There are two fundamental principles in spiritual practices that need to be emphasized. One is becoming calm and dropping into our true nature or atma swarupam. Second is becoming clear on what is going on or clarity. Both of them are extremely important. But thinking of them, you can see that they complement each other. When you see clearly you become calm, when you are calm your mind is clear.
In our meditation we see these aspects working harmoniously. When we become aware of all happenings , there is a sort of clarity of all happenings. In our life, we tend not to notice many things going in our mind. But in meditation we see them using awareness, and more we notice , more clear it becomes . The happenings may be good or bad, miserable or pleasurable, unless we are clear and reflect everything there is a sort of confusion as to what is going on. The states of happiness and worry tend to be clouded with lot of events. So one of the purposes of meditation is to achieve this clarity of seeing all happenings. This is why we spend most of our meditation watching our mind. To develop a clarity of all events.
The second aspect is calmness. To develop calmness, we need to get disentangled from the happenings in our mind. When a thought comes, we need to just watch, meaning that we should not get engaged in it. We can use some technique like reciting a mantra or watching our breath to achieve this aspect of calming our mind. So the idea of this technique is not to get drawn into the thought that is happening or the emotion that is troubling. This can be done by returning to the mantra or breath noticing or concentration. When we let go of an engaging thought we are learning the art of calmness. In real life also we can do this. But the thing is we can only do this if we become clear. So clarity and calmness are complementary.
We can understand these practices using an analogy. Suppose you are a herdsman looking over a bunch of cows. What would you do ?. You would let them wander , but keep a close eye on them all the time. When the cow tend to wander off into another person's land we try to pull it back into our property. But most of the time you are watching them without interfering too much in their grass grazing and walking around. You are the awareness and the cows are the thoughts in your mind. Keeping in them in your own land and at the same time understanding all activities is your task during meditation.
The practice of meditation is not limited to when we sit in meditation. It continues to our life activities also. Initially whenever we get really worried or tense , we just need to step back and use our meditation technique to watch what is going on and try to become free from the thought or emotion so that we get the clarity and calmness . We would notice that the moment we step back and start noticing things without getting engaged in it , the problems slowly loose their bite. They tend to slowly evaporate. We tend to notice the impermanence of these happenings. After all there were so many problems in our life . Where are they now?. Just like all of those problems wont these problems too fade away with time. If they are not going to be there tomorrow, why bother to entertain them? So you can see that the very problem existed because of the fact that you were not noticing that there is a problem internally and that we tend to get too much engaged with them as though this is the end of the world.
As we tend to notice things in our internal world, there is a great knowing that happens sooner or later. We tend to see so many things in our mind. Don't we?. Thoughts , emotions ,sensations and all kinds of things. All have a start and an end. They form in our mind, they stay for some time and then vanish only to be replaced with more such happenings. One day we are filled with contentment about our world, the next day we are not so sure. All kinds of things oscillating between extreme conditions. There is tension one day , relaxation the next day.
But there is something that is unchanging all through our existence. It is the knowing of all happenings. The knowing never changes its color. Knowing is just that , knowing. Whatever be the thing we know, the knowing lights it up. It becomes knowledgeable to us. It is like shining a torch on the dark object. Without this pure knowing, all the happenings would never be noticed, their impermanence would not be understood. Thoughts would come , but if the knowing of them is not there we would not know about them. Just like in a computer, the processing of information goes on without self awareness. The computer never knows it is doing some processing. Just like this without awareness the mind would not be known , emotions would not be known. We would be a zombie object. However the knowing itself is not changing. It is always the same.
So the idea of spiritual life is to understand that there is something permanent and unchanging underneath the sea of changes . When we reflect on this pure knowing, we see that it is not only the mind and body we know, everything that is perceived is lighted up by the knowing. Look at the world outside you. What you are seeing now, is becoming known to you through awareness. Actually it works through two steps. Sensory perception such as sight , hearing etc fall on the sensory organs, but still they are dumb. Now awareness lights them up by becoming knowledgeable about it. The mind starts thinking about the world , awareness brightens them up. So you can see without awareness, the body and mind are inert objects which can process information like a computer but it is awareness that illumines them . So if you ask a spiritual person he would be so ecstatic about this light. He would not be excited about the world so much .
Our life is not noticing this unique , permanent and self effulgent reality because we have failed to achieve the internal calmness and clarity to see things . So this is why meditation and self enquiry can help us achieve this and see this light which is bright shining and eternal. When the clouds depart the underlying sky shines through. When the veil drops the vision becomes clear.
In our meditation we see these aspects working harmoniously. When we become aware of all happenings , there is a sort of clarity of all happenings. In our life, we tend not to notice many things going in our mind. But in meditation we see them using awareness, and more we notice , more clear it becomes . The happenings may be good or bad, miserable or pleasurable, unless we are clear and reflect everything there is a sort of confusion as to what is going on. The states of happiness and worry tend to be clouded with lot of events. So one of the purposes of meditation is to achieve this clarity of seeing all happenings. This is why we spend most of our meditation watching our mind. To develop a clarity of all events.
The second aspect is calmness. To develop calmness, we need to get disentangled from the happenings in our mind. When a thought comes, we need to just watch, meaning that we should not get engaged in it. We can use some technique like reciting a mantra or watching our breath to achieve this aspect of calming our mind. So the idea of this technique is not to get drawn into the thought that is happening or the emotion that is troubling. This can be done by returning to the mantra or breath noticing or concentration. When we let go of an engaging thought we are learning the art of calmness. In real life also we can do this. But the thing is we can only do this if we become clear. So clarity and calmness are complementary.
We can understand these practices using an analogy. Suppose you are a herdsman looking over a bunch of cows. What would you do ?. You would let them wander , but keep a close eye on them all the time. When the cow tend to wander off into another person's land we try to pull it back into our property. But most of the time you are watching them without interfering too much in their grass grazing and walking around. You are the awareness and the cows are the thoughts in your mind. Keeping in them in your own land and at the same time understanding all activities is your task during meditation.
The practice of meditation is not limited to when we sit in meditation. It continues to our life activities also. Initially whenever we get really worried or tense , we just need to step back and use our meditation technique to watch what is going on and try to become free from the thought or emotion so that we get the clarity and calmness . We would notice that the moment we step back and start noticing things without getting engaged in it , the problems slowly loose their bite. They tend to slowly evaporate. We tend to notice the impermanence of these happenings. After all there were so many problems in our life . Where are they now?. Just like all of those problems wont these problems too fade away with time. If they are not going to be there tomorrow, why bother to entertain them? So you can see that the very problem existed because of the fact that you were not noticing that there is a problem internally and that we tend to get too much engaged with them as though this is the end of the world.
As we tend to notice things in our internal world, there is a great knowing that happens sooner or later. We tend to see so many things in our mind. Don't we?. Thoughts , emotions ,sensations and all kinds of things. All have a start and an end. They form in our mind, they stay for some time and then vanish only to be replaced with more such happenings. One day we are filled with contentment about our world, the next day we are not so sure. All kinds of things oscillating between extreme conditions. There is tension one day , relaxation the next day.
But there is something that is unchanging all through our existence. It is the knowing of all happenings. The knowing never changes its color. Knowing is just that , knowing. Whatever be the thing we know, the knowing lights it up. It becomes knowledgeable to us. It is like shining a torch on the dark object. Without this pure knowing, all the happenings would never be noticed, their impermanence would not be understood. Thoughts would come , but if the knowing of them is not there we would not know about them. Just like in a computer, the processing of information goes on without self awareness. The computer never knows it is doing some processing. Just like this without awareness the mind would not be known , emotions would not be known. We would be a zombie object. However the knowing itself is not changing. It is always the same.
So the idea of spiritual life is to understand that there is something permanent and unchanging underneath the sea of changes . When we reflect on this pure knowing, we see that it is not only the mind and body we know, everything that is perceived is lighted up by the knowing. Look at the world outside you. What you are seeing now, is becoming known to you through awareness. Actually it works through two steps. Sensory perception such as sight , hearing etc fall on the sensory organs, but still they are dumb. Now awareness lights them up by becoming knowledgeable about it. The mind starts thinking about the world , awareness brightens them up. So you can see without awareness, the body and mind are inert objects which can process information like a computer but it is awareness that illumines them . So if you ask a spiritual person he would be so ecstatic about this light. He would not be excited about the world so much .
Our life is not noticing this unique , permanent and self effulgent reality because we have failed to achieve the internal calmness and clarity to see things . So this is why meditation and self enquiry can help us achieve this and see this light which is bright shining and eternal. When the clouds depart the underlying sky shines through. When the veil drops the vision becomes clear.
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