Sadhana Panchakam, Instruction 34

Translation and Commentary by Jayaram V

5.2 Fix your mind in the transcendental self

When an initiate leads a lonely life in a solitary place and practices contemplation, his mind is subject to numerous distractions and temptations. He may keep remembering the life he led before, the people he left behind, the joys and sorrows he experienced, the relationships he renounced, his achievements and failure, his past regrets and so on. His thoughts and reminiscences about them may disturb his mind and prevent him from practicing nidhidhyasana. To resolve that he has to forget everything and fix his mind in the contemplation of the self, disassociating himself from his body.

The Bhagavadgita affirms this staring thus, “Thus fixing his mind always upon the Self, the yogi who is free from all impurities easily attains direct contact with Brahman and supreme happiness.” When you are established in the self, no good or evil accrues to you. Ashtavakra suggests that to remain established in the self, one should forget everything, including the knowledge of the scriptures. Even if Brahma or Vishnu or Shiva is your instructor, you cannot be established in the self unless you forget all.

You may be living in solitude, but if your mind is not free from thoughts of the world or people, you are not truly alone. To be free, you have to remove all the clutter from your mind, which you accumulated not only in this life but also from your past lives. You have to literally empty your mind and enter the state of stoical and disturbing silence to abide in the self. The self is one and alone. It is free from associations and entanglements. You cannot become established in it unless you too are free from all associations and entanglements. Liberation is the state of aloneness (kaivalyam) and you will attain it through aloneness only.

In solitude, an initiate becomes a friend or an enemy of himself, depending upon how he conducts himself and whether he is free from delusion and ignorance. If he fails to control his thoughts and intentions due to any weakness, he becomes an enemy of himself. However, if he subdues his mind and remains established in himself, contemplating upon his transcendental nature, by that practice he becomes absorbed in it and attains supreme happiness. For the yogin in solitude there is no better friend or guru than himself. To abide in pure consciousness, he has to rely upon his intelligence (buddhi) “burning down the forest of ignorance with the fire of conviction” and cultivating right thinking, right discernment and right knowledge.

The mind has the tendency to move in the direction of predominant thoughts. You become whatever you think mostly. The subtle world which you create in your mind plays an important role in manifesting your gross reality. It is filled with many impurities which prevent you from seeing the truths of existence of the truth of yourself which remains hidden in you. If you are occupied with worldly thoughts, the world will invade you and consume your energy and attention. Even your subtle mind become polluted with it rather than with the thoughts of Brahman.

In spiritual practice we remove the impurities of maya and allow the mind to act as a perfect instrument of self-knowledge. Therefore, it is necessary to keep the mind under firm control through self-restraint and withdrawal, and concentrate it upon those thoughts which lead you in the direction of your vision and goals. If you want to be free, your mind shall be free from all the habitual thoughts, constraints and conditioning to which it is exposed from your childhood. For that, you have to fill your mind with the thoughts of the Self and soak it with the knowledge of the awareness. Through perseverance, you have to elevate it and purify it with sattva so that it is transparent enough to allow the light of the self to shine through.

The state of tranquility and mental absorption which you experience in deeper meditative states is of several types, which can be broadly grouped in to two, savikalpa and nirvikalpa. In the early stages of meditation, your mind remains active since you rely upon it to think of Brahman or self and inquire into his nature. You may even mentally stimulate oneness with the pure and boundless state of the self, using your imagination. This is savikalpa samadhi or tranquility with (sa) awareness or imagination (vikalpa). At this stage you have not yet transcended duality. In the final stages, the mind becomes totally absent or inactive as you become absorbed in the self without a second. It is nirvikalpa samadhi or absorption without (nir) mental activity (vikalpa).

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