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Born along and defiled by the stream of qualities,
unsteady, wavering, bewildered, full of desire, distracted, one goes on
into the state of self-conceit. In thinking, 'This is I' and 'That is
mine' one binds himself with himself, as does a bird with a snare.
Krishna Yajur Veda, Maitri Upanishad, 3.2. UPH, P. 418

Monday
LESSON 99
Taming Distraction
Throughout your inner investigations in meditation,
cling to the philosophical principle that the mind doesn't move.
Thoughts are stationary within the mind, and only awareness moves. It
flows from one thought to another, as the free citizen of the world
travels through each country, each city, not attaching himself
anywhere. When you are able, through practice, to sit for twenty
minutes without moving even one finger, your superconscious mind can
begin to express itself. It can even reprogram your subconscious and
change past patterns of existence. That is one of the wonderful things
about inner life. That's why it's inner life -- it happens from the
inside.
If you just sit and breathe, the inner nerve system of
the body of your psyche, your soul, begins to work on the subconscious,
to mold it like clay. Awareness is loosened from limited concepts and
made free to move vibrantly and buoyantly into the inner depths where
peace and bliss remain undisturbed for centuries. However, if you move
even a finger, you externalize the entire nervous system. Like shifting
gears from high to low, you change the intensity of awareness, and the
outer nerve system then is active. Superconscious programming ceases,
awareness returns to the body and the senses, and the external mind
takes over. By sitting still again at this point, it is just a matter
of a few minutes for the forces to quiet and awareness to soar in and
in once again. Sitting quietly in this state, you will feel when the
superconscious nerve system begins to work in the physical body. You
may feel an entirely different flow through your muscles, your bones
and your cells. Let it happen.
As you sit to meditate,
awareness may wander into past memories or future happenings. It may be
distracted by the senses, by a sound or by a feeling of discomfort in
the body. This is natural in the early stages. Gently bring awareness
back to your point of concentration. Don't criticize awareness for
wandering, for that is yet another distraction. Distractions will
disappear if you become intensely interested and involved in your
meditation. In such a state, you won't even feel the physical body. You
have gone to a movie, read a book or sat working on a project on your
computer that was so engrossing you only later discovered your foot had
fallen asleep for a half hour because it was in an awkward position.
Similarly, once we are totally conscious on the inside, we will never
be distracted by the physical body or the outside.
If
distractions keep coming up in meditation over a long period of time,
then perhaps you are not ready to meditate. There has to be a point
where distractions stop. Until then you are hooked very strongly into
the instinctive or intellectual area of the mind, and the whole idea of
meditation won't inspire you very much. Therefore, you need something
to spur you on inwardly. In Hinduism when this occurs, the grace of the
satguru is sought. By going to your guru openly, you receive darshana,
a little extra power that moves awareness permanently out of the areas
of distraction. You are then able to sit in inner areas for long
periods of time. Distractions become fewer and fewer, for he has
wrenched you out of the instinctive and intellectual areas and changed
the energy flow within your body.
After the meditation is
over, work to refine every attribute of your nature. Learn to work and
work joyfully, for all work is good. Learn to be happy by seeking
happiness, not from others but from the depths of the soul itself. In
your daily life, observe the play of the forces as they manifest
between people and people, and people and their things. Don't avoid the
forces of the world, for the meditator lives fearlessly, shying away
from nothing. The "out there" and the within are his playground, his
kingdom. He becomes vibrant and confident in himself. He learns to lean
on his own spine and not on any other person, teacher, book,
organization or system. Answers begin to become real and vibrant,
hooked onto the end of every question. His body radiates new grace and
strength. His mind, disciplined and uncluttered, becomes one-pointedly
agile. His relationships take on new, profound meanings. His emotions
are stabilized and reflect his new-found tranquillity. These and many
more are the dynamic rewards of the sincere aspirant who searches
within through meditation.
Tuesday
LESSON 100
Sleep and Dreaming
Get into the habit of meditating before sleep each
night. If you catch yourself dropping off to sleep while sitting for
meditation, know that your meditation is over. The best thing to do is
to deliberately go to sleep, because the spiritual power is gone and
has to be invoked or opened up again. After getting ready for bed, sit
in the lotus position and have a dynamic meditation for as long as you
can. When you feel drowsy, you may deliberately put your body to sleep
in this way. Mentally say to yourself, "Prana in the left leg, flow, go to sleep. Prana in the right leg, flow, go to sleep. Prana in the left arm, flow, go to sleep. Prana in the right arm, flow, go to sleep. Torso prana, flow, go to sleep. Head filled with inner light, go to sleep." The first thing you know, it's morning.
The
whole dream and sleep world is very interesting. Often we go into inner
planes of consciousness at night. How do you know if you have been in
meditation all through the night, studying at the inner-plane school in
higher states of mind? You will wake up all of a sudden with no interim
period of sleepiness. You wake up invigorated. There you are, as if you
came out of nowhere back into external consciousness. Otherwise, you
wake up through the subconscious dream world. You feel a little
off-key, and you know that you have been in the dream or astral world
or the realms of intellectual aggressiveness much of the night.
Striving yoga students do go into inner-plane meditation
schools for short periods of time during their sleeping hours. This
occurs when the mind is a well-trained mind, a keen mind, a
crystal-clear mind.
Perhaps by this time you have seen the
clear white light, or less intense inner light, and you have seen how
crystal clear and sharp it is. Each thought, each feeling, each action
has to be crystal clear and sharp to maintain and bring through a
balance of your consciousness to the external world. When this happens,
you have control over these states of consciousness, so much so that
you are your own catalyst, and you can slide into higher states and out
to external states of consciousness without being disturbed by one or
the other.
When we act and react in daily affairs, we dream at
night. We are living in the external or the aggressive magnetic force,
called pingala. Thus, we dream in pictures. Should a yogi live in the passive force, the magnetic indrawn force, called ida, he
feels and emotes on the astral plane. He would have a fretful, eventful
night, an emotional night. He would not dream in pictures as much as he
would in feeling. When one is living in the pure spiritual force, sushumna, the
primary life force, he flows from sleep into meditation. The meditator
should strive to put his body to sleep consciously and deliberately,
after balancing the external and internal magnetic forces. So, whether
he is lying down in his body or sitting in the lotus posture, he is in
deep meditation, going to schools of learning and schools of spiritual
unfoldment within his own mind. In the morning, many of my students
remember inner-plane class activities which occurred during the night,
not as a dream but as their own experience. So, you can meditate while
you sleep, but don't sleep while you are meditating!
Wednesday
LESSON 101
Clearing the Subconscious
After you have practiced meditation for some time,
your inner vision will become keen and clear. For a while there may be
the feeling of arrival, that you have at last conquered life's cycles,
that you are pure now and free at last. But soon, layer by layer, your
past will begin to unfold itself to you as your subconscious mind shows
you in vivid, pictorial form all the vibratory rates you have put into
it in this life. Like a tape recorder, it begins to play back the
patterns and vibrations of previous cause and effect.
Since
some of these memories and actions may not have been complimentary, you
may try to avoid looking at them. The more you avoid facing them, the
more apparent they will become. You might think that everyone is seeing
them, but they are not. This natural phase of spiritual unfoldment can
be a pitfall, for these associations and attachments of the past seem
temporarily attractive as they pass before the mind's eye. Old desires,
old friends, old and comfortable habits you thought were gone now come
up to tempt awareness, to pull it back into a seemingly desirable past.
This event should not be taken too seriously. It is natural and
necessary, but you must avoid a fear of the process, which, in order to
stop the unpleasant feedback, often brings people to stop their efforts
at meditation. This is not the time to stop meditating. Nor is it the
time to avoid the past. It is the time to fully review each year of
your life that led you to where you are now.
As you remain
inwardly poised, watching the images of life but remaining detached,
they gradually fade away, leaving awareness free to dive ever deeper
into superconscious realms. This sometimes intense experience brings
you into renewed desire to live the kind of life that does not produce
distorted images. You become religious and consciously shape up your
lifestyle according to the yamas and niyamas, so that
the reverberation of each action is positive in the subconscious. You
have seen the uncomplimentary results of living according to the moods
and emotions of the instinctive mind and the senses, and that
experience has taught a great lesson. In reviewing life according to
this new guideline, you may change your profession, your address, your
diet and values. You will undoubtedly find new friends, for it is
essential to associate with people that are of good character. Choose
your friends carefully, but don't get too closely attached. People
clinging to people is one of the biggest deterrents to the life of
meditation.
Generally as soon as someone gets on the path and
starts meditating, he wants to tell everyone else how to do it even
before he has learned himself. This socializing never produces inner
results. Keep your meditation abilities and activities to yourself.
Don't talk about inner things with anyone but your guru. When it comes others' time to turn within, they will do so naturally, just as you did. That is the law.
Thursday
LESSON 102
Conflicts with Other People
Good interpersonal relationships help the meditator
a great deal, and meditation helps keep those relations harmonious.
When we get along nicely with others, meditation becomes easy. If we
have problems with other people, if we argue or disagree mentally and
verbally, we must work exceedingly diligently in order to regain the
subtlety of meditation. Poor interpersonal relationships are one of the
biggest barriers, for they antagonize awareness, causing it to flow
through the instinctive and intellectual forces. This puts stress and
strain on the nerve system and closes inner doors to
superconsciousness.
If we cannot get along with our fellow man
whom we watch closely, observing the expressions on his face and the
inflections of his voice, how will we ever get along with the forces of
the subconscious, which we cannot see, or the refined superconscious
areas of the inner mind, when we face them in meditation? Obviously, we
must conquer and harmonize all our relationships -- not by working to
change the other person, but by working with that other person within
ourself, for we are only seeing in him what is in us. He becomes a
mirror. We cannot allow the unraveling of the relationship by attempted
outer manipulation, discussion or analysis to become a barrier to
deeper meditation. Instead, we must internalize everything that needs
change, work within ourselves and leave other people out of it. This
helps to smooth interpersonal relationships, and as these relationships
improve, so does our ability to meditate.
Our nerve system is
just like a harp. It can be played by other people. They can cause many
tones to be heard in our nerve system. All styles of music can be
played on a harp, but no matter what kind of music is played, the harp
remains the same. People can do all sorts of things to our nervous
system, and make patterns of tone and color appear. This does not hurt
the nervous system. It, like the harp, remains the same. The same
nervous system can be played by our superconscious or by our passions.
We can experience beautiful knowledge from within, which is the
outgrowth of good meditation abilities, or experience a mental argument
with another person. All tones are played at different times through
the same nervous system. We want our nervous system to be played from
the inside out through the beautiful rhythm of superconsciousness. This
is bliss. We do not want to allow other people to affect our nerve
system in a negative way, only in a positive way. That is why it is
imperative for those on the path to be in good company.
Friday
LESSON 103
The Journey Within
Beginning to meditate can be likened to starting a
long journey. The destination and the means of travel must be known
before setting out. Meditation is an art, a definite art, and well
worth working for to become accomplished. Meditation is not easy, and
yet it is not difficult. It only takes persistence, working day after
day to learn to control and train the outer as well as the subtle,
inner forces. We must realize that meditation is the disciplined art of
tuning into the deepest and most subtle spiritual energies. It's not a
fad. It's not a novelty. It's not something you do because your
next-door neighbor does. It is sacred, the most sacred thing you can do
on this planet, and it must be approached with great depth and
sincerity. At these moments, we are seeking God, Truth, and actually
controlling the forces of life and consciousness as we fulfill the very
evolutionary purpose of life -- the realization of the Self God. Unless
we approach meditation in humility and wonder, we will not reach our
goal in this life.
Now we are in a new age. Everything is
changing. Everything is different. We must believe that we can change
by using our powers of meditation, for we are here, on the surface of
this Earth, to value and fulfill our existence. Value yourself and your
fellow man. Say to yourself again and again, "I am the most wonderful
person in the whole world!" Then ask yourself, "Why? Because of my
unruly subconscious? Not necessarily. Because of what I know
intellectually? Not so. I am the most wonderful person in the world
because of the great spiritual force that flows through my spine, head
and body, and the energy within that, and the That within that."
Know
full well that you can realize the very essence of this energy in this
life. Feel the spine and the power within it that gives independence,
enthusiasm and control. Then say to yourself, over and over, "I am a
wonderful person," until you can fully and unreservedly believe it.
Lean on your own spine. Depending on the greatness within is the
keynote of this new age. Get your willpower going. If you find an
unruly part of your nature, reprogram it, little by little, using the yamas and niyamas as
your guideline. Live a dynamic, God-like life every day. Dance with
Siva, live with Siva and merge with Siva. Get into this area of the
mind called meditation. Make it a fundamental part of your life, and
all forms of creativity, success and greatness will find expression in
your life. Everyone is on this planet for one purpose. That purpose
will be known to you through your powers of meditation, through seeing
and then finally realizing your Self at the very core of the universe
itself.
Saturday
LESSON 104
Inspiration Unbridled
I would like to tell you about one of my students
and his experience with the discovery of the superconscious state of
the mind. When I first met him, this young man told me that he wanted
to be a composer, to write music. He wanted to compose more than
anything else in the world. He had just graduated from a university
with a degree in music, and he had learned all the accepted,
intellectual rules for the composition of music. But he wasn't entirely
satisfied with being told how to compose according to certain
mechanical laws. He wanted his music to flow through him without a
thought. One day I said to him, "Sit over here at the piano and get in
touch with your superconscious through diaphragmatic breathing. Now,
find a chord with your right hand. Write it down. You are a composer
aren't you? You are a composer now, not fifty years from now. The
superconscious mind that you are contacting works in the eternity of
the moment, not tomorrow. Subconscious is yesterday, superconscious is
immediate, now." So he wrote down the chord that his fingers found.
"Now write another chord," I said, "and then another and then another."
We finished a page of music with the right- hand staff, and I
asked him, "What about the left hand? You don't have a complete piece
of music with only the top bars filled in. "Well," he said, "I would
have to work out the left hand according to what I have already written
with the right hand." "No you don't," I replied, "Let the
superconscious work it out for you. Make your first chord with your
left hand now, without referring to what your right hand has done." He
exclaimed that the sound of the two hands together might be terrible,
but I insisted that he continue writing the chords with the left hand
until the entire page was finished for both hands. When I asked him to
play what he had written, he laughed and put his hands over his ears
but obliged, "All right, if you insist...." "I do," I said. He played
what he had written. It was a difficult piece of music, but there was
no discord whatsoever. I congratulated him, "Now you are a composer.
You created that piece superconsciously, without consciously knowing
how you put the tones together. But you had sufficient faith in
yourself to do it. In the same way, you must always depend upon
yourself in the eternity of the moment to be able to accomplish
whatever you set out to do."
The next day, he was right on
time for his appointment, and he wanted me to help him compose from his
superconscious again. "No," I said, "I am not going to be a composing
machine for you; you will have to find your inspiration from within. It
is time you put your yoga laws into practice now and attain
concentration and meditation." He tried and he tried, but somehow his
subconscious kept getting in the way. It told him he wasn't a composer
anymore. Then I realized that his present conditions were a little too
easy, and he was finding too much security in the conscious mind. Since
his next step was to stabilize himself as a composer and find the
ability at will to create inspirationally, I sent him on a very
difficult mission: to resolve the negative karmas in his subconscious that were blocking his superconsciousness. As his major tool, I gave him the maha vasana daha tantra.
I told him that he could not come back until he fulfilled all the
conditions of the mission and began to compose again as he wished. He
was reluctant, because he would have to leave all of his current
friends for a time. But being a sincere and determined student, he went
out and successfully fulfilled his mission. In the process, he had to
suffer through all of the things in his subconscious mind that had been
bothering him since he was a small boy. In doing so, he lifted many of
the blocks that had been a part of his subconscious for years, until
one day his higher faculties completely opened to him, and music poured
through him almost as fast as he could write it down.
Sunday
LESSON 105
Exercising Concentration
There are many faculties of the superconscious mind
just waiting to be tapped by you. Only by tapping into and opening your
superconscious, creative powers will you ever come to know and realize
your real Self. It is not difficult, but in order to open the higher or
inner consciousness, you have to gain a perfect control of the thinking
faculties of your mind.
Concentration has to be practiced and
perfected before meditation can begin. If you find that you are sitting
and trying not to fall asleep for a half hour, you have only
accomplished sitting and trying not to go to asleep for half an hour --
and perhaps refraining from scratching your nose when it begins to
itch. But that cannot be called meditation. Meditation is a
transforming state of mind, really. A person once said to me, "Well, I
concentrate my mind by reading a book, and when I'm reading, I don't
hear a thing." This is not concentration, but attention, the first step
to concentration. Concentration is thinking about one definite thing
for a given length of time until you begin to understand what you are
thinking about. What should we concentrate upon? Start with any solid
object. Take your watch, for instance. Think about your watch. Think
about the crystal. Think about the hands. Let your mind direct itself
toward the mechanism of your watch, and then observe how your mind,
after a few moments, begins to wander and play tricks on you. You may
start thinking about alarm clocks or a noise in the street.
Each
time your concentration period is broken by a distraction, you must
start all over again. Breathe deeply and coordinate all the energies of
your body so that you are not distracted by an itch or a noise. Direct
your awareness once again to your watch. Before you know it, you will
be thinking about a movie you saw four weeks ago and living through all
the fantasies of it again without realizing that ten minutes of your
time has gone by. Be careful and gentle with your awareness, however.
Bring it back to the object of your concentration in a firm, relaxed
manner and say to yourself, "I am the master of my thought."
Eventually, your awareness will begin to do just what you want it to.
Once
you are able to direct your awareness, without wavering, upon one
object, you will begin to understand what you are concentrating upon,
and you will find that this state of understanding is the beginning of
your meditation. You are more alive in this state than you were in the
noisy condition of your mind before you began to concentrate, and you
come forth from your meditation a little wiser than you were before you
went in.
The next state of consciousness, which is attained
when meditation has been perfected, is contemplation. In the
contemplative state of awareness you will feel the essence of all life
pouring and radiating through your body and through the object you have
been meditating upon. When contemplation is sustained, the final step
is samadhi, and that is finding or becoming your true Self,
which is beyond all conditions of your mind, all phases of
consciousness. Only after you have attained samadhi can you
answer the question "Who am I?" from your own experience. Only then
will you know that you are all-pervasive, and finally, in the deepest samadhi,
that you are causeless, timeless, spaceless and that you have been able
to realize this through a balance of your awakened inner and outer
consciousness, a bringing together of the forces of your mind in yoga, or union.
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