From the way of suggestion to the way of Knowledge
Various are the ways of meditation. Before to
examine the main aspects of this article’s title, I want to
clarify that the words “to meditate” and “meditation” are
improperly used if referred to the oriental practices. These
terms, in fact, come from the Latin word “mens” and so
unequivocally refer to the “mental” and its activity.
What the oriental, through these inner practices, wants to
achieve surely goes into different directions: to essay the
mental and try to come through it to reach “extraordinary”
states of contemplation, that are states of conscience different
from the common ones, in which man identifies himself with the
content of his mind.
As the Indian culture states, what is in the mental comes from
the impressions that the facts of life determined into us
through the senses. Let me say that the happenings are
comparable to filed movies’ films that are our historical
memory. Through a particular and complex mechanism, these films
are presented again to the conscious and revised, or
“re-colored”, by our inner director and by his feelings. He is
in continuous evolution and revises the films by always
modifying them. It’s always the past, even if revised, and when
there is no knowledge it’s unfortunately exchanged for the
present. I want to underline once more that, when we’re in the
mental, we’re always in contact with something that already
happened, even if produced by senses few instants before.
The oriental ways are engaged since thousands of years in the
attempt of bringing man into the present by purposing him to
test it into the conscience. Also for that reason, a more
appropriate term to define these practices could be
“contemplation”. And, especially in the Indian traditions, the
contemplation assumes big importance, so that it is considered
determining, in the spiritual practices, for the illumination.
Anyway, we always have to confront ourselves with the mental,
and the ancient masters purposed different methods to obtain the
overcoming of its content: they go from the induction or
suggestion to the deceit, from the slow down of the activity to
the univocal and refined concentration. The deceit’s way, for
example, involves the knowledge and the study of the processes
used by the mental to cunningly avoid them: the way of the “slow
down” is followed with the reduction of the mental activity
through appropriated relaxation’s or ascetic techniques; the way
of the refined univocal concentration elects as its favorite
instruments the mantra, yantra, and every other instrument that
makes easier the mind’s focusing into one point.
In some case it’s permitted to pass through a state of
over-excitement through a specific charge, that tends to uniform
the cerebral waves until they become a unique wave of the same
type. If this wave is kept for a long time, it originates a
particular state of extraordinary concentration.
The practice, anyway, considered more productive by most of
masters is the one that develops the “vairagya” or detachment.
This one, that promotes the capacity to contemplate oneself
mental, without becoming involved, is believed to be the way of
the knowledge.
Let’s make a step back again, and consider some common method
used in the Occidental Yoga schools, based on the induction or
self-suggestion. I think they are a consequence of the health
approach that the occident acts towards the oriental
disciplines, but they are, in my opinion, far away from the
higher aims of these disciplines.
These techniques consist in sitting down on the floor with
closed eyes and, as first experience, to practice the awareness
of your physical level. Through the attention’s wakening it’s
possible to become aware of the state of discomfort or suffering
on this level. It manifests itself with the presence of various
tensions in different areas of the body. Normally, the tensions
are removed through the relaxation of these parts, by inducting
a state different from the one has been found.
In the same way we proceed with the spontaneous respiratory act:
we induce a rhythm that recalls states of bigger tranquility and
serenity that reflect themselves also on the emotional level.
In conclusion, through the self-suggestion, most of time induced
with the evocation of pleasant images, the mind’s content can be
changed. I say again that maybe this is the most used method in
the Yoga schools, both occidental and less “engaged” oriental
ones. This method is “provisionally” healthy, but, as I stated
before, far away from the purposes of the Yoga of the
“Knowledge”.
The knowledge is objective only if not modified by the
participation of the person who meditates. In the higher way, we
go ahead by developing the spectator’s quality and, with the
exercise, we learn to be less involved. The technique is almost
the following one: the student sits down in meditation position
and in the first phase he learns to contemplate his body without
intervening, simply by taking note of his tensions. The same he
does with the breath: he contemplates the spontaneous breath
without modifying its rhythm. Finally, the most difficult thing,
he tries to observe with detachment the content of his mind…just
as an “evolved“ spectator should do into the cinema.
He should always be conscious that he’s seated, that he breathes
and that the images on the screen are not the objective reality,
but a projection of the director’s mind. That right behavior
doesn’t bring to the involvement in a “false” as it can be a
movie that often is exchanged for the real by the non “awakened”
spectators. Go to a cinema in which is shown a horror film and
see how few are the spectators who are able not to get involved.
To go back to meditation’s practices, the Vairagya or detachment
allows, while the ability of the person who’s meditating becomes
more refined, facing the deepest stratus of the subconscious and
unconscious by setting them free to live them again in the
conscious.
In this way, without getting involved, we can know their real
nature and origin and free us from the impressions that cover
them. They will come back to be useful as memory-experience, but
won’t create troubles or obstacles to the exploration of what is
beyond the mental.
To transcend the mental brings to know the
essential and real nature of things, not covered anymore by the
overtones made by the ego. This is considered the way of the
knowledge and liberation.
by Amadio Bianchi