Here and now (Buddha’s soul….)

 Many religions hold the promise of better life in the next birth or merry time in the heavens after death, in reward to your good deeds. Faithful accept these promises unquestioningly. But none of these things can be verified “here and now”.

In the previous post we talked about a king Ajätashatru meeting Buddha and asking him some straight questions. Ajätashatru wanted to know if there are any verifiable results of contemplative life (life as a monk), that can be seen “here and now”. He was not interested in promises of heaven or good birth after death.

In reply, Buddha gave a long list of signs that can be seen in  a contemplative at various stages of his evolution. All these, Buddha said, can be seen “here and now” and not in some after life. What are they?

Stage 1: When someone starts on his journey on the contemplative path, he starts enjoying freedom from all sense lures, he enjoys living in solitude, he enjoys leading a stress free life. He does not crave for anything. He does not hate anything or anybody. This is the first visible sign of progress.

Stage 2: As he goes ahead in his practice, he develops a very focused mind. His thinking becomes very clear. At the same time he is completely withdrawn from external world. His entire being gets filled with pleasure. And this pleasure is not something born from sense enjoyment. But it is something that is attained through complete withdrawal from sense pleasure.

Stage 3: As he progresses, his thoughts start dying out one by one. He develops a completely calm mind that is free from thoughts, free from judgment. But he continues to experience bliss that seems to spring from within him as if there is fountain of bliss inside him.

Stage 4: In a further stage, even this experience of bliss stops. The person is neither in stress nor in bliss. But he remains completely conscious of whatever is happening. He remains just an alert witness who neither gets touched by pleasure nor by pain.

If you have read my book “Psychology behind Yoga” or “How and Why of Yoga and Meditation”, you can see how these stages are very similar to what Patanjali talks about as stages of meditation in Yoga. Patanjali talks about the next stage where even the awareness goes and that is the Asamprajñäta Samädhi of Yoga. But Buddha talks about more stages.

Stage 5: As the contemplative progresses, he would have some clear insights. He understands the transiency of the body as well as the mind. He understands how they originate and perish.

Stage 6: In the next stage, some contemplatives develop psychic powers such as clairvoyance, mind reading, recollection of previous births… and so on.

Stage 7: As one progresses further, one clearly understands various mental processes that finally lead to bondage and accumulation of Karma. With that knowledge, the person gets completely freed from mental agitation and all mental activities. He understands that he has reached the end of his quest.

There are many puzzling things about whatever is discussed above. Buddhists claim that the meditation technique described by Buddha takes one much beyond what Yoga can take. In fact, they say that the final stage of Patanjali’s Yoga is just an intermediate stage and there is much more to it as discussed above.

What puzzles me is the fact – who is one who witnesses the stages after the mind has completely calmed down? Who is the one who ‘understands’ the processes of the mind? Who is the one who realizes ‘that the quest is over’? 

A yogi can say that it is the soul. But Buddhists can’t say that since they don’t admit the concept of soul. For them, there is only body and mind. There is nothing else, not even the soul!

Mind observing itself, mind calming itself, mind coming to conclusion about itself, all these become a bit implausible, beyond a point. It is almost like the well known uncertainty principle of Quantum mechanics. Can the mind  observe itself and at the same time remain inactive! I wonder whether there is a serious logical inadmissibility!

Anyway, let us set aside our judgments and move on.