In Samadhi the mind comes to a stop

(…continued from ‘Even a small kindness is a great blessing’)

The Gita account of happiness is that it’s something which arises from calmness of mind in meditation, calm in samadhi.  Meditation goes deeper and finally the thought becomes continuous. At the beginning the thought of a meditation has to be constantly supported and then it’s lost and then it has to be brought up again and then the mind goes off and it’s brought up again, supported. The time comes when it’s a continuous flow, and we experience this in life.

You’ve just been told that you’ve won the pools; you can get on buses perfectly well, you can go about your business, but all the time that thought’s there, no difficulty about keeping that going. We don’t say, “I can’t keep my mind on it, I never could concentrate, you know. “ No difficulty then at all.

Well, dhyana, then in samadhi the mind comes to a stop. Thoughts are not just similar thoughts, it comes to a stop, and then the time, space and the names appear to drop away. For people who are energetic enough, or interested enough, there’s an account that it’s possible to experience and many people, not many but some people do experience this in certain encounters with nature.

When the bonds of personality making and relationships are momentarily cut and the recommendation is to get up before the dawn and to go to an elevated place where you can see the dawn, the sun would come over the sea or over some low land. To sit on an elevation where there’s nothing in your line of sight that’s of comparable size to you, not a gate or something like that which will immediately produce body consciousness. When we see a thing like that the body is immediately prepared to reach out and touch it, these changes go on quite unconsciously, we are adjusting ourselves to the things around us.

So over a long distance before dawn and then to sit warm, covered up in the rugs and then to wait. When the clouds change, clear sky if there happens to be one, which there isn’t often in this country, and the sun’s beginning to come up, names drop away. The man’s own name disappears, he no longer thinks of himself as a bookkeeper or that he delivers the milk in the mornings or that she doesn’t think of herself as a housewife or a typist. The names drop away, the human personality and individuality drop away, and they see something immense is taking place. We don’t have words like ‘sun’, ‘rising over the sea’,’ beyond the mountains’ – the words drop away!

The number of people that have this just briefly when they intend [to do this], in that way they can get a tiny little taste of what advanced meditation can be like. The intention is you are there watching, no effort, complete alertness, watching and then this wonderful event takes place which has nothing to do with any personality. There is a joy in the ordinary things of life so long as one is not attached to it, you can give it up easily without any attachment to it, then the thing can be enjoyed.

One of the troubles with the so-called good time boys is that they seem to be having such a terrible time! The Gita says this form of calmness in practice, it will produce inner joy and inner energy and an inner inspiration. My teacher confirmed this on many occasion, the joys which consist of the interaction with the world have terrible reaction later the more tightly they’re held and clung to the more terrible the reaction. He used to quote Romeo and Juliet as an example, and as a matter of fact in the great literature of the world, the great love classic of Persia is Layla and Majnun, this is also a tragedy just like Romeo and Juliet.

In China, the great love story of the emperor Ming Huang is called “The Song of Long Sadness”, and finally, when they are separated, the last two lines are, “If we are reborn in the skies may it be as birds which fly together with the wing tips touching. If we are reborn on the earth may it be as trees whose branches interlace. Heaven and earth are enduring but still they do or they will come to an end, but this grief has no limit.” This is the great love epic of China. Our teacher used to quote these things, “There’s no real joy or life except through the practice of meditation.” He said from that there’s inspiration, there’s joy and there’s happiness.

© Trevor Leggett

Titles in this series are:

Part 1: Extraverts & Introverts 3

Part 2: A spiritual man has peace

Part 3: Man moves cosmic energy

Part 4: Even a small kindness is a great blessing

Part 5: In Samadhi the mind comes to a stop