Hari
OM
Monday is AUM-day; in search of meditation.
Meditation & Life, with Sw. Chinmayananda
(Gurudev).
We are now exploring the writings of Gurudev on our focus subject of
Meditation. The book is a thorough treatment of the subject and extends to over
170 pages of closely printed text. No attempt is intended, here, to present the
text in its entirety. However, important paragraphs and quotes will
be given, within a summary of each section. You
are encouraged to use the links on sidebar to obtain a copy for yourselves from
CM publications. Please remember that each of the posts under this title is part of a
thought flow and it is important to go back and read the previous post in order
to refresh and review the context.
The Gross Body.
A stone is unaware of internal and external world circumstances.
Plants are not aware of inner world thoughts. Animals, though aware of the
external and inner worlds, are not conscious of their intellect. Human being,
animal though it be, is at once conscious of the outer, inner worlds and has
the intellectual awareness of no other species. The attempt of the spiritual
seeker is to increase this awareness to such an extent that the innermost
spirit can also become known to them. The Rsis closely analysed the grades of
consciousness and codified their exhaustive study, defining three states;
waking, dreaming and deep sleep.
Through meditation the seeker consciously withdraws his vigilant
attention from from the ordinary fields of dissipation, layer by layer. The
first stage of meditation preparation requires some withdrawal from the
external world. This is not suppression, but should be understood as
sublimation. The first is forceful self-denial, usually a mistake of one who is
over enthusiastic and lacking in understanding of the task at hand. The second
gently 'scrubs' the ego, allowing for the True Self to peek through.
We have already found that each of us consists of multiple
personalities and that we judge the world according to particular the vaasana
channel working at any given moment. Thus the picture of the world and its
happenings changes from moment to moment for the same observer. In a
materialistic era, the world is generally views from the physical aspect of a
person. The more we look at the world from the point of view of the body, the
more we are lured by the seeming charms of objects. The same world, to a
Vedantic seeker, is imperfect and unacceptable because he views it through the
intellect. This acts like a spotlight and reveals the ugliness beneath the
veneer of beauty of the shiny world. Thus, a Vedantin finds it instinctive to
withdraw from the outer worldly life and its illusory attractions. The seeker
has ordinarily the least concern for the body. The capacity to ignore the body,
withdrawing from it and remaining intensely identified with the mind-intellect.
Such withdrawal from the body is easier for a Vedantin who has lost the
attraction for the external than for one who remains steeped in
body-consciousness.
Discrimination and correct thinking confirm the aspirant's
conclusion that the body is a liability; thus withdrawal become ever more easy
and a distance drawn between the seeker and the external.
However, we generally do not have that high caliber of keen
discrimination (viveka) and dispassion (vairaagya). Especially in these days of
nervous hurry and divided aims, it is difficult to live a life of
discrimination all the hours of the day. We live instead half by instinct and
half by training. Rarely, it at all, do we know how to think and live
independently. Originality in life is condemned in modern society, for these
are the days when imitative repetition seems to be the fashion… even amongst the
rebellious! Know that techniques that were effective in the past for developing
one's discriminative capacity will be equally effective even today. The methods
of self-perfection visualised in various religions of the world are eternal in
their application and the most fundamental of them is meditation.
