The Most Supreme Spiritual Action

 

 

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The most supreme action that can be made on the spiritual path is PERPETUAL MEDITATION.

 

Some key points to know before reading the below passages:

 

Darkness refers to ignorance (avidya). Ignorance is equated to the mind. Moksha is freedom from the mind. Therefore to destroy ignorance, we must destroy the mind (i.e. remove the illusion that it ever existed at all). Heart is referred to as the self. 

 

The primal root of ignorance/mind can only be completely removed by commingling and being established as the self.

 

 

Yoga Vasistha:

 

“The self is not realized by any means other than meditation…I shall now declare to you the internal worship of the self which is the greatest among all purifiers and which destroys all darkness completely."

 

This is of the nature of perpetual meditation — whether one is walking or standing, whether one is awake or asleep, in and through all of one’s actions. One should contemplate this supreme Lord who is seated in the heart and who brings about, as it were, all the modifications within oneself.” VI.1:38

 

Perpetual meditation is none other than atma-vichara / nididhyasana and must remain unbroken. If meditation is broken, it means being identified again to the false appearance which further strengthens the vasanas bonding the jiva to samsara and giving rise to further sensory attractions. 

 

According to Ramana Maharishi, meditation should be maintained for as long one wishes to be blissful and free. If one desires to be always blissful and free, then meditation should be perpetual. This type of meditation should ceaselessly be on the self without any disturbance of misidentification and attachment.  Perpetual meditation means that meditation should be done in every action, no matter what the action is. It is not about sitting down and meditating as an objective method, but rather subjectively in every action such as watching tv, eating food, working, breathing, etc. If meditation on the self is perpetual, eventually one’s body/mind gets lost in the pervasiveness of the infinite self and will no longer return as the body/mind if unbroken and sustained long enough. 

 

Now let’s clarify what meditation on the self means. Does this mean one should think about Brahman at all times? No. One should not think of it as “this or that.” The very thought of thinking will lead to bondage. Note: focusing on a thought to remove other thoughts can be useful in other forms of meditation (i.e. objective), but this is not what perpetual meditation is about. Remember, ignorance = mind and mind = thoughts. To entertain any thought, even if it’s a thought “about” Brahman, is still bondage. Meditation on the self is subjective, therefore the mind must take on the form of the self (swarupa). When one attends to the source of thoughts, the mind becomes formless because not attending to thoughts means the mind has nothing to hold on to with form. It is surrendering all thoughts, feelings, identity and even the idea that you are Brahman since that itself is a thought. Why? Because in reality there is no aim or goal to be reached. YOU ARE ALREADY THAT. So surrender it ALL until you remain as THAT.  If this is done correctly, there will be a complete and profound stillness where one becomes established as the self, completely isolated from body and mind, remaining as pure content-free witness. If this is held long enough, the connection between matter and spirit is sundered. In other words, there is only the pure clear knowledge that there only exists the self. 

 

Ramana Maharishi:

 

“For self-realization, one must go back to the way one came. The mind must be resolved into the heart. The “I” sense attributed to the body, of which appears as embodied, should be eliminated. The notions of “I-am-the-body” and “I-am-in-the-body” are to be abandoned by the power of inquiry that reveals the bodiless nature of being. If by inquiry, one resolves the mind into the heart, the ego and all its consequent delusions are destroyed.”

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