Originally, only one purpose of meditation was intended: not to reach a state without thought but to consider a pointer offered until that point was understood. Consideration and understanding, not “motionless consciousness,” was the intent.
The I Am is about being, not about doing. When a person tries to force an over-active mind into a super-conscious state in which no thoughts are registering, at best that person is experiencing a fleeting event. And who is supposedly experiencing something? Of course profound meditative effects and trance-like states have been experienced. Yes, some cannot find the words to describe the rapturous state into which they are often absorbed during their regular period of meditation. Yes, thousands have traveled to France or India and have spent thousands to be taught how to enter into a trance or engage in walking meditation. For those who want to spend hours in a super-conscious state, so be it. But which is it to be? Is realization to result in being fully awake and aware or fully asleep and unaware? And the subsequent doings of all those types reveal that they are fixated in the third degree of separation from reality...in religious and/or spiritual roles. The realized are awake, aware, and conscious. They are not sleep-walking through life. For those who want to stay in a trance as much as possible, rock on. I, too, tried it all…prior to realization. After realization, it all just ended. No "one" decided to do or not to do. All the effort and work and disciplines and practices just ended. The fullness of freedom happened when consciousness recognized the emptiness of the body-mind-personality.
Those who came to the house or to other meeting places for Advaita sessions usually had jobs because they had bills to pay and responsibilities in the relative existence. They did not have the luxury of walking or working while in either a theta or super-conscious state. The relative existence did change, however, with the freedom from doing and with the watching of things happen…or not. Efficiency was not diminished as a result of being fully awake and totally conscious. Typical results are usually quite to the contrary. For those who want to work at experiencing a rapturous sensation, so it is. But once more it must be asked, “Who wants to be in a trance? Who wants to sense sensations…either physical, mental, or emotional? Who wants something? Who believes she or he is better than or different from the masses as a result of all their "spiritual work and effort and accomplishment"...all of which reinforces more belief in the falsehood of duality and separation? Who are these who believe they are better than they would be otherwise? Only personas. Does evidence exist that sitting or resting for a time each day might have a health benefit for a physical body? Of course rest benefits a body temporarily. So does exercise. Which of the two would help the body more, if persons think they can "choose"? Which do spiritual persons "choose" more often? Yet none of that is relevant in a discussion of the original intent of meditation assigned by sages who were leading students “on a journey.” The point is, meditation was originally assigned with one specific purpose. The one specific intent was to provide to a student an opportunity to consider pointers offered by the teacher, pointers that can eventually remove from personas the false belief in the illusion of person…persona…personality. After realization, who could have any remaining goal? The who ends. Originally, only one purpose of meditation was intended: not to reach a "state without thought" but to consider a pointer offered until that point was understood. Consideration and understanding, not “motionless consciousness,” was the intent. Realization is marked by the recognized presence of re-purified consciousness. Realization is never about giving persons the ability to control or suppress the movements of contaminated consciousness, and when modern-day meditative practices have that as a desire, then the presence of personality and role-assumption is revealed. Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued 4 Spetember 2005]
