Emptying The Mind

Spirituality
#1

[QUOTE=Surya Deva;31843]
The Samkhya understood that what prevents awareness from happening was thought activity in the mind. The natural habit of the mind to jump from thought to thought(monkey mind) Therefore in order to remain in awareness the thought activity had to be gradually stopped. Then they realised this coud be done by concentrating on a singe object. It did not matter what the object was, it could have been the word “cat” the aim was to enter into trance and one would then be in suspended awareness. The longer one could maintain that, the closer they came to realising the true state of being.
[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=theicefreezer;31847]
“As Christians, you are instructed to ?be transformed by the renewing of your mind? (Romans 12:2), not the emptying of your mind. Many believe that transformation process occurs as we meditate and feed on the Word of God ? renewing our minds by filling them with God?s thoughts, not emptying them or filling them with the prideful thoughts of man.”
[/QUOTE]

The concept of stopping or emptying the mind is controversial. Many yoga practitioners swear by it, but it is not universally accepted. I have seen Christians use this to argue against yoga more than once. I have my own take on it, and would like to hear other opinions.

#2

It is true that Samkhya contains the idea of cessation of all kinds of mental activity in order to obtain liberation from material existence, in order to permanently end all kinds of suffering. But this is not the last word. Indian philosophy actually contains a progression of thought on this matter.

Patanjali’s yoga is opposed to the idea of cessation. He points out that even the highest yogis continue to have mental content. He states that the process of samadhi includes contemplation of gross and subtle objects, a sense of enjoyment and consciousness of self, but that certain types of conceptual activity gradually diminish and what is left is direct perception. This is due to the exhaustion of conceptual activity, not conscious cessation. The product of samadhi is transcendental knowledge, not liberation. It suggests that the condition of suffering can be improved through enlightenment, rather than completely eliminated through liberation.

Buddhists take this a step further. Buddhists seek the state of enlightenment for the benefit of others and choose to remain in material existence until all can be liberated. They consider the practice of stopping mental activity to be a serious error on the path of enlightenment.

#3

I’ve seen Christians argue this as well. However, I’ve also seen them asking to be filled by the Holy Spirit. The contradictions abound.

If thou could’st empty all thyself of self,
Like to a shell dishabited,
Then might He find thee on the ocean shelf,
And say, "This is not dead,"
And fill thee with Himself instead.

But thou art replete with very thou
And hast such shrewd activity,
That when He comes He says, “This is enow
unto itself–'twere better let it be,
It is so small and full, there is no room for Me.”
~Thomas Brown

This poem says it best IMO. Whatever you believe, to empty oneself of self and listen to silence is a tough thing to do. I have the utmost admiration for anyone who achieves true mindfulness.

#4

Patanjali’s yoga is opposed to the idea of cessation

This is new to me. In Patanjali’s yogasutras the very definition given of Yoga is, “chitt-vriti nirodha” meaning the cessation of thoughts. It then follows onto say that when all vrittis are ceased, then the seer becomes manifest and self-illuminated. This does not suggest that Patanjali is saying we only reduce some thoughts, he is actually saying reduce all kinds of thoughts. He gives 5 classes of the kinds of thoughts. He also distinguishes two kinds of samadhi: with seed and without seed. The first stage of samadhi is when I-consciousness(asmita) has disappeared and only the object of meditation remains and direct perception of it. The last stage is when both have disappeared and only pure consciousenss remains. This is liberation.

Enlightenment is a highly relative term. One can say they are enlightened if they experience lower states of samadhi and develop clear perception or occut powers, but they may not have attained the ultimate samadhi, the attainment of which leads to total liberation. This state cannot be reailised, according to the Yoga sutras, until we have fulfilled all aims of life, resolved all our karmas and ceased the motion of the gunas.

#5

Right on, Alix. The poem is awesome

#6

Surya Deva,

Many people misunderstand Patanjali. You are no exception, beginning with the word nirodha, which does not mean cessation. It means restriction or focusing. And that’s not all, but this is a little too technical for me to get into right now, as I have to wake up in five hours.

#7

I think in this case many people are right Asuri. Nirodha does indeed mean to resist, restrain or stop something which is limiting you. In this case it is the vrittis or thoughts that are limiting you. Your aim is to stop them completely. This meaning is made very clear by Patanjali in several sutras where he talks about resolving the gunas back to their primordial state, ending all thought, even the thought of your meditation.

Yoga is basically the praxis of the Samkhya theory. It adops all of the main concepts of Samkhya: guna theory, purusha and prakrati, misidentification, its psychology and theory of perception and its theory of suffering. The original Purusha is pure and has no vritti content at all, but when Prakriti is manifest it develops buddhi, ahamkara, manas, jnanaindriyas, karmaindriyas, tanmatras and mahabhuttas. These are vrittis created due to the activity of gunas which have been offset due to the fundamental error Purusha has made. Therefore logically in order to reverse the error, it can only be done by ceasing all vrittis. And that is exactly what Patanjali has said and what has been understood by the Yogic tradition for millenias.

It is common knowledge in Eastern religions that it is the thinking mind which is what is the cause of suffering and bondage. In Yoga we are told we cease it, in Buddhism we are told to empty it, and in Zen we are told to just do without thinking. In Vedanta one only uses thinking mind insofar as one can realise that they are not the body, mind or ego and realise their identity with Brahman.

This reminds me of an amusing quip a master gives his student when the student insults the master saying to him, “You are out of your mind” the master says, “Thank you, I have worked hard for it”

#8

Dissolution of the mind, if we take the mind to be a layer or aspect of Consciousness which is part of limited small self rather than expanded big self.Out of this the bliss and exansion of pure bliss Consciouness arises, or sat-chi-ananda.Buddhists do say empty and stopping and cessation are used but dissolution or dissolving sounds like a better description

I could go into this more of your points which in your post you raise quite alot but to beohonest with you alot of this jnana philosophy (sometimes) hurts my head a little.There’s only so far it take most folk taken pure on it’s own into some realm of [I]understanding & appreciation[/I]…Plus they are only part of idea-sbased coniditioning and will fall short of some kind of descriptionof a pure state.I’m not particularly up on the different philosophcal schools but i think my own appreciaationof the meditative state kind of make up and inform that side of yoga.My practical suggesstion Asuri would be to find a porven meditation technique that has been shown to work and try that out for a few months.As certainly some of the metaphyiscs and ideas one just might have a pretty hard time getting our head round without that, but that is just my hunch on it. Maybe some are very intellectually ripe for it. I don’t know.Maybe i am wrong here. But say if you take a book like 'I am That, by Nisargadatta for example i think you might struggle to appreciate the subtle philosphical aspects with some priorexperience of meditation or meditiative states.Some might say well alot of could be just hypnonssi or an elaborate form of self-hypnosis. I’m just not so sure about that.Different sides of yoga certainly tend to inform one another.

#9

Thoughts or mental phenomena in the field of Consciousness may or may not dissolve completely,dissapear or still arise naturally but it said the mis-identification and/or attachment with those thoughts diminshes, for sure. It is this that is pointed to by some as the source of a great deal of suffering,in fact most of it…

On a basic level if you look at the amount of energy routinely invested by most in evaulating the world and typically reacting to it also then ,and then try to cease that kind of behaviour you’llsee how some one’s imagined burden’s are off-loaded.Intelectuallywhatever we think is logically and based on the reference point fo the “I” or “I” concept,the sense of a separate self…Again Misidentification with limited small self ideas-based & conditioned self.The self that is product of habit and often reflexes that don’t always serve him or his big unlimted self best.

'Emptying’has a negation sound to it hence it’d probably not opt for that word.But of course the voocbulary or words you employ often says something about which camp you might be swayed by or identify with the most.The one that says that most of all philosophy is inherently dogmatic because it is rooted in ideas-based mental phenomena,by virtue or defintion.,which islike the cloud-cover of pure awareness, sounds closest to the mark.And it has a certain elegance,sophistication and simplicity to it.It is the eschewal of dogma only available via direct experience or ‘direct perception’ to drop onof the phrase you employed.

I think when we start talking about philosophy i think we then tend to get into discussions based around- ‘Well what do you mean by the concept Mind or Consciousness?’.If we can come from a place where we can free ourselves of all prior conditioning and preconceptions then it does’nt try and bend or intrude on how we intepret our own epxeriences.

I’m not sure if you’ve heard of Kashmir Shaivism.I’m gonna take it you have.Here’s a nice little summary from Wiki.There are ancient scriptures and countless websites that sumit up very nicely and in great detaiL .It would clerly merit another thread in itself but it quite sohpisticted,elegant and simple and seems to eschew dogma.It is a practical philosopshy also.This might of course be completely at odds philosphically with your Samkhya philosophy.You should find it pretty interesting ,to say the least.Elaboration would be needed to do it justice.But your view of it might be interesting too aswell as any comparitive analyses.

There are three main texts that are associated with it can be found here, though in audio english format.

Another good text for meditators is the Vinjanayan BharaviaTantra ( a treasure chest of 112 yogas or divine conscioueness). There are alot of gems in this one when absorbed and digested.I’m not clear if there is a generally agreed date on it’s first publication though.Suffice to say,i think it’s meant to be pretty old!! Plenty of techniques in there for ‘emptying the mind’ if you want to use that phrase. I’m not all that keen on that phrase or expression though for some of the reasons i hope i have adequately outlined here.Not emptying but ‘dissolving’ ,would sound like a better description of what is occuring,what is sought etc.

#10

I have heard patanjali sutra 1 bit referred to here loosely translated least in one instance as modifications of mind (or mind-control modifications perhaps), but this can get( i.e these kinds of discussions) rather academic for me.I’ve also came across it translated as whirlpools or eddies of the mind or that characterise the mind( based of coure on my interpretation and understanding of ‘mind’). Citta might be sometimes reffered to,i think, as supreme or absolute consciousness( though i might have seen it loosely translated as mind and a number of other things, but this might be potentially misleading).Without going into technicalities.

#11

You can quickly see that sometimes when you try to translate sanskrit and common yogic terms you can encounter all kinds of trans-literations that sometimes don’t carry their meaning so well.Sometimes it’s cultural re-explanation within the modern age.We have different paradigms for one which tend to assume or include sceintific materialsm… That does’nt mean we haveto deliberately confuse those that have no idea what the word yoga might mean.ButThe hatha yoga was one example that went up for discussion recently and there was some debate over it’s translation.I think it is generally agreed here that hatha yoga here means forceful yoga (i would imagine forceful because it employs often a physical side or component to it’s techniques working on the body etc).

#12

The word ‘dissolving’ is also just as valid. Both words contain the connotations of negating something, but dissolving is perhaps better, because it suggests that something is an unreal construct, and we can dissolve the unreal construct. Wittgenstein uses the words, “dissolving philosophical problems” to suggest that philosophical problems are unreal constructs.

Yes vrittis do get translated variously as thought waves, modifications of consciousness, pertubations in the mind-field, mental vortex, whirlpools. All of these translations are correct and carry the same meanings. The best way to understand vritti is to imagine a still lake and then a ripple occuring within the still lake. As long as there are ripples the lake is not still, but if we let the ripples subside, then the lake become still.

Translating Sanskrit words into english words is very difficult, as single Sanskrit words require long descriptions to explain what they mean and their meaning can also change depending on context. The method that works for me it to do both an etymological and contextual analysis of the word.

Now vrittis arise only as long as there is a motive cause for the vritti. This motive cause according to Yoga is the samskaras where all karmas lay in seed-form. This is happens in what is called the causal plane or karanasharira as long as we have samskaras, the activity of vrittis will continue, and as long as they continue we will reincarnate over and over again. When all the samskaras are spent and no more samkaras are being produced, that is when all vritti activity stops. This is when liberation happens and one realises the supreme self. Now what happens then is a mystery.

#13

निरोधः nirōdhḥ निरोधनम् nirōdhanam
निरोधः निरोधनम् 1 Confinement, locking up, im- prisonment; Bhāg.1.58.58; निरोधनेन बन्धेन विविधेन वधेन च (निगृह्णीयात्) Ms.8.31; वैश्यः सर्वस्वदण्डः स्यात् संवत्सरनिरोधतः 375. -2 Enclosing, covering up; Amaru.87. -3 Re- straint, check, suppression, control; योगश्चित्तवृत्तिनिरोधः Yoga. S.; अन्तश्चराणां मरुतां निरोधान्निवातनिष्कम्पमिव प्रदीपम् Ku.3.48. -4 Hindrance, obstruction, opposition. -5 Hurting, punishing, injuring. -6 Annihilation, complete destruction; जन्मनिरोधं प्रवदन्ति यस्य Śvet. Up.3.21. -7 Aversion, dislike. -8 Disappointment, frustration of hopes (in dramatic language). -9 (With the Buddhists) Suppression of pain. -1 Extinction (लय), निरोधो$स्यानुशयनमात्मनः सह शक्तिभिः Bhāg.2.1.6

#14

My practical suggesstion Asuri would be to find a porven meditation technique that has been shown to work and try that out for a few months

Thanks for the advice. But wait a minute…you want me to go off somewhere and stop my mind. Why don’t you go and stop yours? Surya Deva certainly isn’t stopping his. Hypocrite.

#15

विरम् viram
विरम् 1 P. 1 To end, terminate, come to an end; अविदितगतयामा रात्रिरेव व्यरंसीत् U.1.27;6.33. -2 To cease, desist, stop, leave off (speaking &c); एतावदुक्त्वा विरते मृगेन्द्रे R.2.51; Śi.2.13; oft. with abl.; हा हन्त किमिति चित्तं विरमति नाद्यापि विषयेभ्यः Bv.4.25; न स्थिरकर्मा विरराम कर्मणः R.8.22; वत्सैतस्माद्विरम विरमातःपरं न क्षमो$स्मि U.1. 33; Bh.2.8

This is the word used in the yoga sutras to mean stopping or cessation.

#16

Here are several translations of the first few sutras from different sources:

1.1 Now, instruction in Union.
1.2. Union is restraining the thought-streams natural to the mind.
1.3. Then the seer dwells in his own nature.
1.4. Otherwise he is of the same form as the thought-streams.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/yogasutr.htm

1.1 Now begins the sacred instructions of union.
1.2 Union by stopping mind activity.
1.3 At this time the seer enters their own true state.
1.4 At other times the mind fluctuates and the seer
identifies with this. The seer is then elsewhere.

http://www.patanjalisutras.com/

1.1 now, yoga manifests
1.2 yoga is to surrender mental projections
1.3 then the true nature of the self manifests
1.4 otherwise there is identification with mental projections

http://www.yogadarshana.com/pages/text.htm

1.1 Now begins the teaching of yoga.
1.2 Yoga occurs when the field of consciousness is liberated from its patterned restrictive spinnings. Then the mind abides in the domain of innate clear essentiality – in clarified spaciousness devoid of any conditioned bias.
1.3 Then the seer abides in the unbiased primordial all pervading clear light consciousness which is our true nature.
1.4 At other times the mind identifies with discrete and fragmented objects.

http://www.rainbowbody.net/HeartMind/Yogasutra1.htm

1.1 With prayers for divine blessings, now begins an exposition of the divine art of yoga
1.2 Yoga is the cessation of movements in the consciousness
1.3 Then the seer dwells in his own true splendour
1.4 At other times, the seer identifies with the fluctuating consciousness

B.K.S Iyengar, Light on Yoga Sutras

1.1 Now begins instruction in yoga.
1.2 Yoga is the restraint of the modifications of the mind.
1.3 Then the Seer is established in his own essential nature.
1.4 Otherwise, there is self-identification with the mental modifications.

http://www.atmajyoti.org/sw_yoga_sutras.asp

1.1 Now the teaching of Yoga
1.2 Yoga is to still the patternings of consciousness
1.3 Then, pure awareness can abide in its very nature
1.4 Otherwise, awareness takes itself to the patterns of consciousness

http://www.arlingtoncenter.org/Sanskrit-English.pdf

Asuri, do you need anymore translations to show that you are in error? Finally, we can look more precisely at the etymology of nirodha:

Nirodha: Release, liberation, cessation, cancellation, nullification, dissolution, stillness, emptiness, disappearance, or extinguished, hence a rested open free and relaxed state. The prefix, nir, means means cessation, absence, devoid of, without, empty of, or freedom from something, while “rodha” means limitation, prison. wall, place of confinement, or obstacle. Hence citta-vrtti nirodha means a freeing up of the limitations of the mindfield (citta-vrtti).

.

#17

I think the last post should have destroyed the controversy on what Patanjali said. He indeed did say empty the mind of thoughts. This is only controversial to somebody who does not want to accept what is clearly stated and/or is ignorant of the philosophy of Yoga.

Patanjali was writing for an audience of people who were already doing Yoga. It is a kind of Yoga manuel. Now as we Yoga practitioners clearly know that when one sits for meditation, the first thing that happens is thoughts start to rise and fall in our mind. However, if we are succesfull in maintaining our awareness and not identifying with the thoughts, the activity of thoughts begins to lessen. After a while, we lose sensory awareness and become completely introverted in our own minds. At this stage we can have very lucid visions of our thoughts. If we still are able to maintain our awareness and not identify with the visions of our thoughts and not identify with the visions, the visions subside, and we begin to enter into progressively deeper and deeper states of mind and experience a loss of the sense of space and time.

At any stage if we allow ourselves to become identified with any of the thought activity in our mind we halt the process of going within. Hence, this is why Patanjali says we must cease all the modifications of the mind if we one want to get to the ultimate goal of yoga: union with the sef.

You can test this out when going to sleep and waking up as well. You will notice how during the transision into sleep and out of sleep, you will begin to get very lucid visions of thoughts which will play out in your mind as you watch. If you are able to maintain the watchful awareness right to the moment when sleep sets in, something amazing will happen, and I’ll leave this to the reader to find out :wink:

#18

[QUOTE=Asuri;31980]Thanks for the advice. But wait a minute…you want me to go off somewhere and stop my mind. Why don’t you go and stop yours? Surya Deva certainly isn’t stopping his. Hypocrite.[/QUOTE]

Hahahaha…i was’nt sure how this suggestion might go down. Or what your experience might be with meditation .But you raise a lot of valid points.And very true.A number of minds churning out here a number of thoughts.

There are plenty of quiet,vacant & empty caves around I am sure if you are genuinely seeking,my friend:wink:…hahaha.

Chitti vritti nirodah.

No excuses now. Just saying i’m not doing it is not good enough in my book,Asuri.They say there’s nothing more noble worth doing.

Deep forms of mantra meditation where you transcend the thought modification( mental streams) and quickly transcend the mind, go beyond (and sort of nullify it) ,arriving at pure bliss consciousness,the natural state, very quickly are probably the most effective.You transcend the limited mind self through the cultivation of deep inner stillness or inner silence.

Surya deva,

Thanks for all those helpful definitions and comparisons.I always liike having the sutras on one page. Very nice! Freeing up limted mind or Consciousness sounds about right.It’s more about expansion than contraction.The same dynamic goes on in quantum physics and cosmology.Vibration would seem to be the principle here.Or movement of Consciousness.

Asuri again,

Perhaps some of this may be at odds with your Samkhya philosopshy.I don’t know? I don’t see it as stopping so much which might be hinting at over-efforting and perhaps denying aspects of ourselves even…As if there is some kind of effort or denial.(It is expanding into pure awareness or Consciousness,Opening up to our true nature perhaps?). Surely it’s more about the [I]letting go[/I] of thoughts, the releasing of mind-modifications, and/or where thought eddies are naturally arising or occuring without obvious or direct cause,consciously or unconsciously,we can let those go too , at a certain point,and release them. It’s the ceasing of identification with them. Identification , so we are told at least,being linked up with the false self.I am not this mind-stream.o it’s the ceasing of idenitifcation in as much as the ceasing of thoughts that may arise.Non-identification then leads naturally towards cessation.At a certain point we can see it as false and don’t believe the mind-stories or thoughts any more.Like clearing the mud off our windscreen . Suddenly we see so much more.And the light of pure awareness or truth shines through.

Like you’re giving your windscreen a good old rub,spit & polish.And you’ll be thankful for it.Going inwards.

[B]The ceasing of identification leads naturaly to the cessation of thought[/B].So there may be prelimary steps that Patanjali might have missed out or are not adequately elucidated in his Sutras.

#19

Focusing on an object,meditation is just a tool or vehicle for transcending the trappings of the mind or limited Consciousness.You’ll notice that our sense of inner space opens up when we do this.Once we’ve gone in by cultivating enough inner silence,i.e realising our transcendent self ,it then becomes easier to drop or let go thoughts or mind-streams or modifications at will.This practice is encapsulated in the last four limbs of ashtanga or raja yoga where we can oscillate in and out of each of those limbs at will.The third chapter that talks about siddhis probably refers to this ability but is dependent on inner silence or somerecognition of our true self,pure bliss Consciousness.At that point we consciously introduce a thought and then release it into the void or emptiness where it is dissolved.By releasing thoughts ,emotions or intentions we are no longer caught up in limitation.

#20

Asuri, do you need anymore translations to show that you are in error? Finally, we can look more precisely at the etymology of nirodha:

No, I don’t need anymore translations, because I have the sanskrit right in front of me, which you choose to ignore. I think I trust Apte’s definition more, because he is not promoting any particular point of view, and clearly the emphasis is on restraint or control. Plus we have Patanjali later in the sutras describing various types of mental content in the state of nirodha.

The thing about yoga is that you’re supposed to actually practice it, so why don’t you go get some experience with cessation, then come back and tell me about it.