A Million Thoughts

by Om Swami

  tattvamasyādivākyena svātmā hi pratipāditaḥ,

  neti neti śrutirbrūyādanṛtaṃ pāñcabhautikam.28

  By affirming that you are that (God, divinity, universe), you begin to see yourself beyond the limited existence of your body that’s made up of the five elements of earth, water, fire, air and ether. Scriptures have called it Neti. Neti, meaning you are not this, not this.

  The verse above is the soul of contemplative meditation. It encompasses both elimination and affirmation. Basically, it means that when you contemplate as to your reality, your true nature, anything material that comes to your mind, anything that is made up of the five elements is not you.

  You touch your body. You are not just the body, you touch your wealth, you are not the wealth, your cars, assets and so on. All these things belong to you, you are the owner of these things but these acquisitions or attainments are not you.

  Here are both the practices for you.

  Eliminative Contemplation

  In the practice of eliminative contemplation, you get rid of all the labels that you are not. You keep searching for that one permanent label that actually defines who you really are.

  How to do it right

  Sit in a comfortable position. Any comfortable position will do. You don’t have to be seated in a yogic posture.

  Take a few deep breaths.

  Start the process of contemplation by negation, that is, keep eliminating what you are not.

  Think of all the material things, one by one, that are perishable in nature. In fact, all material things are perishable for that matter. Contemplate on whatever you are attached to, and for each of those things, ask yourself if you are what you are attached to and remind yourself that you are not that thing. Various yogic texts and Upanishads provide a number of prompts as follows, feel free to add your own and eliminate all your attributes one by one.

  I am not the body… I am not the mind.

  I am not the senses… I am not the consciousness.

  They are my servitors. I am eternal and beyond these.

  I am not a man or a woman… I am not young or old.

  I am not beautiful or ugly… I am not a friend or an enemy. I am not a father or a son (or a mother or a daughter).

  I am not a husband or a wife…

  These are mere classifications… I am eternal and beyond.

  I am not pure or impure…I am not good or bad.

  I am not hot or cold…I am not moral or immoral. I am not realized or unrealized…

  These are mere dualities. I am eternal and beyond.

  I am not bound or free… I am not hated or loved.

  I am not happy or unhappy… I am not foolish or intelligent. I am neither successful nor a loser…

  These are mere perspectives. I am eternal and beyond.

  I am not weak or strong… I am not restless or lazy.

  I am not tired or fresh… I am not healthy or unhealthy. I am not my past…

  These are temporary states. I am eternal and beyond.

  I cannot die, I cannot be sick, I cannot be hurt, I cannot be grieved.

  I know no sorrow, I know no pain, I know no grief, I know no hurt.

  I know no sickness, I lack nothing.

  I am beyond the good and bad, beyond praise and criticism, beyond everything that can be thought or written, everything that can be heard or said, for, I am the indestructible, indivisible, infinite, eternal, supreme soul – the highest realization, the purest consciousness.

  I am beyond birth and death, I have existed before the universe, I am an independent unit but part of a complete phenomenon. I am complete.

  You could also do the aforesaid meditation in an interactive manner. That involves asking yourself the question and answering it. For example, you may say: “Am I the body?” And then answer it by saying, “No, I’m not the body.” You can do this for all of the above declarations and more.

  When you do this regularly, something miraculous happens in your life after a while: you stop feeling bad and stop reacting to what others say or think about you. You no longer crave for things the world’s going crazy about because you don’t see yourself as a helpless body, or a man or a woman craving for love, prestige or respect, you don’t see yourself a tiny person in a vast universe anymore. Instead, you find that you are a universe yourself – complete, eternal, indestructible. These are not mere words or phrases, but simple truths that’ll empower you. One of the most powerful moments in anyone’s life is when you wake up to your own immensity.

  After eliminative contemplation, you can go for the more detailed affirmative contemplation which expands the way you see, understand and treat yourself.

  Starting with eliminative contemplation first helps to remove the layers of temporary labels off you. When you feel incredibly light after doing that, you can work on affirmations or contemplation by acceptance.

  Affirmative Contemplation

  After you have negated what you are not, reinforce what you are. Affirmative contemplation is the reinforcement of your true identity and it is this reinforcement – this knowledge – that will help you stay calm and blissful while operating the world. As an instance, when people criticize you or hurt you, at that moment you have to visualize who you really are, that they are merely saying things to your body and that you are beyond the body.

  I have adapted the affirmations below from three Upanishads, the sacred texts expounding on the metaphysical and esoteric aspects of Vedic knowledge. You can pick and choose what you like. They are merely there to guide you. The goal is to contemplate on all eternal elements as you.

  How to do it right

  Sit in a comfortable position. Any comfortable position will do. You don’t have to be seated in a yogic posture.

  Take a few deep breaths.

  Start the process of contemplation by affirmation, that is, keep recalling what you are.

  Here are the prompts:I am I (the Self). I am That. I am Brahman. I am the Source. I am of all the worlds. I am He. I am Siddha. I am the Pure.

  I am the Supreme. I am. I am always He. I am the Eternal. I am stainless.

  I am Vijnana. I am the Excellent. I am Soma. I am the All. I am beyond honor or dishonor. I am beyond the dualities.

  I am neither existence nor non-existence. I am beyond language. I am the Shining. I am the Glory of void and non-void.

  I am the good and the bad. I am Happiness. I am beyond grief. I am Consciousness. I am awake. I am equal (in all).

  I am the like and the non-like. I am that.

  I am the eternal, the pure, and the ever felicitous.

  I am the form of immeasurable Bliss. I am beyond body.

  I am beyond bondage or emancipation. I am the pure Brahman. I am He.

  I am ever of the form of deliberation and yet am beyond deliberation.

  I am the earliest. I am beyond the contemplator and contemplation.

  I am neither the thing defined nor non-defined. I am the non-absorbed Essence.

  I am not the measurer, the measure or the measured. I am Shiva. I am the Seer of all. I am beyond the eyes. I am the Wise.

  I am the Quiescent. I am the Destroyer. I am the doer of all actions. I am Pure Bliss. I am beyond the universe. I am of the form of all light.

  I am the Light in Absolute Consciousness.

  I am free from the three periods of time. I am beyond desires.

  I am beyond body. I am the One that has no body. I am beyond compare.

  I am solely the thing that is of the nature of wisdom. I am beyond Ego.

  I am of the nature of the vast and all-full wisdom. I am one that is witness and beyond desire.

  I reside in My glory alone. I am beyond motion. I am beyond old age.

  I am beyond destruction. I am the vast ocean of bliss. I am the subtle.

  I am beyond change. I am the soul, be
yond the illusion of qualities. I am of the nature of the true wisdom beyond limit.

  I am the state of excellent happiness. I am all-pervading and beyond stain.

  I am the limitless and endless Sattva alone. I am replete with Supreme Bliss.

  I am of the nature of happiness, which is Supreme Bliss.

  I am pure, secondless, and eternal. I am devoid of beginning. I am free from the gross, subtle and causal bodies.

  I am of the nature of wisdom. I am the emancipated One.

  I have a wondrous form. I am free from impurity. I am the one latent in all.

  I am the refined Supreme Truth. I am of the nature of Wisdom- Bliss alone.

  I am of the nature of consciousness. I am of the nature of happiness. I am the eternal Soul. I am the primeval consciousness.

  I am beyond passion or faults.

  I am neither existing nor non-existing.

  I am not of the nature of anything. I am of the nature of the actionless.

  I am beyond parts.

  I am the pure, the enlightened, the eternal, the all-pervading and of the nature of the significance of Om, of the spotless, and of Chit.

  I am Sacchidananda.

  Even a mindful reading of the contemplative prompts can be very effective in gaining insight into your true nature.

  The power of contemplative meditation cannot be overstated. If you stay situated in the sentiment of your true nature, you will find yourself increasingly unaffected by the worldly petty affairs. You won’t feel hurt in relationships. Your outlook towards others will completely change. In any given circumstance, you will remind yourself that the true you is beyond the damage others’ words or actions can cause. You start to realize that you are greater than the total of your labels, titles and emotions. You truly are, Sacchidananda.

  Mindful Meditation

  In Old Path, White Clouds, Thich Naht Hanh writes about Buddha’s first practice of mindfulness that he discoursed to a group of children soon after his enlightenment. I hereby quote the passages below:

  Siddhartha [the Buddha] quietly gestured for the children to sit back up and he said, “You are all intelligent children and I am sure you will be able to understand and practice the things I will share with you. The Great Path I have discovered is deep and subtle, but anyone willing to apply his or her heart and mind can understand and follow it.

  “When your children peel a tangerine, you can eat it with awareness or without awareness. What does it mean to eat a tangerine in awareness? When you are eating the tangerine, you are aware that you are eating the tangerine. You fully experience its lovely fragrance and sweet taste. When you peel the tangerine, you know that you are peeling the tangerine; when you remove a slice and put it in your mouth, you know that you are removing a slice and putting it in your mouth; when you experience the lovely fragrance and sweet taste of the tangerine, you are aware that you are experiencing the lovely fragrance and sweet taste of the tangerine. The tangerine [that] Nandabala offered me had nine sections. I ate each morsel in awareness and saw how precious and wonderful it was. I did not forget the tangerine and thus the tangerine became something very real to me If the tangerine is real, the person eating it is real. That is what it means to eat a tangerine in awareness.

  …

  “Children, eating the tangerine in mindfulness means that while eating the tangerine you are truly in touch with it. Your mind is not chasing after thoughts of yesterday or tomorrow, but is dwelling fully in the present moment. The tangerine is truly present. Living in mindful awareness means to live in the present moment, your mind and body dwelling in the very here and now. “A person who practices mindfulness can see things in the tangerine that others are unable to see. An aware person can see the tangerine tree, the tangerine blossom in the spring, the sunlight and rain which nourished the tangerine. Looking deeply, one can see ten thousand things which have made the tangerine possible. Looking at a tangerine, a person who practices awareness can see all the wonders of the universe and how all things interact with one another. Children, our daily life is just like a tangerine. Just as a tangerine is comprised of sections, each day is comprised of twenty-four hours. One hour is like one section of tangerine. Living all twenty-four hours of a day is like eating all the sections of a tangerine. The path I have found is the path of living each hour of the day in awareness, mind and body always dwelling in the present moment. The opposite is to live in forgetfulness. If we live in forgetfulness, we do not know that we are alive. We do not fully experience life because our mind and body are not dwelling in the here and now.”30

  Mindful meditation is a simple, effective and practical way to bring your attention to the present moment. It is the way to live in the moment.

  A woman said to a monk, “I love living in the moment. I really want to master it.”

  “Great,” the monk replied enthusiastically, “you’ll learn exactly how to do that with mindful meditation.”

  “It’s just that I don’t want to live in this particular moment,” she said wistfully. “I would rather live in another moment, like being on a cruise with my boyfriend.”

  This is the fundamental issue with our minds. It’s eternally living in another moment, a moment we crave for and desire. In doing so, we completely miss the beauty and bliss of the present moment. The current moment is called ‘present’ for a reason, it’s a gift. A restless mind, however, is either dwelling in the past or dreaming about the future. The practice of mindful meditation brings you to the present moment, the moment of truth.

  A disciple who had been practicing mindfulness for seven years approached his master and complained, “It’s been seven years that I’ve been meditating but I’m yet to gain any experience or insight. I don’t feel any better than what I was seven years ago.” “I see that your feet are wet,” the master spoke softly, “but your robe isn’t. I presume it’s raining outside and you carried an

  umbrella with you.” “Yes.”

  “It’s not the first time you came here while it rained or that you carried an umbrella, right?”

  “Right?”

  “It must be outside, your umbrella, right?”

  A little miffed at his master he said, “What’s an umbrella got to do with my meditation?”

  “Can you tell me if you put it on the right side of my door or the left?”

  The disciple tried hard to recall but he couldn’t. He went back to the moment when he’d just arrived. I remember taking my shoes off. I think I put my umbrella just behind the shoes on the right side. No, I think I put it on the left. The disciple unsure of his answer went outside to check, the umbrella was neither on the left nor the right, it lay face down on the floor.

  “I wonder what you have been doing in your mindful meditation all these years,” the master chastized him gently. “If you can’t even recall where you put your umbrella less than two minutes ago. Practice mindfulness in every act of yours if you want the rewards of meditation.”

  It isn’t far-fetched at all that a person would forget where he had put his umbrella in a matter of minutes. Countless times, you must have climbed steps at work or at home, or at a friend’s place or at your favorite shrine. Yet, if I were to ask you the number of steps in any given flight of stairs, you are unlikely to have any recollection of it.

  Why would you bother with the number of steps? It’s junk information, you may think. It is. Now, here’s the important thing: emotions and desires are un-abandoned thoughts if you recall. Since our mind is full of thoughts, we all remember the times when we were hurt, when we didn’t get what we wanted, we remember the minutest details of undesirable incidents from years ago. When it comes to meditation, however, all those details, emotions and desires are merely thoughts. For some reason, we have given more importance to those thoughts over millions of others that have circled in our mind.

  Mindfulness is about paying attention to every thought (for every action stems
from a thought) without discriminating a good thought from a bad thought. When you will begin to watch every action of yours, as you become more mindful, a remarkable thing will happen to you: your mind will start downplaying depressing and hurtful thoughts of the past. Your reaction to anything thrown at you will become a mindful act rather than a knee-jerk response. This leads to a great sense of ease and calm, and you begin to feel more in control.

  On a daily basis, we do so many things mindlessly, without paying attention to our thoughts, emotions, action and inaction. Mindful meditation is the art of doing everything with a sense of awareness and the only way to master this art is by way of practice.

  Mindful meditation is one of the proven and tested ways to break your age-old habits, to shed your old tendencies. Awareness does that naturally, it transforms you into a calm, centered being. This is the easiest way of becoming superconscious of your own actions. With practice, as you transform most of your actions from instinctual to conscious acts, your intelligence gets sharpened because, unlike instinctual actions, performing any conscious act requires a degree of intelligence. The more you use it, the brighter it gets. Mindfulness makes you alert, attentive and watchful.

  How to Do It Right

  Mindful meditation does not require you to sit in a certain posture. You need not take deep breaths before you start it. On the contrary, it is a practice you have to inculcate in your everyday life, in every waking moment.

  At the heart of the practice of mindful meditation is a simple question: what am I doing now?