With closed eyes remain a witness of the various thoughts coming
into your mind and do not try to consciously control the thought process.
Do not be disturbed . . .
- Swami Satyananda Saraswati
http://www.yogavision.net/
In its deepest sense, yoga is a science of consciousness. Its aim is to help us develop our consciousness, raising it from the mundane to the sublime. Meditation is central to this process and is generally considered to be essential to spiritual evolution. Meditation, however, can take many forms. The practice of hatha yoga postures, for example, is a way of meditating if practiced with a present-centered, mindful awareness. Sacred dance, music, art, work, life in general . . . can all be forms of meditation. The key is the quality and intensity of awareness which we bring to each moment. Sitting meditation, of course, is very helpful for developing awareness.
When I first began studying yoga with Swami Niranjan, he emphasized this “inner” aspect of yoga practice. Whether meditating, practicing asanas and pranayama, cleaning, or even eating meals it was important to be present, to be aware and to watch the flow of thoughts continually going through our minds. This was very hard at first. Often, I just wanted to let go and go with the flow of thoughts, fantasies, memories, etc. instead of trying to be aware of them. We often prefer to go through life on auto-pilot while lost in thoughts, dreams or fantasies. It takes consistent practice to develop this inner witnessing awareness, often referred to as “the inner witness.”
There are basically two types of meditative discipline. One involves focused concentration whether on the breath, mantra, visualization or maybe a physical object like a candle flame. Concentration means intentionally shutting out distracting thoughts and is a way of making the mind calm and focused. The second type of meditation practice involves opening up awareness, accepting thoughts and feelings as they arise. The trick is to remain apart from them in some sense. As Swami Satyananda instructs us above, we don’t try to control the process but we don’t let it control us either. Both types of meditation are important. The first helps us to develop focused attention and intention. The second helps us to become aware of the subconscious processes going on within us. As Dr. Rishi Vivekananda writes in Practical Yoga Psychology
, “Yoga helps us to develop the ‘witness position’ – the ability to stand back and get a new view of events, situations and even our own thought patterns. Then we can question the real truth of all of our valued opinions and decide if we should keep them or not.”The inner witnessing awareness enables us to step outside of our egos. It is the first step in moving from ego-identification to awakening as an aspect of the universal consciousness. Deepak Chopra refers to the ego as the “local mind.” In The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire
, he writes, “The local mind is personal and individual to each of us. It holds our ego, the self-defined “I” that wanders through the world a slave to our conditioned habits. By its very nature the local mind separates us from the rest of creation. It puts up thick, artificial boundaries that many of us feel compelled to defend, even when this means cutting ourselves off from the deeper meanings and joyous connections that come from feeling part of the universal.” It may not seem like it at first, but the inner witness is actually the presence of the universal consciousness within us. Chopra refers to this as the “nonlocal mind.” “Nonlocal mind, on the other hand, is pure soul or spirit, known as universal consciousness. Operating outside the boundaries of normal space and time, it is the great organizing and unifying force in the universe, infinite in scope and duration. By its nature, nonlocal mind connects all things because it is all things.” When we are fixated within our egos we can barely glimpse the possibilities of our nonlocal mind. As we continue to develop the witnessing quality of awareness we can gradually transcend the narrow confines of our ego-identities. I say “gradually", because many of us get frightened at the possible “loss of identity.” So it is best to take it step by step. However, our true nature, true self, is unbounded consciousness, eternally blissful and absolutely free.
Yoga allows us to enter into a series of higher developmental stages which transcend ego development as generally known to psychology. In The Eye of the Spirit
, Ken Wilber writes about the possibility of “subject permanence,” a concept developed by Charles Alexander based on his research into the developmental stages of consciousness through meditation. Subject permanence is a higher developmental stage which can be compared to “object permanence,” as identified by Piaget. Just as object permanence represents an important stage of cognitive development in the infant, subject permanence represents an important stage of mature consciousness development. Writes Wilber:“This ‘subject permanence’ is a constant state of witnessing carried unbroken through waking, dream, and deep sleep states, a constancy which . . . is prerequisite and mandatory to full realization of nondual Suchness (and a constancy which is unmistakable, self-referential, postrepresentational, nondual, self-validating, self-existing, and self-liberating.)”
Yoga, of course, begins where we are. It begins with a compassionate awareness and acceptance of the limited, neurotic, conditioned, alienated aspect of ourselves. The inner witness is necessarily non-judgmental, compassionate and often quite humorous. It is the not the cold detachment which is actually a defensive retreat from our more difficult thoughts and feelings. It is an awareness which can liberate us from our “mind-forged manacles,” to quote William Blake. It is the Divine Presence within us.
