Lazy brain bird: and the art of uselessness

Was reading a scholar's take on the Gita recently and realized that scholars sometimes miss the point in all the clutter they bring into their scholarship. The Gita has a powerful yogic message. Like all messages which are special, it gets to be interpreted in many ways. The yoga path of Gita is very clear and pure. And on that, those of us in the state of mumukshutva have no doubt. Others, wishing to impress upon the world with their scholarship, I fear often miss the wood for the trees. But they do not have this craving and therefore their one desire, to impress, often suffocates the more subtle but equally intense mumukshutva. Often, when I read scholars writing on philosophy, it is very clear to me, that many have become egotistic and have completely missed the point. This is true, even of those who claim extreme feelings for a subject.. somehow, the ego appears to take over, even over the subject, as if they wish to dominate to the exclusion of everything, including the topic.

Here, there is this beautiful, tricky Tao idea about uselessness and usefulness.

Hu Tzu said to ChuangTzu --Tell me about the useless.

Once you understand the useless, that's when you're ready to start talking about the useful. For example, heaven and earth are expansive and huge everywhere, but any individual only takes enough to put his foot on.If however, you dug deep right around someone's feet reaching all the way to the Yellow Springs  would the spot still be useful?
No, it would be useless.
So, in this case, the useless greatly clarifies what it means to be useful.
(From the Chaung-Tzu,The Tao of Perfect Happiness.
Translation and Annotation, by Livia Kohn)

(The image is from this http://theplayfulom.com/tag/chuang-tzu/)

 

How sleep is also a movement of the mind

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Abhava pratyayaylambana vrittir nidra

I am reading four  translations/interpretations of the Sutras, to try to grasp the core of what these terse verses say. One interpretation is by I.K. Taimini, another is by B.K.S.Iyengar, and another one by Shyam Ranganathan.

The most exciting is the one by Swami Satyanandaji, because he talks in a very down-to-earth fashion. His book Four Chapters on Freedom is a must-read commentary by those who really want to crack the Sutras.

So, here,in this verse the idea of sleep is taken on, as a movement of the mind.
Sleep as in the actual physical state of sleep or not being conscious. This one, all interpreters say, are very very tricky. The mind appears to be devoid of movement in this state, but actually it is only that there is no record of what is happening in the mind. There is still movement. Even those who close their eyes and believe they have "attained", they too are not aware that the blankness is also a movement. Those who shut off and see "visions", they too have become attached to this state and therefore, have again invited the movement of the mind.
The absolute nirbhija (without any seed/latent tendency of the mind) Samadhi is the only real state. Rest of the others are all movements of the mind, and must be restrained.
Here Swami Satyanandaji winds up his commentary on this state with this punchline: "It is supposed that Samadhi is a state of absolute unconsciousness, whereas it is actually the opposite."

Stopping the mind, a stage of yoga

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When the mind is restrained, Patanjali promises, the seer will shine in his/her own splendor. But what is that thing that requires to be stopped...what is its nature. Patanjali goes on to express that it is the "mind waves" which are five-fold. And of these,even right knowledge is a movement of the mind.,

Right knowledge.
Wrong knowledge.
Delusion.
Sleep.
Memory.

It is exciting because, the mind slips in and out of these modifications,creating the illusion of the I and it becomes attached to these modifications, and stops being its true self.

And this stopping of the mind, could be a life-long work in progress.

Here, his other words that explain first what must be done, and why. And then, going on to break up the thing that needs to be stopped. And if it were not stopped, what happens to the mind.. it loops back into itself and becomes a limited ego, where it is invited to become the cosmos.

CHAPTER I, VERSE FOUR

Vritti Swarupayam Itaratra


Chapter 1, VERSE SIX
Pramana Viparyaya Vikalpa Nidra Smrtyaya

 

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Patanjali revisted: the exhilaration of yoga

 

Patanjali is surely the most ancient and precise of ancient psychotherapist, neuroscientist and psychologist rolled into one. He is, and I say that without intending any hyperbole, far ahead of those in these field today.

 

Whenever I read his terse verses and with whatever interpretation, I always experience goosebumps.

I want to spend the next year trying to reconstruct his verses into my practice as an everyday, every moment experience.

 

Here, in just two verses, right the beginning of his treatise, he throws the gauntlet at you (Chapter 1: verse 2/3)

 

Yogsch citta vritti nirodah

Tada drastuh svarupe avastanam

 

 

So much meaning in so few words: Yoga means stopping the mind's oscillations.

Then (then) the witness shines in his own splendor.

 

The first part appears easy enough. By the time you swoop into trying to understand the following part, already the mind's oscillations set in..

 

And what is now, at this phase of my yoga practice is so exhilarating, is the clarity towards the desire to reach that stillness .. mumukshutva..no fake silence, the real thing!

 

 

 

 

 

Dharma thoughts: its just about remembering

Prachi, my student who think is more like a little guru to me, once said that some of us feel like aliens in this world perhaps because we are from some oth

er part of the universe. And maybe we are homesick. And then, any case, as all the philosophies assure us -- this lifetime would pass in a blink and we would have made this one part of a whole package of  lifetimes. Adi Shankaracharya says we have to go  through 84 lakh lifetimes to come to this human state which gets a glimmer of the cosmic truth. So, maybe it is all just a rite of passage and we would be past this life, too, in a jiffy.
All of this life, mirage, as all the Saints say, would not matter at all.  Why does that idea offer relief! For those of us being buoyed by a spiritual momentum, there is something very soothing about that thought! Others may fret, and crave a longer life or possibly a deathless state!

Here is Buddha's quote and was he saying the same thing?
"You will forget
and your mind
will lead you away from yourself
Remembrance will lead you home. "

I recall how in Laghu Yoga Vasistha translated by K Narayanaswami Aiyer the world is depicted as a mirage like thing, unreal as  to a child born of a woman married to a reflection. I tried to dig out the quote but could not find it today. But it is an exhilarating quote that speaks of the world in quantum terms, as an image that whose only reality is that it is unreal.

It seems some of us want something that is not of this world. Listen to this Sufi quote:
He (God) asked me, "Bayazid, what do you want."
I replied , "I want what you want."
God was pleaseand said
I am yours and you are Mine."
Shaykh Bayazid Bistami.
 

Will power: it is not about winning

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Here is a beautiful definition by Ramana Maharishi on will power. We have been taught it wrong by our care-taker generation that was ahead of us --  our parents, our teachers, our leaders have made it out that will power is about succeeding always. Ramana says it is actually about trying, come what may. And also, it adds up to equipoise whatever the result.
 How elegant that definition is.. how sophisticated. The way we have been taught about will power -- it is aggressive, competitive and conflicting and leaves us dissatisfied at having tried, if we did not succeed. Our definition of will power is designed to makes us restive and unhappy!

Here is Ramana's definition:
"Your idea of will power is success insured. Will power should be understood to be the strength of mind which makes it capable  of meeting success or failure with equanimity. It is not synonymous with certain success. Why should one's attempts be always attended with success? Success develops arrogance and the man's spiritual progress is thus arrested. Failure on the other hand is beneficial, in as much as it opens the man's eyes to his limitations and prepares him to surrender himself. Self surrender is synonymous with eternal happiness. Therefore one should try to gain the equipoise of mind under all circumstances. That is will-power. Again success and failure are results of prarabhdha and not of will-power, "
 

Monkey mind: even the intellect is suspect!

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The big thing that surfaced, after years of meditation, is the idea that one's own awareness can actually be spiritually disturbing. That the awareness becomes a trigger for extroverting the mind, and thus, it actually ruins it from its steadiness of fixed intention on THAT. It was such a shock when this surfaced, like scum on top of already turgid water. Because awareness itself was born of intense meditation..So, you suddenly appreciate what Ramana suggests -- it is work, and constant work, of meditation till your mind becomes crystal clear, from the trying...

Here is how awareness/which I  believe is triggered by the intellect (referred in yoga as buddhi) can interfere and disturb you from remembering That, if not watched out for. From the words of Swami Niranjananda in his latest book which I've just acquired: Mind, mind management and Raja yoga



Buddhi is of two types : firm and negotiable. The firm buddhi denotes firmness of nature, idea, thought and knowledge. You are not oscillating, vacillating and fluctuating in your thoughts, ideas and perceptions.  That firmness and clarity is the decided inteligence nischatyatmika buddhi, the stable buddhi. The fluctuating nature vyavasayatmika buddhi.

Most of the time, it is the negotiable buddhi that is active in you.

When buddhi is not used properly, it becomes clouded. Buddhi is also the source of all passions and desires. When vasanas become strong, then the colour of buddhi changes completely. It is similar to ink being mixed with water. If black ink is mixed into a glass of clear water the entire coulor of water will change.