Consciousness underlies all
The mental world, taijas. This is all the world which doesn’t depend on the action of the senses – the inner world, the brilliant world. There’s another space in that world. If we shut our eyes and think of our garden, we visualise it clearly. Then there is another space, which is called the space of chitta, chittakasha. There’s another space, there’s another world and another light. This is clearly seen, Shankara says, in dream. The wise one should meditate on taijas, on his own individual purely mental consciousness as identical with the cosmic intellect. Swami Rama says of this, “When a piece of iron is placed in fire it becomes like fire. Similarly, when our intellect is united in meditation with the Lord of speech, Brahman, the all-pervasive, then it becomes truly wonderful.” He speaks of this meditation.
His intellect was truly wonderful. He was a most remarkable, phenomenal mathematician, even in a country with a great mathematical tradition like India. He mastered much of the Western learning of the time and also all the traditional learning of India. He died very young at the age of 33. He was a very timid boy, but he performed great deeds, fantastic deeds of courage in the Himalayas. He could outwalk the mountaineers, even though he had a frail body as a child. His intellect, his daring and his physical endurance were quite exceptional. Yet when he was a boy, according to the accounts, he gave no sign of this great development that was to come in the future – and it appeared out of him as a result of his yogic practices. There was no sign of it before.
Even in the dreams, the spiritual progress is experienced. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad says, “When in the dream he feels ‘I am a king’ as it were, ‘I am a god’ as it were, ‘I am all this’ – this is the highest state in the dream state.” Rama Tirtha says this is connected with meditation of the sun and he quotes the Gayatri Mantra, the mantra to the sun, which ends, “May that deity in the sun prompt our intellects.” He says in the Gayatri the words ‘May He prompt’ according to the two great commentators, [Sayana and Mahadhara] mean that God who assumed the form of the sun is the prompter of the intellect. “He who gives motion to the sun, also enlightens our intellect”, and he quotes the Veda, “He who is in the sun is in Me also.”
He gives one of the meditations, to meditate on the form of OM being written in the sun. This meditation unites the intellect of the meditator – when the sense are withdrawn, when he passes beyond the time and space – with the Spirit in the sun and it prompts his intellect.
Sureshvara says, “The waking self, the mental self and the self of deep sleep.” We might say, “What self in deep sleep? There’s nothing in deep sleep. It’s a blank.” There are different points in connection with this, but our teacher used to quote the examples, evidently suitable for Western people, the very many examples, of a scientist who concentrates on a problem and can’t solve it. Then he falls asleep and immediately on waking from deep sleep the solution of the problem is in his hand. He quoted this very often and there are many such cases. Helmholz was one. Swami Rama Tirtha also quotes this from his own experience.
We can’t say there’s nothing in deep sleep. The problem was not solved when the man fell asleep; it was solved when he awoke. We can’t say there’s nothing in deep sleep. Sureshvara again says, “The entire universe, the waking, the mental and the unmanifest state, which is like deep sleep.” In deep sleep the solution of the problem was unmanifest, but it was there, and it appeared when the man awoke. This is all OM. In the end the OM is meditated upon as comprising the whole, all those three states.
“They are withdrawn,” Shankara says, and Sureshvara follows him, “one by one”. The man sits and he’s aware of the senses; then he withdraws from that sense awareness. We say, “How can you do that? If somebody’s talking, how can you withdraw from it? You simply go on hearing it.” We have examples from ordinary life. If someone is watching a television programme they’re really interested in, then a guest comes with some news – very important for them. They listen and say, “Oh yes, yes, yes.” Then their eye turns and, “Oh yes, yes…” Then there’s dead silence and it turns out that they haven’t heard what was being said. The jaw dropped a little bit and they were swallowed up by the screen. This happens when there’s something that people are really interested in. So, in his commentary on the Yoga Sutras, Shankara says, “First there must be an understanding and a great faith developed by devotion and enquiry in the meaning of what the holy texts say and the explanations given by the teacher. Then the whole of the mind must be employed in reasoning and thinking about them. Only then, when it’s a large part, or the whole of personality is engaged in that, will there be an eagerness to practise and find out.
Much depends on faith; not believing something that is not there, but in believing that something can be verified, that there is something capable of verification. It’s been compared to a jewel box. It’s unwrapped from the physical body, and then in the mental body and then lastly… But then it’s rather difficult to find anything beyond that. It’s been said that some give up; even some religions give up. They say, “No-one could actually believe, unless it were Christ. The rest of us can only profess to believe.” Swami Rama says in the west you say, “Oh God, oh God” but you have no definite means for discovering God. Others say, “Jewel box – yes. But it means it’s a beautiful box; it’s a jewel of a box. This is the jewel. Your present life with all its limitations, this is Christ, this is God. Try to behave like Christ and this is it. There’s nothing beyond. Try to behave kindly, try to behave like Christ. Go into the wilderness to meditate for forty days.” “Well, that would not be in accordance with the spirit of the times…”
But still, if the enquiry is made, if it’s turned and turned there’s a little gleam of light, then there might be just an indication that there’s something within. If we turn and look very, very carefully our teacher said, the keyhole is very small, it must be looked for very steadily and then it can be opened. Then there is a jewel, and whether the box is a good one or a bad one doesn’t matter, because it’s a trivial thing. The jewel is the main thing, is the only thing and is the only purpose of the box.
We could say, “Yes, that could be so, but supposing it wasn’t in a silk handkerchief. If it was in a filthy, dirty old bag; and supposing it was a dirty old box, covered with dust – there couldn’t possibly be a jewel in that. In the body, which is old or ill, an intellect which hasn’t been trained, the whole personality completely undistinguished – how could there be a jewel in that? Yes – in that beautiful box, that would be reasonable, but not in this.” Yet the teacher says, “No. Just clean a little bit, and then even though the box may be dirty, still if we can find it, we will find a jewel in it.”
Titles in this series are:
1. There are five subtle elements
3. Consciousness underlies all
The full talk is OM and meditation
© Trevor Leggett