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 Subtle Body.
As you withdraw attention from the external, through the technique
of complete and conscious relaxation,
the attention, to a large extent, is also taken from the body. Even when
relaxation is not total there is a sense of peace. Getting away from the field of the body is
achieved by consciously entering the mental and intellectual zones. When the
mind/intellect is fully engaged, the body puts up with much. Even the most
luxury-loving person, on the eve of election to public office, will ignore
privations and exhaustion as his enthusiasm to win the election permits them to
live more intensely in the mental and intellectual fields.
Engage yourself more and more intensely in your mental and
intellectual fields. You will find that body consciousness does drop away.
Meditation upon the Lord's form and repetition of his name (japa) are
techniques by which the spiritual seeker becomes more and more fixed in his
subtle body and thus experiences oblivion - at least for a time - to the body
and its surroundings.
Thus the subtle body functions on four levels and has four different
names according to its function and give the individuality of the jiiva.
Similarly, in spite of all these different functions, there is a unity of the
four which causes them to appear as a single unit.
With this preliminary knowledge of the structure of the subtle body,
we can learn to understand how to engage ourselves in the subtle to the
exclusion of the gross. The methods advised by the great religions of the world
all help us to live more fully in our mental and intellectual sheaths. A direct
approach to the mental zone is through the path of devotion (bhakti). The most
effective path for the intellectual zone is the path of Knowledge (jnaana). The
logic behind these two techniques is the same, since to control the mind is to
control the intellect.
If your nature is predominantly emotional, you can learn to
surrender your ego at the feet of the Lord through bhakti. A devoted mind
finds fullness when it is totally
engaged in thoughts of God and not distracted by sense objects. At that moment
of concentration, the external world disperses.
The final goal is the same when the intellect, through philosophical
contemplation, reaches the maximum heights of thought. There, the intellect
renounces all its flutterings and composes itself into a tranquil stillness full
of awareness. An intellect thus made still is an intellect transcended and, as
with the mind, beyond the intellect is the Eternal Truth.
To say mind is transcended is to say that the intellect, chitta and
ego have been transcended. To declare that the intellect has been crossed is to
say that the mind has been conquered and the ego also. The transcendence of one
is the transcendence of all. The process of meditation is the process by which
transcendence is achieved. When this knowledge is translated into practice, one
gradually becomes established in the subtle body. Seekers wanting to live the
life of meditation must seek a program of activity in the meditation seat that
will establish them more firmly in the subtle and gain the necessary withdrawal
from the gross.
