Vedic

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan on Mystical/Unitive Experience

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“To study the nature of this experience is rather a difficult matter. All that one can hope to do is to set down a few general impressions. It is a type of experience which is not clearly differentiated into a subject-object state, an integral, undivided consciousness in which not merely this or that side of man’s nature but his whole being seems to find itself. It is a condition of consciousness in which feelings are fused, ideas melt into one another, boundaries broken and ordinary distinctions transcended. Past and present fade away in a sense of timeless being. Consciousness and being are not there different from each other. All being is consciousness and all consciousness being. Thought and reality coalesce and a creative merging of subject and object results. Life grows conscious of its incredible depths. In this fulness of felt life and freedom, the distinction of the knower and the known disappears. The privacy of the individual self is broken into an invaded by a universal self which the individual feels as his own.

The experience itself is felt to be sufficient and complete. It does not come in a fragmentary or truncated form demanding completion by something else. It does not look beyond itself for meaning or validity. It does not appeal to external standards of logic or metaphysics. It is its own cause and explanation. It is sovereign in its own rights and carries its own credentials. It is self-established (svatahsiddha), self-evidencing (svasamvedya), self-luminous (svayamprakasa). It does not argue or explain but it knows and is.”

– Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, An Idealist View of Life

Samsara as a Succession of Opportunities

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“The formulation of the theory of samsara or rebirth is no proof that the Upanishads are pessimistic. Life on earth is the means of self-perfection. We have to undergo the discipline of samsara in our efforts towards the higher joy and the complete possession of spiritual truth. That which gives zest to life is the supreme motive of the joy of self-conquest. Samsara is only a succession of spiritual opportunities. Life is a stage in spiritual perfection, a step in the passage to the infinite.”


An aim in life of perfecting the soul gives zest to our actions, even in old age. Most people, even as they are near death, know that they are unfinished works. Hence the idea of samsara, reincarnation, or in the Catholic tradition, purgatory. We need more perfecting.

Siddhis

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The blog tends to be slightly or sometimes well behind where I am currently reading. I have several more series to do from within the Christian tradition, but am mainly reading in Vedanta and Yoga right now. As I have been reading more in the Vedanta and Yoga traditions, the concept of Siddhis (“miraculous powers” attained through meditation – see link for previous post) has been more on my mind.

Various teachers in the Yoga tradition put more or less weight on siddhis, with Patanjali himself seeming to view them as superfluous to the yogi’s true goal (see Pantajali’s Yoga Sutras 3:37). In general, I lean toward the belief that a fascination with siddhis and the like is a distraction from the contemplative quest. Nevertheless, reports of these types of things do surround the contemplative traditions as a whole.

The purpose of this post is to briefly document my own modest experience in this area:

When I first began seminary, I took a Spiritual Development class. One of my assignments was to spend multiple periods of two hours in prayer. There were no further instructions than simply to be in prayer for two hours.

During these periods I would pray for people I knew. Sometimes, I would inexplicably be presented with a powerful image while I was praying for an individual. In one case, as I was praying for a particular friend, I was presented with an image of the state of Washington. As far as I know, there was no prior link in my mind between this person and the state of Washington. The experience of the image itself could best be described as a “vivid stamp in the mind’s eye.” Hard to describe, but clear and unmistakable to me at the time.

As it happened, this friend (a former college roommate) called me soon after one of these prayer periods. He was in the military and at a point in his training when they were determining where he was going to be stationed next. He told me a few of the options: I remember New York being on the list along with several other states. He did not mention Washington as a possibility.

During our conversation, I told him “You are going to be stationed in Washington.” I then told him about the image I received while in prayer. He told me that Washington wasn’t an option, and the choice wasn’t up to him anyway, so we just left it at that.

A few months later my friend called me to tell me that, contrary to the options that had initially been presented to him, he was going to be stationed in Washington. He spent the next several years of his life there. At the time, both coming from an Evangelical perspective, we took it as a confirmation from God that this was where he was supposed to be.

I also had a similar experience around this time where an image was presented to me while praying for a friend which later seemed to be meaningful to the individual.

I don’t know what to make of these things, and of course coincidences happen and sometimes we interpret things in hindsight, drawing meaning where perhaps there was none to begin with.

But it’s also possible that we are connected in ways that we don’t understand. People, matter, time. We still really don’t know the first thing about how Reality works. And the deeper we go, the stranger and stranger things get.

So that’s my brief experience with Siddhis.

Eknath Easwaran | Description of Atman and Brahman

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The following is Eknath Easwaran’s description of Atman and Brahman in the Introduction to his translation and commentary on the Upanishads.

“In meditation, as the mind settles down to dwell on a single focus, attention begins to flow in a smooth, unbroken stream, like oil poured from one container to another. As this happens, attention naturally retreats from other channels. The ears, for example, still function, but you do not hear; attention is no longer connected with the organs of hearing.

When concentration is profound, there are moments when you forget the body entirely. This experience quietly dissolves physical identification. The body becomes like a comfortable jacket: you wear it easily, and in meditation you can unbutton and loosen it until it scarcely weighs on you at all.

Eventually there comes a time when you get up from meditation and know that your body is not you. This is not an intellectual understanding. Even in the unconscious the nexus is cut, which means there are sure signs in health and behavior: no physical craving will be able to dictate to you, and any compulsion to fulfill emotional needs through physical activities will vanish. Most important, you lose your fear of death. You know with certitude that death is not the end, and that you will not die when the body dies.

The Taittiriya Upanishad says that the body is the first of many layers that surround the human personality, each less physical than the one before. These are, roughly, components of what we call “mind”: the senses, emotions, intellect, will. As awareness is withdrawn from these layers of consciousness one by one, the sages gradually made another astonishing discovery: the powers of the mind have no life of their own. The mind is not conscious; it is only an instrument of consciousness – or, in different metaphors, a process, a complex field of forces. Yet when awareness is withdrawn from the mind, you remain aware. When this happens you realize you are not the mind, any more than you are the physical body.

When awareness has been consolidated even beyond the mind, little remains except the awareness of “I.” Concentration is so profound that the mind-process has almost come to a standstill. Space is gone, and time so attenuated that it scarcely seems real. This is a taste of shanti, “the peace that passeth understanding,” invoked at the end of every Upanishad as a reminder of this sublime state. You rest in meditation in what the Taittiriya Upanishad calls the “body of joy,” a silent, ethereal inner realm at the threshold of pure being.

For a long while it may seem that there is nothing stirring in this still world, so deep in consciousness that the phenomena of the surface seem as remote as a childhood dream. But gradually you become aware of the presence of something vast, intimately your own but not at all the finite, limited self you had been calling “I.”

All that divides us from the sea of infinite consciousness at this point is a thin envelope of personal identity. That envelope cannot be removed by any amount of will; the “I” cannot erase itself. Yet, abruptly, it does vanish. In the climax of meditation the barrier of individuality disappears, dissolving in a sea of pure, undifferentiated awareness.

This state the Upanishads call turiya – literally “the fourth,” for it lies beyond waking, dreaming, and dreamless sleep. Turiya, the Upanishads say, is waking up in dreamless sleep: in the very depths of the unconscious, where one is aware of neither body nor mind. In later Hindu thought this awakening will receive more familiar names: samadhi, “complete absorption”; moksha, “liberation” or “release,” for it brings freedom from all conditioning and the limitations of time and space.

What remains when every trace of individuality is removed? We can call it pure being, for it is in differentiating this unity that created things acquire their name and form. The sages called it Brahman, from the root brih, “to expand.” Brahman is the irreducible ground of existence, the essence of every thing – of the earth and sun and all creatures, of gods and human beings, of every power of life.

Simultaneous with this discovery comes another: this unitary awareness is also the ground of one’s own being, the core of personality. This divine ground the Upanishads call simply Atman, “the Self” – spelled with a capital to distinguish it from the individual personality. In the unitive state the Self is seen to be one, the same in everyone. This is not a reasoned conclusion; it is something experienced at the very center of one’s being, an inalienable fact. In all persons, all creatures, the Self is the innermost essence. And it is identical with Brahman: our real Self is not different from the ultimate Reality called God.

This tremendous equation – “the Self is Brahman” – is the central discovery of the Upanishads. Its most famous formulation is one of the mahavakyas or “great formulae”: Tat tvam asi, “You are That.” “That” is the characteristic way the Upanishads point to a Reality that cannot be described; and “you,” of course, is not the petty, finite personality, but that pure consciousness “which makes the eye see and the mind think”: the Self. In this absorption there is no time, no space, no causality. These are forms imposed by the mind, and the mind is still. Nor is there awareness of any object; even the thought of “I” has dissolved. Yet awareness remains: chit, pure, undifferentiated consciousness, beyond the division of observer and observed. When the mind-process starts up again, as it must, and we slip back into body and personality, the multiplicity of the perceptual world will unfold as a seed bursts into a tree.

Astrophysicists use similar language when they talk about creation. All the matter in the universe must have been present in that “primeval atom,” supercondensed to an unbelievable degree. In such a state, matter would no longer be possible as matter. It would be stripped down to pure energy, and energy itself would be raw and undifferentiated; variations like gravity and light would not have emerged. Time would not yet be real, for there can be no time before zero; neither would space make sense in the context of a question like, “What was there before the Big Bang?” Physicists reply, with Gertrude Stein, “There’s no ‘there’ there. There’s no ‘then’ then.” Space and time, matter and energy, sprung into existence at the moment of creation; “before” that moment the concepts do not apply.

The sages would find all this a perfect metaphor for the unitive state. In samadhi, reality is condensed into pure potential, without dimensions, without time, without any differentiation. Physicists do not say there was nothing before the Big Bang; they say everything came from that, and nothing more can be said. Similarly, samadhi is not emptiness but purnata: plenitude, complete fullness. The whole of reality is there, inner as well as outer: not only matter and energy but all time, space, causality, and states of consciousness.

That fullness the Upanishads call sat: absolute reality, in which all of creation is implicit as an organism is implicit in DNA, or a tree in a tiny seed.

The joy of this state cannot be described. This is ananda: pure, limitless, unconditioned joy. The individual personality dissolves like salt in a sea of joy, merges in it like a river, rejoices like a fish in an ocean of bliss. “As a man in the arms of his beloved,” says the Brihadaranyaka daringly, “is not aware of what is without and what within, so one in union with the Self is not aware of what is without and what within, for in that state all desires are fulfilled.” And what other scripture would cap such an image with a pun? “Apta-kamam atma-kamam akamam rupam: That is his real form, where he is free from all desires because all his desires are fulfilled; for the Self is all our desire.”

Nothing less can satisfy the human heart. “There is no joy in the finite; there is joy only in the infinite.” That is the message of the Upanishads. The infinite – free, unbounded, full of joy – is our native state. We have fallen from that state and seek it everywhere: every human activity is an attempt to fill this void. But as long as we try to fill it from outside ourselves, we are making demands on life which life cannot fulfill. Finite things can never appease an infinite hunger. Nothing can satisfy us but reunion with our real Self, which the Upanishads say is sat-chit-ananda: absolute reality, pure awareness, unconditioned joy.”

All This is Verily Brahman

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More audio from Atmananda Udasin. Different teachers in any tradition will break things down in slightly different ways, but this seems to me to give a good “taste” of Advaita Vedantic thought.

The Self Reveals Itself to Itself by Itself

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Swami Atmananda Udasin is a teacher in the school of Advaita (“not-two” or “non-dual”) Vedanta. I came across his teaching on the blog The Unthought Known.

In this school, the Ground of the individual self is identified 1:1 with Pure Consciousness, Brahman, the Self. Atman is Brahman. The ultimate goal, in this school, is to make this experiential realization for oneself. This is sometimes referred to as Self-realization.



Atmananda references multiple ways to make this realization:

(1) Remaining as the witness (1:05ff, as I understand it, this is the practice of Vipassana)

(2) Self-Enquiry (1:55ff, asking Who am I? essentially as a koan, until one discovers and identifies with Pure Consciousness)

(3) Abiding in the feeling of I Am (18:00ff)

Of the three, I am most fascinated by what he calls “Abiding in the feeling of I Am” (sadly he doesn’t expound on the specifics this method). This is essentially what I believe can happen during Centering Prayer. It also seems to be the form of practice that most commonly transcends the religious traditions. Stilling the mind, consciousness without thought, “resting in the feeling of I Am.”

I also find his response to the Question: Does that mean one doesn’t enter into relationships? (24:28) to be profound. “Non-attachment” is sometimes interpreted as resignation, not ever really loving people, withdrawal from the world. But from the perspective he presents, it’s the exact opposite. We are able to truly love people because (and only because) we are coming to them without searching to fulfill our own need. One is fulfilled in the Self – in God. Relationships can then become pure because there is no need to use others for our own gain.

There are many models of the self. I am not committed to any particular model (Is “what I truly am” – my identity – identical with Brahman/God? How does the “lower self”/“ego”/”personality” fit in to the picture?, etc.), but there clearly is an experience of Pure Consciousness, consciousness without thought, that transcends traditions. How one interprets this experience seems to depend on the tradition a practitioner comes from.

They Never Rule Over Him

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“‘This Brahmin,’ he said to a friend, ‘is no proper merchant and will never be one, there is never any passion in his soul when he conducts our business. But he has that mysterious quality of those people to whom success comes all by itself, whether this may be a good star of his birth, magic, or something he has learned among Samanas. He always seems to be merely playing at the business affairs, they never fully become a part of him – they never rule over him, he is never afraid of failure, he is never upset by a loss.’

The friend advised the merchant: ‘Give him from the business he conducts for you a third of the profits, but let him also be liable for the same amount of the losses, when there is a loss. Then, he’ll become more zealous.’

Kamaswami followed the advice. But Siddhartha cared little about this. When he made a profit, he accepted it with equanimity; when he made losses, he laughed and said: ‘Well, look at this, so this one turned out badly!’”

– Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

The Bhagavad Gita | Two Paths

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Many spiritual traditions have some picture of "Two Paths," one for the righteous, one for the wicked.  One for the pure in heart, one for the impure.  Jesus famously used the image of a separation between sheep and goats in the final judgment.

In the Hebrew Scriptures, Psalm 1 captures this picture as well:
 

"Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked
 or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers,
 but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
 and who meditates on it day and night.
 
 That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
 which yields its fruit in season
 and whose leaf does not wither.
 Whatever they do prospers.

 Not so the wicked! 
 They are like chaff that the wind blows away.
 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
 nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

 For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,
 but the way of the wicked leads to destruction."


Rarely does life break down in so simple a way.  Outside of characterizations, it is hard to put any one person purely in the category of "righteous," or "wicked."  As an old pastor of mine used to say, we are all a holy mix.   But the image of Two Paths is helpful.  The righteous path is an ideal to strive for.  The evil path is a disaster to avoid. 

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna contrasts those who have Divine qualities with those who are demonic.  In Chapter 16, He counsels Arjuna to remain on the Divine, spiritual path.  

"Be fearless and pure; never waver in your determination or your dedication to the spiritual life. Give freely. Be self-controlled, sincere, truthful, loving, and full of the desire to serve. Realize the truth of the scriptures; learn to be detached and take joy in renunciation. Do not get angry or harm any living creature, but be compassionate and gentle, show good will to all. Cultivate vigor, patience, will, purity; avoid malice and pride. Then, Arjuna, you will achieve your divine destiny.

Other qualities, Arjuna, make a person more and more inhuman: hypocrisy, arrogance, conceit, anger, cruelty, ignorance. The divine qualities lead to freedom; the demonic, to bondage. But do not grieve, Arjuna; you were born with divine attributes.

Some people have divine tendencies, others demonic. I have described the divine at length, Arjuna; now listen while I describe the demonic.

The demonic do things they should avoid and avoid the things they should do. They have no sense of uprightness, purity, or truth. 'There is no God,' they say, 'no truth, no spiritual law, no moral order. The basis of life is sex; what else can it be?' Holding such distorted views, possessing scant discrimination, they become enemies of the world, causing suffering and destruction.

Hypocritical, proud, and arrogant, living in delusion and clinging to deluded ideas, insatiable in their desires, they purse their unclean ends. Although burdened with fears that end only with death, they still maintain with complete assurance, 'Gratification of lust is the highest that life can offer.' Bound on all sides by scheming and anxiety, driven by anger and greed, they amass by any means they can a hoard of money for the satisfaction of their cravings.

'I got this today,' they say; 'tomorrow I shall get that. This wealth is mine, and that will be mine too. I have destroyed my enemies. I shall destroy others too! Am I not like God? I enjoy what I want. I am successful. I am powerful. I am happy. I am rich and well-born. Who is equal to me? I will perform sacrifices and give gifts, and rejoice in my own generosity.' This is how they go on, deluded by ignorance. Bound by their greed and entangled in a web of delusion, whirled about by a fragmented mind, they fall into a dark hell...

There are three gates to this self-destructive hell: lust, anger, and greed. Renounce these three. Those who escape these three gates of darkness, Arjuna, seek what is best and attain life's supreme goal. Others disregard the teachings of the scriptures. Driven by selfish desire, they miss the goal of life, miss even happiness and success.

Therefore let the scriptures be your guide in what to do and what not to do. Understand their teachings; then act in accordance with them."

– The Bhagavad Gita, 16:1-16, 21-24

 

This will end the Bhagavad Gita series.  Reading through it is probably the easiest way to understand basic Vedantic thought.  Although Hinduism is wildly diverse as a religion, this text is highly revered among most Hindus.  I find the type of meditation described in Chapter 6 especially interesting and connected to my own practice of Centering Prayer.  You could practically lift Chapter 6 out and put it right into The Cloud of Unknowing.  These authors are speaking the same language.  


For more on basic Hindu thought and its relation to Buddhism from the perspective of Alan Watts, check out the following brief lecture.

 

 

 

The Bhagavad Gita | The Practice of Meditation

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In Chapter 6 of the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna describes the Practice of Meditation:

"Those who aspire to the state of yoga should seek the Self in inner solitude through meditation. With body and mind controlled they should constantly practice one-pointedness, free from expectations and attachment to material possessions.

Select a clean spot, neither too high nor too low, and seat yourself firmly on a cloth, a deerskin, and kusha grass. Then, once seated, strive to still your thoughts. Make you mind one-pointed in meditation, and your heart will be purified. Hold your body, head, and neck firmly in a straight line, and keep your eyes from wandering. With all fears dissolved in the peace of the Self and all actions dedicated to Brahman, controlling the mind and fixing it on me, sit in meditation with me as your only goal. With senses and mind constantly controlled through meditation, united with the Self within, an aspirant attains nirvana, the state of abiding joy and peace in me.

Arjuna, those who eat too much or eat too little, who sleep too much or sleep too little, will not succeed in meditation. But those who are temperate in eating and sleeping, work and recreation, will come to the end of sorrow through meditation. Through constant effort they learn to withdraw the mind from selfish cravings and absorb it in the Self. Thus they attain the state of union.

When meditation is mastered, the mind is unwavering like the flame of a lamp in a windless place. In the still mind, in the depths of meditation, the Self reveals itself. Beholding the Self by means of the Self, an aspirant knows the joy and peace of complete fulfillment. Having attained that abiding joy beyond the senses, revealed in the still mind, they never swerve from the eternal truth. They desire nothing else and cannot be shaken by the heaviest burden of sorrow.

The practice of meditation frees one from all affliction. This is the path of yoga. Follow it with determination and sustained enthusiasm. Renouncing wholeheartedly all selfish desires and expectations, use your will to control the senses. Little by little, through patience and repeated effort, the mind will become still in the Self.

Whenever the mind wanders, restless and diffuse in its search for satisfaction without, lead it within; train it to rest in the Self. Abiding joy comes to those who still the mind. Freeing themselves from the taint of self-will, with their consciousness unified, they become one with Brahman."

– The Bhagavad Gita, 6:10-27


If there is one passage that sums up the Gita, this is it.  By experiencing the Atman, the Self, one becomes completely fulfilled, and is thus capable of acting in the world without concern for self.  There is nothing left to gain.  

 

The Bhagavad Gita | Karma Yoga

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In Chapter 3, Krishna tells Arjuna that he must practice Karma Yoga, the path of selfless service, in order to achieve his spiritual goal.  

The Bhagavad Gita discusses several forms of yoga – in this context meaning "paths to realization" – which aspirants must practice.  Easwaran's explanation in his Introduction is helpful:

"The Gita does not present a system of philosophy. It offers something to every seeker after God, of whatever temperament, by whatever path. The reason for this universal appeal is that it is basically practical: it is a handbook for Self-realization and a guide to action.

Some scholars will find practicality a tall claim, because the Gita is full of lofty and even abstruse philosophy. Yet even its philosophy is not there to satisfy intellectual curiosity; it is meant to explain to spiritual aspirants why they are asked to undergo certain disciplines. Like any handbook, the Gita makes most sense when it is practiced.

As the traditional chapter titles put it, the Gita is brahma-vidyayam yogashastra, a textbook of the supreme science of yoga. But yoga is a word with many meanings – as many, perhaps, as there are paths to Self-realization. What kind of yoga does the Gita teach? The common answer is that it presents three yogas or even four – the four main paths of Hindu mysticism. In jnana yoga, the yoga of knowledge, aspirants use their will and discrimination to disidentify themselves from the body, mind, and senses until they know they are nothing but the Self. The followers of bhakti yoga, the yoga of devotion, achieve the same goal by identifying themselves completely with the Lord in love; by and large, this is the path taken by most of the mystics of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. In karma yoga, the yoga of selfless action, the aspirants dissolve their identification with body and mind by identifying with the whole of life, forgetting the finite self in the service of others. An the followers of raja yoga, the yoga of meditation, discipline the mind and senses until the mind-process is suspended in a healing stillness and they merge in the Self.

Indians like to classify, and the eighteen chapters of the Gita are said to break up into three six-chapter parts. The first third, according to this, deals with karma yoga, the second with jnana yoga, and the last with bhakti yoga: that is, the Gita begins with the way of selfless action, passes into the way of Self-knowledge, and ends with the way of love. This scheme is not tight, and non-Hindu readers may find it difficult to discover in the text. But the themes are there, and Krishna clearly shifts his emphasis as he goes on using this one word yoga. Here he focuses on transcendental knowledge, there on selfless action, here on meditation, there on love.

Thus the Gita offers something for every kind of spiritual aspirant, and for two thousand years each of the major schools of Indian philosophy has quoted the Gita in defense of its particular claims. This fluidity sometimes exasperates scholars who feel the Gita contradicts itself. It also puzzled Arjuna, the faithful representative of you and me. 'Krishna,' he says at the beginning of Chapter 3, 'you've been telling me that knowledge (jnana) is better than action (karma); so why do you urge me into such terrible action? Your words are inconsistent; the confuse me. The me one path to the highest good.' (3:1-2) No doubt he speaks for every reader at this point, and for those who go on wanting one path only, the confusion simply grows worse.

For those who try to practice the Gita, however, there is a thread of inner consistency running through Krishna's advice. Like a person walking around the same object, the Gita takes more than one point of view. Whenever Krishna describes one of the traditional paths to God he looks at it from the inside, extolling its virtues over the others. For the time being, that is the path; when he talks about yoga, he means that one particular yoga."


Here Krishna encourages Arjuna to practice this yoga:
 

"At the beginning of time I declared two paths for the pure heart: jnana yoga, the contemplative path of spiritual wisdom, and karma yoga, the active path of selfless service. One who shirks action does not attain freedom; no one can gain perfection by abstaining from work. Indeed, there is no one who rests for even an instant; all creatures are driven to action by their own nature.

Those who abstain from action while allowing the mind to dwell on sensual pleasure cannot be called sincere spiritual aspirants. But they excel who control their senses through the mind, using them for selfless service. Fulfill all your duties; action is better than inaction. Even to maintain your body, Arjuna, you are obliged to act. Selfish action imprisons the world. Act selflessly, without thought of personal profit.

At the beginning, mankind and the obligation of selfless service were created together. Through selfless service, you will always be fruitful and find the fulfillment of your desires: this is the promise of the Creator...

...Every selfless act, Arjuna, is born from Brahman, the eternal, infinite Godhead. Brahman is present in every act of service. All life turns on this law O Arjuna. Those who violate it, indulging the senses for their own pleasure and ignoring the needs of others, have wasted their life. But those who realize the Self are always satisfied. Having found the source of joy and fulfillment, they no longer seek happiness from the external world. They have nothing to gain or lose by any action; neither people nor things can affect their security.

Strive constantly to serve the welfare of the world; by devotion to selfless work one attains the supreme goal of life."

– The Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 3

 

The Bhagavad Gita | Fettered No More by Selfish Attachments

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Although not technically included in the Vedas (the earliest and most authoritative scriptures of Hinduism), The Bhagavad Gita may be the most famous text to come out of the Vedic tradition as a whole.  The text itself is embedded within a massive Indian epic, the Mahabharata, but most scholars believe that the Gita was inserted into this larger story by a later editor.  The Bhagavad Gita is most often pulled out of the Mahabharata and read alone as a complete document in and of itself. 

The author of the Gita shares the common Hindu metaphysical view that at the core of every human being lies the Atman, a spiritual absolute, or "God in us."  Furthermore, this divine core of humanity is one with Brahman, the Divine Source of Existence.  From the perspective of the Gita, it is by realizing this experientially that the spiritual seeker will attain their ultimate goal.  Throughout the Gita, Krishna – an incarnation of God – leads Prince Arjuna through his own spiritual battle, counseling him on how to "realize the Self," or find Union with God.

This series will include quotations from a translation by Eknath Easwaran.  His introductory remarks alone make this version worth buying, and his ongoing commentary throughout the work is illuminating.  I don't think there's a more valuable commentary on the market. 

In this first quotation, Arjuna asks Krishna what a life looks like for those who are established in the Self.  Krishna answers as follows:

Arjuna: "Tell me of those who live established in wisdom, ever aware of the Self, O Krishna. How do they talk? How do they sit? How move about?"

Krishna: "They live in wisdom who see themselves in all and all in them, who have renounced every selfish desire and sense craving tormenting the heart. Neither agitated by grief nor hankering after pleasure, they live free from lust and fear and anger. Established in meditation, they are truly wise. Fettered no more by selfish attachments, they are neither elated by good fortune nor depressed by bad. Such are the seers.

Even as a tortoise draws in its limbs, the wise can draw in their senses at will. Aspirants abstain from sense pleasures, but they still crave for them. These cravings all disappear when they see the highest goal. Even of those who tread the path, the stormy senses can sweep off the mind. They live in wisdom who subdue their senses and keep their minds ever absorbed in me.

When you keep thinking about sense objects, attachment comes. Attachment breeds desire, the lust of possession that burns to anger. Anger clouds the judgment; you can no longer learn from past mistakes. Lost is the power to choose between what is wise and what is unwise, and your life is utter waste. But when you move amidst the world of sense, free from attachment and aversion alike, there comes the peace in which all sorrows end, and you live in the wisdom of the Self...

...They are forever free who renounce all selfish desires and break away from the ego-cage of 'I,' 'me,' 'mine' to be united with the Lord. This is the supreme state. Attain to this, and pass from death to immortality."

– The Bhagavad Gita, 2:54-65, 71-72


The themes of being free from attachments, and steady in the midst of both success and defeat, will return throughout the Gita.  The seer who is established in the Self has nothing more to gain from the world.  He has found his ultimate fulfillment and is thus untroubled by, and unattached to, the things, experiences, and events of the world, whether good or bad.  

 

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali | Siddhis

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This is where things get weird.

After discussing the goal of Yoga, and various means to accomplish this goal, Patanjali spends much of Chapter III of the Sutras describing mystical powers that can be attained through the practice.  These powers are termed siddhis within the yogic tradition.  

As I've written about before (see A Sufi Initiation and The Perennial Philosophy: Review), supernatural events/abilities are often connected with the mystical religious traditions.  Most often, the importance of these supernormal occurrences are downplayed by major contemplatives.  The ability to see into the future, gain mystical insight into present events, or emanate a supernatural light does little to help one achieve enlightenment.  In fact, an interest in developing these powers is sometimes seen as a dangerous distraction that leads the contemplative astray.  

Patanjali himself seems to take this attitude in 3.37 where he states:  

"These powers are accomplishments for the mind that is outgoing but obstacles to samadhi."


Bryant comments on this verse as follows:

"The term siddhi, perfection or power, which occurs only four times in the sutras, is used here to mean the supernormal powers. For a yogi, the powers noted in the previous sutra hinder the cultivation of samadhi, since they entice the mind back out into the realm of prakrti and thus are obstacles, upasargah, to the attainment of samadhi. But for those whose mind is outgoing, that is, interested in the enticements of the world, they appear to be desirable accomplishments. A beggar, says Vacaspati Misra, may consider even a meager smattering of wealth to be the fullness of riches, but a yogi should not think that these powers, which appear spontaneously, are the goal, and must reject them. For how, he asks, can a genuine yogi take pleasure in things that are obstructions to the real goal of yoga? That the siddhis are potential impediments to the goal of yoga is a widespread position in Indic traditions..."


Nevertheless, in the Yoga Sutras, the following powers are said to be attainable (among others):

"When samyama is performed on the three transformations, knowledge of the past and the future ensues." (3.16)

"By performing samyama on the distinction between them, knowledge of the speech of all creatures arises." (3.17)

"By bringing samskaras into direct perception comes the knowledge of previous births." (3.18)

"From ideas, one can attain knowledge of others' minds." (3.19)

"By performing samyama on the outer form of the body, invisibility is attained." (3.21)

"By samyama on karma, or on portents, knowledge of one's death arises." (3.22)

"By performing samyama on the sun arises knowledge of the different realms of the universe." (3.26)

Because the type of meditation that Patanjali advises is concentration on a specific object, it seems that by changing the object of meditation, different siddhis are said to be attained.  Thus meditation on the body, causes a change in the body (invisibility – 3.21).  

The fantastic claims in Chapter III of the Sutras sometimes lead people to discredit the entirety of the yogic system.  Other times these claims are brushed aside or simply ignored.  

Whatever we choose to do with these claims, these types of powers are connected to a wide array of mystic traditions.  Consider the reflections of Dale Allison when discussing the potential historicity of the transfiguration of Jesus:

"And yet, having said all this, the judgment that the transfiguration is nothing but mythology may turn out to be premature. For the inference implicitly assumes that people are never transfigured into light, or at least that there are no credible accounts of such, whereas, if one patiently investigates without prejudice, one discovers a surprisingly large body of firsthand testimony reporting just this.

One witness is Gregory of Nyssa, the famous fourth-century Cappadocian father. In his eulogy of his brother Basil he wrote this: 'At night, while he was at prayer in the house, there came a light, illuminating (Basil); a certain immaterial light by divine power lit up the house, and it was without material source.' Some might feel free to dismiss these words as ancient credulity, or maybe as a rhetorical flight of fancy. I hesitate, however. Not only was Gregory an extraordinarily intelligent man, but I have, over the years, formed an opinion of his character, and it is hard for me to discount his apparently earnest witness. It is easier for me to believe that he saw a light he could not explain, whatever its origin may have been.

Closer to our own time, we have a report concerning Seraphim of Sarov, the Russion Orthodox saint (1759-1833). As a hieromonk of pious reputation, he was regularly sought out by pilgrims at his cabin in the wilderness. One such was a man named Nicholas Motovilov, whose notes about Seraphim, recording their private encounters, were discovered in 1903. These notes contain the following: 'Then I looked at the Staretz and was panic-stricken. Picture, in the sun's orb, in the most dazzling brightness of its noon-day shining, the face of a man who is talking to you. You see his lips moving, the expression in his eyes, you hear his voice, you feel his arms round your shoulders, and yet you see neither his arm, nor his body, nor his face, you lose all sense of yourself, you can see only the blinding light which spreads everywhere, lighting up the layer of snow covering the glade, and igniting the flakes that are falling on us both like white powder.'...

The forgoing testimonies intrigue me all the more because I personally know a man who claims to have seen a human being transfigured into light. This is not for me a foaftale, that is, it does not concern the proverbial friend-of-a-friend but comes to my ears from someone I know and have no reason to disbelieve (and who has refreshed my memory by kindly sharing with me his relevant journal entry).

In 1992 my friend John decided to seek initiation as a Sufi. The process involved having an audience with a Sufi master who was then making a tour of the States. The two men met in a small room for a short period of time. They sat face-to-face in lotus position. No words passed between them. But the occasion was memorable, for John relates that, after a bit, the master began to emit a light, which became brighter and brighter, until it lit up the whole room, after which the luminescence gradually faded away and the encounter was over."


I don't know what to do with these types of reports.  But they surround many of the contemplative traditions.  

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali | The Eight Limbs of Yoga

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Pantajali has already told the reader what will lead to the stilling of the mind – practice and dispassion.  This, however, is not the end of the story for Pantanjali, and this schema is difficult to maintain for the entirety of the Sutras.  The Yoga Sutras also contain a long section dealing with a more "active" form of Yoga – that of self-discipline, study, and dedication to the Lord – the practice of which will lead to an overcoming of obstacles (what Patanjali calls klesas) to the stilling of the mind.   

Finally, Patanjali presents his famous Eight Limbs of Yoga as yet another paradigm through which to view the Sutras.  It is possible to fit the concepts of "practice and dispassion" loosely into the Eight Limbs, with dispassion overlapping with the first two limbs and practice overlapping with the last six.  

The Eight Limbs of Yoga, according to Patanjali, are abstentions, observances, posture, breath control, disengagement of the senses, concentration, meditation, and absorption.  After introducing the Eight Limbs, Patanjali discusses each.

  • Abstentions: The abstentions (listed in 2.30) are nonviolence, truthfulness, refrainment from stealing, celibacy, and renunciation of unnecessary possessions. Thus, the abstentions are things the yogi does not to. He refrains from violence towards any creature. He refrains from lying, stealing, engaging in sexual activity, and owning more than he needs.

  • Observances: The observances (2.32) are cleanliness, contentment, austerity, study of Scripture, and devotion to God. Cleanliness includes both external cleanliness (eating a pure diet, perhaps ritual cleanliness practices, etc.) and internal cleanliness (keeping a clean conscience, etc.). Contentment is a commitment to being satisfied with the bare essentials of life. The yogi does not strive for more material goods than they absolutely need. Austerity includes the ability to maintain equanimity in the midst of hunger and thirst, heat and cold, etc. This may be developed by fasting or exposure to physically uncomfortable situations. The theistic nature of the Yoga Sutras is again apparent here as Patanjali recommends that all action should be dedicated to God (Isvara in this text).

  • Posture:  Physical posture (asana) is given a grand total of two verses (2.46, 2.47) in all of the Yoga Sutras.  The most profound thing that Patanjali says about posture is that "posture should be steady and comfortable."  What Westerners equate with yoga is virtually absent in Patanjali's primary text.  The function of posture is simply to allow the yogi to sit comfortably during meditation.  Thus Bryant comments:

    "Essentially, posture is a limb of the actual goal of yoga to the extent that it allows the meditator to sit firmly, sthira, and comfortably, sukha. Obviously one cannot fix one's attention onto something if one is sleeping or running about; one must sit, and sit without fidgeting or discomfort. In other words, asana's relevance and function for the classical Yoga tradition are to train the body so that it does not disturb or distract the mind of the yogi in any way when sitting in meditation."

  • Breath Control: Yogic breathing, called pranayamah, is a specific form of breathing which is thought to help steady the mind. The mind is most often not focused on the breath in yogic meditation, but this type of breathing may help the yogi focus the mind on the object of meditation.

  • Disengagement of the Senses: The next four limbs all surround mind states associated with meditative practice. Patanjali says little about the disengagement of the senses, but when the mind is focused one-pointedly on an object, the awareness of sensory input is limited, or perhaps disappears altogether. Thus the disengagement of the senses is a function and byproduct of concentrative meditation.

  • Concentration: Concentration, according to Patanjali, is "fixing the mind in one place" (3.1). That is all Patanjali says about this limb in this section of the Sutras, although he has discussed concentrative meditation at length earlier in the work. The object of meditation can change for Patanjali, although he recommends meditation on Isvara (God) using the mystical symbol om above all other objects.

  • Meditation: Meditation is not a separate practice from concentration, but rather a deepening of concentration. All Patanjali adds here (3.2) is that meditation is one-pointedness of mind on one image.

  • Absorption: Finally, the ultimate stage of yoga is absorption, or samadhi. In this stage, the mind has merged with the object of meditation and there is no self-reflective thought (i.e. "I know I'm meditating."). Some commentators use the image of a clear crystal. When the crystal is put next to water it appears blue. When it is next to a rose it appears red. The mind is likewise absorbed and merged into the object of meditation to that there is no differentiation between the two.

One can't help but be reminded of the Eightfold Noble Path of traditional Buddhism.  Both "paths" contain an ethical dimension, an intellectual dimension (i.e. accepting a certain philosophical outlook on life), and a contemplative dimension (i.e. meditation practice(s)).

Likewise, in both paths each limb is important.  A yogi can't expect to make progress in meditation, for instance, while leading a dishonest life.  Each aspect of the path reinforces the others.  

Again, the Eight Limbs of Yoga are one way that Patanjali presents his teaching, although it is probably the best known schema of his yogic system.  

The fact that Patanjali is simply passing on and synthesizing previous teachings from the yogic tradition becomes more apparent to me the more I engage with this text.  The Sutras are less like a logically argued philosophical tract, and more like a loose collection of traditions which are here systematized in one way, and there systematized in another.