When one realizes the Self, in whom
All life is one, changeless, nameless, formless,
Then one fears no more. Until we realize
The unity of life, we live in fear.
- The Taittiriya Upanishad
Within the Vedantic tradition it is a well-known axiom that the mind is the source of bondage, and that it is also the source of liberation. As Sri Ramakrishna stated, “Bondage is of the mind; freedom too is of the mind. If you say 'I am a free soul. I am a son of God who can bind me' free you shall be.” The problem is that we have to mean it when we say it. Just repeating the words won’t do. Believe me I’ve tried.
The bondage of our minds is composed of our beliefs. What we believe to be true is what we experience as our particular reality. As a cognitive therapist I have often worked with clients to help them uncover and dismantle the irrational, limiting beliefs that cause them to suffer from depression, anxiety, poor self-esteem, etc. Could it be though that we are caught up in deeper, collective beliefs that bind us? Because these beliefs are collective they would appear as “common sense” and so slip by our attention unquestioned.
Beliefs in this sense are not just “thoughts,” but concepts about ourselves and our world to which we are deeply, and often unconsciously, emotionally attached. Even to question them can evoke deep existential anxiety. Thus someone who is deeply committed to a religious perspective becomes defensive when his beliefs are challenged, as does someone who is deeply committed to the scientific materialist view. Both are irrational in that they have strong emotional needs to maintain their view of reality. But what happens to us when events occur which call our most basic beliefs into question?
The yogic path is not about arguing the correctness of a belief system. It is not about creating or defending a religious or philosophical perspective. It is not about developing a “new paradigm.” Instead it is about quieting the mind and perceiving “what is” directly and unadulterated. It is about releasing our emotional attachments and seeing through our concepts. Ultimately it means investigating the “seer;” the source of our awareness. And the only way to do this is by being it.
Going Beyond Appearances
You are a volume in the divine book.
A mirror to the power that created the universe.
Whatever you want, ask it of yourself.
Whatever you’re looking for can only
be found inside of you.
- Rumi
Probably the most basic belief that we share is that the world as we perceive it through our senses is “the world.” This assumption is referred to as “basic ignorance,” or avidya, in both yogic and Buddhist terms. Instead we know that our sensory experience of an external world “out there” is a mixture of approximately 20% direct sensory input and 80% unconscious mental processing. As the writer Anais Nin put it, "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." What we perceive is actually “mind,” a construct or model of “reality.” This is not a negative or bad thing. It simply means that our experience is actually a creative, or interactive activity. The physicist John Wheeler coined the phrase “participatory universe” to describe how this seems to be happening on a quantum level.
I have had friends ask, “Does this mean there is no reality out there?” Sometimes followed by, “I believe there must be something out there.” My deep intuition is that there is a larger reality of which we are part. However, are “in here” and “out there” just categories of thought; deeply ingrained beliefs regarding the nature of reality? It’s not that “reality is all in your head,” perhaps, in fact, your “head” doesn’t exist either! Your “head” and my “head” are just the flip-side of ignorance which we generally refer to as “the ego.” You can’t have your duality and eat it too. (Whatever that might mean : )
Part of our problem is that the way we perceive the world is based in the “hard wiring” of our brains. Our brain structures have evolved from our most primitive “relatives,” and the most primitive structure is referred to as the “reptilian brain.” This part of the brain is geared towards seeing reality in terms of survival; me versus whatever, or whoever might want to devour me. The four functions of the lower brain include: feeding, fighting, fleeing and reproduction. As such it represents an inherited “belief” in our identification with the physical body. This is the most basic “knot” that we have to undo on the path of spiritual evolution. In terms of kundalini yoga it is known as the “Brahma granthi” and is understood as the primary knot by which spirit is bound to matter, i.e. bound by the belief that we are simply our physical bodies.
Meditation simply means making the mind quiet. There are a variety of methods for doing this. The point is not the method but the state of inner peace and the expanded awareness that we experience. Even when the mind is in motion we can enter into our soul’s perspective – recognize our inner witnessing awareness. When we move into this awareness we are free from anxiety, fear, anger or any form of tension. We are aware of the body, aware of the world as it appears to us, but we are not identified with it. From this perspective we can dissolve the tangled knots of past impressions, chronic stress and painful attachments.
A few months back I was at a place of extreme stress in my life. I had been out of work for several months and was running out of money. I had no where to stay and had spent the night in my car barely sleeping. I went to a local park and begin hiking to work off some of the anxiety which was threatening to overwhelm me. As I was walking I remember feeling embarrassed that people would see me and know that I was a homeless person. After a while I found a quiet spot to sit, took out my mala (rosary) and began silently repeating my mantra. As my mind settled somewhat and I was able to shift into the witnessing awareness, I was engulfed by a sense of profound peace. Suddenly I was aware of the beauty of the little park, the wind in the trees, birds singing and the gentle warmth of the sun. I felt and knew that it was all held within this awareness of which I was not a separate entity but an integral part. As I surrendered further into this state of peace a sense of joy developed within me along with a sense of both loving and being loved. My immediate problems did not disappear but they lost their power to make me desperate and anxious. I had found a deeper and larger sense of being in which they seemed almost minor.
The amazing thing is that this inner state of peace is present and available to us all the time. When we are caught up in the ongoing story of our lives though, we forget to access it. The regular practice of meditation helps us to not only access this state but begin to live in it. When we are present as witnessing awareness to any experience we open up to a field of potential beyond limiting thoughts and beliefs. When we are at peace and our ego minds are not fighting, judging or trying to hide from present experience there are many possibilities. Within the vaster state of inner peace our knots begin to dissolve because we are not busy pulling them tighter!
