Have you ever tried listening to some wonderful music recital on your mobile phone, sitting in a bustling market place? You know it is futile, unless you are wearing noise cancelling earplugs. The surrounding noise would totally submerge the music coming from your phone. Either you have to move to a quiet place or use an appropriate device.
I had a friend who had once spent sometime in some meditation retreat in India. The first thing the participants were told was to abstain from any kind of communication with other participants during the retreat. That means that they cannot speak to each other, not even make any gestures! Not the least, any kind of written communication. And those were good old days when no mobile phones were around, not even internet! The participants were totally cutoff from external world.
When my friend returned from that retreat, he was totally a changed man! He told me that it was such a wonderful experience. He felt that he was just oozing with bliss. And that bliss he said was not from whatever meditation that they practiced in that place. He had done similar meditative practices earlier also. But he felt that the total silence was what contributed to that bliss!
I just smiled at his conclusion. Not that I disbelieved him. But I knew that silence has such potential. I have spent hours and even days totally cutoff from the world. Not just physically but even mentally – no communication of any sort. I did not do it as part of any meditative practice. Most of the times it was the circumstances or my own nature that put me in such a state. I have always undergone the same kind of blissful state which my friend had just discovered.
But I never knew why such a thing happens till I read Tipitakas – ancient collection of Buddha’s discourses. In one of the discourses, Buddha explains that when one spends time in solitude, he experiences immense bliss. Buddha does not elaborate much on why exactly that happens but he explains it as a matter of fact. He even describes an incident in the early stage of his spiritual journey. A stage before he got realized.
Buddha was living all alone in a dense forest outside a remote village. He had cutoff all contacts with external world. The villagers knew about him but never bothered to disturb him. They did not wish to intrude into his spiritual practice.
One rainy day, it was late in the evening. Suddenly there was thunder storm. Lightening stuck some trees in the vicinity and there was forest fire. The fire was almost in the place where Buddha was living in a small thatched hut. The villagers were worried about Buddha. What if he gets caught in the forest fire? So, they ran to his place anxious to save him.
But when they reached Buddha’s place, they found Buddha sitting peacefully in his hut, totally unmindful of whatever was happening outside. He had no idea about the thunder nor the forest fire, even though all of that happened very close to his hut. He was in his own world!
Buddha says that such things are possible when you practice being all alone and enjoy the bliss that emanates from such a solitude. Your attention would be all focused on inside and you would be oblivious of all external things.
The great proponent of Yoga, namely Patanjali also talks about such bliss that one goes through in the initial phases of one’s meditative practice. He talks about 4 stages of gradual withdrawal before someone slips into a totally absorbed state. In all those 4 stages, Patanjali says that one experiences immense bliss.
Beyond those 4 stages, there still is bliss. But it is of a different kind and emanating from a different source. That bliss is not experienced by the brain. So, there would no awareness of that – or it is ‘Asamprajnyaata’ as Patanjali calls it. That state can only be inferred by side effects it leaves behind on the mind.
But the initial blissful stages are experienced by the brain. But unlike the happiness that we experience by indulging in physical/mental pleasures, this bliss has no corresponding external or internal object. It is a bliss that erupts from nowhere! It is like the music when one plays a ‘string less guitar’! I know it sounds absurd. But it does really happen and even Buddha vouches for it 😉
I have explained these things in more detail in many of my Yoga books such as “Psychology behind Yoga” or “How and Why of Yoga andMeditation” or even “The ultimate book on Yoga”. I have tried to give neuroscience-based explanation for such an experience in these books.
Why does such a thing happen? For many of us, pleasure means indulging in some physical activity or mental activity. Any such activity involves lot of corresponding neural activity in the brain. These activities produce stress which are masked by the pleasure sensations produced in the reward centers. So, we undergo stress in anticipation of pleasure.
Minimization of neural activities also produces pleasant feelings due to lack of this stress. You feel blissful for lack of stress. This is the bliss that we often fail to notice when we are totally submerged in stressful mental activity. When you are totally cutoff from the world, most of the mental activity dies down to almost quietude.
I call this as listening to inner music. This music is always there. But it often gets submerged in the noise that is generated due to the mental activity erupted by our worldly interactions. It is like the ‘market place noise’ that drowns the wonderful music that is being played by your mobile phone, that I talked about in the beginning. If you can avoid that noise, you need to do no more effort to listen to the inner music. It just manifests itself.
Have you ever listened to this ‘inner music’? At least in the recent Corona days when you were totally locked up from the external world?
I know, you would have felt miserable in the beginning since our brain in habituated in submerging itself in all kinds of noise 😉 But when you come out of that initial phase and cut yourself out not just physically, but even mentally from the external world, I am sure you would have heard that inner music.
If you have missed it, try it once in a while. But make sure that you are cutoff both physically as well as mentally – no phones, no internet, no TV, not even day dreaming! That is when the inner music starts making itself felt. It is difficult, but not impossible. Once you have a taste of it, you find it worth. That is just a trailer for the real music which awaits further down the line, if only you continue in your journey 😉
No comments:
Post a Comment