What is Knowledge :- 10.1

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16/12/2017
Chapter 10: The Stages of Samadhi -1.

1.1
In the specialised system of meditation, as we have it in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, there is a novel and very interesting method prescribed for every student, which may be said to go directly into the heart of the matter. What is it that we are meditating upon? What does the mind think when it meditates? It may appear, as it is sometimes felt by most people, that the mind is blank and thinks nothing in meditation; but it is not blank or literally a nothingness, because the emptiness or blankness which the mind may seem to maintain is also to become a conscious experience.

1.2
In meditation, one does not become unconscious; and if one is conscious that the mind is not thinking anything, one must be clear as to what one is actually saying when making such statements. What do we mean by saying that we are conscious of nothingness? It is a statement whose meaning cannot be very clear so easily. It is a state of awareness. But if it is an awareness of a blankness or a nihil, then that blankness or zero has to become an object of consciousness. It has to become a content thereof.

1.3
While there is some great point in the teaching that the mind does not think anything in a state of meditation, it can easily be misinterpreted by novitiates. While the blankness may easily be identified with a cessation of all thought minus consciousness, turbidity or torpidity of mind can nevertheless be a state of stability because sattva and tamas have certain similar characteristics – namely, fixity, stability, and a sort of immovability, we may say.

To be continued ...
Swami Krishnananda

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