Nowadays one keeps coming across YouTube videos on ‘Guided Meditation’. Sitting face to face with a ‘live’ Guru and going through a session of guided meditation has become a thing of the past. It is time for running a ‘Meditation ap’ on your mobile phone, totally in the comfort of your cozy home. Of course, nothing comes free. Instead of paying a hefty fee to a Guru, you end up paying subscription fee to the ap maker 😉
In the previous episode I was suggesting that mediation can be one of the ways that could potentially lead one to ‘self-realization’ and liberation from all confusion. But what exactly is this meditation?
One well known Guru of yester years, namely Swami Dayananda Saraswati comes up with a novel definition of the process of meditation. He defines meditation as
“Saguna Brahma viShaya maanasa vyaapaarah”
This Advaiti Guru goes on at great length to explain each and every word of this definition and also clarifies what is ‘NOT meditation’. I don’t know whether this definition is his own creation, or is he quoting from some known scripture? He never clarifies that. But let us see what he says.
To paraphrase the definition in simple English, it means
“Mental activity (maanasa vyaapaarah) pertaining to (viShaya) personified God (Saguna Brahma)”.
(Mental activity pertaining to personified God.)
Being a Sankara follower, this Swami differentiates between an abstract God (Nirguna Brahma) and a personified God (Saguna Brahma).
Advaitis of Sankara lineage, insist on the God being abstract and indescribable and without any attributes – Nirguna NirvisiShta. To some extent they are right in the sense that that is how the God is talked about in the Upanishads. But defining this God as some indescribable concept makes it too abstract and useless 😉
Further, the Upanishadic God being without any human like emotions, human like visible features etc., makes it too dry and of little practical utility. You can’t worship such a God; you can’t even pray and expect solution to your problems. What use is such a God, however great he is? 😉
So, Advaitis very reluctantly come up with the concept of a personified God – Saguna Brahma. This God has human like qualities, human like physical form. This God can interact with you, listen to your prayers, bestow whatever you ask for, protect you, and so on. And then these Advaitis equate this personified God to abstract God. They go back to their concept of gradation in reality. They say that abstract God is the ultimate reality (Paaramaarthika Satya) and personified God is the practical reality (Vyaavahaarika Satya).
This Swami’s definition of meditation is about this personified God – Saguna Brahma. Rest of the definition is not very difficult to understand. It is just about continuously directing the thoughts towards this personified God.
This definition brings up lot of questions –
“does worshipping God amounts to meditation?”
No says the Swami, since worship involves physical activity in addition to mental activity.
“Does chanting the praise of God or singing religious songs qualify as meditation?”
No – for the same reason. They are not purely mental activities.
There are other questions that arise because of this definition.
“Who qualifies as a personified God?”
The Swami being a Hindu, may say any Hindu God – Rama, Krishna, Vishnu, Shiva, Kaali, Durga, etc. can be a personified God depending on your liking.
“What about non-Hindu Gods like Jesus, Allah, Jehovah? Are they Saguna Brahma too?”
Even among Hindus, there are people who consider Ramakrishna Paramahamsa or some such Guru as God.
“Can all such Gods be targets of meditation?”
I don’t know what answer this swami has!
If you think deeply, what this Saguna Brahma really means is some ‘form’ taken by the God and not God itself. Otherwise this very word becomes an oxymoron. If it is really a ‘form’ taken by God, then this Saguna Brahma can be anyone – Rama, Krishna, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Jesus, Allah, Jehovah, and so on.
So, you can meditate on any form, not necessarily on a Hindu God. I am not sure whether this swami agrees. In my view, he should since, being an Advaiti he considers everything to be God.
Let us say that the Swami has no objection to that. Can we meditate by focusing our thoughts on any ‘form’ of our liking? We should be able to, as per the definition given by the Swami. Do all such meditations lead us to the very same ultimate reality, irrespective of the form? My guess is ‘No’. Why?
Even though Advaitis like Sankara connect all forms to God with an identity relation, that leads to several contradictions, as I have explained in previous episodes. A ‘form’ is no doubt a form taken by God, but it is not identical to it. It does not have all the capabilities of God nor is it omniscient. In other words, it is limited to the ‘form’ in which it exists. It becomes truly God only when it drops that form.
Does it mean that meditating on some ‘form’ is useless? No, it does not mean that. What it means is that the ‘form’ can take you only up to what it can go and not beyond. It can’t take you beyond its limits. If the ‘form’ that you have chosen is far above your limited existence, then definitely that form can take you much higher than what you currently are.
This I call as ‘guided meditation’. The form of God that you have chosen as the target, can guide you to greater heights. Though it can take you only up to its own limits and not give you ultimate realization. I don’t know whether the Swami agrees with me.
I take this stand, to clear off any hint of ‘Hindu bias ’ in this definition of Swami. So, everyone, irrespective of their religious affiliation. can resort to this meditation, and still hope to come out of some of the limitations imposed by the form which they are in. But what is most important is to choose the right ‘form’, or your version of ‘Saguna Brahma’ to meditate on.
The main meditation approach propounded by Patanjali or the Upanishads is not this meditation as defined by the Swami. I will talk about that later.
Probably, something close to this is the Ishwara praNidaana suggested by Patanjali.
In Ishwara PranNidaana, Patanjali talks about chanting the sound OM. He says OM is the sound denoting Ishwara. This Ishwara is a great soul (Purusha viseShah) who is omniscient. He defines this Ishwara as
“klEsa karma vipaaka aasaya aparaamrShtah puShavisESha Ishwarah.
tatra niratisayam sarvajnya beejam.
tasya vaacakah praNavah.“
That means
“Ishwara is a special soul that is ever free from delusion, and effects of action.
He is omniscient.
He is denoted by the sound OM”
-- Yoga Sutra 1.24,1.25,1.27.
When one meditates on such an Ishwara, Ishwara lifts the shroud of ignorance that envelops the meditator, and the meditator would attain self-realization.
That too is guided meditation – guided by a form of God, namely Ishwara 😉
This Ishwara Pranidana of Patanjali was probably influenced by the meditation talked about by the Upanishads. Otherwise, Patanjali who rarely talks about God and works mostly within the framework set by the Samkhya – the Samkhya who relegates God as irrelevant – would not have brought in Ishwara, whose definition is very close to the Brahma talked about by the Upanishads.
Let us see some of the so called ‘meditation techniques’ that don’t meet the definition given by this Swami, in the next episode.
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