Dissolving the Mindstream

During Babaji’s visits to the mainland there is always a particular thread running through the various themes and their corresponding teachings.  As I looked through my notes, “Dissolving the mindstream” was that thread over Babaji’s 2010 summer visit.  This is both a Yogic and Vedantic meditation, called involution, that extracts one’s consciousness from apparently “external” gross objects, then from “internal” subtle objects, until one’s consciousness abides in Consciousness alone – Brahman, Paramatman, Chidakasha, Paramasiva.  This meditation cannot be done without a cosmology, which explains why Babaji has, over the past 17 years of SRV’s history, been insisting that we learn our Sankhya. (Jai Lord Kapila!).  That system underlies Patanjala Yoga, Vedanta, Tantra, and Yoga Vasishtha.  So it is no surprise that throughout this last visit, Babaji pulled out chart after chart presenting this cosmology from each of these perspectives and the process of involution again and again.  Thus, may we row, row, row our boats assiduously up the mindstream, deftly converging all tributaries, gross to subtle and subtle most, to our Source.

It may be of interest to everyone that Babaji will lead us through the meditation of Dissolving the Mindstream at the upcoming Kundalini Yoga Retreat, October 7 – 11.  Further, December’s Hawaii Retreat will focus specifically on the Sankhya darshana of Lord Kapila.  Please see our retreats page.

The following are from a student’s notebook.

 

Class Notes – SRV San Francisco

Mind (manas) creates the worlds, chitta (thoughts) sustain it, intellect (buddhi) travels these worlds, and ego (ahamkara) goes along for the ride and enjoys and suffers in turns.  This is the antahkarana, the fourfold mind of mankind, which requires controlling and dissolving, constantly, until pure mind, or enlightenment, is realized.

There is a vast difference between consciously manifesting the world with the aid of the five elements and sporting there, as opposed to desiring these elements, manifesting them, and forgetting that they came out of you — and consequently abjectly grasping after them.

If you take the five elements and involve them, you will see they are all based on desire — desire for earth, water, fire, air and ether which have come out of subtle thoughts of solidity, liquidity, radiance, homogeneity, and all-pervasiveness.  

Spiritual life is Samadhi.  Rakhal (Swami Brahmananda) said nirvikalpa was the beginning.  Thus, dharmic life is not full spiritual life yet.

The traditional arati hymn to Sri Ramakrishna begins with the three most loaded words imaginable:
Om Hring Ritang.  Om refers to transcendent Reality.  Hring is the Dynamic Power.  Ritang is the oldest word in any language for Truth.  There is a close relationship between “ritang (ritam),” Truth and “amritam,” nectar/immortality.

Observing humanity in this age, and especially the West and its shallow spiritual aspirants, I was thinking that it is really practically impossible to live a spiritual life in the world: those who accomplish it to any degree enter monasteries or convents.  Even there the “rust of monasteries,” as Buddha remarked, is present.  Thus, renunciation of the world is a necessity, and the householder is no exception to this rule — not if he/she desires to live a life of presence and productivity.

The only proof that you are not matter is if you can leave matter alone —  so states Swami Vivekananda.

Everything must come to rest eventually.  One needs to recognize this before seeking Sattva, balance.  If you shine a light on tamasic people, they will only seek a darker place.  When a rajasic person is shown the light, he uses it for works and personal gain.  A sattvic person uses that light for subtle enjoyment.  But eventually one sees that these constant guna-based cycles will not lead to Peace.

Class Notes – American River Retreat

This perennial Wisdom remains the same, acid-like, but over the long efflux of time it takes a nose-dive.  Brahman recedes from peoples’ consciousness and is forgotten until there occurs in the collective mind such deluded things as Time Magazine headlines like, “God is dead.”  Really, how can That which was never born, ever die?   So, religion over the years is made amenable to peoples’ comfort zones and becomes watered down and conventionalized.

Sri Ramakrishna would say that some beings, the wise ones, are running a boat race between the higher chakras.  If that is so, it is also probably true that worldly persons are running a boat race between the three lower chakras — eating, drinking, and sex life.  This takes by far the greater part of peoples’ time.  The sorrow in this is that they live without the bliss of Brahman, what to speak of peace of mind — the source from which all virtues are made manifest.

Brahman never becomes a form.  It only assumes a form.  And even this is suspect.....

95% of people believe in and thereby base their life on just one space (akasha), but there are five kinds of space.  We need to hold in our thinking process the idea that there is a space for life-force (prana), mind (chit), and intelligence (buddhi).  There is even a space, as it were, for Spirit — the Chidakasha.

Energy from food can be sublimated.  It becomes ojas through study and meditation.  Ojas will travel up the spine naturally with Kundalini Shakti, and exude from the body as tejas — the light of wisdom transmission.  

If you envision God in the mind then Kundalini wants to rush up to meet It.  Inspire your mind with such thoughts, then.

These five akashas (space/dimensions), like little Russian dolls, fit right back into the Chidakasha.
[Five Akashas:  1– space of objects, 2- space of prana, 3- space of thought, 4- space of intelligence, and 5- “spaceless space” of Chidakasha, Pure Consciousness.]

The five elements can be linked to five desires: desire for sound, touch, visibility, flavor, and odor.  The world of maya is thus fashioned by desire.  Ironically, however, the real world is constructed of intelligence — intelligent particles.  The statement, “All is Brahman” makes sense only from the standpoint of the real world; otherwise, it is all maya.....

The big message for me over the last several years of teaching Vedanta is qualification.  We have to qualify ourselves.  This is why I am teaching cosmology at present.  We should cut our teeth on this and it will lead us to real philosophy, and then to nonorigination.  In such a process, the moral of “Thou shalt not kill” transforms to “Thou cannot kill.”

Prepare the ground, hold the space — why not hold all five of them?

We are moving from cosmology to philosophy, from holding a space to understanding space to dissolving all space.

People have this romantic notion that they can take God with them into daily life.  Well, yes, in a way — but not the formless God.  That requires formal meditation.

A different thing happens (compared to death) when you go into deep sleep.  They are similar in that everything goes away.  But what keeps you returning from sleep?  At death the silver thread, stretched tight, snaps, and the subtle body loses its connection with the physical body.  In deep sleep this thread only loosens a bit.

Krishna states about the devotee who does not attain to liberation in this lifetime, that “he comes to no grief, and is born in pious families.”  Look at India and Tibet.  There are still illumined souls and dharmic couples living there.  But look at the U.S.  It is like a black hole.

A man or woman does not attain realization without giving up sankalpa — desire-based thought.

You do not want to rip your desires out by the roots — do it by the palm frond method, gradually.  If you do not realize that your desires need to go or be purified, then you will spend your entire life in sankalpa.

We are all dangerous to ourselves and each other until we give this ego to God.

The soul saves itself by his own self-aware intelligence.

The Five-fold Strata of Service — [In this chart, Babaji depicts the classic Pancha maha yajnas, the Five Daily Sacrifices incumbent upon householders: Sacrifice to the gods, seers, ancestors, human beings, animals and plants]:  

When you water the plant in your kitchen, you can do so thinking, “I have to water this plant so it will be pretty for me.” Or, I can water it as an offering to the plant kingdom.

It is difficult to manage humanity.  They will not do what is best for them.  But they can practice yajna.  The five yajnas are a way to stabilize one’s life.

Omkara, The Great Cause — [In this chart, Babaji uses a bell to signify the presence and power of Om, the primal vibration out of which the universe is manifested]:

If you do not want suffering, then do not ring the bell.  Once you ring the bell, you will realize, “I have some joy, but I also have some pain.”  But the seer looks at the bell (Mahat) and thinks, “Oh how marvelous — everything is in it.  I think I’ll leave it alone.”

So this is why we give the advaitic knowledge first:  The Father and I are One.  You are not going to understand it at first, but it is a drop of acid and it will burn through all the layers of delusion and deception eventually.

The senses are impure as long as they are under the control of the unripe ego, that is, if they are attached to the ego and not to God.

“Pranava is a the lower Brahman and higher Atman.” — Upanisads

Kaivalya Upanisad states, “I am different from that (matter).  I am the intelligence that is never seen.” In order to know I am different from that, you have to know what that is, and this is what cosmology gives us.

In the West they say that humans are sentient and everything else is insentient.  In Vedanta, they say everything is insentient, even beings — that is, even the brain and mind are insentient.  The only sentient principle is Brahman.  The way to understand this is that the moon shines but it doesn’t have its own light.  Brahman is Self-effulgent; all else shines by borrowed light.

Dissolving the Mindstream — [In this chart, Babaji depicts the process of involution from elements to senses, to tanmatras, to the phases of the mind, to Cosmic Mind, to Brahman.  What is seen and emphasized is that the universe all comes out of the mind]:

Just like water has three forms, liquid, solid, and vapor, the mind has the power to solidify, liquefy and vaporize, and you will need this power to vaporize (dissolve) the mindstream.

“How’s the weather?”  This is a low-grade mantra.  It never gets dissolved by ordinary beings, who take it from life to life in their complacency.

Precipitous Ascent — [In this chart, Babaji presents the various paths of sadhana by which beings make the precipitous climb to the mountain peak of Self-Realization]:  

You are supposed to participate in your spiritual life.  You participate in your earthly life don’t you?  If you do not, you are tamasic.

You have to learn to make your mind formless in order to understand formlessness.

Nine Ways of Dealing with Desire — [In this chart, which has become a real favorite among students, Babaji delineates the cycles and counter cycles of samsara as a result of adharmic life and merely moral ethical life, and contrasts it with the cycles of dharma and sadhana that lead to liberation.  Along with this are nine ways of dealing with desire, three that are worthless and six that are useful]:  

There is a difference between growth in the world, in moral-ethical life, versus growth in dharma.  And growth in selfishness is growth of the ego.

[One of the worthless methods: trying to satisfy desires]: You cannot enjoy what does not truly exist.  The ego is grasping after it.  But the ego is a façade.  So you have one façade grasping after another façade.

[Several methods that can work if used skillfully]:  Destroying desire and surrendering desire are two different approaches to dealing with the problem of desire.  Sacrifice is more of a mental/mindful practice of letting God enjoy through oneself.  Austerity, on the other hand, is about taking a desire to task.

Golden Rules for Sadhana and Transformation — [In this chart, Babaji outlines the view and mental stance one should adopt to ensure that one’s spiritual practice is performed in the right spirit and does not lead one onto detours]:  

The children of Sri Ramakrishna have openmindedness.  They will not exclude you because you have a different religion.  Rather, they will ask you , “what does your religion say about such and such?”  They are interested.

Sentinels at the gate: These are what get rid of the rotten apples at the bottom of our karmic/samskaric barrel that would otherwise prevent one from making progress in spiritual life.  They are:

No pretensions, justifications or complaints about your status.

No shifting of blame to any outer circumstance or outer agent

No assigning of any fault to any deity such as god, gods, etc.

No citing of the occurrence of luck

No vague or foggy belief in the randomness or serendipitous nature of things or events

No excuses or inadvertence around one’s supposed inadequacy for accomplishing sadhana

No reliance upon false refuge in ignorance, unpreparedness, unworthiness, or poor upbringing.

Chit-shuddhi:  With regard to purification of the memory, one should make a concerted effort to awaken and remember divine traits from past lives.  Awaken your pure memory.  This is akin to dharma-megha samadhi.  And remember, all five akashas are within you — the ancestors, seers, gods…..

Motiveless action is being present in each moment.  Each action is part of the ultimate goal.  That goal is in the action — see it there.  By having a motive-based action, a goal-based action, you set yourself up for possible failure and that can lead to backsliding — a kind of samskara or habit that is difficult to overcome in spiritual life.

It is rather a revelation and a predicament to find that you are the only stable thing in a universe of moving particles.

Down here in the physical body, consciousness is dumbed down.  When one understands all these wisdom tattvas, the mind stays alert all the time, even at death and at birth.

If you aren’t akamai [Hawaiian for “in the know”], you will think that mind and Consciousness are the same thing, or, if you do make a difference, you will think it is mind and thought.  But mind, intellect, ego and thought are one thing, and Consciousness is another.  It looks on as witness.

Mahaprakriti — The Mother of all Nature (not just Mother Nature).  She is the power of comprehension.  She causes the guru to speak and the disciple to hear and understand.  This is why Sri Ramakrishna said to propitiate Divine Mother.  She will give you the tattvas to create the universe, and also take them away when you are ready for that.

Brahman shines with an incomprehensible Light, and Mahashakti spreads and distributes this Light.

First you perceive the emptiness of all things and then you realize the fullness of your Self.  “After calming sankalpa, contemplate all things with the eye of abhava and wear it like a sword.”  — Lord Vasishtha

Class Notes – SRV Oregon & Prison Classes

When, in your practice of involution, you arrive at the element ether, you are at the subtlest place in this physical realm.  Piercing through it opens a gateway to the other akashas.

The psychic prana is to be looked upon cosmologically, philosophically, and anthropomorphically.  People are of different temperaments and will recognize this prana in different ways.  You have to be flexible.  When you give yourself a “checkup from the neck up,” it will not be the same checkup your neighbor is doing.

When you go seeking the Origin that ultimately does not exist, you have to prove this to yourself.  It is not enough that others have proved it for themselves.

From a satsang:
Question:  I’ve been contemplating this concept, “Signal to noise ratio” — It is like Brahman is the signal and everything else is noise or static.  Can you say more about this with regard to dissolving the mindstream?
Babaji: What is wanted is to have experiences of the formless, not just revelatory experiences.  The noise of the mind only ceases when the formless is “seen.”  Otherwise there may be peace, but not realization.

The direct disciples stated, “Ramakrishna made us who we are by awakening in us the desire for spiritual practice.”  Spiritual practice is what sets the Ramakrishna Order apart from most other organizations (many of which are coming to no good and falling apart in these days) and from religion in general.

As some of you may know, I grew up here in Portland.  I like the cold.  As a boy I ran around the fields and forests with my dog — wet and rained on — and I never cared.  My mother would scold me, “you put on a coat or you’ll get a cold.”  If I knew then what I know now, I would have replied, “Mother, don’t you know that the cause of all disease is rebirth?”  And the second cause is lack of discriminative wisdom.  Thankfully she helped with that — like helping me to discriminate about the wisdom of putting on a coat......

In the Vivekachudamani, the two main statements are Tattwamasi (Thou art That), and Brahman is real, the world is false (Brahman satya, jagad mithya).  When people hear this they get all upset that the world is not real.  But you have passed over the main thing:  Brahman is Real.  Jagad mithya, the world is false or unreal.  How?  It is changing.  Maya, name and form in time and space, is the queen of all four-letter words.

You have to awaken from the waking state to the ever-awake state.  Bhakti is the slow scenic route to God.  If combined with wisdom samadhi it becomes a swift vehicle, a rocket ship.

The Kingdoms of Heaven — all knowledge is within you.  You have to access this.  But there are barriers to this: the 8 Fetters, the 6 Passions, the 3 Gunas, etc..  Meditation, study, devotion, sacrifice — these are all ways to purify the mind to access what is within.

The difference between a seer and an ordinary person going into deep sleep is that the Seer takes his Consciousness with him and the ordinary person leaves Consciousness back with the senses or dream senses, thus leaving Consciousness outside the door of deep sleep.

We are not really awake because our Consciousness is dumbed down by our senses.  Awakening refers to the opening of the third eye, jnana chakshu.

Prakriti is like an iceberg.  The tip is what we see all around us.  The rest of it is unmanifest.  But the tip melts and some of the part below then comes above the water….so everything returns, like Buddha said.

When Buddha sat under the Bo tree, first he shut down the senses and their penchant for the objects, then he shut down the tanmatras, the pranas, then the mind, then he stopped the process of creation, preservation and dissolution — then he merged in Om.  Every great soul does this in one way or another, no matter what the methods or terms used.

You have to have a cosmology in order to do the meditation of involution — dissolving the mindstream.  Otherwise one is not aware of what to dissolve, or even if dissolution is necessary.