Chapter 28: The Leap into the Unknown (Continued)

There are people in the world who will disturb our minds by telling us things contrary to what we seek. They’ll say, “You’re not all right; you’re stupid; you are on the wrong path; go on some other path; go to some other Guru,” and so on. There are also people who denigrate the whole path, saying that it is all nonsensical. This will be people’s logic, and we may find ourselves susceptible to it. If we allow this, then we will achieve nothing. There is yet again another kind of logic which will speak from inside our own selves. This is harder to face than the logic of the opinions of people around us. The mind’s logic is more powerful and difficult to face than the logic of people outside. The mind has a logic of its own, and it will counteract our arguments. There are two stages of the mind—the lower and the higher. We may be wondering, “Who is it that is speaking from within?” The mind can act like a double-edged sword. When the higher mind which uses sattvic logic takes to the act of concentration, the lower mind with its contrary kind of logic will be put down.

We should read the sixth chapter of The Light of Asia by Edwin Arnold. It is very interesting to read how the mind in its lower form will have its own logic, and what difficulties Buddha had to pass through in meditation, and what temptations exactly came to him. It is very beautifully described by the poet in this chapter. The mind’s logic is formidable, and the lower mind many times draws our attention wholly, and we are sometimes fully engrossed in the lower mind, and we cannot stand apart from it. We speak the language of the lower mind.

This is when we sink down to the lower level, and then we say, “I think so.” When we say, “I think” with the total reliance on our own lower selves, we only mean that we speak the devil’s language for the time being. We cannot stand apart from it, and we cannot know who is really speaking. It is like being a possessed person. The lower mind and the personality get mixed up, and we speak the language and the logic of the lower mind many a time when we become weak in our will and understanding. Do not be under the misapprehension that once we are motivated to undertake concentration of mind that we are always safe. We can also fall back, and there is a possible retrogression. The fall may be with such a thud that we don’t know what hit us. But we have to raise ourselves up again through the power of our will. The fall may be not merely due to our weakness of understanding, but also due to the force—we may call it the psychological gravitational pull—of the lower mind. Just as there is physical gravitation, there is also mental gravitation. The mind attracts just as physical bodies attract. The mind can pull us down to its own level of desire. The lower mind is nothing but a way of thinking in terms of sensory objects, while the higher mind is the mind thinking of reality. When the mind begins to sing the old song of its love for the objects of sense, then we are in the lower mind.

Overcoming Doubts

Again and again, doubts will harass us. “What is all this? Why should I not go elsewhere?” We begin to be involved in specious arguments, which are apparently logical, but faulty in their essence. These are specious arguments when we argue like a very wise person, but inside we are hollow, and what the mind speaks comes from this hollowness. We know about the temptations of the Buddha and Christ. We know what Satan told Christ. “Come, I will make you the Lord of all these things, and you can convert these stones into bread,” and many other things to which, of course, Christ turned his back. We have to be in a position to turn our backs against these temptations of the Satan who is inside us. He whispers to us in a friendly tone, and this Satan seems to be our friend rather than our enemy. So very loving does he apparently become that we cannot see him as someone trying to do us harm. There is though no actual Satan apart from the longing for the objects of sense. These desires take the form of Satan outside and the temptations from within. When the mind gets involved in these old habits of thinking, concentration becomes weaker. So many times we may be thrown back out of the concentrated state, as if we had walked right into an electromagnetic field. We will be kicked, and we will fall backwards.

Again we have to take courage and walk with added strength. From where does the strength come? Where does this added strength come from when we are kicked back, and we cannot walk forward? The strength has to come by the force of understanding and the application of will. Many factors come to our aid here. The good deeds that we have done in the past, the cumulative force of our good deeds done in this very life in the form of sadhana, the power of the mind of our own Guru who initiated us into this technique, and God’s grace finally will all assist us. All combine in helping us in the mental act of concentration. As I mentioned, the whole world becomes friendly when we are intent on realising this ideal which is the soul of the cosmos. But as important and as interesting as the concentration of the mind is, just as important is also the caution that we have to exercise in seeing that we do not fall back into the old ruts through which we have already walked. This is a very important aspect of the matter. The more we concentrate our minds, the more we will feel a kind of temptation from inside. All this is because the desires have not completely been wiped out. The desires will not leave us until we enter into the state of spiritual absorption. They will be there in some subtle form or state.

As I said, there are certain aspects of thought which we need to avoid in concentration, and these things are the desires. The aspects of thinking which we tried to obviate in the enterprise of concentration are the voices of the desires of the lower mind. We do not want them to speak, and we try to hush them up. The question is, how are we to hush them up? The fourth aspect of concentration that I mentioned is the action of the mind in setting aside certain thoughts. It is the effort of the mind to set aside the voice of desires, the voice of obstruction, the voice of non-cooperation, etc. But how are we to deal with it, and what exactly are we going to do? Setting the desires aside is not a solution. We can try to set them aside by many methods: by a force physically exerted through the power of will, or by promises we can sometimes employ such as, “Friends, don’t clamour just now. I’ll talk to you later on. I’m busy now.” If a creditor comes to us, we may say, “I’ll talk to you a little later,” but we cannot simply get him to go away like that. We can apply force, “Don’t talk, keep quiet,” which is one way of negotiating or, “Please wait, I shall see you later,” or “What do you want? Take it and go so that you do not come again.” But whatever we may say, the creditors are not so easily turned away, because what they want is so much more than what we can give. All our attempts at asking them to silence themselves will likely end in failure.

We have to know their weakness and then tap them at their source. We cannot handle an enemy so easily. An enemy is attacking, and if we try to tell him, “Please, go back,” he is not going to listen. Nor is he going to listen to our promises. He is up and armed to demolish us totally. He has come for that, and he is not going to listen to our words. These methods of substitution, cajoling, promising or even threatening will not suffice with these desires. When we come to the stage of concentration of mind, we have to take a very decisive step with these things, and this step can be taken only by going deep into this problem, so that it may not arise again. The problem should not rise again, if we dig deeply into the roots of the disease.

The desires have weaknesses of their own, and desire is another name for weakness. When we touch the weak spot of anything, it comes under our control. Appeal to reason does not always succeed, but appeal to sentiments may sometimes succeed. We have to go into the vital content of desire, as these are the weaknesses of desire. Do not argue with them, as they will not listen, because they too have a logic of their own. They may appear to be subdued, but will rise again after a few days. The foolishness of desires consists in their not being aware of what they are asking for. They apparently seem to be very shrewd and wise in their asking, but truly speaking, their wisdom is hollow, and they are stupid in what they ask for.

The work of the yoga student with his desires is like the function of a physician with a patient. There is no use for the physician to do whatever the patient wants. The physician’s work is something quite different. The physician will not ask the patient, “What exactly do you want to take for treatment? May I give you this?” Rather, the doctor knows what the matter is and what needs to be done. The yoga student is therefore like a physician with patients, but in this case the ‘patients’ are the desires of the mind. They have to be treated for their illness, as all the desires are sick patients. They are the unhealthy part of our mental world. They try to create annoyances of various kinds, and many times we do not know how to deal with these sources of annoyance. It is true that in the state of concentration our main purpose is to pay attention to the positives and not to engage ourselves too much with the negative aspects. But while the negative may be ignored while it is calm and quiet, we cannot completely ignore it when it starts screaming and shouting. Suppose we are singing a melodious song in a prayer hall, and a hundred people start shouting outside. We will not be able to continue our singing. First we must stop their shouting—whatever the reason for it may be. But if only a few people are muttering something, we will not mind—we will just raise our voices a little more. But if the clamour is too much, we have to stop it.

The Desire, The Object of Desire, and Our Selves

This is an analogy for what must happen in concentration. Though our positive step is one of attention to the chosen ideal, simultaneously we have to be also conscious of the negative aspects. I have mentioned some of these steps that we have to take while discussing the pratyahara process. I have tried to outline briefly in the earlier lessons of pratyahara what to do with the desires and what desires really mean. The desires are not outside us, so we cannot treat them as we treat people outside. These desires are not only not outside us, they are also not outside the objects that we see. Again to give the example of a triangle, one may say that the desiring subject, the desire and the desired object are like three points of a triangle. They are all connected by the lines drawn from one point to the other. When we touch one part, we have touched all the parts. The desire, the object of desire and our selves are organically one—hence we cannot ignore any aspect of the question. The desires seem to be formidable and difficult on account of the involvement of this three-part structure of which we are a part. When we try to solve this problem of desire, we have to solve a threefold question: what is desire, what are we, and what is the object? All these three questions have to be answered at the same time, because the three are connected with the desire. We may say the desire is the relation, and we know how important relation is in respect of the subject and the object. It is what brings the subject in connection with the object.

When the one part of the link is touched, the other links receive the vibration of the touch. The process of desire—for it is a process and is not a thing hanging somewhere in space—is a process of the mind. Mind itself is desire. When the desire speaks, one part of the mind begins to speak, and when the mind in this condition begins to speak, it speaks in the context of an object. The language of the lower mind—the desireful mind—is the language of the form of the object. It speaks in terms of the object, and all its talk is an appreciation of the object. We often have persons or things which we like very much and which we want to praise. Sometimes, when there is no opportunity provided to render that praise, we indirectly bring these praiseworthy subjects up in conversation somehow or the other and begin to say something good about them.

So also is the mind which is desireful of an object. Somehow or the other the mind will bring that item into consideration in its daily activities. The object of desire is therefore the form which the desireful mind has taken within itself. I am trying to give some indication as to how to tackle all these desires. Empirically speaking, the object is outside, and it is not a part of our bodies. But specifically because it is not a part of ourselves, that is the reason why we are hankering after it. If the object had been really a part of us, then there would be no need of asking for it. It is outside us, and therefore we want to make it a part of us.

The mind, with a light of consciousness reflected in it, casts itself into the mould of the object. The mould is nothing but the shape of the object. We mistake the mental mould of the object for the object itself, and we wrongly love the object, which means to say that we love the form taken by the mind in terms of the object. Our love is mental—it is not physical. The psychological mould is the shape which the mind has taken in terms of the object. The consciousness that pervades this mould and which has taken the form of the mould thinks in terms of this form of the object. Thinking is itself in terms of the forms. One may say, in some sense, the thinking itself is a formation. Inasmuch as thinking is conscious, consciousness apparently takes the form of the object, and we appear to be one with the object—psychologically at least, though not physically. Inasmuch as consciousness is our true self, when it enlightens the mould of the mind in terms of the object, we do not know how to contain ourselves in this ecstasy of longing. Consciousness tries to exceed its limits and pour itself into the mould of the mind in terms of the object. We want to become the object, and we cease to be this person that we are now. We want to be that thing itself. This is what happens in all desires, affections and loves. One experiences an uncontrollability of emotion and an exceeding of the mental limits in love, so that there is convulsion of various kinds felt within the mind. Here it is that emotion takes possession of us.

What we have to tell the mind is, “Dear friend, the object is so far from us, and it is physically different from us.” It cannot become a part of us, and we are misguided. We are stupidly imagining that the object can become a part of us by merely associating consciousness with the mould which the mind has taken. We are loving only the shape of our own minds. It is a psychological content that is attracting our attention, really speaking. We are purely in a mental state, as physically nothing has happened. The object of our love is not aware that we are loving it. What has happened to us, really? There are people who are crying for certain things in the world and cannot sleep. The thing that is asked for or loved may not even be really connected with the person that longs for it, and physically therefore there is no relation. But an apparent psychological relation is established through imagination. All love is imagination of emotion—an unnecessary tumult that is being created inside. First of all there is no point in merely loving a psychological form, which really is what happens in all forms of love. Even if we temporarily come into the physical proximity of the object, we are still not in possession of it. We think we know what it is to possess things, but the possessions cannot come under our control. The physical disparity of nature is such that one thing cannot be the property of another thing in this world. Nobody can possess another thing. Each one is independently itself, even if it is inorganic matter.

We cannot possess gold and money—it is not ours, because it is outside us. How can we call it our own? It is only psychologically ours. It may be in a bank which is thousands of miles away, but we nevertheless feel the affirmation of possession. Physically it is so far away and unconnected with us, but the mind says, “It is mine.” That is all. However, even if a thing is near, we cannot truly say that it is ours. Physical proximity is not possession, as I mentioned earlier. The mind is unnecessarily worrying itself in all desires and loves. All desire is worry, annoyance and vexation, and there is no point in entertaining it. Thus is the mind to be taught a lesson by recognising the consequence of the diverting of the higher light of the higher mind into the lower chambers of the heart.

Concentration becomes easy when this analysis goes on, along with a positive attention of the mind on the chosen ideal. Hence, in the four aspects I have mentioned, at least the one dealing with the sublimation of desire has to be emphasised here. The aspects of the mind—the thoughts which harass and distract us and which introduce themselves unnecessarily—are to be sublimated in this manner and not merely thrown out through force of will. We will see how strong the mind becomes when we have sublimated these desires, and the vitality of the mind is no longer encumbered by them. That part of the mind which was engaged in the setting aside of negative thoughts is now able to summon even that part of itself into the positive context of attention. When the distraction ceases, the mind becomes strong.

In the higher states of concentration the need to prevent or avoid something does not arise, though in the beginning stages it is there. In real meditation the threefold unitive process of thinker, thinking and the thought of the higher are working together without any difficulty. We do not need to set anything aside in this refined practice—we include everything here. All forces become ours, and we don’t have to use any kind of negative force to avoid certain things. Instead, we bring all these forces together for one purpose. In authentic meditation all will speak with the same voice in the same language and will want the same thing. All the aspects of the mind will think alike. Thought, emotion, understanding and will all begin to function for a common purpose. When this takes place, true meditation occurs. Meditation thus is supposed to be an organic continuity, and not merely a mechanical form of concentration. It is not merely a quantitative total of concentration that makes meditation, but a growth of concentration into a transcendent process, in which the efforts of concentration lead to a larger harmony of the mind.