Feeling Your Way in the Mind
Meditationtime Forum Post
Date: Posted 3 years before Aug 10, 2016
MiBeloved 3 years ago
Siddha Swami Nityananda was saying something during breath infusion and meditation session this morning. He was repeating this again and again:
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Work with what you are, with what you have.
Not there! Not there!
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This is in reference to much misleading information given by various yogis and gurus about how to meditate and how to practice breath infusion.
For meditation there are standard methods given in the various lineages, some from India, some from Japan, some from China, some developed by specialists in the Western countries.
There are Western experts who follow process given by people like Ouspensky and Gurdjeif.
However, Siddha Swami was saying that the student has to work in the mind with what is in the mind itself. For instance a famous meditation is to meditate on the third eye but in most people there is no active third eye to meditate on and still they are meditating on something which just does not exist for them.
Siddha Swami was saying in reference to that, that they should not meditate there because there is nothing there to meditate on. Instead he feels that they should find out what they have and work with that.
When you sit to meditate what do you have in your mind, whatever is there, that is what you should use instead of visualizing something else. Feel your way around in the mind and locate what is in there.
If you are in a dark cave way down in the earth where no sunlight can reach, then there is no point in imagining what is there. You should resort to feeling your way around. That is what insects to. They developed feelers and with these they can accurately navigate through the cave.
They do not try to see where there is no vision. Instead they feel their way and actually know what is in the cave. In meditation one should work with what is there.
maryada 3 years ago
What is ment by work with what is there? I thought the point of meditation is to create clarity. So that spirit could put the correct thing there. I my mind there is so much excess activity, I don't want to work with all of that. I have found it very helpful to meditate on the back of the head, that way I can have some brief moments of peace and quietness. I would not like to meditate on all of the stuff in my head.
MiBeloved 3 years ago
maryada wrote:
What is meant by work with what is there? I thought the point of meditation is to create clarity. So that spirit could put the correct thing there. I my mind there is so much excess activity, I don't want to work with all of that. I have found it very helpful to meditate on the back of the head, that way I can have some brief moments of peace and quietness. I would not like to meditate on all of the stuff in my head.
MiBeloved's Response:
What you stated is correct, that the idea is to get to the back of the head, or wherever, to achieve not having all that stuff like thoughts, images and ideas in the mind space.
Okay so once that is done there where do you focus? This is where this instruction is applied. Siddha Swami was saying that one should not imagine anything or try to focus on anything which is not evident. One should do the meditation with what is there in fact.
Question is:
What is there in fact?
Once we know what is there for sure, after the thoughts stop, then we need to get a meditation technique which utilizes what is there instead of again dreaming up stuff or visualizing stuff.
