual because we are yet not able to feel, understand, realize this “I”.  When I say “I see you”, the you is object (because that is what is seen) and the “I” is the seer.  The object is thus, outside of you, isn’t it?  Thus, anything other than you (i.e.”I” in you) is an object.   In English grammer itself the I is said to be the subject.  When you know the object, it is natural to have an instinct to know the “knower”, that is the subject. When we try to know the “I”, remember there is no object.  Thus, once we know the “I” that means we are becoming the “I” because we are going to a status where there is no object but only the subject.  this is called Meditation.

What to meditate on?  Of course the “I”, the subject, or the “knower”.  We have to now know the “knower” in us, who understands the object.  This knower in us is the subject and beyond mind.   Now we should have a process by which we see or realize the “knower”, which is not a mental activity as the knower is outside of the mind.   It is not, therefore, a thought process.  Then, what to meditate on?  Of course till we realize this “I” we are definitely in a process that is called meditation which requires an aim.  Thus, we start with an enquiry into ourselves. This process, therefore, starts as an enquiry at mental level and merges into “I” where the mind is lost.  In short, in concentration we aim at identification of an object and in meditation we are trying to lose the identification and reach the source.  Though it starts with a question, it ends with merging.

 How to meditate (know the subject “I”)? 

The knowledge of the SELF is not measurable nor decipherable through the same process that we adopt for the knowledge of the object.  Why?  Because the process of concentration is always on object and not on subject. Objects are being understood or known through a thought process as seen above. The subject (“I”), not being an object, cannot be understood by the process of thought.  Right?  Thought process is a mental activity combined with intellectual assimilation. The subject (“I”), not being an object, is beyond mental recognition.  Let me ask you a question.  “Can you talk to yourself?”  If yes, then you will be called what by others?  One talking to oneself is said  to be “mad”, isn’t it? Talking, being mental process, requires two persons – the talker and the heard.  Thus, anything we do to know or get in contact with the subject is beyond the mind, nay beyond the intellectual assimilation.  So the process also should be beyond the mind.  Thus, we have to go beyond the mind and intellect.  This is what is called losing identity with our vehicles Body, Mind and Intellect.  Go beyond all these and you shine as the “I”.  Thus, the process is untying our identity with the world of objects. That is go beyond the world of objects.  

I affirm that Bhagawan Ramana Maharshi’s teachings “WHO AM I” is the only method by which we realize the “I”.  It is not to be continued with question.  It is in fact rejecting our identity with Body, Mind and Intellect and go beyond the feeling of I, Me and Mine status.  For this, when you try to meditate, it starts as concentration and in concentration we are trying to reduce the thought force, in which whenever the feeling or identification with Body, Mind and Intellect arises, we should reject the thought by saying “this is not I”, “this is not mine” etc.  This is known as “Neti” “Neti” process, i.e. not this feeling.  Is it not then a thought process?  Yes, of course to start with.  Let me explain it with a living example.  When someone talks to you about something, you continue saying I do not know, I do not want to know, I know not etc. how long he will continue talking to you?  Because you are rejecting everything he says or refusing whatever he says, at one point of time, he will stop and go away?  Isn’t it?  Similarly in the thought process, when you do not entertain the thoughts (mental activity) and disown it, it automatically stops.  What?  The thought process.  This is called going beyond the mind.  Once you are beyond the Body, Mind and Intellectual level, you have lost the objects and have become the subject, because at this stage there is no subject and object relationship.  The object is not there, but only the subject exists.

To do this Saadhana we have to first sit in a very comfortable posture by which we lose our identity with our Body.  Body should be at ease, so the posture is not important.  Sit in a posture, which is comfortable for you by which you ultimately lose the identity with the Body.  One thing, lying down will make you sleep. If you are able to overcome this, even lying down without any movement of body is also OK.  In fact, Bhagawan Ramana Maharshi has first realized through Sasvaasana – laying the body like a Savam  (dead corpse).  This is the experiment he did to know the knower.  However, for beginners, to help them win over the body, it is suggested to sit in a Padmaasana or Ardha Padmaasana with vertebral column erect but without tension on nerve and muscles and close the eyes to avoid stimuli entering us through eyes. Once your body is at ease, you lose identity with the body. The next step is going beyond mind.  Identify each thought flow and throw it through the “Neti” “Neti” process explained above till you reach a thoughtless stage.  Once you thus go beyond the mind (because Mind is nothing but a bundle of continuous thoughts), the intellect automatically dis-functions, because it needs stimuli through senses and it needs the mental process to analyse.  When the sense objects are gone due to loss of body consciousness and when the mind is also not present, the intellect does not function.  This is the stage where objects are absent and only subject shines.  Let me hasten to add that this meditation has to be learned from a Guru and should be practiced initially only in his presence and as per his guidance.  Because, once you lose your identity and remain in the SELF, you are the SAT CHINT ANANDA and will not know how to come back.  The technique to end this meditation at will and to come back to senses cannot be taught.  It is only through Guru Arul you get it.  Hence Meditation – which is beyond concentration – is to be done only through Guru Upadesa.

To conclude, let me put it bluntly, you have to lose yourself to know the ‘SELF’,  “GODHOOD”,‘SUPER CONSCIOUSNESS’, ‘ATMAN’, “BRAHMAM” ‘AHAM’,  by whatever name you call.  The method is ‘MEDITATION”.

:  OM  TAT  SAT  :