Meditation styles and Yoga practice

Guru Patanjali Preaching in Sadhana Yoga

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Part 27
Translation: - The enlightened inner conscious mind having attained discriminative knowledge of the seven limbs should continue to practice yogic perfection in a conscious manner.

It is for an enlightened inner conscious mind that has attained discriminative and perfect knowledge about the seven limbs to continue the practice of yogic perfection in a conscious manner. Such a practice should not be mechanical, unintelligent or merely as a matter of daily routine. Discriminative knowledge, which gets attained through the disciplining and perfection of seven limbs of yoga, is called supreme knowledge. It is also called knowledge accompanied by self-conscious. It is also called truth bearing intelligent knowledge. It is also called the knowledge, which can bear the knowledge of the inner self-conscious of soul essence and possess the ability to comprehend and grasp it. The discriminative knowledge that is to be attained is about the conjunction of the inner self-conscious of soul essences with nature’s essence .

The conjunction occurs due to the preponderance of lack of spiritual knowledge. Such a discriminative knowledge gets attained through the disciplining and perfection of the seven limbs of the preparatory yogic discipline. This knowledge is known as the supreme knowledge. The mind is the form of the manifested subtlest state of nature essence. Self-Conscious is the true form of soul essence of a living being. In fact inner self-conscious of soul essence has no form. This is because it is a seer power and a power, which sees. It, however, sees the form of nature’s essence that is a seen power and a power to be seen and which is a servant. When self-conscious is stabilized in the conscious mind , conscious mind loses its form and awareness.

Whatever form, feeling experience or awareness remains there, that in fact, is of the form, feeling, experience and awareness of the nature itself. Due to lack of spiritual knowledge, however, such a form appears to be the form and awareness of one’s inner self-conscious of soul essence. The knowledge of such knowledge is called supreme knowledge. This knowledge gets attained on the purification of seeded spiritual union. It gets attained by systematically comprehending the seven layers of the ball of lack of spiritual knowledge and by attaining knowledge about them. The Great Sage says that purpose of nature’s essence is to make the embodied inner self-conscious of soul essence realize its innumerable sights. The sights that are to be shown to the embodied inner self-conscious of soul essence are to be according to the embodied inner conscious mind state.

The living inner self-conscious of soul essence is forever static. It is the reality or the essence of inner god essence. It is wrapped around what is stable and static. The inner self-conscious of soul essence is Almighty and pure knowledge. Nature’s essence that makes the sights of its animate and inanimate states appears or disappears. It also makes its sights appear and disappear. Nature shows its sight to the embodied inner self-conscious of soul essence that is its master, on being asked to do so. The sight of nature’s essence appears when the embodied inner self-conscious of soul essence wants to see it. The embodied inner soul essence possesses conscious. Conscious has no form as such and hence cannot be seen. It can, however, enter formless inner god essence and nature’s essence .

This is the real existence of the living being. It is said that there is nothing in the universe, which has a greater speed than the speed of self-conscious. It is not even possible to have awareness about the speed of this speed. This is because the self-conscious cannot concentrate on it. The inner self-conscious of soul essence sees that sight only on which the embodied inner conscious mind focuses his attention and conscious. When the embodied inner conscious mind focuses its attention and conscious on inner formless inner god essence, no sight emerges out of this focusing. This is because inner god essence is without form and is formless what comes in the apprehension of the embodied inner conscious mind is only the seed of the supreme knowledge of inner god essence. The inner self-conscious of soul essence like inner god essence is without form and shape. When conscious of the embodied inner conscious mind is focused on the inner self-conscious of soul essence itself, no sight emerges out of this focusing. This is because the inner self-conscious of soul essence is also without form and shape. What comes in the grasp of comprehension is pure supreme knowledge. When conscious is focused on the nature, it is then that nature’s essence arranges to show its innumerable sights to its own master namely the inner self-conscious of soul essence.

When conscious is centered on nature’s essence , the subtlest state of nature, which is formless and contains supreme knowledge, comes in a state of motion. The subtlest state of nature is Almighty, stable, immortal, imperishable and indestructible and timeless. When unconscious is centered on nature, lack of spiritual knowledge gets wrapped over conscious. It is here that lack of spiritual knowledge gets spread out in seven layers. It is here that the living and the non-living form appear. Nature offers its sights through the living beings. The mind is a comprehensive plan of nature’s essence or reality. It is through the mind that life gets created along with the creation of birth and death. The creation is created according to the minds conscious. The creation is created for the purpose of showing the nature’s sights to the embodied inner self-conscious of soul essence.

The creation of the embodied being and the creation of the path of life, take place inside the nature’s essence or reality itself. It takes place in the mind, which is a product of nature. The mind, which is produced by Nature and developed, becomes a living being, after it comes into existence and after it takes on a particular form of life. There after, the mind adopts the path of life and gets engrossed in the seven layers of lack of spiritual knowledge of nature’s essence or reality. When conscious mind of the embodied inner self-conscious of soul essence attains knowledge of the seven layers of lack of spiritual knowledge, the knowledge so attained is called the supreme knowledge. The knower of such knowledge is known as a discriminative person. The perfection in this regard gets perfected only on the complete purification of seeded spiritual union. It is then that complete knowledge of discrimination gets attained and the disciple becomes a perfectly discriminative person.

The mind that in reality is nature’s essence is consciously and carefully feeling and experienced in the self-senses of the living being. This feeling and experience leads to the creation of self-awareness in the living being. It is, however, a form of delusion. The mind remains in the deluded state of the seven layers of lack of spiritual knowledge. The disciple on carefully searching for it and on repeatedly stabilizing his mind systematically attains the knowledge of the seven layers of lack of spiritual knowledge. It is attained by sustained efforts unflinching faith and grim determination. All these are to be practiced over a long period of time. The greater the faith of the disciple in yogic discipline, the grater his effort and his practice

The greater will be his success in the attainment of this knowledge. Attainment of knowledge depends upon the intensity of the disciple’s efforts. Perfection of yogic discipline may take innumerable lives. At the same time, attainment of such perfection is also possible in a single lifetime.

On the first rung of the ladder of lack of spiritual knowledge, a living being does not believe or feel in his mind even when his conscious is focused on the mind itself. What comes in the awareness of his conscious during his first step on the ladder of lack of spiritual knowledge is the recapitulation of the external forms of the creation’s endless living or non-living issues or things. This recapitulation pertains to that particular issue or that particular thing on which the living being focuses his mind. Changes in respect of nature, changes in respect of subjects and objects or changes in respect of forms or shapes of living beings keep on taking place each and every moment in mind. Nature, as such is endless, fathomless and limitless. Hence, the sights of the endless form of nature cannot be seen by an embodied inner conscious mind at one single time. The embodied inner conscious mind sees only that sight on which its conscious is focused. The rest of the sights remain unfocused for the embodied inner conscious mind. They are not seen despite their presence, as the mind’s conscious is not focused on them. The mind does not come in the grasp of conscious during the first stage and the first step on the ladder of lack of spiritual knowledge. Whatever comes in the grasp are thoughts of the five senses of knowledge. It is the form of the issues or subjects of nature’s living or non-living beings, which comes in the grasp. During the first step of his lack of spiritual knowledge, human being believes his own shape and form and the endless matter forms in matter world to which he is conjunct and connected.

On the second rung of the ladder of lack of spiritual knowledge, conscious mind gets focused only when knowledge of lack of spiritual knowledge gets attained during the first step of the ladder of lack of spiritual knowledge. Conscious mind gets focused only when lack of spiritual knowledge is consciously overcome and over powered. Human being tries to break the shackles of lack of spiritual knowledge of his conscious mind by entering into the first step of the ladder of lack of spiritual knowledge. On the second step even when his conscious mind is focused on the mind, he does not believe in his own mind. What come in the awareness of the mind are the awareness of his body and its five senses of karma actions or its senses of knowledge. What comes in the awareness of his mind is the feelings of his body’s outer form namely his head, his foot, mouth, and urinary tract. These are the senses of action. What also come in the awareness of the mind are the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue and the body. These are the five senses of knowledge. On further becoming aware of his conscious minds , the mind starts feeling in the five internal senses of action and senses of knowledge in the shape of forms. These are the heart, the brain, the lungs, the liver and kidneys.

These are the five senses of karma actions. Bones, flesh, nerves, blood, seminal fluid, bone and marrow are the seven layers of the senses of action and body of human being. What is felt by heart, smelt by the nose, spoken by tongue or touched by the body, all these are within the parameter of the internal senses of knowledge. The senses of knowledge comprise a network of nerves. When any part of the body is broken ,it is found that even the smallest cell in it carries within it the ability to become of a full-fledged living being. This is the feeling, which the conscious mind harbors about the shape of the forms. This belief is felt by the mind on account of the lack of spiritual knowledge of science.

On the third rung of the ladder of lack of spiritual knowledge, the form that is experienced is formless when the conscious mind is focused on the mind. This form is a mere palpitation of life. It is the palpitation and throbbing of fear of life and death. The breath is non-static and non-stable. It is on stabilizing the breath and on making it static that affection with body and enmity with death is experienced. Feeling in the subtle breath is a feeling of the mind. Breath is in a state of motion in every small atom and pore of the body and outside the body. The breath makes the connection and conjunction of the mind’s flow with the creation. Breathing is a function, which is taking place automatically. Similarly, the mind of nature’s essence or reality is also functioning automatically.

During the fourth rung on the ladder of lack of spiritual knowledge, when conscious mind is stabilized on the mind i.e. on stabilizing the body and the breath, the form of the mind, which is experienced and felt, is only the formless and conscious mind. The mind appears as a vehicle for a human being’s personal conscious. The mind feels nature’s essence or reality. It is in the mind that there is a flow of the medley of argumentative thoughts. This flow of the medley of thoughts is about the subjects and objects of nature and about information and knowledge about living beings. The flow is there on account of a person’s knowledge of science. It is on account of these thoughts that there are forms and shapes of nature’s subjects and objects. In addition to these, there is a conglomeration and mixture of five kinds of thoughts via-true thoughts, false thoughts, verbal thoughts, sleep thoughts and memory thoughts. There is also a manifestation of thoughts in respect of subjects and objects of nature and cravings of living beings.

What is being a manifest in the cravings is about the unconscious or about the subjects or objects or about a lining being’s affection or enmity or fear. What gets manifested is meaningless. It is merely a fragmentary sight of the form. The subtle formless mind starts getting polluted by a network of innumerable cravings. Such a network makes the mind unstable. It also makes the mind restless. The medley of thoughts creates cravings for wealth, progeny and possession of worldly goods and other subjects and objects. All these thoughts get created through a process of argumentation, which is carried on by the formless mind. The argumentative pattern of thoughts keeps on changing each and every moment. A person’s affection or enmity or fear, which is felt here, gets created on account of his lack of spiritual knowledge. This lack of spiritual knowledge is due to the person’s connection and conjunction with nature’s subjects and objects or with other living beings. This is because the connection and conjunction of conscious in this part is focused on the subjects and objects or with the forms and the formlessness of other living beings.

What makes a human being distinct and different from other human beings is the pattern of his argumentative thoughts, which are produced by the bent of his mind and his natural inclination. These argumentative thoughts depend on his knowledge of science. All these thoughts are written in his unconscious mind. He keeps the knowledge, which a human being gets from the outside world, from his parents, from the society that he lives in and from the religion that he practices, in his unconscious mind. Unconscious mind is the outer layer of the mind.