"Yoga in Life- Sahaja" continued Posted by Kalyani Bose on July 24, 2010 at 11:09am in KALYANI BOSE'S DISCUSSION CORNER
Discussion "Sahaja is a state that can be defined as folows:'That which is born in you that which is born with you.' The body, the spirit, the impulse of life, the divine intelligence- all are there.Nothing must be rejected or mutilated so that one and the same thing can be consciously established.
"That is why Samkhya, which is the path to attain the state of sahaja, speaks a great deal of the waking state which is the normal level of all activity.It also speaks of the state of consciousness interiorized in dreams, which later becomes the state of deep sleep. The fourth state, that of inner awakening, is witness of deep sleep. Shankaracharya, in his philosophy gives information related to these four different state.
"In sahaja, there is a fifith state, that of a totally awakened consciousness which contains in itself these four states of wakefulness, dream, deep sleep, and the state in which the deep sleep is witnessed. There is no longer any differentiation between the various states, all of them being unified at a single point."
The detailed discussion on the four states of consciousness, i.e. Jagrat, Swapna, Sushupti and Turiya, in the Mandukaya Upanishad is well known .
Sri Anirvan has mentioned somewhere else that effort should be made to stay awake during Sushupti (the third state) ghumie jaga as well as to be in the meditative trance during waking hours ljege ghumano, and that is the quality of aYogi mentioned in the Srimad Bhagavatgita.
The fifth state he has mentioned ~ Turiyatita ~ is the highest state.
Replies
Mrinalini,
I liked your reference to Witness self, which is in truth, the basis of meditation. But about Drona and the Pandavas, I think what Drona wanted to hint at was concentration and not meditation. What we call meditation today, for lack of proper vocabulary is really Dhyana, which again is the combination of meditation, concentration and contemplation.
Mary, I do not think,anybody can attain the states of consciousness, the way S.A.has mentioned it here. IT IS. An aspirant can enter into That only to that extent as his/her individual consciousness is in tune with That. For example, I am sitting on my porch and a bird is singing. I can be fully aware, somewhat aware or completely unaware, is it not?
The problem with meditation is absolutely universal. But as S.A. has mentioned in Inner Yoga (Antar Yoga, in Bengali) , one has to be in a kind of meditative mood to be in meditation at the appointed time. I have found some improvement if I prepare myself may be from half an hour earlier. Though I am doing all my chores, but if mentally I look forward to my meditation, it helps.
Bravely said. Actually this is the only way to meditate as Sri Anirvan advises - being aware of each moment and what is happening as it unfolds.
Be the Witness, the one who observes everything which is going on with great interest.
Savour the honey of each sensation. Do not think of past and future. Let everything else go.
I find it so difficult to talk about states of consciousness when I feel so far removed from their atainment.
In meditation, for example, I am either wide awake and struggling with distracting thoughts, or I fall asleep and lose awareness. This is why, I find ordinary waking consciousness to be quite challenging enough for me at the moment. The exercise of awareness in everything as it unfolds moment by moment, accepting my limitations but not remaining too comfortable within them, is my spiritual practice.
In a great challenge, Drona set up a wooden bird upon a tree, and from across the adjacent river, asked the princes to shoot it down by striking its eye. When prince Yudhisthira tries first, Drona asks him what he saw. Yudhisthira replies he saw Drona, his brothers, the river, the forest, the tree and the bird. Drona replies that Yudhisthira would fail and asks another prince to step forward. The others give the same reply, and Drona is disappointed with all. But when Arjuna steps forth, he tells Drona that he sees only the eye of the bird and nothing else. When Drona excitedly asks him to continue, Arjuna replies that he saw only the bird's eye. Drona asks him to shoot, and Arjuna strikes the wooden bird down in the eye.
Now I am confused. Sri Aniran says Be alert, and be in meditation, at the same time. This is like seeing Drona, his brothers, the river, the forest, the tree and the bird, the whole world, as well as hitting the eye of the wooden bird. hfow to manage?