Student Notebook
Article Index
Page 4 of 10
Mind, Maya, Meditation
In the act of healing and in other modes, people are trying to take others from a confused and imbalanced state to a meditative state. This is not working well. Everything requires a foundation of concentration - meditation, mantra, service, study. As Holy Mother said, "Do you think that anything of substance can be achieved in this world without concentration of mind?" The opposite is true as well: Can anything be achieved via depression of mind?
There are three levels of maya: the maya of mundanity; the maya of restlessness; and the maya of knowledge. This latter form of maya helps one to dissolve mind and ego.
If you get immersed in Brahman it may be difficult to bring the mind back. If you get immersed in Maya it is also hard to get your mind back. Either way, you see, you have to transcend the mind.
Intelligence is the "go to" for a spiritual person. Before realizing oneself as Atman, one lives in the Intelligence. One goes more and more into meditation, into the subtle worlds. You feel more peaceful, more secure. You find more and more Consciousness as you encounter more and more of the subtle Cosmic Principles.
Dissolve the body into the senses, senses into their energy, energy into mind, mind into intellect, intellect into self (ego), and self into the Great Self (Atman/Brahman). This is a fine teaching, and one that is easy to remember, thus follow.
You have the Eternal, the Sport of the Eternal, and the eternal maya. So move from the Nitya to the Lila without getting lost in the maya.
If your mind is mundane then your work is mundane. But if you bring refined awareness to bear then you will lend a greater awareness to your actions.
Deep sleep, death, meditation, samadhi -- these all smack of formlessness, and are the 4 cases where we realize that there is something else looking on.
The most important discrimination is that between Purusha and Prakriti, the Soul and Nature. Purusha is the Witness of everything.
Going inward means you get to the Father through the Son. But you get to the Son through your mind. And all minds, from the ant to the Avatar, encounter these despoilers that must be overcome. Despoilers intrude at various levels of our being: physical, mental, intellectual, and spiritual.
The mind has to examine its own awareness. This marvelous ability, that Ramana Maharshi described so well, entails that your consciousness suddenly shifts to the Witness mode. You then cease being a participant and see Nature differently -- and you gradually destroy suffering.
Maya has a tendency to pull you in. Scientists study the atom, and its particles. They refine it all down to the nanometer technology, and then what? They use it for creating a better car wax. But the truth-seeker focuses on shunyata, the emptiness of objects, so as to get free of matter. Thus, micro-measurements can lead to money-making, or to man-making.
When you find your innate Intelligence, you will find that fate, destiny, dependence upon grace, etc., are inferior to your own intelligence. Use this intelligence to pierce through Maya and be free.
Once you have realized yourself as Self, then you can have a relationship with Nature without falling into Maya. Otherwise the marriage is a bad one which will have to end in a forced divorce.
You need to get a divorce from nature. It is a new age presumption that makes one say, "I want to be one with nature." What you really mean is, "I want to realize that Nature has come out of me." So transcend it, then look back in upon it from a superior position.
The first evolute of Maya is "I am the body." But early on in Indian Philosophy you learn this isn't true. You make a distinction between the Real and the unreal. You are the Witness -- everything comes out of you, including the body. So make as many of them as you want, but do so only in full consciousness.
When people have near-death experiences ("I died for two minutes and saw a great light") -- they are seeing Mahat, the Cosmic Mind. If you step from Kapila (father of Sankhya) to Tantra, you would call these cosmic principles [Mahat down to earth] vibrations. All these are vibrations of your own mind.
The stronger your detachment, the more peace you have.
Past, present, and future all pose problems in meditation. "Now," the eternal moment, is something different from the present, the flow of moments. Time goes away in the former. In people's estimation of what they deem "living in the present," time still works its nefarious influence on their thoughts and actions. This is telling....