A
Syzygy: This word refers to a state of balance or union between opposing forces or elements. It is often used to describe the integration of different aspects of the self, such as the conscious and unconscious, the masculine and feminine, or the rational and irrational.
A
Pacifying the mind through the consolidation of attention is what we are talking about here. This has not only been a religious goal of the highest order down through the ages but, in our modern hyperdigitalised world, is an urgent public health need. Just consider findings from the US National Institute of Mental Health: about eighteen percent or forty million adults in the United States suffer anxiety disorders. Additionally, thirty million or one in ten are daily taking pharmaceutical anti-depressants. These trends are not so marked in India. But around the world a rise in the frequency of anxiety and suicides are being reported. If affective disorders as well as ordinary stress are attributable in part to psychic loose ends, it only stands to reason that when we tidy up the mind, things run much smoother, and former stressors are less stressful.
A
In neuropsychology this smoothness is called ‘resilience’. Resilience is a measure of the rate a subject returns to baseline in the aftermath of a stressful event. Research shows that cortisol levels in meditators return to normal much faster in the wake of a stressful event than in non-meditators. Stress is a negative measure of how we deal with stressful events. In the laboratory setting, skin irritation brought about by the external application of chili powder has been documented to normalize faster in those experienced in meditation. While researchers can measure with some accuracy the capacity to tolerate traumatic events and return to baseline, they cannot scientifically pinpoint the cause of increased resilience in meditators. However, without being able to prove it, anyone experienced in meditation and inquiry can answer this question readily: our resilience is increased by deep engagement with meditation silence and awareness. That is because meditation awareness, not to mention Bhagavan’s inquiry foster the natural processing and assimilation of unconscious, undigested, emotional and psychological material. Compassion studies show that meditation elevates empathic and altruistic sensibilities in just six weeks of meditation training.
A
NAME IT, TREAT IT
What the traditions teach us is that often there is no need to do much with unwanted emotional or psychological material apart from noticing it, naming it, and being present to it. When we practise this, we discover that vexations no longer trouble us. Rather, it is that which remains hidden from view that cripple us. Therefore, meditation is in part the practice of excavation, continually uncovering what lies hidden beneath the threshold of consciousness and bringing it into the light of awareness. Sin confessed is sin no more, goes a saying. What is seen and acknowledged becomes innocuous. Bhagavan adds:
All thoughts are from the unreal ‘I’. i.e., the ‘I’- thought. Remain without thinking. So long as there is thought there will be fear…. So long as there is thought there will be forgetfulness. There is the thought “I am Brahman”; forgetfulness supervenes; then the ‘I-thought’ arises and simultaneously the fear of death also. Forgetfulness and thought are for ‘I-thought’ only.
A
Training Attention
Meditation is nothing more than letting one’s attention rest on whatever arises without necessarily intervening. Just noticing and identifying non-judgmentally whatever appears is sufficient to initiate its healing. From the meditation point of view, trying to actively heal wounds may slow down the process. If we try to manipulate ego, it grows stronger; the opposite extreme is its total neglect allowing it to continue unchecked. Rather, observing and naming our pride or selfish motivations at their place of origin is enough to initiate their maturing.
We think we know ourselves and often identify with the chatter of our minds, calling it Self. But mental chatter is transient like the passing clouds. Who we really are can only be discovered below the threshold of the thinking mind. Bhagavan comments:
Shadows on the water are found to be [undulating]. Can anyone stop the [undulating] of shadows? If they should cease to undulate you would not notice the water but only the light. Similarly, to take no notice of the ego and its activities but see only the light behind it. The ego is the I-thought. The true ‘I’ is the Self.
A
EGO BUNDLE
The ego is not intrinsic but is derivative of the body, memory, samskaras, perception, and the will to live, etc. Ego is a paint-by-number self-portrait colored by mental chatter. Internal chatter issues from the ego’s reflex to the fear of mortality and the relentless drive for self-preservation. Magical thinking about the everlasting nature of body and personality is a defense mechanism that seeks to insulate us against the reality of eventual bodily death.
But ego is not equal to the Self, Bhagavan insists. The ego is comforting because it is our property. But it is unreal. The Self by contrast cannot be owned or possessed but is the everlasting ground. The mental chatter that supports the ego illusion must be gotten rid of before the Self can be seen and known, Bhagavan tells us.
A
AMT BMT
Training the capacity to move below the threshold of thought is simply the most urgent and important step one could take in one’s spiritual life. Meditation traditions have this as a central part of their training, often using simple meditation tasks as a means of consolidating scattered attention and focusing it in a single direction. When we talk of training attention as a treatment for chronic anxiety, it is misleading. From the neurological point of view, anxiety is nothing other than a disorder of attention, namely, the constant flitting of attention from one thing to the next, wherein disparate thoughts appear in never-ending succession one after the other. Bhagavan says:
In the Bhagavad Gita it is said that it is the nature of the mind to wander. One must bring one’s thoughts to bear on God. By long practice, the mind is controlled and made steady. The wavering of the mind is a weakness arising from the dissipation of its energy in the shape of thoughts. When one makes the mind stick to one thought, the energy is conserved, and the mind becomes stronger… The satvic mind is free from thoughts whereas the rajasic mind is full of them…[The strength of the mind is its] ability to concentrate on one thought without being distracted.
A
NETI NETI
The Upanishadic teaching of neti, neti, much like Bhagavan’s vichara, urges us beyond the surface level of the mind, cluttered as it is with labels, shapes, endless thoughts and other such transient phenomena. In the Gita, Krishna resolves Arjuna’s dilemma by teaching him mastery of the mind, detachment from desires, and disciplined action, helping Arjuna to overcome mental chatter so that he might act with clarity, free of attachment. As for Bhagavan, when Seshadri Swami, known for his formidable abilities at mind-reading, sat before Bhagavan to discern what was going on in the youngster’s mind, he discovered “there was no one there.”
It has been said that failure in the religious life is not due to our prayers being denied. Our failure is in not knowing what to pray for, not knowing how to direct our efforts in sadhana, and not knowing what to aim for in the pursuit of purity of heart, out of touch as we are with ourselves. Our will is largely governed by impulse and the chatter of the mind.
A
STILL MIND, UNIVERSE SURRENDERS
Studies in neurology cannot illumine the requisite subtle transitions at the heart of faith. We long for courage to face the disappointments that come with daily living so that we might deepen our faith and participate more meaningfully in our earthly walk. If our sight had been dimmed, this veiling effect of the mind’s chatter diminishes with time through inquiry. If our dynamism had formerly been stifled and flattened by constant preoccupation with diversion through thought and involuntary mental chatter, the ship begins to right itself as soon as we learn how to quieten the mind. Lao Tzu reminds us:
To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders
A
HODI NEDIA
No comments:
Post a Comment