Mind Focus
The mind is always focusing and unfocusing in turn. This is because the energy used by the mind on any level, low or high, mundane or transcendental, is always vibrating and moving here or there. It is not possible to have a stability when one used materials, contents or substances which are constantly on the move.
This does not mean that there is no stability but it does say that whatever stability we perceive is an illusion or is based on one moving reference to another. Take for example the planet earth, if we accept that it is a flat non-spherical surface around which the sun and stars hurl, then in reference to such extraterrestrial chaos, the earth would be the stability.
But if we follow the statements of modern astronomy that the earth is hurling around the sun at thousands of miles per hour, and that the sun itself is swirling and that the planets which remained focused on the sun are moving in a galaxy at thousands of miles per hour, then everything changes and we must admit that the entire reality is unstable. And yet, from the conventional angle, the earth seems to be stationary.
The chaos of it all does not necessarily deprive a person of the sense of solidness. The chaos supports the idea of stability. Take the example of electrical energy. That is common in most households in the developed countries. It seems to be constant and steady. Actually it is cycling to increase to 120 volts and then decease to zero volts sixty times within every second. This is hard to believe because if I held an electric wire which has a miliamp current which was just below the threshold which would kill my body, I would think that the current was steady. I would argue vehemently with anyone who insisted that the current rose to 120 volts and also became reduced to zero volts, doing so sixty (60) times in every second. Why do I not feel the fluctuation?
Obviously it is because of my perspective or my existential position of perception which is not keen enough to observe the swelling and shrinking of voltage. Everyone is limited by his or her perception. This means that whatever I experience is the truth as far as I am concerned.
For the mind, in the experience I had, there was no ceasing of movement of focus. The perception means was itself focusing and defocusing. I was shown this by Gautam Buddha in a meditation. He said that one has to use this inner and outer spiraling feature of the mind to focus on one objective or point in meditation with the core-self, the observing self, being the reference towards whatever is the objective according to the stage of the meditation.
Otherwise, he said, one will be chasing a phantom moon and the meditation will never be as it is because the mind keeps looking for what is not true, for a stability which does not exist.
It is a paradox that in an existence in which everything is on the move, nearly everyone is looking for ceased movement, for stability.
Special Notation:
This article was written after a mediation session on the afternoon of May 30, 2017. I did an intense session of bhastrika pranayama breath-infusion, after which I chanted the Savituh Gayatri mantra to the sungod. Immediately after that I did a gayatri to Lord Shiva. This was done outdoors.
Because of the heat outdoors, I went indoors to a cooler place to meditate. I assumed a tight lotus. I checked the state of mind and found some energy of the breath infusion session still swished around in the psyche. I focus on the buddhi intellect orb which is behind the center of the eyebrows.
At this point I realized that Gautam Buddha was in my psyche. I acknowledged him. Just then up ahead there was an oval shaped area where there was a bright light shining. This was the intellect. The part of the oval which faced the front of the face was fragmented and the light from within the intellect was shining through a cloudy energy which surrounded the oval. I began to focus into the oval because at this stage, that was the meditation which I practiced.
Meditation objectives change from time to time but now I focused in that way in one meditation session after another. Therefore I resumed that focus but with Buddha observing the practice.
For about five minutes after that happened everything changed because the oval disappeared, the light in it which was so brilliant disappeared. I was on a different level perceiving through a focusing and unfocusing energy, which spiraled away from me and then towards me continuously. Buddha then said, “It is not stable but never mind, keep the focus. As it goes in and goes out, focuses and unfocuses, zooms in and zooms out, stay with it.”
This observation is different to the one made when one notices that the mind moves from one idea to another continuously, or when one meditates and notices that the mind shifts from one means as a focus to another means as an alternate focus. In this case the mind remains focus on one place, object, idea, space or energy but as it does so it focuses and defocused on that one objective.
rob van der sloot dear Michael, I think you are making one fundamental mistake and that is that its not true that the mind is ALWAYS focusing and unfocusing. This only happens in the waking state. Neurologically its called fase-lock and fase-shift. But when the brain is in sleep state or in dream state (delta or low theta brain wave frequencies), there is no fase-lock or fase-shift. There is even no mind!!!! The mind is out of sight. So where is the mind then? Its not there because the brain does not produce mind activity. The pre-frontal cortex does not produce alpha rythms. The deeper brain regulates that.
But there is still another very important state of consciousness, which is beyond the fase-lock and fase-shift mode of the brain. That is pure consciousness, the goal of the search of the mind, the total unbounded level of consciousness. There also fase-lock and fase-shift are gone. When the brain gets habituated to the level of functioning, then the waking state suddenly becomes different.....
rob van der sloot ....Fase-lock and fase-shift are then not so important anymore. What starts to count is keeping the connection with pure consciousness in tact. Then the mind becomes an instrument, playing the song of eternity, of unboundedness. Reality becomes a dance of that and you become the dancer of the eternal impulses of Total Creative Intelligence. Vibrations become the fluctuations of the Unified Field. Your are then dancing in tune with the blending of Shiva and Vishnu, the eternal song of Brahman. That is unbounded bliss and happines.
Michael Beloved rob van der sloot ---- As you well know, we each have a mind and we each see things in similar or radically different ways. Thanks for your view point on this issue of focusing and unfocusing.
Vilas Desai I think the neuroscience even today is limited only to these three states of mind; wakefulness, dream state, and the deep sleep state. In our ancient Vedas (In the mandukya Upanishad) there is a reference to a fourth state called the "Turiya". It actually says we as beings belong to neither of the three states but to the fourth state that is Turiya. That is our reality. Although Turiya is apart from the three states, it is in and through all of them. It's probably the most profound and sophisticated explanation to the universal question "Who Am I"?