I was very priviledged to attend a guest lecture at the Krishnamachrya Yoga Mandirum with TKV Desikar's son Kausthub Desikachar. Kausthub has an immensely deep knowledge of Yogic philosophy through direct teachings of his great father TKV Desikachar and he shares this wisdom in a very tangible way to fit with modern daily life and offers a very realistic, unglorified interpretation of the yogic path.He is also a very talented photographer: http://www.kausthub.com/#
I hope I have been enable to capture the essence of his teachings on the mechanism of meditation as follows:
Many people claim that they are practising meditation but in the yogic tradition there is very clear concept of meditation.
How meditation works?
If we take a tool and get attached to it without understanding it, it becomes meaningless, the why is more important than the what, the function is more important than the form itself.
There are 3 different main traditions of meditation and we need all 3 in combination as they are each intrinsic to daily life:
1). Actions concerning the world
This is useful for helping us live our life better, we have responsibilities, we undergo many transactions with people, animals, activities that we repeat day to day. We are part of a social structure, an ecosystem and we need to deal with this, we can't renunciate and not accept our duties. We don't always deal with these activities in an appropriate way because of the kleshas. We make mistakes. To improve the quality of our day to day actions so they are not affected by the kleshas we have to understand the process of our actions.
Yoga philosphy has a tradition that says every action follows knowledge/awareness of something, this creates a desire/wish which is then followed by an act /karma in response to the desire. This action is not the end of cycle as every action is followed by a consequence. It leaves an impression on you, it doesn't end here you communicate it and it is embodied in you, where it remains. This is the cycle/process of every action in our life.
Mistakes happen in many of the transactions we are doing in life. Meditation works in this domain, we must address the source - niyana - we have an awareness. Very often knowledge is not based on fact but what we are drawn to and what we percieve. You don't always see what is there, you see what you are drawn to and are interested in. We have the illusion of clarity but we see what we want to see. Worse still is that what we see we think is the Truth but everyone has a different reality created depending on the things we are drawn to.
The meditation practices are designed in such a way to create clarity of perception because they lead the practitioner to a neutral space to percieve from rather than the bias which is created through our conditioning and patterns/samskaras. This is how the mechanism of meditation is designed -chose certain objects which would lead to greater perception - a darshana. Your desire will be consistant with a clear perception, therefore your desires and actions will be more appropriate so interactions with the world are better.
In the western world we often try to change the world so it is more comfortable but this meditation practise works in an opposite manner by changing our perception of the world. Rather than seeing it as a scary place we can see it as a safe place through refining the way we see things. An example of this practise is meditation on the sun done morning just before dawn, noon and sunset, this practise creates clarity and does not allow for bias.
2). Health and Wellbeing
We normally live a life in which we are not always healthy, we fall sick this can be domain of the body, the mind, the emotions or our breath. We are very often confronting a situation where we need help to return to health.
We often think that mind and body are two different entities but yoga sees them together. For example if you are sleeping and you have a dream that you are being chased by a dog and it bites you, you panic and wake up and find your heart pumping, gasping for breath and that you are sweating. You have not moved from your bed but the mind believes you are running and therefore this affects the whole body and its functions. Therefore if we think positive we can affect the body in a positive manner. When we remove the samskaras/the limiting patterns we become more healthy. Scientific research is beginning to catch up and prove the content of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. For exmaple Herbert Benson created a theory of the relaxation response which is proven to lead to healing.
Meditation changes the patterns of the mind which then changes the patterns/samskaras of the body in turn creating better health and this is a fundamental concept to yoga philosophy.
In meditation practise what happens in the mind can change the matter. A practical example to help explain this concept is that if you have hot water in a container then the container becomes hot. A living container can retain heat for a long time. There can be changes to the matter of our body through meditation over a long time, hence the expression mind over matter.
An example of this is the KYM worked with a number of people suffering from acidity who were unable to do asana or physical exercise. Instead they worked with visualisation of water causing the acid to disipate and disappear and it did indeed work, the quality transformed into the matter itself.
This has been proved scientifically by Bruce Lipton in the Biology of Belief - what you believe in will manifest in your body. This idea is inherent to the ancient wisdoms of yoga and ayurveda. What is held in the mind is held in the senses and transferred in the body and hence meditation can be very physically and psychologically healing. It works in a very subtle yet potent manner.
Meditation for healing will not be the same for everybody, our modern way wants it to be prescribed but it's not prescriptive because the same focus will act differently for different people. We are each different containers/the mind is different even depending on a particular moment and so this will in turn affect the outcome and healing potential of a specific meditation practise. Another factor which makes it even more complex is that many of us have split personalities. Even when the same person meditates on the same object eg the sun it will not work in exactly the same way on different occasions or lead to the same as there are other changing factors.
Each of us have different kinds of mind and which mind is holding the object of meditation will create a different outcome which will in turn influence the matter in very unique way. Standardising meditation practises is rubbish, we need individualisation which is at the heart of yoga and ayurveda.
According to these theories how can a spiritually evolved being suffer from cancer?
Consciousness is limitless whereas matter is limited - it may not have time to transform completely. A lot of prana is spent on the transformation process and that is why people die. Just because someone is evolved and been dedicated to healing practises it does not mean they can be free from disease. It is how you deal with it that is important, it does not need to limiting, for example Stephen Hawkings is a supreme example of mind going beyond the limits of the body, limitations of matter do not need to limit the consciousness.
3). Spiritual Domain
The difference between humans and animals is that we are not just interested in reproduction, we are interested in the spiritual pursuit, the meaning of existence and what we can contribute back to society.
Yoga is not related to religion in the Yoga Sutras it is related to our potential. We all have seeds and we need to nourish the seeds so they can grow and blossom. Meditation practises were advised to help seeds grow. If you take a field which is very dry and the soil is cracking and suppose there is one day of rain or the farmer sends water through the field, the next day you will notice some plants starting to sprout because the seeds are already in the soil. This is our field / the mind field which already contains hidden potential and we just need a river. The river comes in the form of prana as it irregates the mind field so that the hidden seeds start to sprout.
Unfortunately we are trapping our potential as we are ignorant of the seeds, we don't nourish them and we are not patient. But if we take care what happens is that the seeds of our self manifests. Sometimes we don't like what is growing but what we need is acceptance - if you have the seeds of mango you will never be a papaya - you will only ever grow into your potential.
When we bring the prana into the deepest feelings of the mind the greatest transformation can happen as the most subtle parts of the mind are reached and irregated. This is how meditation helps us to fulfill our potential.
This all sounds great but please remember your seeds may not always be beautiful, they will not all be flowers but poisonous plants. We all have good and bad seeds you have to accept it, it is nature. And don't judge yourself or others as you don't have the authority to. If prana finds you in your body it means it finds you are worthy of existing so you have to look at it positively. You will have negatives you will never find anyone in the existence of humanity that is perfect. Everything in the path of spiritual is not rosey, there are thorns! That is why you need positive teacher and a strong relationship based on trust.
We often don't fulfil our potential because we are afraid of the bad seeds, but we have to dig deep and nourish. Don't be scared or ashamed of the darkness, why do we have a problem accepting that we are bad as well as good. Perhaps the inforced judgement and guilt which religion can impose has impacted our ability to accept our negative traits.
I hope I have been enable to capture the essence of his teachings on the mechanism of meditation as follows:
Many people claim that they are practising meditation but in the yogic tradition there is very clear concept of meditation.
How meditation works?
If we take a tool and get attached to it without understanding it, it becomes meaningless, the why is more important than the what, the function is more important than the form itself.
There are 3 different main traditions of meditation and we need all 3 in combination as they are each intrinsic to daily life:
1). Actions concerning the world
This is useful for helping us live our life better, we have responsibilities, we undergo many transactions with people, animals, activities that we repeat day to day. We are part of a social structure, an ecosystem and we need to deal with this, we can't renunciate and not accept our duties. We don't always deal with these activities in an appropriate way because of the kleshas. We make mistakes. To improve the quality of our day to day actions so they are not affected by the kleshas we have to understand the process of our actions.
Yoga philosphy has a tradition that says every action follows knowledge/awareness of something, this creates a desire/wish which is then followed by an act /karma in response to the desire. This action is not the end of cycle as every action is followed by a consequence. It leaves an impression on you, it doesn't end here you communicate it and it is embodied in you, where it remains. This is the cycle/process of every action in our life.
Mistakes happen in many of the transactions we are doing in life. Meditation works in this domain, we must address the source - niyana - we have an awareness. Very often knowledge is not based on fact but what we are drawn to and what we percieve. You don't always see what is there, you see what you are drawn to and are interested in. We have the illusion of clarity but we see what we want to see. Worse still is that what we see we think is the Truth but everyone has a different reality created depending on the things we are drawn to.
The meditation practices are designed in such a way to create clarity of perception because they lead the practitioner to a neutral space to percieve from rather than the bias which is created through our conditioning and patterns/samskaras. This is how the mechanism of meditation is designed -chose certain objects which would lead to greater perception - a darshana. Your desire will be consistant with a clear perception, therefore your desires and actions will be more appropriate so interactions with the world are better.
In the western world we often try to change the world so it is more comfortable but this meditation practise works in an opposite manner by changing our perception of the world. Rather than seeing it as a scary place we can see it as a safe place through refining the way we see things. An example of this practise is meditation on the sun done morning just before dawn, noon and sunset, this practise creates clarity and does not allow for bias.
2). Health and Wellbeing
We normally live a life in which we are not always healthy, we fall sick this can be domain of the body, the mind, the emotions or our breath. We are very often confronting a situation where we need help to return to health.
We often think that mind and body are two different entities but yoga sees them together. For example if you are sleeping and you have a dream that you are being chased by a dog and it bites you, you panic and wake up and find your heart pumping, gasping for breath and that you are sweating. You have not moved from your bed but the mind believes you are running and therefore this affects the whole body and its functions. Therefore if we think positive we can affect the body in a positive manner. When we remove the samskaras/the limiting patterns we become more healthy. Scientific research is beginning to catch up and prove the content of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. For exmaple Herbert Benson created a theory of the relaxation response which is proven to lead to healing.
Meditation changes the patterns of the mind which then changes the patterns/samskaras of the body in turn creating better health and this is a fundamental concept to yoga philosophy.
In meditation practise what happens in the mind can change the matter. A practical example to help explain this concept is that if you have hot water in a container then the container becomes hot. A living container can retain heat for a long time. There can be changes to the matter of our body through meditation over a long time, hence the expression mind over matter.
An example of this is the KYM worked with a number of people suffering from acidity who were unable to do asana or physical exercise. Instead they worked with visualisation of water causing the acid to disipate and disappear and it did indeed work, the quality transformed into the matter itself.
This has been proved scientifically by Bruce Lipton in the Biology of Belief - what you believe in will manifest in your body. This idea is inherent to the ancient wisdoms of yoga and ayurveda. What is held in the mind is held in the senses and transferred in the body and hence meditation can be very physically and psychologically healing. It works in a very subtle yet potent manner.
Meditation for healing will not be the same for everybody, our modern way wants it to be prescribed but it's not prescriptive because the same focus will act differently for different people. We are each different containers/the mind is different even depending on a particular moment and so this will in turn affect the outcome and healing potential of a specific meditation practise. Another factor which makes it even more complex is that many of us have split personalities. Even when the same person meditates on the same object eg the sun it will not work in exactly the same way on different occasions or lead to the same as there are other changing factors.
Each of us have different kinds of mind and which mind is holding the object of meditation will create a different outcome which will in turn influence the matter in very unique way. Standardising meditation practises is rubbish, we need individualisation which is at the heart of yoga and ayurveda.
According to these theories how can a spiritually evolved being suffer from cancer?
Consciousness is limitless whereas matter is limited - it may not have time to transform completely. A lot of prana is spent on the transformation process and that is why people die. Just because someone is evolved and been dedicated to healing practises it does not mean they can be free from disease. It is how you deal with it that is important, it does not need to limiting, for example Stephen Hawkings is a supreme example of mind going beyond the limits of the body, limitations of matter do not need to limit the consciousness.
3). Spiritual Domain
The difference between humans and animals is that we are not just interested in reproduction, we are interested in the spiritual pursuit, the meaning of existence and what we can contribute back to society.
Yoga is not related to religion in the Yoga Sutras it is related to our potential. We all have seeds and we need to nourish the seeds so they can grow and blossom. Meditation practises were advised to help seeds grow. If you take a field which is very dry and the soil is cracking and suppose there is one day of rain or the farmer sends water through the field, the next day you will notice some plants starting to sprout because the seeds are already in the soil. This is our field / the mind field which already contains hidden potential and we just need a river. The river comes in the form of prana as it irregates the mind field so that the hidden seeds start to sprout.
Unfortunately we are trapping our potential as we are ignorant of the seeds, we don't nourish them and we are not patient. But if we take care what happens is that the seeds of our self manifests. Sometimes we don't like what is growing but what we need is acceptance - if you have the seeds of mango you will never be a papaya - you will only ever grow into your potential.
When we bring the prana into the deepest feelings of the mind the greatest transformation can happen as the most subtle parts of the mind are reached and irregated. This is how meditation helps us to fulfill our potential.
This all sounds great but please remember your seeds may not always be beautiful, they will not all be flowers but poisonous plants. We all have good and bad seeds you have to accept it, it is nature. And don't judge yourself or others as you don't have the authority to. If prana finds you in your body it means it finds you are worthy of existing so you have to look at it positively. You will have negatives you will never find anyone in the existence of humanity that is perfect. Everything in the path of spiritual is not rosey, there are thorns! That is why you need positive teacher and a strong relationship based on trust.
We often don't fulfil our potential because we are afraid of the bad seeds, but we have to dig deep and nourish. Don't be scared or ashamed of the darkness, why do we have a problem accepting that we are bad as well as good. Perhaps the inforced judgement and guilt which religion can impose has impacted our ability to accept our negative traits.
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