The Epistemology of Yoga

by Swami Krishnananda

There is no independent existence in any part of our personality. Neither is the body independent, nor is anything else. The body belongs to the five elements, the mind to the cosmic mind, the intellect to the cosmic intellect, the Atman to Brahman. So, what remains in us? We have nothing with us; we do not any more exist.

This gradual ascending from the body to the mind, from the mind to the intellect, from the intellect to the spirit is to be practised slowly, every day. The concentration of the mind should be on this ideal of a transference of the physical and psychological individuality to the sources thereof. Since we are very tightly bound to the physical body, in the beginning we have to maintain only a physical concept of reality. This is the philosophy behind idol worship and adoration of diagrams, portraits, etc. of divine beings, because at the present moment we cannot think anything which is non-physical. Even when we conceptualise objects in meditation, they are the counterparts of physical things that we have seen with our eyes or at least heard with our ears. It does not matter. The point in meditation is not the kind of object that we select for meditation, but the extent to which we are able to focus the attention of the mind entirely on that object. We have to understand the psychology of meditation, and the purpose behind it, in order that we may feel a sense of satisfaction within us. It does not matter what object we select for this purpose. The object is not what is important. What is happening to the mind at that time is important.

As I mentioned, the existence of the mind is like a network of relations centralised in a point called the ego. The purpose of meditation is to break this centre. Now the mind is maintained by relations, as a cloth is maintained by the threads. If the threads are not there, the cloth cannot be there. Likewise, if relations are not there, the mind cannot exist. The mind is only a name that we give to a relative centre of externalised contacts.

We can imagine this very well by contemplating a little over the very process of thinking itself. When we think, we always think something other than the mind itself. The mind does not think itself when it thinks. This process of thinking something other than thinking itself is called relation. This has to cease; and when this relation ceases, the mind cannot exist. It will be starved of its very existence, because the existence of the mind is nothing but the existence of relations. It is a fabric constituted of external, as well as internal, contacts with physical, as well as conceptual, objects. So, when the mind is concentrated on any particular point or object, or whatever it is, the relationship is focussed and gathered up by a mustering in of all the energy in one direction only.

The mind does not think only one thing throughout the day. It has got thousands of things to think—consciously as well as subconsciously. The attempt at meditation is to bring the mind to a focus of attention on one thing only, whatever that thing be. Therefore, the distractions of the mind are collected together into a single attention. This is what is important, and not the object that we are choosing. But, we cannot easily do that because we have no love for any one single object in this world. We cannot love anything entirely, wholeheartedly. All our loves are spilt over scattered objects which we remember now and then on different occasions as the pressure within is felt, but not continuously. We can neither love anything wholly, nor hate anything wholly.

But, there is a necessity in meditation to centralise the attention and not to scatter the attention in diverse things, either consciously or unconsciously. Hence, meditation is a very difficult process. We cannot bring the energies of the mind together into one point. We cannot concentrate on anything for a long time. Even the most endearing of things cannot attract our attention for days together, because it is not true that any particular thing is so very endearing to us. We are falsely under the notion that things are dear. They are dear only tentatively, for a particular purpose and under given circumstances, for a period only, and not throughout our life. Nothing can be endearing throughout our life. This is very important to remember. But, here is a necessity to make some point the object of our concentration forever and ever. Is this possible? If this is possible, we have succeeded in meditation.

We have no knowledge of the way in which our own mind works. We are totally ignorant of even our own mind, what to think of other things. There is a deceptive activity going on in the mind in the form of relations that we establish, internally as well as externally. We are perpetually being deceived by the activities of the mind. Inasmuch as we have somehow accepted the way in which the mind works, we have also accepted this deceitful activity, and so it is very pleasant. Meditation becomes unpleasant when we throw a counter-bolt on this natural activity of the mind.

In the earlier stages, all good things are unpleasant and all useless things are pleasant. This is what the Bhagavadgita makes out in one of its passages in the eighteenth chapter. Good things appear bitter in the beginning, but in the end they will become pleasant, like nectar. And, things which are going to bind us appear beautiful and pleasant in the beginning, but they will become bitter and poisonous in the end.

So is meditation, spiritual discipline—very unpleasant in the beginning. Nobody likes it, and they would like to get over it, get out of it as early as possible. How long can we sit for meditation? It is a very unpleasant thing. We feel it is a kind of torture that is imposed upon the mind. We rather go for a walk, chat with friends or watch television. Going to a movie, reading the newspaper and so on, are more pleasant than sitting and concentrating on one particular thing—which is hell itself. Nobody would like to do that, because the mind resents this activity.

Why does it resent this? Because it is a tendency to the death of the mind; and who likes such a tendency? We are trying to destroy the mind itself by this peculiar introduction of a discipline called meditation. The mind knows it, and so it will not permit such an activity. It understands. It senses some danger. “Something is coming before me that is not good for me.” So, it deceives us, distracts us and sidetracks us into misconceived notions even when we are honestly seated for meditation.

Doubts enter the mind; difficulties come. “Why are you seated here, useless person? Get up. You get nothing out of it, this very useless will-o-the-wisp,” says the mind. Buddha was told this. “Why, foolish man, are you sitting here? What are you going to gain? Nothing is going to come. It is a waste of time! Go to the palace. Be happy.” The mind will repeat this many times; and, a falsehood uttered one thousand times becomes true. We should be very guarded in this matter.

Again, I revert to the point of the psychology behind meditation. It is difficult because we cannot understand why we are meditating at all. We, ourselves, will develop certain doubts inside. “What is the matter with me? What is all this about, and what am I going to get out of it?” No amount of instruction in the lecture hall will have any effect upon the mind later on, when it is in a rebellious mood. Rebellious people do not listen to any advice. When the mind is revolting, nobody will help us. This is why it is said that a guide is necessary. That person will guide us.

This is the psychology of meditation. The point in meditation is not what object we are selecting, but what we are doing with our mind at the time of meditation. What we are doing during our meditation is important because the mind, as I mentioned, is a falsely-imagined centre of internal and external relationships, loves and hatreds—avidya-kama-karma, the granthi mentioned. Any concentration on one single point, either externally or internally, cuts off connections of the mind with relations other than this one relation that we have maintained with the conceptual object or physical object. The relation is still maintained, but with only one relation—not multifarious relations.

At present, we have hundreds of relations. We gather them up into a single relation, so the mind becomes very strong. Then it is focussed on one point, and thoughts begin to materialise when such effect is produced in the mind. A meditator’s mind is so strong that whatever he thinks, will happen. What he utters will take place. The words of a great yogi have such powerthat they will materialise. “It shall be like this; it must be like this.” If the mind thinks something, it shall take place.

This is so because the mind becomes so powerful, as a river becomes powerful when it is concentrated in one direction only. The river becomes very weak, and cannot move even a single log of wood, if it is diversified in a thousand ways. The power of the flow is irresistible when it is directed only in one channel. To repeat once again, the purpose of meditation is not external, but internal. It is not physical, but psychological. It is intended to break this centre inside us called the ego, the affirming principle, the I-ness which is connected to this body —which is not our property, which really belongs to the five elements.

Nothing is our property. We, ourselves, do not exist as we imagine ourselves to be. We belong to the cosmic substance —physically, psychologically, intellectually, spiritually. The Supreme Absolute alone is. Nothing else exists. It alone is, and all these particularities, including our own individualities, are limbs, as it were, of this Cosmic Being. Hence, meditation is a movement towards this great realisation of cosmic interconnection and Absolute Existence.

What happens in meditation? External relations are cut off, and a single relation is maintained—in the beginning with an external object, because we are used to thinking of external objects. It is advisable not to concentrate on the centre of the eyebrows or the heart in the earlier stages, because the mind will resent it much more than our instruction to the mind to concentrate on external things. To think something external is easier than to think something internal. Even the internal concentration is to be transcended later on, in a further stage, but we should not take immediate steps. Nothing should be done with haste. We have to be very cautious in dealing with everything.

Therefore, in the earlier stages, we have to take care that in meditation the mind is not given a sudden blow on the face. If that is done, we may be defeating our own purpose. Even when we lay an axe at the root of a tree, we do it stage by stage. At one stroke, the tree will not be felled. This axe that we deal at the tree of attachment is, therefore, also to be levelled stage by stage. The knots are untied, one after another. We don’t cut the Gordian knot; we untie the Gordian knot. The granthis, the knots of avidya-kama-karma, are to be untied—not broken through, as that is not a possibility.

If there are three knots, in the beginning we untie the first one, the second one next, and then the third one. In these knots of avidya-kama-karma, the knot of karma is cut first, kama afterwards, and avidya finally. We cannot cut avidya itself in the earlier stages, as the first knot cannot be untied unless the other knots are untied first. Avidya-kama-karma is a graduated knotting of individuality.

Therefore, first external withdrawal, then an internal withdrawal, and then, finally, a universal centralisation—these three may be said to be the essentialities in the stages of meditation.