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“Amongst the sleeping wide-awake”–such is the wise man. Before Buddha stated this, Krishna had told Arjuna: “The recollected mind is awake in the knowledge of the Atman, which is dark night to the ignorant. The ignorant are awake in their sense-life which they think is daylight. To the seer it is darkness.” (Bhagavad Gita 2:69)

There will always be this sharp division between human beings. Most sleep and dream they are awake, and some of them are halfway between sleep and waking–sleepwalkers. Thinking they are living and acting, from a higher and more realistic perspective they are doing nothing. This is tragic.

Few are the wise, comparatively speaking. Yet this does not bother them, for though ignorance, like misery, loves company and the assurance of being part of a group or herd, wisdom is content with walking on alone if need be. Of course they are never alone, for they are walking in time with the awakened of all ages. In Mahayana Buddhism they say that the moment someone decides to seek higher awareness a multitude of Buddhas and Bodhisattwas become aware of him and begin blessing and helping him along the upward path. That is why Saint Paul said: “We are compassed about with a great cloud of witnesses.” (Hebrews 12:1)

Unfortunately for us, in the beginning our inner eyes are not fully opened so we do not realize what a great force is working on our behalf. Immersed in this world of darkness and ignorance we are only aware, often painfully, of the forces that try to prevent our striving upward and becoming aryas. We are like the servant of Elisha who, seeing the city surrounded by enemies, was terrified. Elijah assured him that they had more allies than there were enemies, but the servant thought he was speaking nonsense. Then “Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.” (II Kings 6:17)

What is it to be awake? To be self-aware, centered in the consciousness that is our true nature. As Krishna indicated, the awareness of the Self is waking, in contrast to the fever-dream of absorption in sense-awareness. Of course, the sleepers will accuse us of being dreamers or unconscious, but that is to be expected. It is even a good sign.

It is said that Buddha was walking along the road when he met the first person he had seen after attaining enlightenment. Being sensitive to spiritual things, the man was astounded at the very appearance of Buddha. “Who or what are you?” he asked. “I am awake,” replied Buddha. And walked on.

Read the Previous article, Learning to Use Your Mind.

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It is incredible but true that most human beings need to be told: Be Conscious. Many years ago a brilliant physician told me in relation to maintaining health: “Always be aware.” It took me decades to figure out the meaning and value of those three words. Buddha was not such a slow learner, so he knew to say that the intelligent human being is “aware among the unaware.” The Venerable Thanissaro Bhikkhu renders it: “Heedful among the heedless.”

A renowned French esotericist of the nineteenth century, Sar Hieronymous, observed that human beings are of two basic types: intellectual and instinctual. By “intellectual” he did not mean academic or scholarly, but centered in their intellects rather than in their senses, emotions, or physical bodies. Most people live in an instinctual, reactive manner, rarely letting their intelligence take the lead, and often only use their intelligence to fake up justifications for their irrational (instinctual) behavior.

Terrible as the picture is, humanity rushes headlong into pain, destruction, and death. And this is habitual, utterly reflexive. Once I visited a yoga center and had a satsang (informal spiritual gathering/discussion) with the members–all of them deeply sincere and quite intelligent. Yet, after about twenty minutes I realized that the answers to their questions did not need my special “qualifications” of having lived in India with Masters and having gained experience in meditation. Only good, practical sense was needed. Often through the years I have marveled at the way very good people seek answers to questions that any thoughtful person could easily answer. They themselves should have been able to answer their questions, but they simply were not used to doing so. They did not even realize they could.

Use your mind

“Use your mind” (intelligence) is just about the first thing a worthy teacher will tell the student–and will usually have to keep on telling him for quite a while until the instinct habit is broken. And this is not easy since instinct is closely related to intuition, which is something desirable. Instinct is to intuition what meaningless babble is to intelligent speech. Both contain words, but only one makes coherent sense.

This is no small problem for the spiritual striver. “Feeling” can be either instinctive or intuitive, and he must learn to distinguish them. This is a major lesson in his development. Few things are more destructive than constant dependence on some external authority for making our decisions in life. Unhappily, most religions and spiritual teachers foster this dependency and prevent real inner growth in their adherents. How will they survive without dependents? How will they be teachers without students? So, like a therapist who fears to lose his livelihood if his patients recover, they hold their members or students in thrall.

A truly aryan teacher or philosophy is like my father. He held on to my bicycle and walked beside me as I learned to ride. He kept me from falling, but he did something better: he gave me the confidence to ride on my own. How vivid is my memory of hearing him say: “You have been riding without me helping for the last three minutes. I was just barely touching the bike.” I could do it! So I rode on alone, amazed and relieved. The great Master, Swami Sivananda of Rishikesh, used to tell his students after a short time (two or three months at the most): “Now I have told you everything you need to know. Go and gain experience on your own and make something of yourself.” Another great yogi, Swami Rama of Hardwar (Ram Kunj) only met his teacher once, at the age of nine. The sage gave him simple instructions in meditation, blessed him, and walked on. (The future saint-swami had been playing in the village street.) No more was needed. How rare are such great teachers. Most are in the slave trade (emphasis on trade).

Next: Be Awake Among the Sleeping.

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“Thinking about sense-objects will attach you to sense-objects; grow attached, and you become addicted; thwart your addiction, it turns to anger; be angry, and you confuse your mind; confuse your mind, you forget the lesson of experience; forget experience, you lose discrimination; lose discrimination, and you miss life’s only purpose.”
–Bhagavad Gita 2:62, 63

It is true that the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. In these two verses Krishna has described the entire journey, beginning with thought and ending in total loss. Each step should be considered well.

Thinking

Thought is power–magnetic power, particularly. That is, thought can draw or repel whatever is thought about, depending upon the polarity of the individual mind. Many times we see that people bring to themselves the things they continually think about, but we also see that thinking about something can repel it from the person. For example, the Franciscan Order is almost obsessed with the idea of poverty, yet it is one of the wealthiest institutions in the world. Thinking about poverty brought them wealth! This is not said in jest. I have seen people draw to themselves the things they detested, and seen others drive out of their lives the things they yearned for. As already pointed out, it is a matter of the polarity of the thought force, of magnetic energy.

As a rule, though, thought brings to us what we think about. Even if we begin by disliking or opposing the object of thought, in time we become attached to it, either by coming to like it (whether or not we admit the liking) or becoming unable to dispel it from our minds. We see this in the lives of many crusaders. They become what they oppose. In fact, they often oppose something to cover up their secret attraction to it.

It has long been known that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. Krishna is aware of this, and is counseling Arjuna to simply ignore that which he does not wish to become involved with. That is why in meditation we ignore any distractions and just keep relaxed in the awareness of the process of meditation–and nothing else. If we do this, in time the distractions will dissolve, and in the meantime, being ignored, they will not be distractions, practically speaking.

So if we will not obsess on a subject, it will not touch or capture us. This is a major point of spiritual life.

Attachment

“Thinking about sense-objects will attach you to sense-objects.” The word translated “attach” is sangas, which means attachment. However, sangas has both an internal and an external meaning–both of which apply in this instance.

Attachment means having an affinity for something, or having some feeling of desire to be aware of it or have it present. It has a definite emotional connotation. It also means to feel some kind of kinship with an object, or to feel a need for it–even a dependency.

Attachment also means to be linked to something, to become externally associated with it. This has already been discussed as a consequence of thinking continually of an object.

Obviously there is a positive side to this. If we think of that which is beneficial and elevating we will better ourselves. Sri Ramakrishna once met a young man who was psychically very sensitive, and who was being employed as a medium by some spiritualists in Calcutta. He spoke to him a truth that we should never forget or neglect to embody in our lives: “My son, if you think about ghosts you will become a ghost. If you think about God, you will become a god. Which do you prefer?”

Addiction

“Grow attached, and you become addicted.”

The word used here is kamas, which means intense craving for something. The implication is that the nature of objects is one of escalating absorption. We cannot stop at simple attachment. If we permit attachment, it will in time grow into something much worse: controlling addiction. This is the path to loss of freedom, to enslavement.

Anger

“Thwart your addiction, it turns to anger.”

We not only lose our freedom through addiction to objects, we also lose our rational faculty. For when our addictions are thwarted we respond with the ultimate irrationality: anger. Krodha means not just simple irritation but frenzied anger or fury which completely annihilates our good sense and reason.

Confusion

“Be angry, and you confuse your mind.”

Sammohas means confusion, not in the sense of simple disorientation, but in the sense of breakdown of mental coherence arising from delusion. It is a form of moral insanity

Forgetfulness

“Confuse your mind, you forget the lesson of experience.”

The Sanskrit smritivibhramah literally means to wander away from what is known, from what has been learned through experience. For it is what we know from our own experience, inner and outer, that is fundamental to our evolution. That alone is living wisdom, everything else is merely theory, however true it may be objectively. The whole purpose of the chain of births we have undergone is our gaining of practical knowledge, knowledge that is fully ours because it has arisen from our own experience and our insight into that experience. Just as no one can eat for us, so no one, however evolved they may be, can gain knowledge for us, or even impart it to us. Until we know something for ourselves it is nothing more than speculation or theory.

Indiscrimination

“Forget experience, you lose discrimination.”

The Sanskrit text literally says that if experience-knowledge is forgotten, then intelligence (buddhi) itself is destroyed. This is terrible, for expanding intelligence is the fundamental characteristic of evolution. That is why Krishna speaks so often of Buddhi Yoga as the path to perfection.

Loss of life

“Lose discrimination, and you miss life’s only purpose.”

Again, the literal Sanskrit is even more acute, stating that when buddhi is destroyed, we ourselves are destroyed. This is no exaggeration, as the foregoing sections demonstrate.

The purpose of our entry into relativity was the development of higher intelligence so we might be fitted to participate in the infinite consciousness of God. If we impair and erode that intelligence we frustrate the very purpose of our (relative) existence.

On the other hand, if we comprehend Krishna’s words in this matter, we can see that the conscious deepening of our buddhi is the path to liberation. But most of all we can learn how to never take even the first step on the path to personal destruction. By refusing to allow our minds to mull over that which is delusive, we protect ourselves from future entanglement in the nets of delusion. If we are already somewhere along the path to destruction we can also use this list to see how to reverse the process. For the message of the Gita is always and at all times the message of hope and betterment.

Read more about the Bhagavad Gita.

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The body is the vehicle through which the individual evolves during the span of life on earth, and must be taken into serious account by the yogi who will discover that the body can exert a necessary effect on the mind. If wax and clay are cold they cannot be molded, nor will they take any impression. If molasses is cold it will hardly pour. It is all a matter of responsiveness. Only when warm are these substances malleable. In the same way, unless our inner and outer bodies are made responsive or reactive to the japa and meditation of Om we will miss many of the beneficial effects. Hence we should do everything we can to increase our response levels, to ensure that our physical and psychic bodies are moving at the highest possible rate of vibration.

A fundamental key to this is diet. For not only does the physical substance of the food become assimilated into our physical body, the subtler energies become united to our inner levels, including our mind. The yogi who observes will discover that the diet of the physical body is also the diet of the mind, that whatever is eaten physically will have an effect mentally. (One who does not know this is no yogi at all.) The Chandogya Upanishad (6.5.4; 6.6.1,2,5) tells us: “Mind consists of food. That which is the subtle part of milk moves upward when the milk is churned and becomes butter. In the same manner, the subtle part of the food that is eaten moves upward and becomes mind. Thus, mind consists of food.”

Meat is both heavy and toxic–especially from the chemicals spread throughout the tissues from the fear and anger of the animal when it was slaughtered. So our minds will also be heavy and toxic from eating meat as well as poisoned by the vibrations of anger and fear. Moreover, the instinctual and behavioral patterns of the animals will become our instinctual and behavioral impulses. Fruits, vegetables, and grains have no such obstructions. Consequently, our mental energies will be light and malleable, responsive to our spiritual disciplines. There is no greater spiritual boon to the meditator than the adoption of a vegetarian diet. (See Spiritual Benefits of a Vegetarian Diet.) By “vegetarian” I mean abstention from meat, fish, and eggs or anything that contains them to any degree, including animal fats.

Both meditation and diet refine the inner senses so we can produce and perceive the subtle changes that occur during meditation.

Our general health also contributes to our proficiency in meditation, so a responsible yogi is very aware of what is beneficial and detrimental to health and orders his life accordingly, especially in eliminating completely all alcohol, nicotine, and mind-altering drugs whether legal or illegal. Caffeine, too, is wisely avoided, and so is sugar.

The sum of all this is that we must do more than meditate. We must live out our spiritual aspirations by so ordering our lives that we will most quickly advance toward the Goal. This is done by observing Yama and Niyama, often called the Ten Commandments of Yoga (See Foundations of Yoga). They are:

• 1) Ahimsa: non-violence, non-injury, harmlessness;
• 2) Satya: truthfulness, honesty;
• 3) Asteya: non-stealing, honesty, non-misappropriativeness;
• 4) Brahmacharya: sexual continence in thought, word and deed as well as control of all the senses;
• 5) Aparigraha: non-possessiveness, non-greed, non-selfishness, non-acquisitiveness;
• 6) Shaucha: purity, cleanliness;
• 7) Santosha: contentment, peacefulness;
• 8) Tapas: austerity, practical (i.e., result-producing) spiritual discipline;
• 9) Swadhyaya: introspective self-study, spiritual study;
• 10) Ishwarapranidhana: offering of one’s life to God.

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“Foolish, ignorant people indulge in careless lives, whereas a clever man guards his attention as his most precious possession.”
–Dhammapada 26

George Washington spoke more truly than he knew when he stated that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. For those who seek the ultimate liberation, constant awareness is a prime necessity. On the other hand, “Foolish, ignorant people indulge in careless [heedless] lives.” Interestingly, the Venerable Thanissaro Bhikkhu renders it: “They’re addicted to heedlessness.” This is certainly so. There is a persistent urge toward self-destruction that habitually grips most people, impelling then to negligence, carelessness, and outright blindness to what little reality we are able to perceive if we will to do so.

It is astounding to see how feckless most “spiritual” people really are in relation to their inner development. Over and over they endanger themselves and incur great risk, particularly psychically (mentally), either doing things that can only rebound to their detriment or failing to do that which will protect and strengthen them. They simply do not take seriously the fact that this entire world is a maelstrom calculated to whirl them around and around by continual birth and death, drowning their consciousness from life to life. They take no account of their daily lifestyle or their environment, physical or metaphysical. And the field of their personal relationships is the most chaotic and destructive of all.

There is such a thing as healthy fear–the force that sends us indoors in a hailstorm and up a tree when a dangerous animal is around. This is completely lacking in the foolish.

I heard of a school board that interviewed prospective drivers of their single bus. To each one they asked a single question: If you were driving a bus full of children and came to an ice-covered bridge without any railings on the side, how close could you drive to the edge without being afraid of mishap? The estimates were various, but one man replied: “I would drive straight down the middle as far from the edges as I could get, and even then I would be terrified every second until I got across.” He was the one they hired, for they did not want any driver who could feel confident in endangering their children. We need the same grave caution regarding our own lives and aspirations to higher awareness.

It is, however, pointless to warn the foolish against disaster, because that is what they are hoping for. Then they can stay in the pig wallow and grunt to their hearts’ content, telling their fellow porkers about how they used to be “into” Hinduism/Buddhism, meditation, “and all that” (maybe even a monk or nun), but not anymore. They just live and let live. Got a joint? How about coming home with me?

The wise prize clearsightedness–and clear thought and action–above all treasures of earth and heaven, aware that not for a moment do they dare to fold their hands and sleep the sleep of inner death. [“Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: so shall thy poverty come” (Proverbs 6:10,11). “Consider and hear me, O Lord my God: lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death” (Psalms 13:3).] Their vigilance will be their liberty. For them is the admonition of Buddha: “Do not indulge in careless behavior. Do not be the friend of sensual pleasures. He who meditates attentively attains abundant joy.” (Dhammapada 27)

Read more commentaries on the Dhammapada.

• Meditate Daily

“The self resides within the lotus of the heart. Knowing this, devoted to the self, the sage enters daily that holy sanctuary.” (Chandogya Upanishad 8:3:3)

Meditation should be done daily, and if possible it should be done twice daily–morning and evening, or before and after work, whichever is more convenient.

When your period of meditation is over, do your utmost to maintain the flow of the japa of Om in time with your breathing in all your activities. For those who diligently and continually apply themselves, attainment is inevitable.

When you find yourself with some time–even a few minutes–during the day, sit and meditate. Every little bit certainly does help.

• Length of meditation

How long at a time should you meditate? The more you meditate the more benefit you will receive, but you should not push or strain yourself. Start with a modest time–fifteen or twenty minutes–and gradually work up to an hour or an hour and a half, perhaps once a week meditating longer if that is practical. But do not force or burn yourself out. It is a common trick of the mind to have you meditate for a very long time and then skip some days or weeks and then overdo it again. It is better to do the minimum time every day without fail. Remember the tortoise and the hare. Also, if you go about it the right way and live in the manner which makes you supremely responsive, one hour’s meditation can equal hours of “ordinary” meditation.

• Keep it inside

Do not dissipate the calmness and centering gained through meditation by talking about it to others. Experiences in meditation are not only subtle, they are fragile, as delicate as spun glass, and speaking about them can shatter their beneficial effects. Bragging, eulogizing, and swapping notes about meditation experiences is a very harmful activity. Avoid it.

Do not satisfy any curiosity about your personal yogic experiences or benefits except in the most general terms. Naturally you can tell people that meditation helps you, but do so in only a general way unless you really feel intuitively that you should be more specific. When people seem truly interested in spiritual life and serious about it, give them a copy of this book, or of Introduction to Om Yoga, and discuss the general and practical aspects freely.