Non-Attachment: From Meditation to Samadhi

Non-attachment to the perceptions of the world - non-attachment to our ideas of its people, places, things and situations - is an essential component of spiritual practice, irrespective of religious tradition. "In the end what matters most," reads a banner in my living room, "is how well did you live, how well did you love, how well did you learn to let go." Poignant words, for one day we all have to let go of everything, and all that will attest to our being here this time around, is how well we lived our lives and how well we loved the beings we encountered.

In his enlightening book, "How to Know God: The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali" (written with Christopher Isherwood), Swami Prabhavananda notes that "(i)f we try to concentrate (in meditation) while remaining attached to the things of this world, we shall fail altogether or our newly acquired powers of concentration will bring us into great danger, because we shall inevitably use them for selfish, unspiritual ends." (He points to the violent excesses of the twentieth-century as evidence of what happens when man concentrates on science "without unlearning his attachment to nationalistic power.")

But how, then, are we to learn such detachment from the ego and its desires for the objects and ambitions that the world presents? "We must begin," says Prabhavananda, "by cultivating attachment to the highest object we can conceive of, to God himself."

First, he suggests, concentrate upon a spiritual ideal - Christ, Krishna, the Buddha, or his own teacher, Ramakrishna - and as attachment to that ideal is generated, lesser attachments to the people, places and things of the world slip away. This, Prabhavananda says, effects non-attachment at the level "of gross phenomena."

Next, Prabhavananda suggests, as meditation and contemplation on our ideal progresses, we lose attachment to the ideal as we gain understanding to the spirit within him or her. At that stage, he observes, we move "from the level of gross phenomena to the subtle or spiritual level." At this point, "(w)e shall no longer admire a Christ or a Ramakrishna as human beings within time, but we shall worship them as eternal, spiritual beings. We shall know them in their divine aspect."

From there, says Prabhavananda, there is a third stage, or "third level of consciousness" that transcends even attachment to these subtle forms. "For behind Christ," he points out, "behind Ramakrishna, behind any conception of a personal God, there is Brahman, the Ground, the central Reality of which these figures are only partial, individual projections."

"When we become united with Brahman," Prabhavananda notes, "we are united with That which was manifested in Christ and hidden within our unregenerate selves, but which is eternally present in all of us. And this union is the state of nirvikalpa samadhi."

In describing just what nirvikalpa samadhi is, Prabhavananda leans on the following description by the great seventh-century Vedantist teacher, Shankara:

"There is a continuous consciousness of the unity of Atman and Brahman. There is no longer any identification of the Atman with its coverings. All sense of duality is obliterated. There is pure, unified consciousness. The man who is well established in this consciousness is said to be illumined."

"A man is said to be free even in this life when he is established in illumination. His bliss is unending. He almost forgets this world of appearances.

"Even though his mind is dissolved in Brahman, he is fully awake, free from the ignorance of waking life. He is fully conscious, but free from any craving. Such a man is said to be free even in this life."

"For him, the sorrows of this world are over. Though he possesses a finite body, he remains unitied with the Infinite. His heart knows no anxiety. Such a man is said to be free even in this life."

Thus, beyond the attachments of the ego to the things of the world, there lies available to us a higher consciousness in which may be found the "peace that surpasseth all understanding."  (Phillipians 4:7)

Quantum Physics, Consciousness and the 'Ground of Being'

Dr. Amit Goswami, director of the
Centre for Quantum Activism, board
member of the Institute of Noetic Sciences.

Anyone who has seen the thought-provoking film, "What the Bleep Do We Know!?" will instantly recognize Dr. Amit Goswami, who is featured throughout the film. Dr. Goswami "is a theoretical nuclear physicist and a member of The University of Oregon Institute for Theoretical Physics since 1968, teaching physics for 32 years," before recently retiring. (He is currently a director of the Centre for Quantum Activism, and sits on the advisory board to the Institute of Noetic Sciences.)

"After a period of distress and frustration in his private and professional life starting at the age 38, his research interests shifted to quantum cosmology, quantum measurement theory, and," perhaps most famously, "applications of quantum mechanics to the mind-body problem." [Source: Wikipedia]

In a three-part interview on the interrelationship of quantum physics and consciousness, Dr. Goswami notes that quantum physics is "giving us a new world view that shows clearly how consciousness can be, and is, the ground of our being."

"Quantum physics," says Dr. Goswami, "enables us to see directly that we can make sense of the world only if we base the world on consciousness. (The) world is made of consciousness; (the) world is consciousness; (and) consciousness is the ground of being." (Note the deliberate and repeated use of the term 'ground of being,' a term in use for millennia in the Vedanta tradition as a descriptor of Brahma, or, in Western conventional terms, God.)

"Quantum mathematics, which in our belief is the most fundamental mathematics, the most accurate mathematical description of nature, that we have discovered," continues Goswami, "says clearly that the movement of objects are describable only in terms of possibilities, not the actual events that happen in our experience."

"If we accept this," he says, "then the question immediately becomes who, (or) what chooses amongst these possibilities to bring the actual event (into) experience. So we directly, immediately, see that consciousness must be involved. The observer cannot be ignored.  The observer is part of the description of the world."

But since we cannot explain, and quantum mathematics does not include a description of the observer, Dr. Goswami concludes, "we get the idea that the subject must be more fundamental than the objects; (that) consciousness is more fundamental; (that) consciousness must be the ground of being of which objects are part, but not all of it."

To Abide in One's True Nature: Satchitananda

"Do not be conformed to the
world; rather, be transformed
by the renewal of your mind."

(Romans 12:2)

"What is the true nature of man?," asks Swami Prabhavananda, co-author (with Christopher Isherwood) of "How to Know God: The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali."

"Satchitananda brahman," he says, in the attached video. "Pure consciousness, life eternal, and abiding love, and infinite joy. That is your true nature, which is one with Brahma. And when . . . the mind is kept under complete control, your true nature is revealed to you."

There are two types of knowledge, Prabhavananda notes, "scientific or analytical knowledge" and "transcendental vision" or "yogic knowledge, realization and experience." This second type of knowledge, he notes, can only be attained when a man realizes and abides in his true nature as satchitananda brahman. "Then it is," says Prabhavanda, "that he has attained the purpose, the fulfillment of human birth (and) human life."

In "How to Know God," Prabhavanda and Isherwood explain that, "(k)nowledge or perception is a thought wave (vritti) in the mind," and that "(a)ll knowledge is therefore objective."

"When an event or object in the external world is recorded by the senses," they explain, "a thought-wave is raised in the mind. The ego-sense identifies itself with this wave. If the thought-wave is pleasant, the ego-sense feels, "I am happy;" if the wave is unpleasant, "I am unhappy."

"This false identification," they note, "is the cause of all our misery - for even the ego's temporary sensation of happiness brings anxiety, a desire to cling to the object of pleasure and this prepares future possibilities of becoming unhappy."

"The real Self, the Atman," they observe, "remains forever outside the power of thought waves, it is eternally pure, enlightened and free - the only true, unchanging happiness."

"It follows, therefore," they say, "that man can never know his real Self as long as the thought-waves and the ego-sense are being identified. "In order (for us) to become enlightened," they conclude, "we must bring the thought-waves under control so that this false identification may cease."

"Do not be conformed to the world; rather, be transformed by your mind," says Saint Paul: (Romans 12:2). "We have to  . . . unlearn the false identification of the thought-waves with the ego-sense," say Prabhavananda and Isherwood. "This process of unlearning involves a complete transformation of character, a "renewal of the mind," as St. Paul puts it."

["How to Know God," pages 18-19.]