The Fine Art of Meditation, Part One
Author: Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami
Description: When you begin to "know", having left the process of thinking, you are meditating at that point. Insights and knowledge will come from the inside of you. In meditation, you travel in the mind. Realize awareness is separate from consciousness and be able to move awareness out of negative states of consciousness. Move awareness out of the thought area into that area where we begin to "know". Superseding thinking, meditation starts and for the deeper philosophical student, the goal is Self Realization in this lifetime. In the fine art of meditation the practice of prāṇāyāma and regulation of the breath, the prāṇas, the currents of the body, should really be mastered first. "Master Course Trilogy, Merging with Siva", Lessons 253,254. "The Guru Chronicles.
Transcription:
Good morning everyone. The Ardra.
And today we're starting a new "Merging with Siva" Chapter, Chapter 37 entitled "The Fine Art of Meditation" drawn from "The 1972 Master Course."
And we get material from "The Guru Chronicles" every time we start a new chapter, read a little bit of information from "The Guru Chronicles" to show what Gurudeva was doing around that time. It's not an exact match per year. This it says around 1974.
Gurudeva says:
"Now we are starting our inner work in 1974 and I don’t see a thing in front of me on the screen. (He means the inner screen.) The devas must be off someplace. They are finishing up their work with some of the students and devotees who visited Kauai Aadheenam on the Ganesha pilgrimage. Now I’m beginning to see the glimmering light in the blue akasha, shimmering gold and silver lights reflecting off each other, dancing around in front of my forehead. This is seen with the third eye and I also see feelings, and entanglements, thoughts that have been blocking the vision due to the new guests and retreatants, who are fading into the distance as the shimmering lights take over. I have been working for three days now to get into this state, which was wide open for many months in 1973 when the shastric books were seen."
We can see what happens to Gurudeva's vision, very sensitive to people who come particularly if he teaches them.
So lesson 253:
"What is Meditation?
"Many seekers work or even struggle regularly with their meditations, especially those who are just beginning. “How does one know if he is really meditating or not?” That’s a question that a lot of people who meditate ask themselves. When you begin to know, having left the process of thinking, you are meditating at that point. (There's a lot packed into that sentence. So let's read it again.) When you begin to know, having left the process of thinking, you are meditating at that point. When you sit down and think, you are beginning the process of meditation. For instance, if you read a metaphysical book, a deep book, and then sit quietly, breathe and start pondering what you have been reading, well, you’re not quite meditating. You’re in a state called concentration. You’re organizing the subject matter. When you begin to realize the interrelated aspects of what you have read, when you say to yourself, “That’s right. That’s right,” when you get these inner flashes, the process of meditation has just begun. If you sustain this intensity, insights and knowledge will come from the inside of you. You begin to connect all of the inner flashes together like a string of beads. You become just one big inner flash. You know all of these new inner things, and one insight develops into another, into another, into another.
"Then you move into a deeper state, called contemplation, where you feel these beautiful, blissful energies flow through the body as a result of your meditation. With disciplined control of awareness, you can go deeper and deeper into that. So, basically, meditation begins when you move out of the process of thinking.
"I look at the mind as a traveler looks at the world. Himalayan Academy students have traveled with me all over the world, in hundreds of cities, in dozens of countries, as we’ve set up āśramas here and there on our Innersearch Travel-Study programs. Together we have gone in and in and in and in amid different types of environments, but the inside is always the same wherever we are. So, look at the mind as the traveler looks at the world.
"Just as you travel around the world, when you’re in meditation you travel in the mind. We have the big city called thought. We have another big city called emotion. There’s yet another big city called fear, and another one nearby called worry. But we are not those cities. We’re just the traveler. When we’re in San Francisco, we are not San Francisco. When we’re aware of worry, we are not worry. We are just the inner traveler who has become aware of the different areas of the mind."
So, my commentary:
Of course the intellectual understanding that when in the states of consciousness of fear and worry we are not those states but are awareness, the traveler is important. But that understanding should eventually lead to the ability to quickly move out of fear and worry when we end up there do to our current experiences in life. In other words what I'm trying to say in the commentary is first step is realizing that awareness is separate from consciousness. But second step is being able to move awareness quickly out of negative states of consciousness. "I'm in worry. How long do I want to stay in worry? I don't want to stay there at all, right?" So, moving quickly out, identifying that we're in a state of consciousness we don't want to be in and quickly out is the second level of that concept.
Back to the text:
"Of course, when we are aware in the thought area, we are not meditating. We’re in the intellectual area of the mind. We have to breathe more deeply, control the breath more and move awareness out of the thought area of the mind, into that next inner area, where we begin to know. Such an experience supersedes thinking, and that is when meditation starts. I’m sure that you have experienced that many, many times.
"Many people use meditation to become quieter, relaxed, or more concentrated. For them, that is the goal, and if that is the goal, that is what is attained, and it’s attained quite easily. However, for the deeper philosophical student the goal is different. It’s the realization of the Self in this life. Meditation is the conveyance of man’s individual awareness toward that realization.
"Each one, according to his evolution, has his own particular goal. If he works at it, he fulfills that goal. For example, a musician playing the piano might be satisfied with being able to play simple, easy tunes to entertain himself and his friends. Yet, another musician more ambitious in the fine arts might want to play Bach and Beethoven. He would really have to work hard at it. He would have to be that much more dedicated, give up that much more of his emotional life, intellectual life and put that much more time into it. So it is in meditation."
Lesson 254:
"Meditation Is a Fine Art
"Meditation is a fine art and should be approached in the same way the fine arts are approached. That’s the way we teach meditation at Himalayan Academy, as a fine art. The artist-teachers are not running after the students. You don’t learn a fine art that way. You go to your teacher because you want to learn. You might go a long distance. You want to learn, and so you study. He gives you something to work on. You go away and you work on it, and you come back having perfected it. That’s how we expect Academy students to progress along the path. Something has to happen on the inside, and it usually does.
"Controlling the breath is the same as controlling awareness. They go hand in hand. During meditation, the breath, the heartbeat, the metabolism—it all slows down, just like in sleep. You know, deep meditation and deep sleep are extremely similar. Therefore, the practice of prāṇāyāma and regulation of the breath, the prāṇas, the currents of the body, should really be mastered first. In the very same way, the dancer doesn’t just start out dancing. He starts out exercising first. He may exercise strenuously for a year before he begins to really dance. The pianist doesn’t sit down at the piano and start with a concert. He starts with the scales and with the chords. He starts by limbering his fingers, by perfecting his rhythm and posture. Meditation has to be taught like one of the fine arts. It’s only the finely refined person who can really learn to meditate. Not everyone who wants to meditate can learn to meditate. Not everyone who wants to learn to dance or to play the piano can learn how to really, really do it. We need this preparation of the physical body so that the physical and emotional bodies behave themselves while you are in a deep state of meditation.
"Your breath will slow down until you almost seem to stop breathing. Sometimes you do, and you’re breathing with an inner breath. You have to educate yourself to that so it doesn’t make you fearful and bring you out of meditation with a jerk and a gasp, which can then inhibit you. You can get fearful in meditation. So, good basics must be learned for one to become a deep meditator. You can spend hours or years working with the breath. Find a good teacher first, one who keeps it simple and gentle. You don’t need to strain. Start simply by slowing the breath down. Breathe by moving the diaphragm instead of the chest. This is how children breathe, you know. So, be a child. If you learn to control the breath you can be master of your awareness.
"The sense of bhakti yoga, a sense of devotion, is extremely important on the path. Unless we have a great bhakti, a great devotion, we can easily be shaken from the spiritual path. It’s the fuel that keeps us motivated. If we prepare our room before meditation by lighting an oil lamp or candle, a stick of incense, or only setting out a few fresh flowers, it puts us in a state of readiness; and for any serious thing that we do, we must prepare. If you’re going to cook a fine meal for a special guest, you take a bath first. You prepare yourself; you get ready. You get mentally, emotionally and physically ready. Meditation is the same thing. Physical preparations have their effect on the mind and emotions, too, turning awareness within and creating a mood and environment where there are fewer distractions. If you would prepare for meditation as exactly and precisely as you prepare yourself in the external world to go to work every day, your meditations would be much improved."
Then we have my commentary:
Preparing the room for meditation in Saiva Siddhanta terminology is called: "charya in yoga". My explanation of that reads: “Charya in yoga consists of cleaning the area of the shrine room where one meditates, keeping it pure, and collecting all things needed for worshiping one’s guru and Deities.”
The next step is not mentioned by Gurudeva in this lesson but it is mentioned elsewhere in the trilogy. It is of course: "kriya in yoga". My explanation: “Kriya in yoga consists of offering prayers, mantras or a puja to one’s guru and his lineage after beseeching the grace of the Deities.”
After these preliminary stages we have asana, pranayama and prayahara—postures, breath control and sense withdrawal.
So the point is Gurudeva's description fits in nicely with the next two subpadas of Saiva Siddhanta.
Thank you very much. Have a wonderful day.
[End of transcript.]