Consciousness minus conceptualization is the eternal Brahman the absolute; consciousness plus conceptualization is thought.

— Yoga Vasishtha

(Picture: Eskimo Nebula, courtesy: NASA)

“Past and future exist only in our memory. The present moment, though, is outside of time, it’s Eternity. In India, they use the word ‘karma,’ for lack of any better term. But it’s a concept that’s rarely given a proper explanation. It isn’t what you did in the past that will affect the present. It’s what you do in the present that will redeem the past and thereby change the future.”

(From Aleph by Paulo Coelho)

There are two ways to live your life.

1. Live like a zombie and allow the karma (momentum generated by your past actions) run (or ruin) your life, or…

2. Live consciously, take total control of your life in the present and shape your future just like a sculptor shapes a sculpture.

The key is the present moment. The present moment is where all action happens. Conscious action in the present moment is what unlinks the future from the influence of the past, redeems the past and changes your future.

Yoga Vasishta categorically states…

There is no power greater than right action in the present. …

What is called fate or divine will is nothing other than the action or self-effort of the past. The present is infinitely more potent than the past. They are indeed fools who are satisfied with the fruits of their past effort (which they regard as divine will) and do not engage themselves in self-effort now.

So, how would you live your life? Would you be satisfied with the fruits of your past effort, let the momentum from your past take control of your life and your future? Or will you decide to live consciously, use the present moment to redeem the past and shape your future?

Decide, now.

“As there are hundreds of dreams uncontrolled till the end of life, so there are hundreds of waking states also in the gross ignorance of the unliberated.”

— Yoga Vasishta

Inception is a film that’s both fascinating and enlightening. In Inception there is this interesting concept of entering into someone else’s subconscious mind and planting an idea into their mind. But we are not concerned with this now. What we are more interested in is the concept of multiple levels of dreaming.

The movie Inception shows four levels of dreaming, a dream within a dream within a dream within a dream, and one level of waking. Now, consider this… instead of just four levels of dreaming, what if in reality there are infinite number of levels of dreaming upwards and downwards? Right now the state you experience as waking is also a dream from the perspective of higher states. Only your assumption that this state is real makes it real, otherwise it’s just a dream. A dream is as real to you as the waking state when you experience it. Can you deny this? So, if there are infinite number of levels of dreams upwards and downwards, then there is no absolute waking state. It’s all just dreams and nothing else.

Here’s a little extract from a non-dualistic text that gives a very similar idea and explains it better.

Disciple (D.): Now, master, the dream is but the reproduction of mental impressions formed in the waking state and lying dormant before. They reproduce past experiences. Therefore dream-visions are rightly said to be only mental creations. Should the same be true of the waking world, this must be the reproduction of some past impressions. What are those impressions which give rise to these waking experiences?

Master (M.): Just as the experiences of the waking state give rise to the dream world, so also the experiences of past lives give rise to this world of the waking state, nonetheless illusory.

D.: If the present experience is the result of the preceding one, what gave rise to its preceding one?

M.: That was from its preceding one and so on.

D.: This can extend back to the time of creation. In dissolution all these impressions must have been resolved. What was left there to start the new creation?

M.: Just as your impressions gathered one day lie dormant in deep sleep and become manifest the following day, so also the impressions of the preceding cycle (kalpa [aeon]) reappear in the succeeding one. Thus these impressions of Maya have no beginning, but appear over and over again.

D.: Master, what was experienced on previous days can now be remembered. Why do we not remember the experiences of past lives?

M.: This cannot be. See how the waking experiences repeat themselves in the dream but are not apprehended in the same way as in the waking state, but differently. Why? Because sleep makes all the difference, in as much as it hides the original bearings and distorts them, so that the same experience repeated in the dream is differently set, often aberrant and wobbling. Similarly the experiences of past lives have been affected by comas and deaths so that the present setting is different from the past ones and the same experience repeated in a different way cannot recall the past.

D.: Master, dream visions being only mental creations are transient and are soon dismissed as unreal. So they are properly said to be illusory. On the contrary the waking world is seen to be lasting and all evidence goes to show that it is real. How can it be classified with dreams as being illusory?

M.: In the dream itself, the visions are experienced as proven and real; they are not at that time felt to be unreal. Similarly at the time of experience, this waking world also seems to be proven and real. But when you wake up to your true nature, this will also pass off as unreal.

D.: What then is the difference between the dream and waking states?

M.: Both are only mental and illusory. There can be no doubt of this. Only the waking world is a long drawn out illusion and the dream a short one. This is the only difference and nothing more.

(Advaita Bodha Deepika, Chapter 1, page 13–14)

Now the most important question… if all is dream and nothing else, then who is the dreamer? You may say, “I am the dreamer.” But who is that I? Who are you? Right now you describe yourself with certain attributes like a name, some age, certain qualities, certain abilities, etc.. But when you fall asleep and start dreaming, you forget most of these attributes and identify yourself with a dream personality who is totally different and who does things you can only dream of! When you experience a dream your waking personality does not exist, and when you wake up the dream personality becomes unreal. So when you identify your personality with certain set of attributes, then that personality should be unreal because the attributes vanish when you wake up to a higher state or go deep into a dream.

But it’s obvious there is some part of you that is witnessing through all the dreams. It is that part of you that remains when you strip off all the attributes, it’s the core you that’s common to all the dreams and all the states. It’s the witness consciousness within you that is silently watching through all your dreams, all your life, all of your experiences. Isn’t that witness consciousness within you the real dreamer? In fact the witness consciousness is the only reality, the real you, the real I. Everything else is just part of a dream and hence unreal, is it not?

The key here is to stop identifying yourself with forms and attributes. You have to look within to find the real entity that’s you. As the popular quote from Carl Jung goes, “Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.”

Staying with the subject of dreams, you may be interested in reading these posts also: The dog chase, and the wise one and Taming Hitler, Gandhigiri style

The Lord is attained without the least effort; he is worshipped by self-realisation alone. … The self is not realised by any other means other than meditation. If one is able to meditate even for thirteen seconds, even if one is ignorant one attains the merit of giving away a cow in charity. If one does so for one hundred and one seconds, the merit is that of performing a sacred rite. If the duration is twelve minutes, the merit is a thousandfold. If the duration is of a day, one dwells in the highest realm. This is the supreme yoga, this is the supreme kriyā.

— Yoga Vāsiṣṭha (tr. by Swami Venkatesananda p. 255)

What is meditation?

Meditation is not a practice; it is not the cultivation of habit; meditation is heightened awareness. Mere practice dulls the mind. heart for habit denotes thoughtlessness and causes insensitivity. Right meditation is a liberative process, a creative self-discover which frees thought-feeling from bondage. In freedom alone is there the Real.

— J. Krishnamurti (source)

Meditation doesn’t imply merely sitting in a posture with eyes closed. Meditation, in essence, means heightened awareness, being intensely aware of the present moment. This heightened awareness comes about only when you are not making any effort. It comes about with the acceptance and awareness of the present moment as it is. If you are in such a state of pure awareness, you are in meditation irrespective of what you are doing. In Yoga Vasishta it is said that, “While doing whatever one is doing — seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, eating, moving, sleeping, breathing, or talking — one should realise one’s essential nature as pure consciousness. Thus does one attain liberation.”

Of course, if you think that sitting in a posture with eyes closed helps you get to the state of heightened awareness, you can definitely practice that.

How to meditate?

When you sit down to meditate, tell yourself that at this time “I want nothing”. The second is to tell yourself “I do nothing”. The third sutra (principle) is “I am nothing”. Do not think that you have to meditate, just sit and be hollow and empty. You do not have to make any kind of attempt. These three sutras are very important.

— Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (source)

What is the truth?

‘I have nothing to do with sorrow, with actions, with delusion or desire. I am at peace, free from sorrow. I am Brahman’ — such is truth.

‘I am free from all defects, I am the all, I do not seek anything nor do I abandon anything, I am Brahman’ — such is the truth.

‘I am blood, I am flesh, I am bone, I am body, I am consciousness, I am the mind also, I am Brahman’ — such is the truth.

‘I am the firmament, I am space, I am the sun and the entire space, I am all things here, I am Brahman’ — such is the truth.

‘I am a blade of grass, I am the earth, I am a tree-stump, I am the forest, I am the mountain and the oceans, I am the non-dual Brahman’ — such is the truth.

‘I am the consciousness in which all things are strung and through whose power all beings engage themselves in all their activities; I am the essence of all things’ — such is the truth.

This is certain: all things exist in Brahman, all things flow from it, all things are Brahman; it is omnipresent, it is the one self, it is the truth.

(Yoga Vāsiṣṭha (tr. by Swami Venkatesananda, p.233)

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 intenrested in these, O Rāma. They are gained only by those who are full of desires; but the sage is free from the least desire for anything. Self knowledge is the greatest gain; how does the sage of self-knowledge entertain any desire for anything else?

— Sage Vasiṣṭha (The Supreme Yoga, a translation of Yoga Vasishta by Swami Venkatesananda, p. 216)

All that I am trying to do is to help you to discern for yourself that there is no salvation outside of yourself, that no Master, no society, can save you; that no church, no ceremony, no prayer can break down your self-created limitations and restrictions; that only through your own strenuous awareness is there the comprehension of the real, the permanent.
— J. Krishnamurti (source)

Self-knowledge or knowledge of truth is not had by resorting to a guru (preceptor) nor by the study of scripture, nor by good works; it is attained only by means of enquiry inspired by the company of wise and holy men. One’s inner light alone is the means, naught else.
— Yoga Vasishta (tr. by Swami Venkatesananda, p. 147)

Be free; hope for nothing from anyone. I am sure if you look back upon your lives you will find that you were always vainly trying to get help from others which never came. All the help that has come was from within yourselves.
— Swami Vivekananda (Complete Works, vol.2, p.324)

Weigh in the balance of your wisdom, the sense-pleasures on one side and the bliss of peace on the other. Whatever you determine to be the truth, seek that.

— Yoga Vasishta (tr. by Sw. Venkatesananda, p. 146)

Questioner: How would you cope with an incurable disease?

Krishnamurti: Most of us do not understand ourselves, our various tensions and conflicts, our hopes and fears, which often produce mental and physical disorders.

Of primary importance is psychological understanding and well being of the mind-heart, which then can deal with the accidents of disease. As a tool wears out so does the body, but those who cling to sensory values find this wasting away to be a sorrow beyond measure; they live for sensation and gratification and the fear of death and pain drives them to delusion. As long as thought-feeling is predominantly sensate there will be no end to delusion and fear; the world in its very nature being a distraction it is essential that the problem of delusion and health be approached patiently and wisely.

If we are organically diseased then let us cope with this condition as with all mechanism, in the best way possible. The psychological delusions, tensions, conflicts, maladjustments produce greater misery than organic disease. We try to eradicate symptoms rather than cause; the cause itself may be sensate value. There is no end to the gratification of the senses which only creates greater and greater turmoil, tension, fear and so on; such a living must culminate in mental and physical disorder or in war. Unless there is a radical change in value there will and must be ever increasing disharmony within, and so, without. This radical change in value must be brought about through understanding the psychological being; if you do not change, your delusions and ill health will inevitably increase; you will become unbalanced, depressed, giving continuous employment to physicians. If there is no deep revolution of values then disease and delusion become a distraction, an escape, giving opportunity for self-indulgence. We can unconditionally accept an incurable disease only when thought-feeling is able to transcend the value of time.

The predominance of sensory values cannot bring sanity and health. There must be a cleansing of the mind-heart which cannot be done by any outer agency. There must be self-awareness, a psychological tension. Tension is not necessarily harmful; there must be right exertion of the mind. It is only when tension is not properly utilized that it leads to psychological difficulties and delusions, to ill health and perversions. Tension of the right kind is essential for understanding; to be alertly and passively aware is to give full attention without the conflict of opposition. Only when this tension is not properly understood does it lead to difficulty; living, relationship, thought demand heightened sensitivity, a right tension. We are conscious of this tension and generally misread or avoid it thus preventing the understanding that it would bring. Tension or sensitivity can heal or destroy.

Life is complex and painful, a series of inner and outer conflicts. There must be an awareness of the mental and emotional attitudes which cause outward and physical disturbances. To understand them you must have time for quiet reflection; to be aware of your psychological states there must be periods of quiet solitude, a withdrawal from the noise and bustle of daily life and its routine This active stillness is essential not only for the well being of the mind-heart but for the discovery of the Real without which physical or moral well being is of little significance.

Unfortunately most of us give little time to serious and quiet self-recollectedness. We allow ourselves to become mechanical, thoughtlessly following routine, accepting and being driven by authority; we become mere cogs in the vast machine of the present culture. We have lost creativeness; there is no inward joy. What we are inwardly that we project outwardly. Mere cultivation of the outer does not bring about inward well being; only through constant self-awareness and self-knowledge can there be inward tranquillity. Without the Real, existence is conflict and pain.

Ojai 7th Public Talk 1945 (source)

Narendra — All is one, isn’t it?

Sri Ramakrishna — No, beyond one and two.

(source)

When the mind perceives duality then there is both duality and its counterpart, which is unity. When the mind drops the perception of duality there is neither duality nor unity. When one is firmly established in the oneness of the infinite consciousness, whether he is quiet or actively engaged in work, then he is considered to be at peace with himself.

— Yoga Vāsiṣṭha (tr. by Swami Venkatesananda, p.66)

The Vedas deal mainly with the subject of the three modes of material nature. O Arjuna, become transcendental to these three modes. Be free from all dualities and from all anxieties for gain and safety, and be established in the self.

— Bhagavad Gita 2.45

In this world, whatever is gained is gained by only by self-effort; where failure is encountered, it is seen that there has been slackness in the effort. This is obvious, but what is called fate is fictitious, and is not seen. …

Self-effort is of two categories: that of past births and that of this birth. The latter effectively counteracts the former. Fate is none other than self-effort of a past incarnation. There is constant conflict between these two in this incarnation and that which is more powerful triumphs.

Self-effort which is not in accord with the scriptures is motivated by delusion. When there is obstruction in the fruition of self-effort one should examine it to see if there is such deluded action, and if there is it should be immediately corrected. There is no power greater than right action in the present. Hence, one should take recourse to self-effort, grinding one’s teeth, and one should overcome evil by good and fate by present effort.

…

… What is called fate or divine will is nothing other than the action or self-effort of the past. The present is infinitely more potent than the past. They are indeed fools who are satisfied with the fruits of their past effort (which they regard as divine will) and do not engage themselves in self-effort now.

— Yoga Vasishtha (tr. by Swami Venkatesananda)