Naad in Competition
Meditationtime Forum Post
Date: Posted 3 years before Jul 15, 2016
MiBeloved 3 years ago
One way to gage your overall meditation advancement is to check the competitive battle that takes place between naad inner sound and the thoughts (ideas and images) which flare up in the mind.
The requirement for yoga to begin in earnest was given by Patanjali as:
Yogah chittavritti Nirodhah
This means that the mental state must be devoid of correct considerations, incorrect considerations, imagination, memory flashes and sleep.
When this happens meditation begins in earnest, otherwise the session is not meditation as defined by Patanjali but it could be preparation for meditation or something else.
Once you sit to meditate, if you find that there are thoughts, images or ideas occurring in the mind, it means that you are not going to meditate unless these ideas shut down of their own accord.
If you have to struggle to shut these down, then it is not meditation even though it may serve as preparation for meditation.
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Attachment of the observing self to the naad sound is a way of shutting down thoughts. Many teachers suggest that thoughts should be observed with an indifferent attitude without displaying any interest in them.
My suggestion is that thoughts should not be observed but all the same just sitting in the mind before thoughts is risky since some thoughts will hold the attention of the observing self no matter what.
It is not true that the meditator can be indifferent to every thought. The degree of indifference varies from thought to thought. The magnetic pull of thoughts varies as well depending on the particular interest which the thought concerns.
I suggest that just as one may sit in the mind and view thoughts with relative degrees of indifference, one can instead focus on viewing or taking an interest in the naad sound. My claim is that this is better and serves the meditation more if one were to turn and focus on naad sound as compared to sitting to view thoughts with indifference.
When one focuses on naad, when one adheres or remains glued to naad, then there will be times, when one is again pulled back to view thoughts. When this happens one can feel the gravitational power of particular thoughts since there will be a pull from naad and an opposing pull from thoughts.
If the thought is powerful, it will yank one away from naad and compel one to view it. If the thought is not powerful, one will feel its pull as a slight tugging which one ignores. Then the thought will fizz out in the mind because of a lack of interest from the meditator.
So long as one has a relationship of any kind with persons who are not particularly interested in meditation development, one will from time to time lose out in the battle in the mind with thoughts.
Alfredo 3 years ago
So long as one has a relationship of any kind with persons who are not particularly interested in meditation development, one will from time to time lose out in the battle in the mind with thoughts.
You have touched on this several times before, even once at least personally to me when commenting on a practice report, that's why I include as Tapasya "as little interaction with others as possible". Nowadays, I can forcefully feel that interaction affecting me instantly, as it happened a few days ago when I went out in a family outing to a restaurant on my mother's birthday, when I felt like a wicker basket used to collect water from a well. So I guess all these relationships must be downgraded, managed, and even terminated?
Your description above of the realities of meditation, as usual, is right on the money.
A question: why is it that the meditation here is much better in the PM compared to the AM? Could it be that the Thokar Kriya pranayama I do in between energizes both the gross and subtle bodies, specially the latter?
Or that I am not a "morning person" as the saying goes?
Finally, about recommendations for "watching thoughts" and other meditational tools, I now believe most people out there, including teachers, don't have a clue about what meditation is.
MiBeloved 3 years ago
Alfredo Wrote:
I guess all these relationships must be downgraded, managed, and even terminated?
MiBeloved’s Response:
This is the gist of it but be sure that you do this quietly, otherwise you will cause resentments which will interfere in a bigger way and with more noise in the background. Nobody wants to be downgraded, managed or terminated. If you declare war openly, you may not be valiant enough to deal with the enemy. Better to play a hide and seek war like Che Guevara.
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Alfredo Wrote:
Why is it that the meditation here is much better in the PM compared to the AM?
MiBeloved’s Response:
This is happening to you because your social dependents and persons to whom you have social obligations have command over your morning hours. This means you have to start your day by taking care of business as people say in America. Then at the end of the day, when they feel you have served them enough, they relax their grip on you.
You remind me of donkey carts and dray carts in Guyana where I grew up. A dray cart is pulled by a mule or horse. It is longer than a donkey cart and carries more weight.
Early in the morning, the owner takes it out of a paddock and harnesses it and sends it out with a driver. It has to work until sundown pulling the cart from place to place with various loads. Every so often the driver puts cut grass (hay) before it, and also a bucket of molasses or water. The animal sweats profusely, strains on occasions with a heavy load. It foams at the mouth.
In the evening at sunset, when the day is over, the animal is released into a small area where it can try to pick one or two pieces of grass. Then it will sit down and meditate.
I used to watch this as a kid growing up, thinking, “What a life! What a destiny!”
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You remind me of these asses and mules but your relatives remind me also of the owner, driver, loads and extra loads which the animal had to pull.
As little boys, we were very cruel to these animals, as we made ourselves into extra loads for it to carry.
How?
Well sometimes when we were sent on errands or when we would have to walk to school, we would run to one of these carts, jump on and take a free ride. Sometimes the driver would notice and ignore us but sometimes the driver would object and force us to jump from the carts.
Our idea was that since the animals was destined (or blessed) to fetch loads, we should ease our feet and let the animal pull us on the cart in addition to its official load.
With hindsight I understand now that we were being very vicious to the animals. We did not understand that providence would flip a switch, cause us to take animal bodies and cause the spirit in the animal body to take a human one.
Keep on sitting and thinking things over in the afternoon my friend, because after all what else can you?
MiBeloved 3 years ago
From LinkedIn:
RamaPrasad’s response:
Michael Wrote:
Yogah chittavritti Nirodhah. This means that the mental state must be devoid of correct considerations, incorrect considerations, imagination, memory flashes and sleep.
Rama’s Response:
I the so called 'correct state', you are dead. If you are alive your beliefs (wisdom, knowledge, memories, views etc.) will have to work.
Michael Wrote:
When this happens meditation begins in earnest, otherwise the session is not meditation as defined by Patanjali but it could be preparation for meditation or something else.
Rama’s Query:
How do you define meditation?
Michael Wrote:
Once you sit to meditate, if you find that there are thoughts, images or ideas occurring in the mind, it means that you are not going to meditate unless these ideas shut down of their own accord. If you have to struggle to shut these down, then it is not meditation even though it may serve as preparation for meditation.
Rama’s Response:
Sounds like meditation is defined as 'no thoughts'. In this state you are dead!
Michael Wrote:
Attachment of the observing self to the naad sound is a way of shutting down thoughts. Many teachers suggest that thoughts should be observed with an indifferent attitude without displaying any interest in them.
Rama’s Response:
(Thanks Dr Ajai Singh!) Observing is a form of thinking! You can't delete thinking with thinking, whether it is indifferent or not.
Just some views...
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Rama wrote:
I the so called 'correct state', you are dead. If you are alive your beliefs (wisdom, knowledge, memories, views etc.) will have to work.
MiBeloved’s Response:
Rama what you wrote above is only true if you remain on the same mental or existential plane of consciousness. The beliefs which you listed as wisdom, knowledge, memories and views exist on a certain level of consciousness. If the yogi leaves that level those packages of subtle impressions (samskaras) will be left behind. And then when the yogi returns to those lower planes, he will again pick these up if he returns.
If in your meditation you are not experience separation from those lower planes, if you remain in oneness with those lower levels then it means that you are not completing the pranayama practice in the ashtanga yoga system because that empowers the self to complete pratyahar sensual energy withdrawal and internalization.
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Rama wrote:
How do you define meditation?
MiBeloved’s Response:
Meditation is defined as samyama, which is the three higher stages of yoga in one sequential progression from dharana pointed focus on a transcendental aspect, to dhyana spontaneous non-effort focus on the transcendental aspect and finally to continuous spontaneous non-effort focus on the transcendental aspect.
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Rama wrote:
Sounds like meditation is defined as 'no thoughts'. In this state you are dead!
MiBeloved’s Response:
Meditation is not defined as a no-thought state. Patanjali said atha which means now or then, the full yoga process begins when the vrittis are shut down It is defined as beginning when the yogi reaches the stage of no thoughts. That is when meditation really begins. Before this happens the yogi should have attained pratyahar which is full introspection.
Usually, as you indicate it is impossible to shut down thoughts. Usually the self regards itself to be the whole mind chamber which includes thoughts. But when that oneness is breached the self realizes itself as being different to the buddhi intellect psychic organ which is producer of thoughts and imagination. If the core-self (atma) can break its unity (oneness) with the buddhi adjunct psychic organ, then the activities of the buddhi which are primarily thoughts can come to an end, at least for as long as the self can break off from it.
Actually to find out about this you need to go to Patanjali with a clear mind and read about what he says about the two states of kevalam and kaivalyam.
If you think Patanjali was just writing down some fantastic thing which is not attainable, then what can I do about that. That is okay with me.
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Rama wrote:
(Thanks Dr Ajai Singh!) Observing is a form of thinking! You can't delete thinking with thinking, whether it is indifferent or not.
MiBeloved’s Response:
Observing does not have to be a form of thinking. It is a form of thinking when the atma (core-self) makes the observation using the buddhi intellect psychic orb. So long as the core self is fused on to the orb, then the observation involves thinking because that is the nature of the intellect.
If however the core-self breaks its oneness with the buddhi orb, then that self can make observations without thinking.
It can also verbalize that observation later when it again reconnects with the buddhi for the sake of communicating the experiences with others on this level.
