ANNAPURNA SARADA, Tuesday, May 5, 2015 9:17 am

Many Paths, One Way – Part 4

Over the past month this discussion has zeroed in on my teacher’s statement that there are many paths to realization but only one way – renunciation.  This teaching is even given to householders in the context of his teacher’s statement that “renunciation is not condemnation, but deification.”  Sri Ramakrishna also gave that teaching, that the monks/nuns are to renounce both outwardly and inwardly, but the householder must renounce inwardly.  Early on in his teaching of the SRV sangha, Babaji gave us a three point reference to what must be renounced: the sense of ownership, agency, and separation.  We have been discussing each of these from different approaches (hence, many paths, but one way).  These approaches rely heavily on an intellectual understanding inculcated in the Vedanta scriptures.  We will pause here and discuss the importance of clarifying the mental apparatus.

Vedanta accepts the supremacy of knowledge for the purification of mind and destruction of ignorance.  Sri Krishna states in the Gita, “In all the worlds there is no purifier like knowledge.”  Throughout the Vedantic scriptures, the sages go to great lengths to explain the nature of Reality, the Self, the embodied soul, Nature, and Maya, with a view to clarifying the mind of the root misreading (vivarta) that the Self is the body, energy, mind, intellect, or ego; in other words, removing the assumption that Reality can possibly be matter, energy, or thought.

Some Western seekers complain that Vedanta is too intellectual, and then gravitate to emotion-based practices.  Others, further along in their studies and practice, may sometimes wonder if they are only falling into intellectualism – “so many teachings, but where is the direct experience?”  One of the teachings in Tantra* informs the sincere aspirant that inner experience without recognition of what it means will fail the seeker in the end.  An example of this comes from one of Sri Ramakrishna’s analogies.  He described a kind of lotus that blooms easily on a perfectly clear day, but which closes up immediately when even a trace of clouds cross in front of the sun.  He is referring to those persons who, in a cycle of sattva, experience samadhi, but quickly fall out of it, unable to hold it, when the usual trials of life return. The point here is that initial intellectual understanding is utterly necessary to prepare the mind for higher states of awareness.  It will clarify the difference between the Self and the not-Self, Reality and relativity, the Unchanging and the changing.  The result will then be equanimity in the face of the dualities of life, disinterest in psychic powers and other forms of sensationalism, and the ability to distinguish between real spiritual experiences and mere movements of the unripe ego.  All praises be to the great Seers and their powers of intellectual acumen and spiritual discrimination!

Renouncing the sense of agency, continued

Renouncing the sense of agency has previously been looked at from the standpoint of jnana yoga, karma yoga, and bhakti yoga.  The path of raja yoga, the way of meditation, offers another method of discrimination based upon analysis of the elements, senses, and mind, comprising the twenty-four cosmic principles.  This analysis reveals many things to the practitioner, such as: the temporality of matter; the origin of one’s attachment or aversion to certain elements, senses, and their objects (like taste, sound, odor, etc.), and how elements, senses, and mind appear in various states of consciousness, to name a few.  This analysis leads to the conviction that the Self is the witness of all phenomena, completely separate from and unaffected by matter – gross, subtle, and causal – and that everything exists in the Self.  Before this state is reached, the unrefined mind and intellect are not seeing objects and situations in their proper perspective because the Seer (Self) has become identified with the seen (matter).  One of Patanjali’s teachings in the Yoga Sutras is summarized thusly:

“Beings suffer via bondage to pleasure as a result of performing actions because of attraction and aversion to matters they have assumed to be accurate based upon unstable vrttis of the mind.”

In the course of analyzing the cosmic principles, the adept practitioner traces the origin of phenomena to “seeds” in the mind (not in the Self) that sprout forth by the power of “desire-based thought action” (sankalpa) of the mind.  The unrefined mind and unripe ego do not seek to control sankalpa, being weighed down by the six passions of desire, anger, lust, pride, jealousy, and delusion, thereby falling prey to the infinite distractions possible in such a mixture.   The unstable vrittis, mentioned in the quote above, are thoughts and emotions that arise based upon taking projected matter (as senses, objects, and situations) to be real and relatable to oneself, and presuming that they are capable of giving or preventing happiness.  Thus, the search for pleasure continues, which brings its opposite, suffering, as well.  All the while the bliss of the Self is ever present, though hidden.  When one realizes that the source of happiness, joy, and bliss are in the Self rather than in the phenomena projected by the mind, then sankalpa is controlled via peaceful contentment.  Then the sense of agency fueled by desire evaporates – even though action continues.

Those unfamiliar with raja yoga, the path of meditation, may read this and wonder, “Where is the meditation in this path?  This sounds like study rather than meditation.” The second verse of the Yoga Sutras states that yoga is attained by destruction of the mind’s waves (Yoga chitta vritti nirrodha).  Destruction of the mind’s waves (thoughts) and the attainment of yoga requires a great deal of mental purification so that the mind does not veer away from or out of concentration, meditation, and samadhi. Most practitioners cannot take their minds off the objects of the senses at will; fewer still are able to concentrate the mind and achieve ekagra (one pointedness), which is necessary for meditation.  So the path of meditation has much more to it than merely sitting with the eyes closed.  As Sri Krishna states in the Gita, in summary, “That one who renounces the physical objects but continues to brood on them in the mind is a hypocrite.”  Carefully and sincerely following the methods of Raja Yoga will cure us of being hypocrites.  And as we can see, renunciation is needed for true meditation.

Engaging in spiritual practice prior to the initiation and implementation of advised preliminary disciplines, results in failure to comprehend the teachings, to act in accordance with the dharma, to worship in the right spirit, and to meditate properly.” – Babaji Bob Kindler

“If you have known Atman as the one Existence and that nothing else exists, for whom, for what desire do you trouble yourself?” – Swami Vivekananda

“Fully realizing that nothing whatsoever is really done by the Self, I do whatever presents itself to be done and so I live happily.” – Ashtavakra Samhita

* Two qualifications of the Tantric student are that one be a nondualist, and also devoted to the scriptures (Dvaitahina and Astika).

To be continued…

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