Abhyasa and Vairagya: Consistency and Nonattachment

Success in meditation comes through consistent practice and nonattachment. 

– Patanjali

Often attendees at a meditation workshop will ask me, “How can I make my mind be still?”  This usually happens after I have spent some time introducing and training them in an approach to practice.  It seems we all want a magic pill.  We want quick and easy results.  Sometimes we do have sudden breakthroughs, moments of grace when the mind becomes still and we marvel at the joy and beauty of pure being.  Then we “come down” and it’s back to the grindstone.  Many times I have had people report feelings of extraordinary peace, tingles of energy moving through them, or some such.  Then I don’t see them again. 

It’s not so much that I wish to keep them as students but I suspect that they go back to their regular patterns of stress accumulation.  The truth is that we’ve got to keep at it, be committed to spiritual practice for it to “work.”  Remember the old self-growth cliché?  “It only works when you do.”  As Swami Satyananda once put it, “I can teach you a method in a few minutes but it might take years for you to realize the results.”  Dammit, we might need to develop qualities which are increasingly vanishing in our society, like patience and perseverance.  It might be fun to fly to the top of a mountain and enjoy the view but is something different to experience the journey step by step.  The only we can sustain progress in terms of psycho-spiritual development is step by step. 

Patience is profoundly important.  Our minds have a tendency to keep rushing forward into an imagined future, sometimes with hope and sometimes with fear.  Hope and fear are like addictive drugs that we were born exposed to.  Patience means attending to what’s happening right now.  The crazy thing is that we are imagining some other state, some other time when we will experience reality when it is unfolding right before us.  Abhyasa means attending to practice in the moment, recognizing and releasing the thoughts that get in the way and opening to pure being.  Through consistent practice we continually ground ourselves in true reality.  It is the reality of the Self.

Abhyasa doesn’t mean attending an occasional class or workshop.  It doesn’t mean practicing for a few minutes each day, although this is a good place to start.  It means turning our daily lives into a constant practice of mindfulness.  This is the only way that we a chance of overcoming the powerful habitual patterns of our minds.  We all know about addiction and addicts who have become victims to substances or behaviors that take over their lives.  On a deeper level we are all addicted to samsara.  Recognizing this helps us open to compassion.  Conventional reality is also a bad habit, something we, as spiritual practitioners need to overcome.  Our conventional reality is often one of stress, alienation and spiritual blindness.  Effort is even more essential when we are embraced by and embracing the status quo.

Vairagya, or nonattachment is the counterpart to practice.  It means letting go of our habitual mental and physical objects of security and pleasure, separating ourselves from our habitual patterns of desire and aversion.  During meditation practice we encounter the desire mind operating all the time.  We might think of something we’d like to eat, purchase, or someplace we’d like to visit, someone we miss or would like to have sex with.  We might also be occupied with thoughts of worry and anxiety, thinking of all the things we don’t want or are afraid to lose.  As long as we are in the mode of attachment other people are also objects, things which we seek to satisfy our own needs and desires.  It is only when we are nonattached that we truly relate to each other as conscious beings. 

In the Bhagavad Gita Krishna teaches:  “When a man thinks of the objects, attachment to them arises; from attachment desire is born; from desire anger arises.  From anger comes delusion; from delusion the loss of memory; from loss of memory the destruction of discrimination; from the destruction of discrimination he perishes.  But the self-controlled man, moving amongst objects with the senses under restraint, and free from attraction and repulsion, attains to peace.” (2:62-64)

The insanity of attachment-desire can be readily seen in our world.  A recent article tells of an incident in which a young man was murdered for his iphone.  This is not an isolated occurrence, it is part of an international phenomenon known as “apple picking.”  Whenever new products come out there is a rise in these types of crimes as people all over the world are willing to do whatever they can to acquire them. 

I am pretty sure that none of my readers would kill for an iphone 5, still it might be good to for us to observe our attachment thoughts.  Our consumer oriented media create cravings for new products.  If we can detach ourselves from our impulses briefly we can question whether we really need or even want the product.  Why?  Do we really believe it will make us better, happier, more complete as a human being?  These “products” serve to distract us from looking inward, developing ourselves or making actual intimate contact with each other.  We don’t really need a special app to help us meditate or connect with each other, disconnecting from our devices works better.

Nonattachment doesn’t mean that we can’t own, use or even appreciate anything.  It is more about our minds and our emotional investment in things, in our pride, greed, and desires.  When we use other people to serve our needs and desires without respecting them as fellow conscious beings we objectify them.  As we progress along our path we come to realize that we are attached to forms and all forms are transitory.  We realize as well that we are attached to our world view, our interpretation of the way things are.  When things don’t turn out the way we want or expect them to we are prone to anger or depression.  Nonattachment means realizing that the world is “a passing show.”  The only permanent reality is the eternal witness within us. 

Faith and Surrender

Meditation seems so difficult for many of us.  Am I doing it right?  Why can’t I make my mind quiet?  Where is the bliss?  Meditation techniques are numerous and no one technique will work for everybody, (never mind all the hype over electronic audio assisted technology guaranteed to make you “meditate like a Zen master” instantly).  It is really about developing your own awareness, your own most intimate presence and awakening to that. 

We usually think of faith as something we put into something beyond ourselves.  In meditation we are learning to put our faith in who we are on our most fundamental level.  “You are It!” the Upanishad tells us.  The sacred essence of being is within you, right now and always.  It always has been as well.  As Krishna explains, “There is nothing separate from me.  The universe is suspended from me like jewels upon a string.”  When we are able to let go of all of the BS (belief systems) that tell us who and what we are we awaken to our authentic being.  It is all God.

The ego is primarily our sense of separateness from the all.  It is our identification with our BS on a personal level.  Ego is the fall guy in most spiritual teachings.  In the Yoga Sutras ego-identification is one of the five primary afflictions that cause us to reenter the revolving door of misery.  When we cling to our physical vehicle and to our personal narrative, we become caught up in an illusion.  When we surrender the ego in faith to our true being, we are liberated.  It is very simple really and yet, seemingly impossible for most of us. 

On the other hand, our ego is also an aspect of God.  We don’t have to strive to be individuals we simply are.  Our individuality is God-given.  God has created us as individual beings as a means of knowing and expressing Herself more completely.  As ego-beings we are like cells in God’s body; both individual and inseparably connected.   There is no reason to be afraid of going beyond limited ego-awareness.  There is no reason to despise it. 

Faith simply means trusting that there is something, perhaps someone, who is wiser, more powerful and loving than we think that we are.  It means allowing that our own intelligence, strength, sensitivity and vivaciousness grow out of something deeper, something universal.  Surrender is simply inevitable with this recognition.  “Resistance is futile.”  At the same time our resistance itself is an aspect of the Divine.  Whatever you are doing, thinking, feeling, experiencing is none other than It, none other than “I.”  In the universal scheme of awakening there is no way we can fail; “no soul left behind.” 

This doesn’t mean that we don’t have to contribute some effort.  Surrender requires an active commitment.  It isn’t just giving up.  If only it were that easy.  Giving up is a momentary capitulation to circumstances, surrender is a commitment to Spirit.  Surrender entails accepting given circumstances and seeing beyond them.  It is the opposite of giving up.  It is trusting, knowing, believing and accepting the fundamental beneficence of life. 

In the Yoga Sutras surrender is called isvara pranidhana.  It’s a mouthful, I agree.  Isvara, or Ishwara, means the higher consciousness which we have access to when we quiet our mental chatter and attune to it.  Pranidhana means dedication and devotion.  It takes conscious effort to attune to and to stay connected with higher consciousness.  We can surrender to fear, to anger, to loneliness, or unworthiness without effort.  Surrender to God requires focus, awareness, commitment and dedication.  Never, never give up because once you are connected you taste freedom. 

Faith, or shradha, is a profound power within us.  It can propel us into new dimensions of consciousness or it can keep us stuck.  There is a story of a woman who heard that her faith could move mountains.  She sat in meditation for an extended time trying to remove the mountain in front of her.  When she opened her eyes it was still there.  “I knew it wouldn’t work,” she said.  Our problem is that all of our faith, all of our belief is invested in things-as-they-are.  This is what we are accustomed to as “reality.”  Our reality is the display of our beliefs.  We are locked into a shared reality, a collective hallucination that keeps us from realizing our inner power of faith.  We have been lead to believe that our outer circumstances are ultimately real.  In truth they are created from within us through our limited beliefs.

Emptiness

Emptiness, or shunyata, basically refers to that inner space of awareness between stimulus and response.  It is a wonderful but sometimes scary space.  It is the space of uncertainty in which we might feel unsure of ourselves.  When we really move into that space all of our self and world definitions are up for grabs.  All of the sudden we don’t have any answers.  We don’t have any baggage.  Everything and nothing is possible.  It is a perspective which is “out of the box,” it is a step into extraordinary mind, beyond ego.

Stimulus refers to anything that might trigger a response in us.  Our response is based on our interpretation, our conditioning and ignorance.  It arises out of the dual forces of desire and aversion, love and hate.  It is centered in ego, a limited perspective in which we are separate from the all.  In life we often seem to have little or no control over what happens in the world, however within our freedom of response we assume power.  Paradoxically, when we let go of our need to control situations we discover an inner process of transformation.  When we make an inward shift in consciousness our world shifts in accord.  When we step out of our limited ego-identities, we enter a new world.

Shunyata is not a negative state.  Often we fear the feeling of emptiness, loss, or confusion.  It is actually the gateway to enlightenment.  Emptiness refers to the state of mind in which we are free of any preconceived notions and are hence able to see clearly.  As the Buddha taught, ”When appearances and names are put away and all discrimination ceases, that which remains is the true and essential nature of things and, as nothing can be predicated as to the nature of essence, it is called the “Suchness” of Reality.”  We tend to cling tenaciously to our words and concepts.  They give us an illusion of stability and certainty.  In truth, they are just symbolic constructs which describe reality to some limited extent.  To enter Shunyata means to be open to the mystery of being, always and ultimately indefinable.  As the French say, it has a certain “Je n’ sais quoi.” 

Meditation is the art of entering into shunyata.  It allows us to disconnect from the thought constructs of our minds and to rest in our original being.  At first we may find ourselves wrestling with the restless energy of our “monkey-mind.”  It doesn’t work very well to try to subdue this monkey.  In fact, if you wrestle with it, it will kick your ass.  Instead it is better to just leave it be and to observe, to watch, listen and realize the underlying stillness which is deeper within.  Our deeper being is always present beneath the surface of things like the canvas under the painting, or the screen on which the video is displayed.  For us the inner surface, the inner screen is pure emptiness, the boundless expanse of consciousness. 

Emptiness in this sense is not “nothingness.”  This is not like nihilism which states that nothing is real.  Instead it is the creative source of everything.  It is like the zero-point field (ZPF) in physics; an all pervasive field of potential underlying and supporting the physical universe.  As Michael Talbot explains, “According to our current understanding of physics, every region of space is awash with different kinds of fields composed of waves of varying lengths. Each wave always has at least some energy. When physicists calculate the minimum amount of energy a wave can possess, they find that every cubic centimeter of empty space contains more energy than the total energy of all the matter in the known universe!”  (The Holographic Universe, 1991)

Our entire universe, as vast as it is, is like a bubble floating in an immense sea of energy.  Similarly, our personal “universes” of experience are tiny bubbles floating in an immense inner ocean of consciousness-energy.  When we are able let go of the temporary forms associated with the mind and senses we enter into this inner reservoir of creative potential.  Our various bodies, minds and consciousness all originate in and ultimately belong to this singular underlying field of consciousness-energy.  It is our true Self. 

Samsara

Suffering is definitely relative.  For some people life is a daily struggle to survive, for others it may be the failure to find the ideal relationship, job or latté.  I’m not making fun here really.  No matter how well off we are we suffer.  It’s a good idea sometimes to look around and realize how well off we are in comparison.  Even better, of course, to devote some of our resources to helping those who are less fortunate.  The truth, however, is that suffering is universal. 

When things are going well we feel content and happy.  Unfortunately life, existence, nature, or whatever we call it, involves change.  The ancient Greek philosopher Hereclitus observed that, “the only constant is change.”  When we depend upon outward circumstances for our sense of well-being we are always vulnerable to devastation.  Another word for this dependence is attachment.  Attachment is at the heart of suffering.  Deeper still, however, is ignorance.  Ignorance in this sense doesn’t mean lack of education; it means that we have forgotten who we truly are.  We don’t know ourselves. 

Samsara means the continuous cycle of birth, decay, death and rebirth.  It is a cycle that happens every lifetime, but it also happens each day and every moment.  When we were born we entered into this life experience, into this particular physical, familial, socio-economic, cultural and historical context.  Although we are unaware of it, it has all been preconditioned by our past karmas.  On a soul level we have chosen this life experience in order to develop spiritually.  Imagine writing a screenplay full of drama, comedy, action, etc. then submitting it and forgetting about it.  Suddenly you are at the theatre and watching the movie.  You laugh, cry, cringe and groan with each scene completely forgetting that you are the author.  Because it has been so well produced, you become so involved with the main character that you even forget you are actually in the audience. 

The true purpose of human life is to awaken to our true nature.  As Thich Nhat Hahn says, “We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness.”  The ego-self belongs to the drama.  It is the character we have identified with.  The ego-self is involved with duality.  It loves this and hates that.  Our lives are the tragic-comic dramas of our egos.  We have friends and enemies.  We fall in and out of love with others, experience success and failure, health and sickness, joy and sorrow.  We fail realize that everyone and everything is our Self in disguise.  As we awaken our lives change from drama to love story.  Ego tells us that there is a particular person with whom we will find true love.  Spirit reveals to us that we are love itself. 

There is a wonderful verse from the Bhagavad Gita which gives us a glimpse of what this universal Self-love might be like.  “Enlightened ones,” says Krishna, “look with an equal eye upon one who is intelligent and humble, an uneducated janitor, a cow, elephant or dog.”  A friend once commented that it seems like the enlightened person is indistinguishable from an idiot.  This is the perspective of the intellectual ego.  We have to go beyond the rational intellect in order to know a deeper reality.  Our True Self is beyond mind and intellect.  As we awaken in consciousness we begin to recognize ourselves in all beings.  This is the birth of compassion, the birth of love.

It is also the gateway to freedom, moksha.  Moksha, or nirvana, is the release from samsara.  It is the recognition of the eternal being behind the appearances of life.  When we are aware of our eternal beingness; when we are at rest in Atman, i.e. Self, we have a higher perspective.  We can recognize that this life, this incarnation is temporary while we are eternal.  It doesn’t really matter what kind of past you or I might have had.  Once we awaken to our authentic being we are liberated from that narrative, from that dream.  Attachment will try to take us back there again, so we have to be on guard.

I have found a simple way of understanding non-attachment and liberation in a quote from Victor Frankl, MD, who said, "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."  Consciousness, compassion, non-attachment and liberation might here be considered as roughly synonymous.  Consciousness develops as we are able to enter that space between stimulus and response; when we practice inner non-attachment.  Compassion and liberation, or moksha, arise naturally when we are able to this. 

Love and Ego

Every path or every yoga demands the entire annihilation of egoism.

– Swami Sivananda

Love and consciousness are one and the same thing. So that as you get into a higher state of consciousness you come closer to being in love. That doesn't mean interpersonal love. It means being - love.

-    Ram Dass

We are so deeply conditioned by this thing we call ego that it is hard to imagine ourselves beyond it.  We live our lives imbedded in a false reality.  When our true self, i.e. love, comes knocking we run for cover.  We are attached to our assumed limitations and one of our greatest defenses is the concept of unworthiness.  More than simply being attached to our bodies, these organic sheaths that we express in and through, we become attached to the narrative of our unique shame, abandonment, loss and suffering.  Another great defense against opening to love is resentment.

Rest assured that as long as we wield these twin defenses we are safe from love’s onslaughts.  Ego, or the identification with a false sense of self, arises out of a basic and equally false sense of separation from our authentic being.  At its most extreme it might be expressed in the saying “Every man for himself.”  Of course, this could also be “Every woman . . .” Attachment and aversion are the primary mechanisms of ego.  We attach to that which gives us comfort and pleasure, we resist that which is painful.  However, in our convoluted strategies we often find comfort in our special sense of pain and suffering.  It all becomes confused.  From a spiritual perspective, it is all suffering because it keeps us separate from the loving awareness at the core of our beings.

As adults we are each responsible for ourselves.  We need to make rational decisions, manage finances, and carefully consider who we allow into our lives.  There is a healthy side to this ego thing!  It is important to have healthy boundaries on the spiritual path.  Too often we surrender to something other than our higher self whether it is a substance, career, games, abusive relationships, ideology, porn, politics or consumerism.  Don’t let your ego be annihilated by a false god.  Life is really just a passing show.  On a deeper, soul level we are simply passing through.  We do our best but we can’t hold onto anything.  As the saying goes, “You can’t take it with you.”  You can, of course, enjoy it for the moment.

Ego, this sense of individualized self-being, is annihilated when we encounter our authentic, transpersonal, Kosmocentric Self.  However there is nothing lost except a false belief.  In truth, we still are unique expressions of that One Mind and Intelligence.  It is the same intelligence which informs the universe and it expresses itself as the evolving creature which is you.  We are creatures of evolving Love-Consciousness-Energy.

Don’t Pursue Happiness

The only happiness there is, is of the Self. That is the truth. There is no happiness in worldly objects. Because of our ignorance we imagine we derive happiness from them.

– Ramana Maharshi

 

Everyone wants to be happy.  This seems to be a basic truth.  At the same time we seem to be very bad at making it happen.  Happiness seems to be very fleeting and illusive.  We project this concept of happiness onto “objects:” commodities, relationships, “vacation getaways,” sexual experiences, real estate, career success, children and family, escape from children and family . . .  This list could go on and on and might be a lot of fun.  The wisdom of experience tells us that what makes us happy one day may very well make us miserable on another. 

What is this “happiness” we seek?  Can it be found in a possession, another person, a degree, a job, location, community, pill or fast food meal?  Put this way most of us would say no.  On the other hand we go about our lives unconsciously seeking for satisfaction through any and all of these.  We are like “hungry ghosts.”  Hungry ghosts are beings within the Tibetan Buddhist view who live in a special kind of hell where they suffer from a hunger that can’t be satisfied. 

Any kind of happiness that we experience which is dependent on the objects and events of the world is bound to be temporary at best.  When we pursue happiness through material means we are bound to suffer.  We are seeking outside of ourselves for what we already are.  Happiness is an inner state of being, we mistakenly correlate it with the things and circumstances of our lives.  As we begin to awaken we realize that these are unnecessary.  Real happiness arises when we are connected with the Self.  It is not dependent on anything or anyone.

A New Year’s Revolution

May we light the sacred fire that burns out the ego and enables us to pass from fearful fragmentation to fearless fullness in the changeless whole.
~ Katha Upanishad 

Although there was no singular cataclysmic event on the Winter Solstice of 2012, it still marks the transition point from one age to the next.  It marks the end of a time when we believed that the world was something outside of us and an awakening to the world as our collective creative effort.  Our world is as we dream it. 

The remnants of the old dream are crumbling fast around us.  The idea that we could control nature through technology is coming apart as we encounter super storms, glacial melting and epidemic diseases which defy medical intervention.  Global capitalism is becoming increasingly nonviable.  Large areas of our cities look like disaster areas, and that’s in the “first” world. 

Neither technology nor capitalism is really at issue though.  Technology can be wonderful as any new ipad owner knows (never mind that they are built in horribly inhuman factories.)  Capitalism can be fun.  As somewhat of an entrepreneur, I have enjoyed the challenges of trying to make self-employment work.  The real issue though is deeper and more fundamental.  It is “interior.”  It is the belief that we are each inviolably separate from each other, from our world and universe. 

Ego is a belief system which cuts of us off from the whole.  As A Course in Miracles tells us it is based in fear and the antithesis of love.  Yoga tells us that it is based in ignorance of our true being.  It is based in the disconnection between our rational/rationalizing brain and the deeper wisdom of the heart.  “Intellect a head-based operation incorporating ever more complex variations and applications, each needing further explications and qualifications,” writes Joseph Chilton Pearce, “has become separated from intelligence— the automatic and natural state of the heart that brings coherence.” (2012, Heart-Mind Matrix: How the Heart Can Teach the Mind New Ways to Think)

Simply put, our hearts generate an electromagnetic field that connects us with everyone and everything.  Our consciousness belongs to that field rather than the physical structure of the body.  We are an aspect of that field before and after we leave the body.  We are immortal beings of Love.  That field gives birth to all things, contains all things and eventually all things dissolve back into that field. 

The way to move beyond ego and to enter into that greater wholeness is through meditation, i.e. inner stillness.  We have to be willing to let go of the constructs of intellect to understand the coherence of intelligence.  It is deeper intuitive knowing, light-years away from symbolic manipulation.  It might seem like a scary place to go at first but it is the entrance way to peace.

Let’s make it our New Year’s revolution to ignite a sacred inner fire that burns away ignorance and ego and allows us to see beyond imaginary boundaries, to release fear-based thinking and to embrace humanity and the planet as a whole.  Let’s promise to practice self-reflection, inner silence, forgiveness and compassion.  It might sound crazy but it is the only way forward.  We can’t stay in the past.