Self Awareness Through Meditation

Author(s): Ranjitsingh Kumat
Publisher: Ranjitsingh Kumat

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RANJIT SINGH KUMAT
denies and resists the Now and Here because it refuses to come to terms with Time and Space. Tolle's advice on Time is "Make the Now the primary focus of your life. Say yes to life-and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you. This will miraculously transform your whole life.” The same advice is applicable in respect of Space for redressing and reducing pain.
In his fascinating discussion on the subject, the author takes us to Osho Rajnish and his interpretation of Shiva Sutra. Osho's interpretation is very original. He says, “Mantra is that which results in the death of mind. When there is ‘no-mind”, the bridge between you and your body is broken. Mind alone is joining you with your body. Once the bridge is broken, you are separated from the body and then mind becomes no-mind and you achieve the Godhood.” Self-Awareness is thus a state of divine extrasensory Awareness of the Self when it transcends the merely material and mental. The author's wide-ranging survey and analysis yields the comforting conclusion that “the ancient sages and the modern spiritual thinkers are agreed on the point that attaining selfawareness is the objective of life and through meditation one can learn the art of living in the present with full awareness . . . . Present is the most important thing; the past, being in memory, and the future, only imagination, are the root causes of suffering. The way to get rid of suffering is to live in the present, be aware of the self and accept the natural flow of life. End of suffering is enlightenment, peace and eternal happiness.”
e goal and the desideratum then is to attain real and ethereal supramental perception of one's true being through an inward journey and to limit or overcome the pleasure-pain motivation. The inward journey is the hidden highway to that goal. The name of that highway is yoga, variously defined, described, and taught by each philosopher and teacher to the pupil in his or her own way according to his or her own experience. The Yoga of Meditation or 'Dhyana' is the pathway of that inward journey. The great seer Patanjali defines it thus "Yogaschittavritti Nirodhah”: in other words, “blocking, curtailing or restraining the proclivity or tendency of mind”. Swami Chinmayananda once described it to me as regulating the wandering mind through self-control by way of concentration in the congested traffic of mind and desires. Transcendence of mind by means of concentration on self or any part of the body inside or outside the human body on any object or form or mantra, leads to an ineffable experience that may be rudimentary, embryonic, glimpse-like or inchoate but certainly not illusory. That is the