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Walking meditation is an activity in which
one can focus and concentrate the mind or develop
investigative knowledge and wisdom. Walking meditation
is not a separate practice, but a continuation of the practice in a different posture.
In the Forest Meditation Tradition in Northeast
Thailand, there is a great emphasis on walking meditation. As so much of life is taken up with the activity of walking, if you know how to apply awareness to
it then even simply walking about in your house can
become a meditation exercise. Another benefit of walking meditation is that it is
especially suitable for those who have physical discomfort when sitting for long periods. If you find it difficult
to sit in meditation because of pains in the body, walking meditation can be a very effective alternative.
Some people find that they are naturally drawn to
walking meditation because they find it easier and more
natural than sitting meditation. When they sit they feel
dull, or tense, or they are easily distracted. Their mind
doesn’t calm down. If this is the case with you, don’t just persevere; try a
change of posture or do something new. Experiment
with standing meditation or try walking meditation.
This new meditation posture may give you some other
skilful means of applying the mind. All of the four postures of meditation are just techniques, methods for
developing and training the mind. Try and develop walking meditation; you may start to see the benefits of it.
While walking, place all your attention at the soles of
the feet, on the sensations and feelings as they arise and
pass away. As you walk, the feeling will change. As the
foot is lifted and comes down again into contact with
the path, a new feeling arises. Be aware of this sensation
on the sole of the foot. Again as the foot lifts, mentally note the new feeling as it arises. When you lift each foot
and place it down, know the sensations felt. At each
new step, certain new feelings are experienced and old
feelings cease. These should be known with mindfulness. With each step there is a new feeling experienced—
feeling arising, feeling passing away; feeling arising, feeling passing away………
You can slow down or slightly
increase your walking pace as an adjustment when the
count and step are not coinciding, but do not try to
speed up or slow down the breathing. It is very important to let the breathing happen at the rate the body
sets. Controlling your breath can tire you quickly.
Physically straining in this way is counterproductive,
leading to undesirable mind-states such as worry or agitation. On the other hand, slowing or slightly increasing the number of steps will lead to more relaxed
physical and mental states which help bring forward
tranquility. Let the practice develop
naturally without strain and you will find yourself
walking in this way spontaneously whenever and wherever it can be done.
If while doing sitting meditation, the mind becomes
tranquil with a certain meditation object, then you can
use that same object in walking meditation. However
with some subtle meditation objects, such as the breath,
the mind must have attained a certain degree of stability
in that calmness first. If the mind is not yet calm and
you begin walking meditation focusing attention on the breath, it will be difficult, as the breath is a very subtle
object. It is generally better to begin with a coarser
object of meditation, such as the sensations of feelings
arising at the feet. A sit should follow immediately after the walk or you will lose some or all of the mindfulness built-up during the walk .
While walking,
constantly re-establish your mindfulness pulling the
mind back, drawing the mind inward, becoming aware,
knowing the feeling at each moment as it is arising and
passing away.We can be aware just of walking,
simply being with that process. Our minds can be still
and peaceful. This is a way of developing concentration
and tranquillity in our daily lives. This calmness and tranquility is known as passaddhi; it is one of the factors of Enlightenment. The Buddha said that the bliss of peace is the highest happiness. A concentrated mind experiences that peace, and this peace can be experienced in our lives.
Having developed the practice of walking meditation in a formal context, then when we are walking
around in our daily lives going to the shops, walking
from one room to the other, we can use this activity of
walking as meditation. In the forest monastic tradition,
every aspect of our life is treated as an opportunity for
meditation.
Once you get accustomed to it,
walking meditation is adaptable to different physical
activities and allows you to combine exercise, mantra
work, and breath meditation. Incorporating at least 15–
30 minutes of such activity every day aids your spiritual
development.
Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary
Mysore Palace
Karanji Nature Park – Aviary
St. Philomena’s Cathedral
Early mornings opp Mysore Palace gate …….. grains can be bought @ the venue to feed the pigeon flocks
The Buddhist ancient stories tell how just the simple presence of a master is enough to touch the seeds of awakening in all those around. Just as the fragrances of jasmine and rose bay and sandalwood bring beauty, the fragrance of one who walks and speaks in harmony with the Dharma brings blessings wherever they go.
……… From time to time, to remind ourselves to relax, to be peaceful, we may wish to set aside some time for a retreat, a day of mindfulness, …….This is not a retreat, it is a treat. During walking meditation, during kitchen and garden work, during sitting meditation, all day long, we can practice smiling. At first you may find it difficult to smile, and we have to think about why. Smiling means that we are ourselves, that we have sovereignty over ourselves, that we are not drowned in forgetfulness. This kind of smile can be seen on the faces of Buddhas and bodhisattvas. Even though life is hard, even though it is sometimes difficult to
smile, we have to try. Just as when we wish each other “Good
morning,” it must be a real “Good morning.” Recently, one friend asked me, “How can I force myself to smile when I am filled with
sorrow? It isn’t natural.” I told her she must be able to smile to her sorrow, because we are more than our sorrow. A human being is like a television set with millions of channels. If we turn the Buddha on, we are the Buddha. If we turn sorrow on, we are sorrow. If we turn a smile on, we really are the smile. We can’t let just one channel dominate us. We have the seeds of everything in us, and we have to take the situation in hand to recover our own sovereignty.
When we sit down peacefully, breathing and smiling, with
awareness, we are our true selves, we have sovereignty over ourselves.
When we open ourselves up to a TV program, we let ourselves be invaded by the program. Sometimes it is a good program, but often it is just noisy. Because we want to have something other than ourselves enter us, we sit there and let a noisy television program invade us, assail us, destroy us. Even if our nervous system suffers, we don’t have the courage to stand up and turn it off, because if we do that, we will have to return to our self. Meditation is the opposite. It helps us return to our true self. …….
In the Buddha there is the Sangha body because he had breakfast with the Bodhi tree, with the other
trees, the birds, and the environment .
……..Practicing is only for the practice period and
non-practicing is only for the non-practicing period….. How can we bring meditation out of the
meditation hall and into the kitchen, and the office? How can
the sitting influence the non-sitting time? If you practice one hour of sitting a day, that hour should
be for all twenty-four hours, and not just for that hour. One smile, one breath should be for the benefit of the whole day, not just for that moment. We must practice in a way that removes the barrier between practice and non-practice.
That community is called the extended community. This means all those who practice exactly the same way,
but have not taken the vow, have not been ordained into the core
community. ……… What makes them different is that they observe a number of rules, one of which is to practice at least sixty days of retreat, days of mindfulness, each year, whether consecutively or divided into several periods. If they practice every Sunday, for instance, they will have fifty-two already.
What is the way to take rest before going to sleep? There are many methods, ……… First, your body must be comfortable, on a bed, in an easy-chair anywhere so long as it is comfortable. Then you learn how to relax your nerves one after the other, until you achieve complete relaxation. You should relax all your nerves you can relax them all together, but perhaps it is easier to relax them one after the other, and this becomes very interesting. And when that is done, you must make your brain quiet and silent and at the same time keep your body like a rag on the bed. You must make the brain so still and absolutely quiet that it is not aware of itself. And then, don’t try to sleep, but pass very gently from this state into sleep without being aware of it.
SLEEP – DOORWAY TO WORLDS WITHIN … when you sleep you have one consciousness, and when you are awake you have another. ln your waking state you look at things projected outside you, in your sleep state you see them interiorised. So it is as though in one case you were pushed altogether outside yourself, in front. and in the other it is as though you were looking at yourself in an inner mirror. -THE MOTHER *
The Upanishad says that when one sleeps, one reaches pure Being. Does this apply only to the Yogi or to everyone? Sri Aurobindo – In theory, it applies to everyone. But the vast majority of human beings fall into unconsciousness, and if there is a contact with pure Being it is quite unconscious. Very few persons are conscious of this relation. It is usually the result of Yoga.
Becoming Conscious in Sleep – Sadhana in Sleep : From the spiritual standpoint, our waking state is an unconscious slumber in which we are oblivious of the deeper subliminal depths and of the higher superconscient reaches of our being. The aim of sadhana is to wake up from our normal unconscious state which we euphemistically call the waking state in order to become conscious of our subliminal depths and superconscient heights. Sleep opens the door to these deeper and higher parts of our being and is thus potentially an aid in sadhana. However, ordinarily, conscious sadhana of the waking state is broken by the fall into the semi-consciousness of sleep. There is not only an interruption of sadhana in ordinary sleep but also a temporary loss of the good state of consciousness one has gained by sadhana in the waking state.
The methods of sadhana by which the growth of consciousness takes place in the waking state also serve to make one more and more conscious in sleep. However, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have recommended certain specific methods for becoming more conscious in sleep. These consist in:
l) Relaxing the body and putting the mind and vital to rest before falling asleep.
2) Concentrating for a short time just before sleep, with the will or aspiration or prayer (depending on one’s nature and inclination) to be conscious during sleep. 3) Passing into sleep in a state of concentration with the help of a mantra or some other means. 4) On waking up, remaining in a state of immobility for a while, without making an abrupt movement of the body, especially of the head, and concentrating to remember one’s dream experiences. 5) Concentrating for a few minutes after rising in order to regain the true consciousness and get back the thread of progress.
What is the nature of a sleep without dreams? If one succeeds in making the mind and vital silent, and in keeping the body well asleep, one can have a very still and quiet sleep, and then, if one can manage to get out of these forms and enter the higher worlds, one may reach the true repose of Sachchidananda. -THE MOTHER
……you tire ourself running moving in the mind in a frantic activity. , so when you get up you feel tired. . once you have the control you can stop that completely… · completely calm and still and vast. .. well,if you can make your mind like that. vast, calm, like a flat , motionless. surface; then our sleep is excellent.
To Sleep well the vital and physical and mind also must learn how to relax themselves and be quiet – Sri Aurobindo
The great majority of dreams have no other value than that of a pure mechanical and uncontrolled activity of the physical brain. . These dreams are nearly alway caused by purely physical circumstance – state of health, digestion, etc. With a little self-observation and a few precautions , it is easy to avoid this type of dream, by eliminating its physical cause ..
We should therefore observe our dreams attentively; they are often useful instructors who can give us a powerful help on our way towards self-conquest. ……… But dreams are not merely the malignant informers of our weaknesses or the malicious destroyers of our daily effort for progress. Although there are dreams which we should contend with or transform, there are others which should on the contrary be cultivated as precious auxiliaries in our work within and around us.
All dream or sleep consciousness cannot be converted at once into conscious sadhana. That has to be done progressively. -SRI AUROBINDO *
Thich Nhat Hanh:
‘Tea is an act complete in its simplicity.
When I drink tea, there is only me and the tea.
The rest of the world dissolves.
………………..
This is the act of life, in one pure moment, and in this act the truth of the world suddenly becomes revealed: ……..
There is only the tea, and me, converging.’
The pause that really refreshes – Tea is for those who prefer to contemplate life quietly. Japanese tea ceremonies may take place in specially constructed small buildings. All ostentation and suggestions of luxury are banished from sight and thought . People try to stop drinking alcoholic beverages and even coffee. The tea habit is a happy one. There is no need to worry about addiction or after-effects. Only a few persons with an idiosyncratic susceptibility to alkaloids need be cautious about the quantity consumed, and they will need to be even more careful about imbibing coffee and cocoa.
When tea is to be sipped without cream or milk, it should be infused from 3 to 4 minutes. That to be drunk with cream or milk should be steeped from 4 to 6 minutes.
……….. only in a congenial atmosphere can one truly enjoy color, fragrance and flavor as one prepares and drinks tea. https://taiwantoday.tw/news_amp.php?unit=12&post=13748&unitname=Society-Taiwan-Review&postname=T%27e-or-ch%27a,-it%27s-delicious
Oolong teas have a complex aroma, from deep earthy, to floral sweetness, ranging between green and black teas. Light pastries, fruit scones paired with this tea is simply delicious. You could also try light fruit based desserts and syrup desserts. …….. https://theuklooseleafteacompany.co.uk/blogs/news/the-perfect-dessert-pairings-for-loose-leaf-tea
Cup of Calm
10 Anti-Anxiety teas – https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/click-here-for-happiness/202207/10-anti-anxiety-teas
https://www.healthline.com/health/anxiety/tea-for-anxiety#holy-basil
Drinking certain teas, may also help you relax before sleep – 1. Magnolia tea · 2. Low caffeine green tea · 3. Chamomile tea · 4. Lavender tea · 5. Valerian tea · 6.Passionflower tea https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/teas-that-help-you-sleep
ImmuniTeas
https://heartofenglandforest.org/news/grounding-get-barefoot-forest Grounding, sometimes also called ‘Earthing’, is simply being or walking barefoot on the ground. The surface must be natural e.g. soil or grass in the Forest, rather than a pavement or man made walkway.
Our modern lifestyles and fashions remove our contact with the earth. We largely spend our days indoors or outdoors with rubber sole non-conducting shoes, meaning we hardly ever come into direct contact with the surface of our planet.
https://www.feathersinthewoods.com/2020/07/what-is-earthing-grounding.html?m=1 You are getting healing energy directly from the earth’s surface, which is why it is important to touch actual earth like dirt or real grass, nothing man-made like gravel. You’ll want to take off shoes and socks also.
It doesn’t have to be your feet – You can get the same benefits from digging in the dirt, playing in the sand at the beach, trailing your fingers through a stream……
We were never meant to look behind, but ahead and above in the superconscious light …….
Evolution has nothing to do with becoming more
saintly or intelligent; it has to do with becoming more conscious. It takes a great many ages for one to be able to fruitfully bear the truth of
past lives.
Other signs may also
reveal its presence ( psychic being /awakening): It is light, nothing is a burden to it, as if the whole
world were its playground; it is invulnerable, it is a seer, it sees; it is calm, so calm, a tiny breath in the depths of the being; and vast, as vast as the eternal sea itself. Indeed, it is eternal. And it is free; nothing can entrap it, neither life nor men.….
In mental silence, the mental consciousness universalizes itself; in vital peace, the vital consciousness universalizes itself; in the stillness of the body,
the physical consciousness universalizes itself.
Man twitters
intellectually (=foolishly) about the surface results and attributes
them all to his “noble self,” ignoring the fact that his noble self is
hidden far away from his own vision behind the veil of his dimly
sparkling intellect and the reeking fog of his vital feelings, emotions,
impulses, sensations and impressions. Our sole freedom is to lift ourselves to higher planes through individual evolution. The gradations of consciousness are
universal states not dependent on the outlook of the subjective
personality; rather the outlook of the subjective personality is
determined by the grade of consciousness in which it is organized
according to its typal nature or its evolutionary stage.
Sri Aurobindo assigned a special place to art, which he
considered one of the major means of spiritual progress.
The Vedic rishis, who have given us perhaps the only instance of a
systematic and continuous spiritual progression from plane to plane,
may be among the greatest poets the earth has ever known, as Sri Aurobindo has shown in his Secret of the Veda. The Sanskrit word
kavi had the double meaning of “seer of the Truth” and “poet.” One
was a poet because one was a seer. This is an obvious and quite
forgotten reality.The higher one rises, the more harmonious, unified
and streamlined the vibrations become, such as certain great notes of
Beethoven’s string quartets, which seem to draw us upward,
breathlessly, to radiant heights of pure light. The force of the music is
no longer a matter of volume or multi-hued outbursts, but of a higher
inner tension. The higher frequency of vibration turns the multi-hued
rainbow to pure white, to a note so high that it seems motionless, as if
captured in eternity, one single sound-light-force which is perhaps
akin to the sacred Indian syllable OM.
Excerpts from Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness – 5
Consciousness is the means, consciousness is the key, and
consciousness is the goal.Through the very process of our evolution, the consciousness,
submerged in Matter, has grown accustomed to depending upon outer organs and antennas to perceive the world; and since we have seen the
antennas appear before the master of the antennas, we have childishly concluded that the antennas have created the master, and that without
antennas there is no master, no perception of the world. But this is an illusion. Our dependence upon the senses is merely a habit – true, a millenary one, but no more inescapable than the flintstone implements of the Chellean man: It is possible for the mind – and it would be
natural for it, if it could be persuaded to liberate itself from its consent to the domination of matter, – to take direct cognizance of the objects
of sense without the aid of the sense-organs.
Sri Aurobindo lived in great poverty during his first years in
Pondicherry. and would finally be left in peace the day the French police superintendent came to search his room and discovered in his desk drawers the works of Homer. After inquiring whether these writings were “really Greek,” the superintendent became so filled with awe and respect for this gentleman-yogi, who read scholarly books and spoke French, that he
simply left, never to return.
,.The significance of the
lotus is not to be found by analyzing the secrets of the mud from which
it grows here; its secret is to be found in the heavenly archetype of the
lotus that blooms for ever in the Light above.
We appear to progress from below upward,
As long as we move with the common herd, life is relatively easy, with its
moderate ups and downs; but the moment we want to get out of the
rut, a thousand forces rise up, suddenly very interested that we should behave “like everyone else,” then we realize how well organized the
imprisonment is. We even realize that we can go as far downward as
we can ascend, that our downward movements are in exact proportion
to our capacity of ascent; many scales fall from our eyes.
Only those who have never gone beyond the frontal personality can
still harbor any illusion about themselves.
In reality, as experience shows, these
disturbing forces have their place in the universe; they are disturbing
only at the scale of our constricted momentary consciousness, and for
a specific purpose. Firstly, they always catch us with our defenses
down – yet were we firm and one-pointed, they could not shake us for
a second. To the growing soul, to the spirit within us, may not difficulties,
obstacles, attacks be a means of growth, added strength, enlarged
experience, training for spiritual victory?
The method for dealing with these adverse forces is the same as
for the other vibrations: silence, inner stillness that lets the storm blow
over. We may not succeed the first time in dissolving these attacks,
but more and more they will seem to take place on the surface of our
being; we may be shaken, upset, yet deep down we will feel the
“Witness” in us, unscathed and unaffected – he is never affected. We
fall and get back up again, each time becoming stronger.
Excerpts from Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness by Satprem – 4 :
In 1910, a French writer, Paul Richard, came to Pondicherry, met Sri Aurobindo, and was so impressed by the breadth of his views that he made a second trip to see him in 1914, this time urging him to put his thoughts into written form. A bilingual review was founded, with Richard in charge of the French section. Thus the Arya, or Review of the Great Synthesis, would be born. But the war broke out, Richard was called back to France, and Sri Aurobindo found himself alone
with sixty-four pages of philosophy to produce every month.
….In six uninterrupted years, until 1920, Sri Aurobindo would publish nearly all of his written work, close to five thousand pages.
But he wrote in an unusual manner – not one book after another, but
four and even six books concurrently, on the most varied subjects, such as The Life Divine, his fundamental “philosophical” work and
spiritual vision of evolution; The Synthesis of Yoga, in which he describes the various stages and experiences of the integral yoga, and
surveys all the past and present yogic disciplines; the Essays on the Gita, which expounds his philosophy of action; The Secret of the Veda, with a study of the origins of language; and The Ideal of Human
Unity and The Human Cycle, which approach evolution from its
sociological and psychological standpoints and examine the future
possibilities of human societies.At the end of six years, in 1920, Sri Aurobindo felt he had said
enough, for the time being, and the Arya drew to a close. The rest of his written work would be comprised almost entirely of letters to his
disciples – thousands upon thousands of them, containing all kinds of practical indications about yogic experiences, difficulties, and progress. But most importantly, over a period of thirty years, he would
write and rewrite his extraordinary 28,813-line epic poem, Savitri, like
a fifth Veda – his message, in which he describes the experiences of
the higher and lower worlds, his own battles in the Subconscient and
Inconscient, the whole occult history of evolution on the earth and in
the universe, and his vision of the future:
Interpreting the universe by soul signs
He read from within the text of the without
In spring, the rice fields of India stretch before the eye,
quiet and green, laden with sweet fragrance, beneath a heavy sky; suddenly, with a single cry, thousands of parrots take flight. Yet we
had seen nothing. It is so sudden, lightning-fast – like the incredible rapidity with which the consciousness clears up. One mere detail, one
sound, one drop of light, and a whole magnificent, overflowing world
appears – thousands of imperceptible birds in the flash of a wing.
……Intuition reproduces, on our scale, the original mystery of a great Gaze: a mighty glance that has seen all, known all, and that delights at seeing bit by bit, slowly, successively, temporally, from a myriad points of view, what It had once wholly embraced in a fraction of Eternity. An eternal instant is the cause of the years.
Life is deficient not only because
its objects are empty and its time fragmented, but also because of its
lack of foundation and solidity. All religions and spiritualities have
sprung from this fundamental need in man: To find a permanent Base,a refuge of peace outside the chaos, uncertainty and suffering of the
world – something utterly untouched and protected. Then, in the course of our quest, we suddenly emerged in a stupendous Silence, a
Vastness outside the world, which we called God, the Absolute, or Nirvana (the words are unimportant): we secured the great Release.
This is the fundamental experience. Whenever we approach that great
Silence, everything changes; we feel Certainty, Peace, …… That is why it is said that God’s kingdom is
not of this world. Sri Aurobindo’s experience, too, had begun with Nirvana, but it ended with the plenitude of the world. This apparent contradiction is central to our understanding of the practical secret of
true life
So that his intentions might not be misinterpreted, Sri Aurobindo repeatedly stressed the following: It is far from my purpose to propagate any religion, new or old, for humanity in the future. A way to be opened
that is still blocked, not a religion to be founded, is my conception of the matter.
There was no communal life either, only the inner connection. Some disciples kept the habit, from the days when the Mother used to talk to the Ashram children, of assembling twice a week for a collective meditation.
Excerpts from Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness by Satprem – 3 :
Indeed God is not outside His world,
He did not “create” the world – He became the world, as the
Upanishad says: “He became knowledge and ignorance, He became the truth and the falsehood. . . . He became all this whatsoever that is.”
(Taittiriya Upanishad II.6) “
This world is not finished; it is becoming. It is a progressive conquest of the Divine by the Divine for the Divine, on its way to becoming the
endless more that we must be. Our world is in evolution, and evolution has a spiritual meaning: Earth’s million roads struggled
towards deity.
Where is the world’s true salvation? The
spiritualists are right in wanting us to taste the supreme lightness of the soul, but so too are the materialists, who churn Matter and seek to bring out wonders from that denseness. But they do not have the Secret. No one has the Secret. The wonders of the former have no
body, and those of the latter no soul.
The soul had a prehuman past, it has a superhuman
future
The ultimate knowledge is that
which perceives and accepts God in the universe as well as beyond the universe and the integral Yoga is that which, having found the
Transcendent, can return upon the universe and possess it, retaining
the power freely to descend as well as ascend the great stair of existence .This double movement of ascent and descent of the
individual consciousness is the basic principle of the supramental
discovery. . . . .
The goal we are seeking is a state of integral mastery, not
that of spiritual escapism, and that mastery is possible only in a
continuity of consciousness. “Ecstasy,” some have thought, would be better termed “enstasy.” Is one then “in
oneself” only when outside oneself? For “ecstasy” – ex-stare – means literally to be outside one’s body or outside the perception of the world. To put it simply, our goal is an “in-oneself” that is not outside ourselves. Only when the supreme experiences
can take place within our body and in the midst of everyday life will we be able to speak of “enstasy”; otherwise the term is misleading, though it perfectly illustrates the gulf we have created between life and Spirit.
Calm heavens of imperishable Light,
Illumined continents of violet peace,
Oceans and rivers of the mirth of God
And grief.
Sri Aurobindo was searching for a true life here. Life, not a remote silent or high-uplifted ecstatic Beyond – Life alone, is the field of our Yoga
Excerpts from Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness – 2 : When we sit with our eyes closed to silence the mind, we are at first submerged by a torrent of thoughts; they crop up from every side, like frightened or even aggressive rats. …… We can also use an image,
for instance that of a vast ocean without a ripple upon which we float,
becoming that tranquil vastness. We thus learn not only silence but expansion of consciousness. The only solution is
therefore to practice silencing the mind just where it is seemingly the
most difficult: on the street, in the subway, at work, everywhere.
Instead of going through Grand Central Station four times a day like
someone hounded and forever in a rush, we can walk there
consciously, as a seeker. Instead of living haphazardly, dispersed in a
multitude of thoughts, which not only lack any excitement but are also
as exhausting as a broken record, we can gather the scattered threads of our consciousness and work on ourselves at every moment. Then
life begins to become surprisingly exciting, because the least little circumstance becomes an opportunity for victory; we are focused; we are going somewhere instead of going nowhere.
For yoga is not a way of doing but of being.
When the mind is silent, words come, speech comes, action comes,
everything comes, automatically, with striking exactness and speed. It is indeed another, much lighter way of living. For there is nothing the
mind can do that cannot be better done in the mind’s immobility and
thought-free stillness.
We have all experienced certain problems which are “mysteriously” solved during
sleep, precisely when the thinking machine is hushed. . Eventually, after many trials and errors, we will
understand once and for all and see with our own eyes that the mind is
not an instrument of knowledge but only an organizer of knowledge,
as Mother put it, and that knowledge comes from elsewhere.
The central channel and the two interlacing side channels
correspond to the medullary canal and, probably, to the sympathetic
nervous system. They are the paths through which the ascending
Force (Kundalini) travels, after awakening in the lower center, and
rises from center to center “like a serpent” to blossom at the top of the
head in the Superconscient. (This seems to be also the significance of
the uraeus, the Egyptian naja that adorned the Pharaoh’s headdress; the
Mexican quetzalcoatl, or plumed serpent; and perhaps the naga snakes overhanging Buddha’s head.) A complete study on the question can
be found in the remarkable work of Sir John Woodroffe (Arthur
Avalon), The Serpent Power (Madras: Ganesh & Co., 1913).
From top to bottom, our being is a receiving station: Truly, we do not think, will or act but thought occurs in us, will occurs in us,
impulse and act occur in us. …… The main
problem with the vital is that it mistakenly identifies with just about everything that comes out of itself. It says: “This is ‘my’ pain, ‘my’ depression, ‘my’ personality, ‘my’ desire,” and thinks of itself as all
sorts of little me’s it is not. …….. But
if we can remain silent within, we soon realize that none of this has
anything to do with us: everything comes from outside. We keep picking up the same wavelengths, and becoming overwhelmed by
every contagion.
…….For, with respect to
our mental, vital, and physical life, as well as our sleep, our death, and
our immortality, everything is always a matter of consciousness.
……
E'n'M- Excerpts, Musings, Travelogues etc..... 
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