From the way of suggestion to the way of knowledge
Different are the ways of meditation. Before to face the major aspects of this article’s subtitle, I think it is important to precise that words as “meditation” and “to meditate” are improperly used if referred to oriental practices. These terms, in fact, come from the Latin word “mens” and refer to the “mental” aspect and its activity.
What the oriental people want to reach, with their interior practices, is surely oriented toward different directions: they want to have experience of the “mental” trying to pass it and reach “extraordinary” states of contemplation that coincide with states of conscience different from the common ones, in which man identify himself with the content of his mind. As Indian culture affirms, what is into mental, it results from the impressions determined in us by life’s happenings, through the senses.
I would compare happenings to stored movie films, that are our historical memory. Through a particular and complex mechanism, these films are proposed to the “conscious” and elaborated, I would say “re-painted”, by our inner director and its feelings. It is in continuous evolution and sees them by continuously modifying them.
Anyway, it is the past, even if re-elaborated, and when there is a lack of conscience it is unfortunately mistaken as if it was the present. I want to underline that when we are into the “mental”, we’re always in touch with something already happened, even if produced by our senses only a moment before. Oriental ways are engaged since thousand of years in trying to bring man back into the present and trying his conscious testing.
Also for this reason, a more suitable term to define these practices could be “contemplation”. Especially according to Indian traditions, contemplation gets a so great importance that it is considered decisive in spiritual practices to obtain inspiration. Anyway, we always have to face the mental part, and ancient masters purposed different methods to obtain the overcoming of its content: they are induction, suggestion, deceit, slowdown of activity, concentration, etc.
The way of deceit, for example, implies the knowledge and study of proceeds used by the mental to move around them with astuteness; the way of “Slowdown” is followed by reducing mental activity through appropriated relax and ascetic techniques; the way of refined unique concentration elects as its preferred instruments mantra, yantra, and any other instrument that makes easier the focus of mind in one single point.
In some case, it is allowed to pass through a state of super-excitation through a specific charge, that tends to uniform cerebral waves until they become a unique wave of the same kind. If this wave lasts for a long time, it originates a particular state of extraordinary concentration. The practice, anyway, that is considered more productive by most masters is the practice that develops the “vairagya” or detach. This one, that promotes the capacity of contemplating oneself mental, and not be involved by it, is the way of knowledge.
Let’s go a bit behind and consider some common method, especially used in western yoga schools, based on induction or self-suggestion. I think they are the result of a healthy approach that the West uses in relation with Oriental disciplines, but they result, in my opinion, very distant from the highest goals of these disciplines. These techniques consist in being seated down on the floor, closed eyes, and, as first experience, to practice the awareness of one’s physical level.
Through the awakening of attention it is possible to become aware of the discomfort or suffering state on this level. It is shown by the presence of different tensions located in the different parts of the body. Normally, tensions are removed by the relaxation of these parts, by inducing a state that is different from the previous state. Similarly, we proceed with the spontaneous respiratory act: it is induced a rhythm that recall states of bigger peace and serenity that reflect also on emotional level.
At the end, through self-suggestion, most of times caused by evocation of pleasant images, we can modify mind’s content. I repeat that this is maybe the most used method in western yoga schools and also in the “less engaged” oriental schools. This method is healthy “for a short time” but, as I stated before, very distant from the high goals of the “Yoga of Knowledge”. The objective knowledge is such as it only if it is not modified by the participation of the person who meditates. In the highest way we proceed by developing the spectator’s qualities and, with exercise, we learn to be involved as less as possible.
The technique is as follows: the student sits down in meditation position and in the first phase learn to contemplate his body and not to intervene, simply taking awareness of its tensions. He does the same with the breathing: he contemplates spontaneous breathing without modifying its rhythm. At the end, that is more difficult, he tries to observe with detach the content of his mind...just as a developed spectator should do in a cinema.
He should always be aware that images on the screen are not the objective reality, but the projection of the filmmaker’s mind. This right behaviour does not bring to involvement in a “false” such as a movie that is always seen by “non-awake” spectators as the real. Go to watch a horror movie and see how many are the spectators not involved by it.
To go back to meditation techniques, Vairagya or detach allows, when you become very good on it, to face the deepest levels of subconscious and unconscious and set them free to live in awareness. In this way, with no involvement, we can know their real nature and origins and be free from impressions that are around them. They will be useful as memory-experience, but will not be able to create disease nor impediment to 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 super-structures built by the ego. This is the way of liberation and knowledge.
by Amadio Bianchi