by Om Swami
When your mind is tired from exerting or resting, it leads to loss of clarity. At that time, the mind not only starts drifting away, it actually is unable to detect laziness, sluggishness, loss of vigilance or any other defect. It essentially falls into a slumber and mindfulness is lost. The moment you become aware, practice mental exertion. Mental exertion is basically the act of renewing your vigour and focus. You can visualize a bright light, joyous tweeting of the birds on a warm winter day, gentle breeze, blue sky, anything to lift your mood.
Once your mind is alert again, resume your meditation but don’t exert. Exert only when you feel a drop in your mindfulness or attentiveness, which means if you find yourself pursuing a thought and only realizing several seconds later that you were supposed to drop the thought instead of following it. It means a certain dullness has come about. If you are visualizing and find that your object of visualization has faded on your mental canvas and yet you sit unaware, it’s loss of clarity. It means your mind is experiencing dullness, thus exert.
Mental exertion and relaxation is like driving a car on a highway. You don’t step on the accelerator once your car has reached a desirable speed. You keep your foot there just in case or you may gently press if your speed drops, but mostly you just keep a certain pressure to maintain your speed. You are alert to press the brake as soon as you need to. If you don’t, you can have an accident.
In meditation, you don’t keep exerting once you’ve reached the right equilibrium. You keep yourself alert to press the brakes when you need to. When you slow down, you step on the gas again to gather momentum. As you gain experience in driving, you know when exactly to take your foot off. But, you have to be alert and mindful to be effective. In meditation too, with practice, you learn to be in the ‘cruise mode’ without undue exertion or relaxation. This is the science of meditation, the art of balancing between mental exertion and relaxation.
Remember, meditation is about discovering your natural state of peace and bliss. To be in the natural state, you have to be natural, it is effortless. This effortlessness, however, comes after a great deal of practice. A concert pianist who can play even the most difficult pieces effortlessly has reached that state after serious, intense and prolonged effort spanning over years. Concentration is not an intense effort. Once you have established your concentration during your meditation, you simply have to maintain it.
It takes great practice to artfully maintain a balance between exerting and relaxing. If you are mindful and alert and if you carefully alternate between exertion and relaxation, Samadhi – ultimate realization, equipoise or insight – is imminent. I promise you that much. Just like a river’s natural course is to merge in the sea, mind’s natural course is to merge in the supreme consciousness. I say this from my experience.
The Nine Stages of Bliss
In the striking picture on the opposite page you’ll find three key elements: a monk, an elephant and a monkey. Additionally, the monk is holding a noose and a goad. The monk represents the meditator treading the windy path of meditation, where, until it’s mastered, no two days are alike. Some days you experience good meditation and at other times, it’s the opposite. The elephant represents dullness and the monkey restlessness.
The goad and noose represent vigilance and attentiveness in meditation, respectively.
In the first stage, the meditator is like a rocky boat in a turbulent ocean. There’s virtually no control on the mind. Concentration at this stage ends up wherever the drift of thoughts take it. The monkey and the elephant constantly disrupt the meditation and the meditator is struggling to tame them.
In the second stage, there’s a small white patch on the elephant and the monkey. It shows progress. It means the meditator is able to have short periods of quality meditation when the mind is devoid of thoughts. Think of a flag that flutters whenever the wind blows. If there’s no wind, there’s no fluttering. Similarly, the mind at this stage is stable for a short period before the winds of thoughts start to blow again causing waves in the stillness of consciousness.
The persistent meditator gets to the third stage and this is a significant progress in its own right. Now, they are able to detect their dullness arising in meditation. In the scroll, it is shown by a bigger white patch on the elephant and a noose leashing it. Restlessness or stray thoughts are still a great challenge at this stage.
In the fourth and the fifth stages, while the meditator makes a giant leap by even greater taming of restlessness and dullness, a new challenge presents itself. You’ll see a rabbit riding the elephant now. This signifies a state of calmness which makes the meditator go into a sort of torpor or laxity. Often, most meditators who get even a tiny glimpse of this calmness, mistake this as the ultimate state of bliss.
In the sixth stage, the monk can be seen leading both the monkey and the elephant, but the animals are not fully white yet. It means the meditator has mostly tamed them, he’s able to lead them, but, there are still subtle elements of excitement or stupor that can distract the meditator.
The elephant is completely white and the monkey sits by the feet of the practitioner in the seventh stage. It shows that the meditator has nearly perfected the art of attention. He experiences lucid awareness during the meditation but the presence of monkey shows there’s still a chance of feeling excited or restless. Think of a still pond where dropping even a tiny pebble causes ripples.
In the eighth stage, there’s no monkey. Restlessness has completely disappeared for this meditator and a constant state of bliss always leaves him calm. But, sometimes in this state of bliss, the lucidity of awareness is adversely affected. Think of someone under the influence of a mild intoxicant. At this stage, the meditator hasn’t yet learned to rise above the bliss.
In the ninth stage, the monk is sitting down with the white elephant. Bliss has become a close companion and it no longer interferes in any worldly activity. All mental and emotional battles cease, the war of thoughts stops and there’s virtually no effort in meditation now. The meditator has become the meditation.
The stages beyond show the monk riding the elephant. These indicate other dimensions of existence. The meditator is ever calm, abiding in bliss. Any inner struggle or stress completely disappears. The meditator has gone beyond the meditation.
Here comes an important question I’m asked frequently, “Generally, what kind of an effort is required to reach the ninth stage?”
Roughly 1,500 hours of quality meditation is required to cross each stage. With right guidance and initiation, you may bring it down to around 1,000 hours. It’s almost the effort a concert pianist puts in before they play under the spotlights in front of a large audience.
Epilogue
It was towards the end of February 2011. At an altitude of 10,000 feet, in a Himalayan forest, with icicles hanging outside from the thatched roof, I sat in intense meditation. Ten hours of perfect stillness of the body and mind had passed as easily as the night turns to dawn.
The soft beams of the full moon landed on the Sri Yantra, a mandala, in front of me. This mandala was a geometrical representation of kundalini or Mother Divine and was an integral part of the meditation I was doing at the time. In that hut, there were enough fissures and holes letting light and air to enter how they pleased. It was a magnificent sight, to have the center of the mandala light up with a moonbeam.
I had drawn it on paper with a pencil and had used that simple piece of paper for seven months. The small rundown hut was plunged in darkness but for the moonlight that lit up the yantra most mystically, if not mysteriously. I’d started at 5 PM and it was 3 AM by now. It took me years to get here, a stage where I could sit in one posture for as long as I needed without affecting the lucidity of my meditation or the sharpness of my concentration.
I whispered my prayer thanking God, various energies and the forces of nature for allowing one more day of sadhana. Devoting my meditation to the welfare of every living be
ing, I performed ten mudras, handlocks, to channelize the energy gained from the intense practice. The rats in the hut dashed around in all directions, as if they knew it was my time to get up and theirs to get off my asana, seat.
I used to sit, meditate and sleep in the same place. Three wooden planks laid next to each other formed my bed of 3x6 feet on the muddy floor. On those planks was a thin cotton mattress. On that mattress was one blanket. And on that blanket was a pillow. That’s where I sat and meditated for seven months, averaging 20 hours a day. Most days I meditated between 18 and 22 hours. Following a strict regime of starting my roster of meditation at the same time, day-in day-out I carried on with my practice.
While I would meditate throughout the night, mice and rats would come and sleep on the pillow next to me. For my stretch of ten hours, I would sit there unmoving even if they jumped in my lap. Not that I had any particular affinity towards them, I just wasn’t prepared to disturb, much less abandon, my meditation for a bunch of rats. At first, it had felt awfully gross to have rats hop around me but over time, I’d developed a sort of friendship with them. They were my companions and the same God dwelled in them.
“You could do with some meditation”, I murmured to the one who was hiding close by, darting glances back and forth and trying to anticipate my movement. One thing meditation immediately checks is the restive tendencies of the mind.
For the whole of seven months I was there, the rats would not spare anything. Not even my only shawl, or the spare batteries of my torch. I had a small bottle of clove oil, they took away the whole bottle in the first week. It was a small bottle though, about the size of my thumb, and the wild rats were bigger than their city cousins. The rats dug into everything – the wooden planks that made the walls of that hut, the mixture of cow dung and mud that had filled some of the gaping holes, the thatched roof, a couple of polybags that served as my makeshift tarp stuck in the roof to prevent it from leaking. They gnawed at anything they could sink their teeth into.
Yet, these aggressive rats never destroyed my bedding comprising my only quilt, mattress and two pillows (I used to sit on one pillow and keep one on the side). As if they knew that it would be extremely difficult for me to function without my bedding. Other than a quiet mind, it was the only comfort I had in that dilapidated cowshed held together by wooden planks, tarp, cow dung and hay. The rats never harmed me, not even once. But most of all, they never went even close to my mandala, the mystical Sri Yantra. Not even once they nibbled on the red cloth that covered it when not in use or the actual paper itself. As if they knew that this wasn’t just a piece of paper but a field of energy, pure and at once divine.
At times, I felt they were just being playful, testing me, teasing me, joking with me. Nature does all that with the one who seeks to rise above it. Before she empowers you with bliss and insight, with siddhis and abilities, she makes sure that you are the right recipient. Too much is at stake. One wrong man, one Hitler, can cause irreparable and eternal damage to the entire mankind.
I lifted the little door – a makeshift door made by nailing together a few pieces of wood – and put it on the side. I bent in half and stepped outside. The soft radiance of the moon had barged into the darkness of the winter night. The light had jostled its way out of love lending a sense of completeness to the whole of creation, as if to prove that light and darkness can coexist. This duality is the beauty of our existence. Joy and sorrow, heat and cold, good and bad, they coexist. A state of perfect inner serenity, free from the ripples of selfishness, that arises from meditation not only helps you live through the contradictions of life, but actually appreciate them.
It was snow all around, sparkling beautifully under the tranquil moonlight. The trees were quiet as if the boughs and leaves were sleeping too. Icy breeze blew gently. My ears and nose froze within the first minute. At a distance, I heard wild animals move suddenly, as if startled by my unexpected presence. A deer grunted loudly and another made a high-pitched ‘baa’ sound. In an instant, the large field was abuzz with a lot of activity. Wild boars made a mix of snorting, squealing and grating sounds and ran upwards to the hills. The bucks and does galloped towards the woods. Other animals, probably a bear, at a greater distance, also moved into the woods.
That night, they were more visible than most other nights, for tonight it wasn’t just the full moon but clear sky as well – a rarity in the past three months with frequent storms, rains, snowfall and hail. The whole field ahead of me glittered like it was God’s playground made from silver-dust.
It was pure bliss to see those wild animals move around.
I felt no fear (fearlessness is a natural by product of good meditation). I was in love, one with everything around. The Vedas call it advaita. Fear only arises in duality, in a sense of separation, that somehow you may lose the other one or that they may harm you. But who can harm you when there’s only you around?
There’s no fear in a divine union. This state of perfect union is the final stage of meditation. In this state, meditation ceases to be an act. Instead, it becomes a phenomenon, a state of mind.
These beautiful beings of the wild were merely an extension of my existence. It is here that you are not afraid of your own body. Like everything in the universe, all the wild animals around were nothing but my own reflection. They were my past lives. I had been a boar, a bear, a deer, a tiger. Everyone and everything around you was once a part of you or you were a part of them. The sum total of all we have ever been over the billions of years, across myriad life-forms, is eternally present in us, with us, around us. At all times. It’s not just a matter of saying. If you continue to walk the path of meditation, one day you’ll experience, know and understand the truth in my words.
I reached out to the roof and picked some snow. It was hardened than usual because it wasn’t fresh snow. It was from the previous night. At any rate, it was delicious. It would soothe the excessive heat generated in my body due to intense meditation.
The subtle vibrations had gradually turned into deep sensations coursing through my entire body and intensifying in my head like waterfalls and streams running through Himalayan hills and vales tumbling into the Ganges. The sensations in my head were beyond bear or expression. I hadn’t yet learnt how to get rid of these acute sensations. A superb clarity of mind, senses, of the past, present and future coursed through the river of my consciousness. Sometimes I didn’t want those sensations for they would render me completely useless to do anything else at all. Even the simple act of putting a tilaka on my forehead after I bathed would become a challenge.
All I could do was meditate and whenever I meditated they would continue to build up to a degree that I felt as if my body was not made from flesh and bones but it was simply a conduit of sensations, a container of energy. The container itself was made from nothing but energy. I pulsated as if there was no physical reality to my own existence. And yet, the body was governed by the laws of nature so I had gone through my fair share of pains and aches. Those aches, however, only intensified my resolve to persist with my meditation so I could go beyond the shackles of this body.
Merely knowing that this body is simply a vehicle, or that we hold within us an entire universe, is incomplete knowledge. It is wisdom without insight and doesn’t lead to bliss but ignorance. I say ignorance because you end up forming these concepts without any experiential understanding. The rigours of meditation aren’t for the fainthearted. Above everything else, in the beginning stages, it requires extraordinary patience and self- discipline.
I had moved deep into the Himalayan woods seeking even more intense solitude. A few villagers had come all the way to see me on the last day of my meditation in the woods. When I emerged from my hut seven months later, they were startled.
They thought a very weak and frail sadhu would come out from the hut for I’d lived on very little for more than seven months in extreme conditions. Sometimes, I would step out in the dea
d of the night and eat snow.
I had not seen my own face for months. Looking in a tiny mirror, I used to put the tilaka on my forehead once in 24 hours after bathing with icy-cold water. That mirror was too small to render a reflection of my entire face. I didn’t know how I had looked. I knew I had lost weight but I didn’t feel a lack of energy.
They were startled because there was not even the slightest sign of physical weakness or any fatigue at all. For a moment, even I was surprised to look at my own face, the light in my own eyes, only momentarily though. For, I knew that my soul, free from all ties of relationships, religion and the world, was soaring high in the infinite universe of bliss. My source of energy was no longer the food I consumed but the thoughts I thought. And, I didn’t think of anything. I’d been thoughtless for a long time now. Any thoughts I had were only of God or love.
What happens when you churn milk? It turns into butter and once done, it never goes back to being milk. If milk can stay for a few days before going sour, butter can stay fresh for a couple of weeks. If you heat up butter it becomes ghee, and ghee can remain unaffected for years. No matter how you treat it, it can never become butter or milk again.
The final state of bliss is akin to becoming ghee from milk – it’s irreversible.
I had never wanted to come down from the Himalayas. That extraordinary bliss was beyond what I can ever explain. Hundreds of times I had heard the unstruck sound in my heart. Countless times, I had felt going out of my body to be wherever I wanted to be. On numerous occasions, I heard the most beautiful sounds, had the most magnificent visions. My world was complete. There was no need or the urge to come back. On the contrary, I wanted to drop my body.
