Meditation styles and Yoga practice

Guru Patanjali Preaching in Sadhana Yoga

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Part 3
Lack of spiritual knowledge or unconsciousness, self-sense of self-ego, attachment and affection, dislike and hatred, longing for life and fear of death constitute five troubles and sorrows that flow in mind. They also constitute the five hindrance and sorrows, which a disciple faces in the human life. In step 5 of Book Spiritual Union Yoga, the Great Guru Patanjali says that thoughts of mind are of five kinds. They are true cognition, false cognition. verbal cognition, sleep cognition and memory cognition. All these kinds of thoughts are either a source of sorrows and apprehensive distress or source for freedom it. Experiencing them does require the presence of thoughts in the mind. But neither of the thought gives real tranquility, serenity, bliss or calmness in mind.

In this Book of Meditation Practice, the Great Sage says that all the five kinds of the thoughts of the mind are saturated with and are replete with distress and apprehensive troubles as well as sorrows. According to him, there are five reasons for the sorrows or distress, which a human being experiences in his life. The first is unconsciousness or lack of spiritual knowledge or information knowledge or logic knowledge or illusion science or believe knowledge in unconscious mind. The second is vanity or egoism or arrogance or pride or self-ego. It is a trait, which makes a person feel as a separate and a distinct entity from inner formless self-conscious essence that is outer part of soul and real self. The third reason is affection or attachment or craving for pleasure. The fourth is enmity, dislike or hatred to pain and sorrows. The fifth reason is longing for life or fear from death of body.

In fact affection and enmity and fear of death are born out of egoism and arrogance. Egoism or pride is born out of lack of spiritual knowledge. Human being is unconsciously bearing the mantle of lack of spiritual knowledge by which his true spiritual knowledge is covered. A human being does not have to search for spiritual knowledge in the external matter world. The spiritual knowledge is always with in his conscious mind. It lays forever in his deep conscious that is inner core mind. It is, however, not experienced and felt by him. This is because a layer of lack of spiritual knowledge covers it. What the disciple has to do is to break the layer of lack of spiritual knowledge with the help of concentration, meditation and spiritual union (Samadhi) in conscious mind.

Unless he does this, he will keep on remaining like a person who dreams during his sleep and treat those dreams as true during the state of his wakefulness. It is only on getting awake that he experiences that the thought, which was flowing like endless waves on the upper layer of the unconscious mind are cause of all sorrows and afflictions in mind and not carry true knowledge. As such a person even on getting awake is not in reality full awake. Really he is walking unconsciously. This is because he keeps on living and moving in the layers of subtle lack of spiritual knowledge unconsciously.

It is only when a disciple emerges out of the layer of lack of spiritual knowledge that he experiences that the thoughts passing through his mind during his wakening hours are sorrow laden. It is only then that he experiences that such thoughts are creating instability, impurity, guilt and turmoil in his unconscious mind. Such thoughts are worthless. Due to lack of spiritual knowledge the sorrow laden thought of self-sense keeps on exerting its stranglehold. The sorrow-laden thoughts like a dream, is not genuine and true knowledge. It is meaningless as well. The Great Sage Patanjali says that the thoughts of mind, which are of five kinds, provoke sorrow and distress.

Searching for tranquility, serenity and calmness in mind and body from amongst these thoughts tantamount to lack of spiritual knowledge and unawareness. As mentioned before, there are five reasons for the five kinds of sorrow or distress laden thoughts. They are lack of spiritual knowledge, self-ego, affection, enmity and yearning for life. It is only by comprehending the reasons of these sorrow and distress provoking thoughts along with their meaning and they’re after eliminating lack of spiritual knowledge that liberation can be attained from them.

The Great Sage says that sorrow or distress is not felt in the body. It is not felt in the conscious mind. It is felt in the unconscious mind. It is felt in the thoughts of the unconscious mind. By stopping the subtle thought of the unconscious mind, sorrow or distress gets eliminated by itself. The causes of sorrow or distress provoking thoughts are present in a very subtlest form of unconscious mind on account of lack of spiritual knowledge which envelopes a human being.

The Great Sage Patanjali say that supreme spiritual knowledge lies immersed and hidden in the conscious mind that is subtlest nature essence and soul essence. Complete Spiritual knowledge about the creation of living and non-living beings and their movement, lies immersed and hidden in the conscious mind that is meeting point of true nature essence and soul essence. Lack of spiritual knowledge is also wrapped over this knowledge in unconscious mind. It is only on the appearance of the layer of lack of spiritual knowledge over self-conscious that subtlest nature’s essence creates the inner core of conscious mind on the soul’s essence.

It is only on the appearance of the layer of self-conscious in mind that true nature’s essence creates the self-ego or egoism gets born in it. It is on account of self-ego that the soul feels an unawareness of its separateness from formless soul essence. It is also on account of self-ego that the creation of the living being by the soul’s essence and it’s longing to remain as a living being, is felt. It is by eradication of the living beings self-ego that true nature’s essence gets separated from the soul’s essence. There after, it attains a formless shape. The soul’s essence or true nature essence becomes static forever by adopting the shape and form of God’s essence.

Further there is only one single inner core mind of all the innumerable living beings of the universe. The innumerable living beings of the universe are of innumerable kinds and have innumerable kinds of bodies, colors and names. All of them, however, have only one inner core of conscious mind. In the depth of this innumerable conscious mind of endless living beings of universe, there is only one soul. In their depth there is only one end of mind of all living being creation of universe over one soul of all living being of universe. The supreme true nature essence is a part of oneness of formless God essence which creates all these innumerable living being’s.

The depth of the conscious mind is fathomless. It is here that the various kinds of living beings and their lingering past subliminal karma impressions remain intact. The goal of lingering past subliminal impressions (karma) is to create a special type of body for a living being, affix its life span and affix its place in the outer matter universe and to make it undergo the fruit of its past karma actions in a state of rest in matter world. It is in this state of rest that the living being contemplates and undergoes the fruits of his past karma actions, which are embodied in the subliminal impressions.

These lingering past subliminal karma impressions get transformed from one birth to another birth in the inner core of conscious mind of the living being. The fear of death in a living being gets born in the layer of lack of spiritual knowledge and self-ego, which are housed in inner layer of conscious mind. The fear of death is the same in all human beings and in all saints and sages. This is because all living beings undergo the fruits of their karma actions in a state of rest according to their past lingering subliminal karma impressions. These fruits of karma actions those are pre-determined as per they’re past deeds, cannot be changed or modified.

Nature has created a body and its form. It has created the inner core of conscious mind. The inner core of conscious mind has been created to undergo the fruits of karma actions during a state of pleasure and bliss. As such all living beings and saints and seers have love and affection for their bodies. Hence, they remain interested in keeping their body in a fit state. The reason for fear of death is self-ego and lack of spiritual knowledge in deeper conscious mind where cosmic law records karma accounts.

The fear of death is wrapped around the layer of lack of spiritual knowledge and self-ego in conscious mind. It is on the layer of the fear of death that layer of enmity gets born in the conscious mind. This layer gets born according to the lingering past subliminal karma impressions, which are pre-destined and which are embedded in the inner core of conscious mind and the sub conscious mind. They are pre-determined according to the memory of sorrow provoking thoughts of the previous life. They are pre-determined to be undergone in a state of pleasure and rest.

Really if a person agrees to undergo affection and enmity consciously which get manifested according to subliminal impressions and accepts that is the God’s will, it is then possible for him to undergo the fruits of his karma actions in a state of calmness and serenity. This is possible if he tries to penetrate the layer of lack of spiritual knowledge consciously and try to comprehend the knowledge that whatever he is undergoing is pre-determined and pre-destined and is according to his karma actions and deeds. It is only when the mind becomes intellect-free that a person enjoy and undergoes the thought of sorrow or distress. The result is that fresh and new sorrow provoking thoughts get automatically restrained after the mind becomes intellect-free.

The Great Sage Patanjali says that suppressing thoughts does not attain liberation from sorrow or distress-provoking thoughts. Struggling against their current does not attain liberation from these thoughts. Liberation is, however, attained by observing these thoughts with love and undergoing them with love, according to the person’s lingering past subliminal karma impressions. The sorrow or distress provoking thoughts is not to be observed and undergone unconsciously. They are to be observed and undergone with care and caution and consciously and by comprehending and experiencing their causes while remaining in a state of complete awareness.

Both pain provoking and pleasure provoking thoughts are embodied in the mind. They are embodied in the conscious mind and unconscious mind and in the inner core mind. They appear in the form of affection and enmity in the unconscious mind. They appear in the form of fear of death in the conscious mind. They appear in the form of self-ego and unawareness of lack of spiritual knowledge, in the inner core of conscious mind. The sorrow provoking thoughts, which are of five kinds, are embedded in the depth of the mind in the form of a ball. These thoughts are to be undergone and enjoyed or they are to be restrained consciously and carefully.

This is to be attained after observing them and after making them craving free. Once the thought of the mind gets restrained, the mind becomes happy and stable. It is then that the mind starts working towards the attainment of self-realization. It is then that the seeded spiritual union (Samadhi) gets attained. It is by God’s grace that a living being accepts to annihilate his arrogance, his self-ego and the break of his relationship with mind and its inner formless subtlest nature essence. Once he accepts to surrender himself by annihilating his self-ego and arrogance, he starts getting exhilarated with the fragrance of bliss, tranquility, serenity and quietness. He gets immersed in the fragrance of supreme bliss which otherwise is not felt due to his lack of spiritual knowledge.

Yoga Tip: - Select any one spiritual form & remain above any blind worship or superstition attached to it. Meditate on it with devotion regularly and consciously. Here is offered spiritual image of Babaji in meditation. While fixing attention on spiritual form, hear, recite or remember its name repeatedly and continue to feel it for 15 minutes or so. It could work as short cut medicine to control and cure various kinds of bodily and mental strains and diseases such as sleeplessness, blood pressure, physical strains, mental worry and/ or mental fears. It also improves concentration and meditation cosmic power and makes mind refreshing. Babaji in meditation is Sidha of Kriya Yoga. Many mystics received the wisdom of Kriya over many years from the Great Silent Guru, Babaji in meditation, who has lived miraculously in the high Himalayas for thousands of years. The core of Kriya is destruction of the ego and Realization of the Higher Self conscious that comes by invoking Babaji in silent conscious meditation and practice. Depicted as in this meditating image, Babaji imparted the wisdom of kriya to devotees throughout the 1800s.

Kriya Yoga is a technique of pranayama (energy control) which, when practiced during meditation, greatly accelerates one’s spiritual progress. Kriya yoga is one of the most effective techniques available for reaching the goal of Self-realization—union with the Infinite. “Kriya Yoga” means Divine union through a certain act or technique. Sidha means perfect one; who has attained the state of unity awareness and experiences himself as all-pervasive and who has achieved mastery over his senses and their objects.