WORDS OF SRI ANANDAMAYI MA-5

WORDS OF SRI ANANDAMAYI MA-5

SIX

Benares. August 18 th , 1948.

QUESTION: How can meditation on a particular part lead to meditation on the whole? One can concentrate completely only upon one aspect. It is said that when one is absorbed in meditation, a gradual expansion of consciousness takes place; and when the mind reaches what is beyond its containing capacity, it spontaneously dissolves (laya). Then there is no more meditation, there is Divine Insight (Jnana). Some hold this theory. How the mind can become all-pervasive by this method, I am unable to grasp.

SRI MA: When meditation (dhyana) occurs spontaneously, then only is it real meditation. It must come of itself, effortlessly. Furthermore, when you say the mind subsides (laya), from where does it originate?

INQUIRER: From the Self (Atma). In the Srutis is said that it has emanated from the Self (Paramatma) like a shadow.

SRI MA : Where birth is, there must be dissolution (nasa); is this what you mean? But if it were so, the mind would emerge again. You say, you cannot grasp the all-pervasiveness of the mind; quite naturally so, because it is not a thing to be grasped it is neither a thing, nor can it be grasped.

You experience the pleasures and pains of the world; again, you enjoy temporary happiness or bliss while in meditation. This also is an experience, is it not? Yet it is of a slightly different nature from the former.

When a man says that he describes or refers to an experience after he comes down from the heights of divine ecstasy (samadhi), it implies that ascent and descent still continue to exist for him, otherwise why should he use these expressions? But there is also a state where ascending and descending are out of the question. You may maintain that the mind should be held as existing in samadhi, although in an absorbed state; otherwise how can a person, on issuing from samadhi, speak of the experience he had in that state?

You may further maintain that his mind is a purified mind.

I am speaking from your standpoint. Experiences occur on the path.

Between the two types of experience that have just been mentioned, there is a difference. Nevertheless, they are both of the mind, though on different levels, even what you call samadhi.

However, there is also another state of being where one cannot speak of ascent and descent, and consequently not of a body either.

Should the question of the body or of action, or any question whatever, still arise, it means that this state has not been reached.

When you say the mind dissolves (laya), into what does it dissolve ?

INQUIRER : Into the Self, of course.

SRI MA : Just as salt dissolves, so does the mind -is this your idea? From a particular angle of vision it may appear thus. In the case of a dissolution of this kind, a perfect Yogi can resuscitate the mind again.

INQUIRER : I was thinking of absolute destruction (nasa).

SRI MA : Destruction ( nasa) or dissolution (laya)?

Na Sa - means ‘not He’, na Sva* ‘not the Self’ - this surely is what is termed destruction ?

Where destruction is destroyed, there is THAT. Do you call the annihilation of the ego-mind (manonasa) its dissolution (laya)?

IQUIRER: How am I to grasp this?

SRI MA : It is for the Guru to point out the method; he will show you the way to understanding and instruct you in your sadhana. It is for you to keep on practising it faithfully. But the fruit comes spontaneously in the form of Self-revelation.

The power to make you grasp the Ungraspable duly manifests itself through the Guru. Where the question "How am I to proceed?" arises, fulfilment has obviously not yet been reached.

Therefore, never relax your efforts until there is Enlightenment. Let no gaps interrupt your attempt, for a gap will produce an eddy, whereas your striving must be continuous like the flowing of oil, it must be sustained, constant, an unbroken stream.

Om Namah Shivay