[Advaita-l] ***UNCHECKED*** RE: 'I do not know' is bhāvarūpa ajnana

[Venkatraghavan S]

Namaste Sujal ji,

Thank you for sharing your experience. Your description of the meditative
process is quite similar to my encountered too.

Regards,
Venkatraghavan

On 13 Jun 2017 8:39 a.m., "Sujal Upadhyay via Advaita-l" <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

Pranams Sri bhaskar Prabhu ji,

Thank you for sharing this knowledge. What I feel is that yoga, or any
discipline helps one to gain control over mind i.e. thoughts, emotions and
images that float in front of you when you are meditating i.e. doing japa
on OM or practicing nidhidhyAsa - neti-neti. In other words, yoga i.e.
control over mind and making is still, helps a sincere seeker to get rid of
unwanted thoughts. Control over senses, i.e. Sama, dama, et al,
purushArtha-s as mentioned in viveka chuDAmaNi are also a conscious efforts
which are necessary to go deep in meditation where one bypasses thoughts
and other mental disturbances calming the 'constant inner chatter'.

The effect of diligent practice of yoga helps one qualify to realize
AtmaGYAna. A time comes when one gets rid of all thoughts and mental
disturbances as a result of sAdhanA (yoga or japa) and one experiences
either ever-expanding consciousness with no end or boundary or one
experiences 'non-dual' existence. In this case, as I understand, one is
till under mAyA. Though this state is extremely blissful and has lasting
effect, this is not supreme state.

Limited efforts cannot produce limitless results.

When one gets obsessed with kriyA-s or prANayam-s, then a time comes when
one cannot calm mind without practicing them. Due to daily practice, one
begins to naturally start doing prANayama or any kriyA that helps him/her
prepare for sAdhanA. It is this that causes problem. Hence, I think, it is
said that only GYAna results in moksha and not any kriyA (effort).

I personally feel that the purpose of yoga is to make one qualify to
experience nirvikalpa samAdhi. So is the case with OM japa or even
neti-neti. But neti-neti silences itself i.e. the thought process of 'I am
not this ...' dissolves by itself and only silence remains. After a flash
which blanks mind, one enters into a state that cannot be described. In
case of OM japa (my favourite), after OM silences, there is just silence,
same things happens - one enter into nirvikalp samAdhi.

In case of yoga, one does experiences calmness, but one has to even drop
the kriyA-s, attachment with prANa-s, chakra-s, kuNDalini and other subtle
bodies like manomaya kosha, etc to enter into stillness. After the
stillness, in point blank silence, one has to drop being witness of bliss
and 'non-dual' experiences. Maybe this is like a prakriti laya i.e. mind
merges in prakriti. After one bypasses the state of witness, without any
effort, one is sucked into a state which cannot be described. I think, in
yoga, finally one has to take help of Atma-GYAna from scriptures and drop
everything.

In yoga, one tunes into prANa, subtle bodies, chakra-s or anything else,
just like a bhakta tunes or gets emotionally attached with a form of
Brahman. In neti-neti, one does everything i.e. one does not tunes into
anything 'else'. Finally one has to detach oneself from our subtle bodies
and kriyA-s too.

I feel yoga is to control, but advaita sAdhanA is to drop the attachment
from the beginning.

But yoga and yogic practices are very helpful and will make your mind so
subtle, calm and strong that it is capable of practicing Sama, dama, etc
effectively thereby giving a strong push to go deeper.

After one crosses manomaya kosha, thoughts do not take any definite shape
like kAma-vAsanA will not take shape of any women that you are attacted to
or greed for food will not transform into images of delicacies or food
items that you like. In viGYanamaya kosha, before these desires (vAsanA-s),
which are unstable energies, are activated or fired up and begins to show
their power, pulling our consciousness into dream state, they get
destroyed. You now face raw energies.

You also realize that the vAsanA-s originate in mind, then it projects
itself in front, envolves you, you become part of the scene or incident
that plays in mind, and finally after some time, everything gets pulled
back into mind. So mind creates, preserves and dissolves. All that was
playing your one thing - mind. Mind was space / area where incident took
place, mind became various characters including you and then everything was
pulled back into mind.

I guess earlier response was last one from you, still I could not hold
myself to share my views.

OM

Sujal

On Tue, Jun 13, 2017 at 10:19 AM, Bhaskar YR via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> //However, the last three limbs, dhAraNa, dhyAna and samAdhi, have a
> different connotation in the Gita.//
>
> praNAms Sri Subbu prabhuji
> Hare Krishna
>
> Yes, this is what Sri SSS wants to highlight while agreeing with first
> five limbs of patanjala’s ashtAnga yOga.  It is in this light only Sri SSS
> denotes vedAnta’s one of the direct sAdhana-s i.e. nidhidhyAsana is NOT
the
> patanjali’s method of dhyAna.  adhyAtma yOga is an another work apart from
> geeta shAstrartha vivekaH which discusses this based on geeta’s 6th
chapter
> and katha shruti.
>
> He also observes in another work that according to some vyAkhyAnakAra
> shravaNa and manana means dhAraNa and nidhidhyAsana is dhyAna and darshana
> means samAdhi / brahma sAkshAtkAra ( the  materialization or actualization
> of the ultimate reality).  And this brahma sAkshAtkAra would remove the
> prapancha sAkshAtkAra (the dualistic world).  Prapancha rahita brahma
> sAkshAtkAra in the nirvikalpa samAdhi is the core teaching of this
> vyAkhyAna.
>
> Anyway, Sri Subbu prabhuji, kindly pardon me, this is my last mail to you
> with regard to this.
>
> Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
> bhaskar
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