Meditation, some answers

I think that those who are interested, must have been read it by now, thus it is time to resume.

After reading my suggestion, the first question that must have been crossed to everybody’s mind, is why do all this, in the first place? What is its purpose, why it is necessary, or how it can be helpful in any way? What it has to do with the meditation? Is it meditation, and if not, what else is meditation?

Let me address these questions to the best of my abilities: what i experienced in person, what i derived via those and what i learned through other sources. But, let me make one thing very clear here that, though my explanations may have some borrowed portions, but my experiences are absolutely not.

The first thing that is required while discussing anything is its definition. One cannot know for what exactly one is looking after unless he has its that much clear definition, which is enough to recognize that particular thing.

Thus, first of all, we have to define meditation, but, the problem is that the meditation neither can be defined nor understood without understanding our mind, thus, we have to go though those details of the mind which are necessary to understand meditation.

As most of the intellectuals agree that mind is basically works in two ways: consciously and subconsciously, or we can say that our mind is divided into two basic parts: conscious and subconscious. Conscious part/working or the mind is that phenomenon, with which we mostly determine as ourselves. We have direct and total control over it. On the other hand, we consider that our subconscious mind is not in total control of ours. It rather learn/experience though conscious mind, derive conclusions autonomously, and impose those on the conscious mind. This theory is by and large true.

But, there are some more details, which are very pertinent here to understand both of the working of the mind and meditation as well.

[b]The fact of the matter is that our subconscious is even more dominant over its counterpart that we assume. It is subconscious that takes most of our decisions, though mostly indirectly. The act of thinking/learning is mostly done by the subconscious mind only. Being in the direct control of the body, conscious merely implement the decisions of the subconscious. What we consider as habits, are nothing but the default/permanent decisions of the subconscious, and that is precisely what forms what we use to term as will. And, for whatever reasons, whenever conscious goes against those default/permanent decisions of the subconscious, we call it will power. And, that is precisely why it is called free will. It is called free only because it is still within the capacity of the conscious, but this does not mean that it very easy to implement, though the term free gives somewhat impression. Free merely means available, nothing else.

And, meditation is all about this will power. In simple terms, meditation is nothing but breaking that default dominance of the subconscious and making it listen to the conscious.

One more important thing to understand here is that though conscious and subconscious use to interact constantly, but it is mostly one way traffic: from subconscious to conscious. The duty of the conscious is mostly limited to inform the subconscious, what conscious has experienced through the body. Or rather, the system works in such a way that being in a kind of witness/spectator position, subconscious is automatically aware of the experiences of the conscious. Conscious cannot hide anything from the subconscious, but on the other hand, the majority of the working of the subconscious remains hidden from the conscious.[/b]

Again, meditation is all about removing this one sided veil and allowing conscious not only witness but also interfere in the working of the subconscious by converting this one way traffic into two way.

I think that is enough for one post. I will take remaining questions in the next post.

with love,
sanjay

Now, in the light of what i said in previous two posts, it is natural to come in anybody’s mind how that particular mental exercise fits into the context. for that we have to back again to the interacting mechanism between the conscious and subconscious minds.

If we take a closer look at the mind, we would find that mind mostly remember things via references or markers. That is a quite natural phenomenon. As it stores a lot of memory, many times more that we assume, thus, it cannot be put in any unorganized manner scattered all over the place. There has to be some kind of order otherwise it would be very difficult to recall any old memory when it is required immediately. This arrangement is quite similar to that of a big library, where books can be placed either alphabetically or according to the time frame, but there has to be some order to enable the locator to find the required book. in the same way, the mind uses a small reference or marker to remember a long event. It is its default mechanism and cannot be overruled in any case.

To explain this phenomenon further, i would like to put forth an old folklore from Hinduism.

Once there was a very learned and famous sage, and people used to come to him for learning and help in issues from all over. He also had a son, who was stupid and lazy but wanted to get the benefits from the knowledge of his father. So, one day he asked his father to teach him the mantras for immorality. The sage refused by saying that thee are no such mantras, but the son kept on insisting. And, when his father continued to ignore him, the son gave up eating and said he would die fasting if his father did not grant his wish. Seeing no other option, the sage lastly agreed to teach those mantras to his son. The son became very pleased to hear that and also asked his father to teach mantras immediately. But, the sage calmed him down and said that he would teach the mantras tomorrow early morning just after taking the bath.

Next day, as asked by the father, the son took the bath in river and came to the sage eagerly. Then, the sage said that though he (sage) is telling the mantras to him (son), but also warned that there is still a small but necessary condition remains to be fulfilled. The son son asked what it is, and the sage told that it is necessary that the remembrance of the monkeys should not come in one’s mind at all while reciting those mantras, otherwise immortality could never be achieved.

Hearing this, the son laughed saying that as the thoughts regarding the monkeys never come to his mind, so it is a non issue for him. The sage told the mantras, asked his son to repeat 100 times, warned his son again regarding the monkeys, and left.

Now, as soon as the son started reciting the mantras, the first thing popped up in his mind, was a monkey. He became surprised and thought it is just a chance, but monkeys refused to vacate his mind. He kept trying to forget them, but the more he tried to forget them, the more they continued to haunt him. Years passed, but neither monkeys left the son nor he became immortal.

Obviously, the story is not true but fabricated only, but its moral is absolutely true. That happens in reality because that is how our mind works. And, my suggested mental exercise is based precisely on the moral of above mentioned folklore.

We use to come across to many different circumstances daily, and quite obviously, we have to somehow deal with those too. But, our way of dealing does not always happen to be in such a way what it ought to be, even according to ourselves. And, for meditation, that intent is the first thing to have. It is not the issue here what is right or wrong according to one’s thinking. That is still to be known by one, but one must be committed to follow honestly what he considers right. My focus is on the intent of being right, not much on the right deduction of being right. If the intent of being right will be there, being right will follow sooner or later. And realize, that this what it ought to be is not regarding only societal issues, but all verticals of the life like business, profession, job etc.

But, in the loud noise of ambiance, and also because of that much fast pace life we live today for whatever reasons, we never get the chance to reevaluate what we have been done, thus lose the opportunity to correct it too. This mental exercise will certainly help in that regard.

But, the question, how it can help, is still unanswered.

When we would start reevaluating our everyday’s actions and our frame mind while doing those also, that would slowly but surely start creating a reference/mark in our mind about our intents and actions. Of course, we will judge (or came to know later through experience) some of our intent/actions right and some wrong, but every such reevaluation would darker the reference in our subconscious mind by one notch. And, if one keep doing it for long enough and continuously too, that will create a default warning system in the subconscious mind, and whenever that very situation arises again, it would tell conscious mind immediately how to handle that situation.

It is something like what we have safety softwares in our phones and computers. Whenever that software finds any bug, or we try to do anything such which may harm the device in any way, safety softwares immediately warn about the danger,and we correct the course too. The same this mental exercise can do for our mind. Though, our mind still uses this mechanism, but only sparingly, not always.

With this, i think have covered all questions that may arise pertaining to what i have been said till now, thus will move to the basics of the meditation methodologies/exercises from the next post.

with love,
sanjay

Sanjay, it has been more than a year ago that you wrote the last post in this thread. I was interested in your explanations of meditation and I still am. Do you bother to go on? I would really like to read more about the basics of meditation methodologies and exercises.

Thanks for reminding me about this thread. As i took a long break from posting for some personal reasons, thus was unable to continue with the thread, but now i will resume posting here. You will see next post here in a day or two.

By the way, are you interested in anything particular?

with love,
sanjay

Nothing in particular and you mentioned it already. It’s always the same story: How to get rid of the “monkey”, the noise. … or a persisting thought, which does not only prevent from meditation, but which has also a big influence on one’s perception of life.

The western kind of action and reaction is very invasive, very dynamic, very straight. The eastern kind of acting and reaction is just the opposite.

For me … an exciting OP … authored by one who appreciates the value of experience … I have been flogging the belief … “experience is superior to knowledge” for some time now.

A favorite personal experience(s) involving the influence of our subconscious involves travel. My conscious mind is almost always occupied with distractions when I should be paying attention to present location and intended destination … no GPS :slight_smile:

More often than I can count my subconscious mind will interfere … wake me up so to speak … precisely when it’s time to make a turn … notice a landmark … or some other important circumstance … not noticed by my conscious mind.

A personal question … why is the dream state the prevalent channel of communication between our conscious and subconscious?

The exercise suggested … before going to sleep … reminds me of “Examen of Conscious” by Ignatius of Loyola. The Jesuits have shouldered a lot of resistance in their 500 year history … and it continues to this day. The level and duration of resistance is a measure of the “potential” in somethang. The Trump scenario is a classic example.

It is a bit complex issue. Let me address it i a way i can.

There is no way one can get rid of the monkey. That is not possible, not even desirable or helpful. The solution lies in realizing that there is naughty monkey, who is creating warranted distractions most of the times, and then learning how not to get distracted always by its actions. Monkey is not going to leave ever thus it is useless trying to push him away. People, especially hardcore religious ones, often commit that mistake. Instead of that, the trick is to discern monkey’s activities from your one’s and then allowing his unwarranted intentions pass through you without being attracted to those.

Do not flow with those, let those flow through you instead. That is precisely what detachment is. Detachment is not curbing any desire forcefully but merely not to become a slave of it. As that happens, Monkey and its doings would stop bothering even being there forever. That monkey is certainly an evil, but a necessary one also. Judaism called this concept as Yetzer Hara.

It is the same monkey that enables one to realize in the first place that there is a monkey also.

See, how useful this monkey can be sometimes.

with love,
sanjay

Dreams do not state the communication between the two. That is something else. I think that we should discuss this later instead of now as to avoid confusion.

Even not being perfect, all major religions got things right far more times than pure intellectual philosophy (read western along).

with love,
sanjay

Let me address this issue of monkey (detachment) a bit more. Sometimes it becomes difficult to explain complex issues in pure intellectual language thus i am using simpler form of analogy to make it easily comprehensible.

Let us take a common example like habit of eating salt. There is a man who has a habit of eating too much salt. Thus, we can say that he is attached with salt. Now, he wants to be detached from salt. So, what should he do?

The common answer is that he should try to reduce having salt gradually and if he carries on, the day will come, when he would be able to avoid salt and thus, detached from it.

But, it is not true as even stopped having salt, he is still not detached from the salt. He just shifted the sides. At first, he had the habit of eating salt and now he has developed the habit of not eating salt. Thus, the habit regarding salt is still very much there thus we cannot claim that he is detached from the salt.

This is not detachment but escapism merely.

Now let us adopt a different procedure. Instead of reducing salt in his meals, he starts using salt alternatively. Now he uses to have supper with a heavy dose of salt and dinner totally without any salt. Now, what happens if he continues to do the same? The stage will come when the salt would lost relevance to him. He would not mind having meals either with salt or without salt.

This is actual detachment as he has been gone beyond all the habits regarding salt, either positive or negative.

This is precisely the meaning of phrases like “just be there” often used in eastern religions, especially Buddhism. Complete the full circle first and only after that just be there, not from the starting. This is the precise reason why monks and sages used to return to the society after spending years in meditative isolation. We should not draw the conclusion from their example that it is useless to have isolation and “just being there” in the society is detachment. They used to come back to test and thus complete the process of detachment.

The same is with the monkey of our story. If the monkey is not there, so be it, and even he is there, so be it. Let him do what he is supposed to and let us do what we are supposed to do.

If a log of a wood is in the sea, its waves will force the log to move here and there continuously. And, if a log wants to be absolutely still, it has to make a lot of effort doing so. By doing so, it may appears still to a third person but it is not so neither by intent nor by effort. On the other hand, if the log stop resisting, it will start moving with the waves. Again, now it may look unstable to the third person, but it is very much still both by intent and action, thus detached from the waves.

And that is what really matters.

with love,
sanjay

Thanks for your answer, Sanjay. I understand what you mean. So it is crucial not to chase the “monkey” away, but rather accept his presence, without concentrating on him, so that he is losing his importance. And by frequently repeating a meditative exercise, such as the one you proposed in your OP, one can learn a technique to make the conscious mind aware of how to deal with those detachments.
As for me, your proposed exercise is sometimes difficult to do, as I work mainly in nightshifts and when I come home in the morning I’m often too tired. I got something else which I found helpful: since many years, the first thing to do after I wake up, are some yoga-exercises. These are physical exercises, since years the same ones, it takes about 15 minutes to do them. During this time I try to concentrate strictly on those exercises, on that which happens with the body and the breath, whereas all other thoughts merely pass by. Besides the effect that my spine is in a much better condition as it would be without them, they sort of clear up the head in that way that it is possible to start the day with a fairly relaxed attitude.
But nevertheless, I would like to learn more about the basics of the meditation methods and exercises, as you announced.

I think that i should resume this thread again.

I would like to request all intested members to go though my previous posts of this thread again in order to enable them to understand clearly what i am going to say further.

I will post in a day or two.

with love,
sanjay

Let me resume from my basic premise about meditaion- It is all about revesing the default process of information/ knoeledge flowing from conscious to subconscious.

In that light, the first question comes to mind, how can one do that!

Before answering that, we have to remember that Subconscious mind is many time more stronger than the conscious one. So, the most ovisous way to reverse this process is to make conscious mind stronger. Now, how can we do that!

Mind works in the same way as the physical body does. when we want to make any part of the body stronger, we try to use that body part more and more, and over the time, the muscles of that part becomes developed and stronger. We all see that with body builders. We have to do the same in the case of conscious mind too.

The very simple and perhaps the only way to do this is to focus the conscious mind on one thing. That thing can be anything, a mantra, A picture, a thought, a sound, light or any thing else. The object of concentration does not matter much. From my personal experience i can say that without any hesitation. Even the image of one’s girlfriend or boyfriend or even a naked pron star pic would fetch the same result. That may look absurd to some people but it is true.

It is the same as one is doing cardio erxecise. As we know that ther are many types of cardio exercises like jogging, running, skipping, running srairs, Burpees etc. They all are differnt types of exercises but their impact on the body is the same. They all burn fat and makes our heart stronger. The same is with the concentration. Irrespective of the focussed object, all kind on concentration give the same result. The diffference comes only after certain stages, and we will discuss that later to avoid any confusion.

Technically speaking, the focussed object may be anyting, but for practical reasons, it is easier and more fruitful not to choose not anying as an object which is being seen by the eyes. The reason for that is our default mechanism of us being conscious. For a normal person, all the time he/she is awake, conscious mind pays the most attention to what we see with the eyes. The experiences of all other organs comes later. This is a natural phenomenon. During all awaken times, the consciousness resides in the eyes all the time, unless it is required to pay attention to other organs because of some important resons. So, if we keep our eyes remain open during mediation/concentration, it would npt help much because in that case it would be very difficult to concentrate the conscious mind on one thing. Mind will again and again come back to what we are seeing with the eyes. So, the only remedy is to keep the eyes closed and find somethng else to focus upon.

May of us may themselvs have experienced in their lives or seen others closing their eyes while thinking seriously on anything. That is quite natural. And, reason is precisely what i stated above, the default procees of the conscious mind is paying attention to the eyes all the time. When we think seriously on anything, we force our conscious mind to focus exclisively on that thing. And, in order to do that it has to withdraw its focus from eyes and thus they close.

To understand this, i would like to put this into compuer terminology. Think that the conscious mind has A certain RAM( Ramdom access memory), Say 3 GB and, 2 GB from this is deployed all the time to eyes and rest 1 GB takes care of the rest of the body. But, when we force it to concentrate intensly and exclusively on one thing, that 1 GB spread all over the body becomes insuffcient and that forces mind to withdraw permanent deployed 2GB RAm on eyes and use it to that issue. And, the only way for the mind to withdraw its focus from the eyes is to close them because as long as they remain open, the mind would have no choice but to focus on what is seen by the eyes.

I think that that would be enough for one post.
Next post would come in some days.

with love,
sanjay

I’m down with the exercise stuff because with that you get real results and keep your strenth up… but meditation?

I’ve often wondered what it would be like to live a life with problems so simple that sitting indian style for an hour and then enjoying a nice strawberry smoothie at the bar would make me feel like I’ve solved something, ya know? Like I’ve really tackled the problem and made it go away by just… what, breathing? Changing my mind? My perspective?

I dunno, san my man. I think I’m gonna need something a little stronger than meditation.

Mediataion Is not menat to eliminate your routine life problems or pain caused by those. That is not its purspose in the first place. There is no magic wond out there. If anyone is claming that it is an outright lie. I know that many meditation centres claim that but they all are faking. I can claim that because of my 30 years of serious experience with meditation. The only practical help that meditation can help one with is to understand why is that much pain and how one can co exist with that. That is all. If we skip spiritual part or gains of mediatation, one only practical help one gets is understanding of oneself and others, and believe me, that is not a small thing to acheive. Not only that, that understanding cones in very handy in every aspect routine life, be it family life, job or business. Besides that, the spirital gains that one can get are priceless, if one is patient enough to get there.

I do not know whether you have read my earlier posts in this thread or not, especially this one-

If one does this simple excerxise daily, say for even a month whithout a break, one can clearly feel change winin oneself and how he/she deals with different aspects of life. That is how meditation helps in routine life.

lastly, where in this thread i asked to sit in Indian style for one hour or why are you assuming i am going to say that?
Indians do not have any copyright on meditation.

with love,
sanjay

I think that i should again quote some portion of my OP to clear the things

Hpoe that helps.

with love,
sanjay

In order to understand mediatation clearly, We have to understand mind and consciousness, thier default working characters, and their relation to each other. Mediatation cannnot be understood without this. This is precisely the reason why it looks wierd or useless to some people. let me state this as i found and understood.

Many intellectuals will object this and claim that i am stepping into religious zone but i am not. As i mentioned above that as i found and understood., means what my personal experiences told me, Not any religious book. That is altogether a deffernt thing that one may find something like that in some religious books also but i cannot help it.

Like most of the modern intellectual populace believes that mind and consciousness are the same thing but they are not. They are entirely two differnt entities but work with each other. Not only that, they cannot work without oneanother. Mind is a doing entity while consciousness in feeling entity. Mind collects all the data from the physical organs and think over it. Consciousness neither does anything in this process nor interfere. But, consciousness has the data of all the past experiences. Means, our memory in not stored in the mind but consciousness only. However, both these entities are that much intagled witheach other that for all practical purposes, they act as one not two. So, Mind think over whaever data it gets from the body, compare it likewise expreiences which are stored in the consciousness as it(Mind) has full access to that memory.

Meanwhile, consciouness does nothing but reamins a mere spectator in all this process but as mind goes through the anlysis of present and past ecperiences, Consciouness feels/rewinds all those instances and thus cased present and past feelings. Now, lastly, mind takes action according to those feelings and directs body to act accordingly. and, this process goes on and on throughout our life.

To understand this working and relationship of the mind and consciousness, I would like to put an analogy forth. If we think in the terms of a computer, body is hardware, Mind is software while consciouness is like a spectator/Oprator, who is looking at the screen.

One more issue is related and pertinent here, though somewhat outside the scope of the thread, But i would like to take that up right here.

As i said above that both of mind and consciousness exist and work in a very much amalgamated form and mind has access to what is stored in the consciouness. That is true for all prectical reasons but not entirely. The fact of the matter is that the mind does not have access to all what is in the consciousness but only a limited portion of it, though that limited access is enough for rourine woking but still incomplete.

If anyhow mind is able to get the full access of the consciouness, That is enlightenment, Nirvana or whatever one wants to name it. Believe me or not, it is as simple as that. There is nothing else to know or attain whatsoever. All information/Knowledge that the mankind wants to have, is right there, inside everyone. All we have to do is to get access to that. And, every quest will be over, right from big bang up to the God. Both of sicence and philosophy will be done.

And, that is precisely what the mediation is meant and designed for. Mediation enables mind to realize that consciounss is differnt from it and also gives access to that extent which is not possible normally.

I think that the theory part is over, so, from the next post. i will again go back to the mental exercise part of the mediataion, Unless any question from the readers comes by.

with love,
sanjay

i’m sorry… what? every quest will be over? i can think of 174 worldy problems that can’t be solved by meditating. power comes from the barrel of a gun, not from the end of an incense stick, sanjay.

last time i tried meditating i found myself saying ‘errrrrrmmmmm’ instead of ‘ohhhhmmmm’. explain that.

see this is what eastern mysticism has done to the western zeitgeist. it’s completely hijacked intellectualism with new age nonsense that either only distracts people from their real problems, or becomes a fashion trend for people who don’t have any real problems. if you find yourself believing that meditating will ‘help’ you, then buddy, you ain’t got no problems.

Yes, you are right. Like, meditation cannot teach you how to tide your shoelaces, or how to knot a tie.

Not at all, my friend, there is only one source of power and that is knowledge, nothing else.

What do you think that which are the ultimate questions for the philosophy and science?
There is only one which is- What is existence and why?
This quest is so vast that it covers all other enquiries of both diciplenes, like i said above from big bang to The God. And, mediation can answer this very question, and only it can.

Sorry, i did not understand what are you asking. Would you mind to elaborate!

with love,
sanjay

Here comes the practical part.

The first question comes to mind: how to do or start meditating?

I think that I should take one more point here before that. As i said before in this thread that mind and consciousness exist in very much amalgamated form in the body. As we all know that the mind is connected to each and every body part through nerves, thus being amagamated with the mind, Consciouness also spreads through the whole body. So, when we concentrate mind at any one point or thing, Consciouness has no option but to concentratrate itself too. Meditation takes advange of this default mechanism.

Now, let us get into the methodology of mediation.

The first thing to do here is to be into a confortable position. This may be of any type like sitting with crossed legs, sitting on the chair with legs down or even lying on the bed, either straight or at any side. Postures do not matter. Different people may feel comfortable in diferent postures. For myself, sitting does not work well so i lie down stright on my back. The only important thing regarding the postures which is important, is that once coming into the desired posture, you are not supposed to move your body, not even a bit, as long as you are meditating. This condition should not be violated otherwise that whole session would go in vain.

Now, let us assume that a person has gotten into his/her comfortable posture. The second thing to do is to close eyes. I also have mentioned its reason already in the thread above. The next thing is to find something to concentate upon. That object may be anything, a picture of anyone or sound byte. I can tell from my personal experience that a sound byte suits the most. You have to chose a small sound byte according to your taste. That may be a small mantra according to your belief, like Ya Allah, Om Namo Shivay or whatever. Please remember, It is not necessary to chose any religious thing, though that may be helpful but it also can be done without that.
The only important thing regarding the sound byte is that it should not be long, but consisted of merely 3,4 words, otherwise it would not work porperly.

After choosing a sound byte, you have to repeat it, slowy and alertly, preferably in the mind, though it may be difficult in the starting. You tounge will move slightly automatically even if you do not want. That is fine and no need to force the issue. And, you will realize that the image of the words of the sound byte will keep poping up before your mental eyes, as you repeat those. That is natural thing to happen. If you can focus on that images too along with the sound byte. that would enhance the speed of the process.

That is all you have to do, nothing else. Just keep repeating that sound byte in your mind, as long as you can. The process looks very simple on the paper but quite difficult to implement. The reason is our subconscious mind, which is forced to go against its own will by our effort to focus on one thing. So, subconscious will keep distracting from the goal . As the result, conscious mind forget what it was doing and go with the thoughts popping in the subconscious. This will happen again and again but you have to keep it bringing to that sound byte.

If one closely observes this struggle, he/she will be surprized to see how much is stored in the subsconscious and how it keeps popping up, even against one’s will. One will get totally unrelated waves of thoughts like from the childhood or what may happen in the distant future. This subconscious is an uncontrolable beast inside us and needs to be tamed down. And, if we keep patience, it will untimalely surrender.

There are some fine points and explanations are also pertinent here which i will take in the next post.

With love,
sanjay