Holistic Meditation-Part II

Ramana Maharshi

-Staff

By Staff

Monday, September 8, 2008, 10:26

While considering the relative merits of spiritual practices one has to remember as a constant undercurrent the inescapable act of life's transience. Does one know his date in karma's calendar? The quit notice on the exhaustion of this body's karma may come at any time. How much time do we really have? Even assuming that we are destined to life for the Vedic span of hundred years, is not much of it lost in a work-a-day schedules, ill health, old age, infirmities and so on? So one cannot afford to travel by indirect, long-winded routes, or lose ground due to detours and bylanes on the way.

This inescapable fact should provide the compelling motivation for 'non-objective meditation' and give the energy and drive to pursue such a path with vigour and steadfastness. In such meditation from A to Z the attention is on the subject, on the meditator. It is the process of holding on to the thinker by questioning his identity and questioning for his source. By this search a mortal blow is dealt to the subtlety of the ego and the elusive ways of the mind. Because this enquiry goes to the very root of the ego's existence.

Preliminary skirmishes against thought intrusions and infiltrations may be there initially or for some time. But once we learn to cling to the mind's core then we are away from this mental movement. We would be holding on to the consciousness in the mind which is the scent for leading us to its place of origin, the heart, the Self.

It would also be seen that in this way the means and the goal merge. For the attention is only on the subject which leads to the discovery of the one Self, shining within, without and everywhere. One becomes aware that nothing exists apart from it, be it the individual, the world or God. Firm confidence in Ramana's teaching and his guidance enables one to find out that all this is not Greek and Latin but is as simple as a 'goose-berry in the palm of one's hand'.

Every rule has its exception. In the spiritual path the exception is that duality is permitted in relation to the Sadguru. So one is welcome to think of Ramana's.