Contemplative Practice and Disciplining the Mind

"You tell me nothing new; you are not the only one that is troubled with wandering thoughts. Our mind is extremely roving; but, as the will is mistress of all our faculties, she must recall them, and carry them to GOD as their last end."

"When the mind, for want of being sufficiently reduced by recollection at our first engaging in devotion, has contracted certain bad habits of wandering and dissipation, they are difficult to overcome, and commonly draw us, even against our wills, to the things of the earth."

"I believe one remedy for this is to confess our faults, and to humble ourselves before GOD. I do not advise you to use multiplicity of words in prayer: many words and long discourses being often the occasions of wandering. Hold yourself in prayer before GOD, like a dumb or paralytic beggar at a rich man's gate. Let it be your business to keep your mind in the presence of the LORD. If it sometimes wander and withdraw itself from Him, do not much disquiet yourself for that: trouble and disquiet serve rather to distract the mind than to re-collect it: the will must bring it back in tranquility. If you persevere in this manner, GOD will have pity on you."

"One way to re-collect the mind easily in the time of prayer, and preserve it more in tranquility, is not to let it wander too far at other times: you should keep it strictly in the presence of GOD; and being accustomed to think of Him often, you will find it easy to keep your mind calm in the time of prayer, or at least to recall it from its wanderings."

-- Brother Lawrence --
("The Practice of the Presence of God," VIII Letter)

That the undisciplined mind is restless, and goes where it will, is recognized in all religions. Indeed, disciplining the mind may be the central purpose of religion, as through disciplining the mind we attain to a higher and deeper consciousness in which we attain to the divine. "The mind is indeed restless, Arjuna," says Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, "it is indeed hard to train. But by constant practice and by freedom from passions the mind in truth can be trained. When the mind is not in harmony, this divine communion is hard to attain; but the man whose mind is in harmony attains it, if he knows and strives for it."

"(E)very mind, no matter its present nature, can ultimately be disciplined and transformed" observes Swami Prabhavananda in his commentary on Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, "(and) can be, in Patanjali's phrase 'one-pointed' and fit to attain to the state of perfect yoga." However, as he later notes, disciplining the mind requires both practice and effort.

"(T)he thought-waves cannot all be controlled at once," Prabhavananda observes. "First we have to overcome the "painful" thought-waves by raising waves which are "not painful." To our thoughts of anger, desire and delusion we must oppose thoughts of love, generosity and truth. Only much later, when the "painful" thought-waves have been completely stilled, can we proceed to the second stage of discipline; the stilling of the "not painful" waves which we have deliberately created."

"The idea that we should ultimately have to overcome even those thought-waves which are "good," "pure" and "truthful" may at first seem shocking to a student who has been trained in the Western approach to morality," notes Prabhavananda, "but a little reflection will show him that this must be so."

"The external world, even in its most beautiful appearances and noblest manifestations, is still superficial and transient," he notes. "It is not the basic Reality. We must look through it not at it to see the Atman."

"Certainly," he concedes, "it is better to love than to hate, better to share than to hoard, better to tell the truth than to lie. But the thought-waves which motivate the practice of these virtues are nonetheless disturbances in the mind. We all know instances of admirable, earnest men who become so deeply involved in the cares of a great reform movement or social relief project that they cannot think of anything beyond the practical problems of their daily work. Their minds are not calm." 

"The mind of the truly illumined man is calm," Prabhavananda concludes, "not because he is selfishly indifferent to the needs of others, but because he knows the peace of the Atman within all things, even within the appearance of misery, disease, strife and want."

 [Prabhavananda and Isherwood, " How to Know God: The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali," pp. 23-24.]

Blocking Out God: The Obstacles to Yoga

"The obstacles to yoga - such as acts of violence and untruth - may be directly created or indirectly caused or approved, they may be motivated by greed, anger or self-interest, they may be small moderate or great, but they never cease to result in pain and ignorance. One should overcome distracting thoughts by remembering this."

-- Patanjali, Yoga Aphorisim II:34 --

"Yoga," the word for religion in the East, is derived from the same Sanskrit word as the English word "yoke." It means to "tie" or "unite" - in this sense to unite or tie the inner Godhead with the Ultimate (which is God, Allah or Brahma) in consciousness - just as the yoke ties the oxen to a cart.

In "How to Know God: The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali," Swami Prabhavananda (along with Christopher Isherwood) observes that, "Everything we do, say, or think, or even indirectly cause or passively sanction, will inevitably produce consequences - good, bad, or composite - and these consequences will react in some measure upon ourselves. Our most secret ill-wishes towards others, our remotest permission of evil done to others, can only end by hurting us, by increasing our own ignorance and pain. This is an absolute law of Nature. If we could remember it, we should learn to control our tongues and our thoughts."

[Isherwood and Prabhavananda, "How to Know God," pp. 146-147.]

Thus, it is through our thoughts, actions and words, whether active or passive, which either connect us with the Godhead or sever our ties altogether. This is the nature of our karma - the law of cause and effect.  "As a man thinketh in his heart, so he is." (Proverbs 23:7)

"Every sin must be atoned for," writes Eric Butterworth, "(and) all karmic debt must be paid. "However," he notes, "the choice is ours whether we work it out in the cycle of retribution, through prolonged suffering "in the furnace of affliction," or whether our payment of debt is through the discipline of rising above the consciousness from which the act was committed into the freedom of spiritual understanding where we go forth and "sin no more."

"This," Butterworth notes, "is what Jesus called "forgiveness." It was the key to His tremendous ability to be instrumental in changing the lives of people. It is the key to healing and overcoming for us."

But, "(a)ll this notwithstanding," he observes, "we cannot overlook the underlying truth of the law of karma, the law of compensation. For it is basic in your life and mine. As we think, speak and act towards others, so will others think speak, and act toward us. As we give we receive. What we do to others comes back to us in some way at some time." (Emphasis added.)

[Eric Butterworth, "Discover the Power Within You," p.137.]

Thus, our inherent unity (or "yoking") with the Ultimate, the Ground of Being, Brahma, Allah or God, may either be severed by our wrong thoughts, speech and actions, or it may be renewed through the right thoughts, right words and right acts which raise our consciousness above the mundane to the divine. This is the reason behind the admonishment to "judge not, lest ye be judged," and the meaning of Jesus' observation that "my yoke is easy, and my burden light." His yoga, or religion, is "easy" in that all that is required is a shift in the focus of our consciousness, and the "burden" of such yoking is what the Buddhists call "the clear light of being," the Christians call "the mystic union," the Hindus call "moksha" and the rest of us simply call "enlightenment."

We are only separated from such clear light of consciousness by our thoughts, words and actions, but these are our karmic debts that must - and will - be repaid, in one form or another. Our task is to discharge such karmic debts, and thus unblock our pathway to such higher consciousness, by practicing right thoughts, right speech and right action.

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)

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.]