Thoughts and Yoga
Meditationtime Forum Post
Date: Posted 3 years before Jan 02, 2016
Alfredo 3 years ago
In the 1930s, in Ramana Asrama, Tiruvannamalai, beside Arunachala Hill, this episode unfolded:A young Tamil devotee arrived at the Meditation Hall where Ramana Maharshi received people usually on top of, or reclined in, a sofa. The young man was dejected, in turmoil, and crying, for he had just lost his only small son. Soon the Maharshi’s gaze was upon the distressed devotee, who asked him:
- Is sorrow a thought?
For several minutes the Maharshi looked with his compassionate face, then answered:
- All thoughts are sorrowful.
Question: Are they?...or was he just making a point?
MiBeloved 3 years ago
Over the years, people have trivialized the statements of persons like Sri Ramana Maharshi. This is because of rating everyone as being the same. If everyone is the same, then there is no need to give any special honor to anyone else.
Now the statement he made is in compliance with sutra number 2 in Patanjali, for the shutting down of the psychic process which operates thoughts.
The process operates other features of the psychology but those other aspects are its features not it. Therefore if one can successfully shut down thoughts then it indicated directly that the mechanism which generates that and does other features is put out of commission. This is provided the mechanism does not switch to operate its other modes.
Just to deal with the question and also to even perceive the questioner, the special individual, Sri Ramana, had to use the psychic organ which generates perception of the vrittis. That is the first thing to take note of, as to how important this nuisance psychic organ is.
We see a similar declaration by Gautama Buddha about the thinking process. It is true what they are saying but another truth is that we still have to use the organ. Therefore a complete approach is given by Krishna and by Patanjali of how to reform the thought generation mechanism.
I know Sri Ramana personally and I used to visit him around 1973 astrally. There was a yoga student whom I taught kundalini yoga to in Trinidad then, and he went to India to meet Ramana after reading some of the books published on the sage’s behalf.
I would have said what Ramana said differently and in compliance with Bhagavad Gita. I would have said this:
All thoughts are a diversion from the core-self because the activity of thought generation can only take place with energy of the attention of the core self. If the energy of that self is used, then that self is affected by the energy which is drained from it in the use of the thought generation.
What is the purpose of the thought? Where will the execution of the thought lead the core-self? Into what activity? Into what association? Into what level of consciousness?
But the question from the man was loaded because what he was talking about whether sorrow is a form of generated thoughts. Perhaps science with its reading of the electrical energy in the brain would say yes, sorrow is merely another form of the same process which produces thoughts.
However the real answer is that sorrow is not a thought but sorrow is productive of thoughts. Sorrow is a feeling.
Ramana was on a completely different plane and so he did not deal with the guy’s question. Ramana’s mission was to be himself, a divine being whose mind is so designed that naturally it is not drawn into the affairs of this world. Others do not have such a mind. It may be their potential but it is not their actual condition at this time.
Here is how to solve this out:
Feelings are produced by the kundalini life force.
Thoughts are produced by the buddhi intellect organ.
These are distinct and separate psychic mechanisms. When there is a feeling of sorrow that is generated by the kundalini and then when that reaches the buddhi intellect organ it interprets those feeling in the form of thoughts and gives a read out as this or that type of sorrow.
Ramana is not concerned with the adjuncts. Divine beings have nothing to do with them. But for others a concern is a necessity and for that matter none of the ordinary atmas can get out of material existence without perceiving these adjuncts distinctly and dealing with them to bring them to order so that the organs act only in a way that promotes self realization for the individual concerned.
It is not a good idea for ordinary atmas to follow Ramana because he is not setting an example which is useful to any of them. They cannot do what he did and their psyche is not designed in the same way.
The guy is a divine being. That should be recognized. He is an alien. He is not native to the earthly planet. The guy is from outer space.
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On the flip side the question can be posted like this:
Is thought a kind of sorrow?
The answer is that thought can cause the generation of sorrow, if the buddhi which generates thoughts about sorrow, communicates with the kundalini. In other words the kundalini can influence the buddhi and the buddhi in turn can influence the kundalini.
The core-self for its part is influenced by either of these adjuncts or by their collective conspiracies.Alfredo 3 years ago
Good, very good, thanks.
I have always known, although not in the detail you wrote, intuitively perhaps, that there was more to the straightforward statement of the Maharshi, and have always accepted that his instructions in Nan Yar (Who am I?) the Vichara into the "I", were impracticable, not only difficult, simply impracticable, which is corroborated by your "alien" statement.
Now, let's please look at Sri Aurobindo. While in Baroda he had done 6-8 hours of Pranayama daily for a year on his own, but then, having gotten involved heavily in the independence movement, he neglected the practice, then asked his brother Barin to look for a Yogi to teach him Yoga. Barin brought a semi-literate Maharastrian Yogi of repute named Vishnu Baskar Lele. Barin sequestered both in a house alone. Lele told Sri Aurobindo: "Get in meditation pose, thoughts come from the outside, see them coming, reject them and be free". In 3 days Sri Aurobindo sustained what he called "the static realization of the Brahman, Neti-Neti", and fell into the thoughtless state. This faculty remained for life to where his mind was at peace and he recalled thoughts at will to work. But at the beginning the state was so acute that he feared he could not think, so when he had to do an important speech right after the experience, he did not know what to do, but Lele told him to go there and pray and thoughts and words would come into him. This happened as predicted by Lele, who, after that told Sri Aurobindo he had nothing else to teach him and departed from his life. For that specific realization, Sri Aurobindo composed the following poem...what say you?:
All is abolished but the mute Alone.
The mind from thought released, the heart from grief,
Grow inexistent now beyond belief;
There is no I, no Nature, known-unknown.
The city, a shadow picture without tone,
Floats, quivers unreal; forms without relief
Flow, a cinema's vacant shapes; like a reef
Foundering in shoreless gulfs the world is done.
Only the illimitable Permanent
Is here. A Peace stupendous, featureless, still.
Replaces all, - what once was I, in It
A silent unnamed emptiness content
Either to fade in the Unknowable
Or thrill with the luminous seas of the Infinite.MiBeloved 3 years ago
The experiencer or the "I" remains but its configurtion is different and so there is no "I" like the one which was the "I" before.
And what this really means is that the I has become qualified by another energy level, by another completely different plane of existence, such that it is no longer what it used to be or what it used to rely on or what it was infused with.
It has a new reliance which is so different from the old reliance, that it appears to be a different I, even to itself.
The meaning is that the self is reliant and it assumes the nature of what it relies on.
It has to exist in some environment because that is the eternal situation. Some environments allow it more security than others.
In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna challenged Arjuna to give up residence in the material world and go to the place where there is no sun or moon and in which everything is self-illumined and reinforced by eternity.
Alfredo 3 years ago
Michael:Is that all? That is rather uncommon unless you were running out of time last night. Allow me to ask you a question: What is you opinion of Sri Aurobindo and his work? So far, I have gathered you have not been into him much, and if that is the answer that's also fine with me.
Thanks in advance.
MiBeloved 3 years ago
Aurobindo is a superman.The fact that he had that vision in the court of seeing the Universal Form of Krishna, or more precisely the application of the universal form of Krishna, through its use of the material forms of the limited atmas, speaks for itself, as regarding who he is.
Of all the people whom you know who are following spirtual life, how many have had such a vision in fact?
The guy is an empowered entity. Sanskrit is Shaktyavesha person.
Arjuna was an empowered entity as well but when he asked for a second go-round of the Universal Form, he was denied the revelation of it one second time. So the vision of it by anyone makes that person very special indeed.
But so what?
One million alien invaders won’t change the basic human nature-profile and so all others still have to struggle with their existential impurities and insecurities. Christ came into the world and the world received him not, so they say, which means that the world goes in its own way despite the appearance of Avatars and their classic assistants.
So you are pushing for the final word on this. Here it is:
Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have set up a realm in the astral world for their dear followers and they are living there in a sort of astral paradise. No one is permitted to even be aware of the place unless the person is a part of the energy of the mother or Aurobindo and is in complete harmony with their existences. Such is his situation right now.
I guess you want to migrate to that place. Well good luck. See the Mother and see what you can do for her to touch you and change your subtle body to bring it in harmony with their paradise place.
Why ask me about it?
What have I to do with it?
Aurobindo uses the mother as a shield or as a sort of checker. So no one can get to that place unless she transforms the subtle body of the person.
I know about it through some siddhas who were near the place.
Can I go there?
That is an irrelevant question because I am a student of yoga gurus who do not permit me to wander here and there in the astral realms. I have my assignments before me and going there is not on the list, at least not at this time.
Some of the siddhas feel that Aurobindo should not have created the place but that is their opinion.
Great yogis and empowered entities sometimes create these half-way heavenly worlds for their spiritual dependents. Why?
Beats me!
Sri Paramahansa Yogananda had the idea to create such a place but he decided instead to just be on the astral side near to the astral dream world and to advise disciples from there on how to complete their practice. So these people do different things.
