Comment to 'Working with Correct Knowledge/Perception and Incorrect Knowledge/Perception'
  • In regards to the query about sleep, I only came across a brief mention of it in the UNENTANGLED KNOWING book.  There, Ms. Nanayon lumps it in with the 5 hindrances which must be overcome.  I will quote her in context on that:

       “The Hindrance of sensual desire is like a dye that clouds clear water, making it murky---and when the mind is murky, it’s suffering.  Ill will as a Hindrance is irritability and dissatisfaction, and the Hindrance of sloth and torpor is a state of drowsiness and lethargy---a condition of refusing to deal with anything at all, burying yourself in sleep and lazy forgetfulness.  All the Hindrances, including the final pair---restlessness and anxiety and uncertainty (doubt)---cloak the miond in darkness.  This is why you need to be resilient in fighting them off at every moment and investigating them so that you can weaken and eliminate every form of defilement from the gross to the middling and on to the subtle---from the mind.”

     

    Regarding Sri Patanjali’s assertion of the total separation of the perceiver of the mundane psychology you referenced:

    The elimination of the conjunction which results from the elimination of that spiritual ignorance is the withdrawal that is the total separation of the perceiver from the mundane psychology.( Yoga Sutras 4 25)

    I think this is directly implied by the Upasika (female lay follower) in the last line of the original excerpt:

    “The mind has to use its own mindfulness and discernment to dig everything out of itself, leaving just the mind in and of itself, the body in and of itself, and then keep watch of them. “ 

    This refers to a precision sorting out and separating of:

    • The mind
    • The body
    • (The One) who keeps watch**

    **In most Buddhist literature I have read (which is not extensive and is mostly in the Theravada approach) there seems to be a consensus that the one who keeps watch, the knower, is not absolute but is still in the realm of mind and inconstancy.  One develops the mind, the watcher, or the knower in order to reach nibbana which lies beyond.

    In regards to inSelf Yoga declaring the intellect as an organ and emphasizing the need to locate it and deal with it as such, I will address that in another post.

    I'm really just interested in accelerating insight through practice and I hope these discussions help meditators  to remove the inherent ignorance which is so difficult to find and which is so natural to our sense of identity.