During the pause, I was observing that many of you were re-reading/listening past episodes.
Some asked me quite a few interesting questions both as comments as well as through the “Ask me” page in my blog. Some even communicated with me through other modes as well. I have always tried to respond in the best possible way. I am thankful to all of you.
I took the break mainly because of my voice related problem. I am better now and so I decided to break this silence. But instead of twice a week, I would be talking to you once a week – every Wednesday 12 PM PST. I am doing it both to avoid straining myself, and also to give you more time to ponder over the things I will be discussing in future episodes.
The topics I will be discussing from now on are going to be a bit more technical and intense. But I will assure you that I will provide you details which probably you will not find elsewhere. At the same time, I will put every effort to provide authentic information and make it easy to understand.
So, let us get back.
Before I paused for a break, we discussed various stages of Samadhi that one goes through before ending up in a completely calm Mind.
I also made an observation that irrespective of the form of meditation, ultimate destination is the same. As an example, I discussed the experiences of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa who used to go through those stages even without meditating!
Now there are a couple of puzzling questions.
Question 1. Are these just some weird happenings in the brain, because of some form of conditioning?
Question 2. The so-called bliss or Ananda that is supposed to be experienced at various stages of these Samadhi, is it produced in the brain, the way various physical or mental pleasures are produced?
Question 3. In what way this gradual ‘quietening of the Mind’ is different from entering some unconscious state of the brain? Or for that matter, falling into deep sleep state?
Question 4. No matter what brings about these stages, do they have any utility?
It is difficult to give a conclusive verdict on these questions. But instead of resorting to vague concepts and beliefs, I will try to address each of these questions logically to the extent possible.
First let me take up the case of conditioning.
Many of us who are exposed to some meditative techniques, at least through the process of reading, cannot be totally insulated from mental conditioning. Our experiences are often influenced by what we read, what we see, and what we are told.
Many modern meditative ‘techniques’ involve quite a bit of mental conditioning and auto suggestions as part of the process. It is difficult to rule out the effect of these on what one experiences when one gets into Samadhi.
But if you have read Ramakrishna’s biography, you would know that he used to enter these stages right from his childhood days. At that early age he had no exposure to any meditative practice whatsoever.
Being a simple villager with not so much of a scholastic background, Ramakrishna would have hardly heard about Yoga Sutra of Patanjali. It is possible that Ramakrishna would have come to know about such experiences through folklore. since India has a long history of meditative practices and practicing Yogis. But was it just a result of that?
We do hear about saints in many parts of the world, belonging to altogether different cultures, who also are supposed to have gone through similar experiences. These saints, may have had little common background that would have induced into them similar mental conditioning.
In my book “Mysterious experiences: A peek beyond the confines of the Mind” I have explained an incident in which a small kid goes through similar experiences. This child had no prior knowledge about meditation nor Samadhi. But it seems to get into those states, without even knowing what was happening to it!
What do all these things point to?
There may be some mental conditioning in some cases, but we can’t outright dismiss everything as mental conditioning.
Whatever it is, does it happen in the brain and is it a normal function of the brain? To answer this, let me take up the next question.
The three stages of Samadhi that we talked about, have one thing in common. All of them involve experience of intense bliss or happiness. Is this a happening in the brain?
We experience different pleasures either through our senses or purely through mental indulgence. When we eat something very tasty, we enjoy it. And this enjoyment is derived from an external object that we ate, the tongue through which we experienced the taste and some reward centers in the brain that interpreted the inputs from the tongue as favorable to us.
When we solve some mental puzzle or make some discovery, or compose a beautiful song, we enjoy. There is no external object involved in this case, but the mind is still involved. There is a cause for feeling elated – may be due to the pride of solving or creating something new. Even here, the brain is involved.
But if you see the bliss one experiences during various stages of Samadhi, neither any external object, nor the body, not even rigorous mental activity was involved in the process. It is a pleasure born out of no external object, no senses and not even mental activities! It is like the music produced from a guitar that has no strings at all 😉
So, it is difficult to say that the brain is the source of this bliss. Brain definitely experiences it, but it may not be the originator. There seems to be something beyond the brain.
In the Tipitakas, Buddha says that one need not meditate at all to experience such bliss that has no base in the objects of pleasures, nor in mental activities. Just by cutting yourself off from all external perturbations can instill happiness in you!
Buddha says that when one practices living in seclusion, away from worldly interactions, one starts experiencing the bliss or starts playing the string-less guitar 😉
At least some of you would have experienced that when you were locked up during the Corona scare recently. I am sure you would have felt miserable in the beginning to be cutoff from your near and dear ones. But if you had come out of that initial fear, craving for company, uncertainty, I am sure at least some of you would have had the experience of bliss that Buddha talked about.
That bliss does not come from external objects. It appears to spring from nowhere. The brain experiences it, but I am not sure whether brain is the source of it.
I will address the next two questions in the next episode. Please do join me then.
A series revolving around Mind – Science of Mind, Philosophy of Mind, Notions of reality, Mind modulation, Domains beyond Mind, and so on. © Dr. King, Swami Satyapriya 2019-2020
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