For example, let’s say the words “purple zebra”. A purple zebra doesn’t exist, as far as we know, but it IS, because it is in your head right now.
Sort of like a black swan. A “black swan” was a word/concept used in medieval Europe to describe something that didn’t exist. Then, when the Europeans went to Australia, lo and behold, there were actual black swans.
So brahma is all that is, whether we know it to presently exist or not.
You can deify brahma if you want, and give it a Personage, so that you would call it Brahma with a capital B, but you don’t have to. Here, it is “simply” the word for all that is.
Clearly, you are part of brahma. In particular I know at least that I am a part of brahma.
aham means I in sanskrit but you can insert your name here.
In a Venn diagram this would look like:
The box is dashed because the box, usually reserved for the Universal Set, implies there is something outside of the box, whereas brahma is not just the box on your screen, but your screen, the county it is in, the country, the galaxy, the universe, and perhaps, all universes. So the universal set is porous and hence dashed.
He sees the Self in all beings, and all beings in the Self. (Bhagavad Giitaa, 6.29)
I am that I am - Yahweh
So “brahma is a subset of aham.”
If aham is a subset of brahma and brahma is a subset of aham, then the only mathematical conclusion is that aham IS brahma.
We ARE the porous “box” of everything that is.
In sanskrit, this is said by the ancient inestimable phrase:
“aham brahmAsmi”,
which simply means “I am brahma.”
To explain this further I like this quote:
The concept of unity is used to cancel the concept of the many; the concept of self (infinite consciousness) is used to cancel the conceptualisation of unity. [The term "unity" itself implies disparate objects. Ed.] The self can neither be conceived of as existence or non-existence, it is what is. (Vasistha’s Yoga, p. 400)
“A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways,” says the Book of James
Yama, niyama, Asana, prANAyAma, pratyAhAra, dhAraNA, dhyAna, and samAdhi are the eight limbs [of yoga]. Yoga Sutras, II.29
I’ve recently been in something like love with the concept of dhAraNA, “focusings”, that leads to an incredibly important quality, steadiness.
Steadiness sounds rather dry, doesn’t it? It’s yet another concept that I didn’t process very deeply at first in the Sutras. I think it gave it short shrift: “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. I need steadiness.”
Yet I’ve come in the past 6 months to really come to know and appreciate steadiness if not to have wonderful amounts of it.
As Shree Karunamyi says,
“How can you drive on the interstate [of life] and not have steadiness? You’ll get in an accident.”
It takes me awhile to appreciate even the beginnings of what the Greats have to say, and so it was with the above.
Focusing (dhArANa) fully deserves its place as a full limb - equal with Asana - of yoga, and one of the three distinct inner limbs that together - dhAraNA, dhyAna, and samAdhi - are the definition of the all important siddhi “perfect regulation of citta [consciousness]” or sanyama.
The Sutras even tell us how to acheive steadiness through sanyama on the “subtle channel in the shape of a tortoise in the chest below the throat pit”. (III.31)
I’m just beginning to appreciate steadiness in my own life. It’s really been a theme lately. It’s amazing how much even a little bit of can improve a situation.
I feel like I’ve finally discovered a key to my own life, only one of many available to a hyper-dimensional door, but it is so powerful that I just wanted to say a little about it.
The pursuit of book‐learning brings about daily increase.
The practice of Tao brings about daily loss. Repeat this loss
again and again, and you arrive at inaction. Practice inaction,
and there is nothing which cannot be done.
‐ Lao Tzu
I had an interesting experience the other day: I was within the field of consciousness if only for a minute.
I had my feet up as it happened. I looked at my feet and said, “What nice feet.” I wasn’t actually just complimenting my feet. I was the self as it is upon waking and before cognition. I was the me that is still me in my few visits to past lives. I was the me that is still me in my one surprising preview of a future life. I was my eternal self, the “seer in my own nature” (I.3)
Many if not most of you have been in this sort of being at least for a little while.
The Yoga Sutras say
yogaz citta vRtti nirodhaH
Yoga is the process of ending of the definitions/limitations of the field of consciousness. (I.2)
and the Yoga Sutras give 10 recipes for how to clarify the field of consciousness which is citta (and yes one basically is dreamwork).
I think I just stumbled upon the truth of one of them, from Chapter one, sUtra 35, that goes like this:
viSayavatI vA pravRttir utpannA manasaH sthiti-nibandhanI
Or, a cognition which has arisen, related to a sensory object, holding the steadiness of mind (clarifies citta). (I.35)
There are no accidents, but how to make this happen again? The ten ways, from Yoga Sutras I.33-I.39:
being in the realization of friendship with regard to the experiences of :
— happiness
— compassion with pain
— elation with virtue
— neutrality with non-virtue
also
–holding in or out of breath
– [what I said above] holding cognition of a sensory object with a steadiness of mind
–cognition which is sorrowless or luminous
–cognition of an object which transcends attachment
–having as supporting object the knowledge of dreams or sleep
–whatever desired way of meditation
I love this series of passages. They are pretty succinct all in all, wouldn’t you say? And I really appreciate the thought of the last one: “whatever desired way of meditation”. It feels very welcoming and supportive.
I guess I am only in chapter one in my journey to realizing yoga, (pitta alert!) but it was a great experience.
Why not work with the advice of the ten ways to being in this state all the time? What’s the danger?
I’ll tell ya what it is for me: attachment.
Attachment is holding on to prior happiness. (II.7)
Dislike is attachment to prior pain. (II.8)
That’s all there is to it. Sigh.
He who is freed from attachment,
liberated, whose mind is established
in wisdom, who acts for the sake of
yagya, his action is entirely
dissolved. (BhagavAd GItA, 23)
[Dr. Lad seems to embody the above paragraph to me.]
I remember growing up in the 70’s. I would watch “60 Minutes” Sunday nights with my dear grandparents and have some quality time with them.
A younger Dan Rather somberly intoned not once but a few times on the emergent cultural manifestations of “cults” taking over the young people.
Kool-Aid people, EST, the Hare Krishnas, Osho followers, and Transcendental Meditation were all grouped together. I remember specifically the “proof” that these were scary terrible sects. Something about not being able to go to the bathroom.
As a glad initiate now into Transcendental Meditation, and able to go to the bathroom whenever I want to, I kind of laugh at these memories of the show although it affected me at the time. I am now friends with a number of people who were lucky enough to be in the movement in the 70’s.
Also interesting to me is how the word “brain-washing” came up on the TV segments again and again. (Are there any youtube videos of these early shows? I couldn’t find them with a cursory search.))
You know what? The funniest thing is that I do feel like my brain is literally washed when I meditate, not in the old 60 Minutes sense, but like fresh laundry on a sunny morning.
It’s considered hygienic to wash your body of dirt and impurities. Why not wash and rinse your mind of unneeded stresses, even addictions (I am told), and hopefully, ultimately, of old vasanas and samskaras?
What are we collectively afraid of here? I’m just curious. Are there some attachments to the cultural significations of some of these impurities?
A wonderful talk by a neuroscientist on her own personal awakening, unfortunately as the result of a stroke, but still very compelling, expansive, and ultimately yogically encouraging.
She talked at length about her own experiences as a cognitive computer science specialist, who went “Suddenly Psychic“. (Yes, I later bought the book.)
I was so impressed with her tone, her delivery, I actually listened to the whole show. It was my first time I stayed for it. Usually I’m turned off, or maybe a little confused, by all the discussion of UFO’s and so on.
I’m glad I did this time. It changed my life.
After talking about healing her cat, the second hour was devoted to step by step instructions on how to bend spoons.
They worked perfectly.
We obviously are not talking about flimsy forks or spoons that can be bent “normally” by anyone. That clearly wouldn’t be any fun. We are talking about heavy banquet ware that is not bendable typically.
This guy looks like it is totally photoshopped, but it’s not. (Click on it to enlarge.) I think that the flash was just a little strong.
In fact, to the first lucky emailer with an address in the USA, I will mail this baby to you free of charge and you can see if you can undo it. With sheer force of hand, you won’t be able to.
How did I do it?
Basically, if you know a little Chi Gong, you will find this easy.
Using light pressure, pass your chi through the spoon for at least 5 minutes. This is the tough part.
You will find a moment when the thing feels like it just melted a little bit. That is your opportunity. With that light pressure, bend the spoon, or the tines of the fork, or whatever.
Having high psychical energy is pretty necessary. Eating chocolate helps.
You can still find the .mp3’s of that show on the Coast to Coast web site.
I found this whole thing to be incredibly empowering, telling us all that the military technological engineering oriented world is only so much of the picture.
For example, I gave a spirally twisted spoon to a techie friend for Christmas. He couldn’t unspiral it.
He announced that his engineering education was now for nought and that he should “go to a cave to meditate.” “Everyone should do that”, says my sister. Indeed, I think a lot can be said for it.
I would be happy too to levitate. That would make me feel good and inspire the same feelings, but on a larger scale, of course.
You’ve got to admit, the concept of the world will change once the first person levitates publicly. It will collectively rise, same as the person who did it.*
Yeah, I want to do these things to reach others, to say you CAN do the scary, the improbable, the incredibly transformative. YOU have incredible energy. There is no denying it after having done this.
It’s my triple Scorpio ascendant, I guess.
But the secret is not to get egotistical. Then all your insight and power drains out of you. This is what I understand happened to Uri Geller.
A friend of mine can do it even better than I do. She makes the tines into spirals. Cool.
Another friend told me, “Renay, what would I do with a bent spoon?”
Sure, it’s just a trick in a way. There’s no reason to do it unless you want to make jewelry or something, or with levitation, to cross the street without pushing the button for the light. But it teaches us that we are not drones of any sort, or as my friend said, it might make us want to meditate more. It might inspire our lazy selves to vibrate higher. Hence, despite objections by some, I think it qualifies as beginner’s yoga, but I may well be wrong yet again.
*Here are the sobering comments of Vasistha’s Yoga (page 313) about flying (and probably by extension, bending spoons):
Flying in the sky and other powers are natural to some beings, O Raama. The extroardinary qualities and faculties which are observed in this world are natural to those beings - not to the sages of self-knowledge. Supernatural faculties (like flying in the air) are developed even by those who are devoid of self-knowledge or liberation, by the utilisation of certain substances or by certain practices. All this does not interest the man of self-knowledge who is utterly content in himself. They who, in pursuit of pleasures, acquire these powers tainted by ignorance, are surely full of ignorance; the sages of self-knowledge do not adopt such a course.
Whether one is a knower of truth or ignorant of it, powers like flying in the air accrue to one who engages himself in some practices. But the sage of self-knowledge has no desire to acquire these. These practices bestow their fruit on anyone, for such is their nature. Poison kills all, wine intoxicates all, even so these practices bring about the ability to fly, etc., but they who have attained the supreme self-knowledge are not interested in these, O Raama. They are gained only by those who are full of desires; but the sage is free from the least desire of anything. Self-knowledge is the greatest gain; how does the sage of self-knowledge entertain any desire for anything else? …
Fair enough. In so far as this post stimulates discourse (within myself at the very least) and hence a real part of yoga, I’m glad I did the trick, but honestly and without artifice. The whole thing has been educational for myself and others. Let it be that.
