Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Refutation of Modern Meditations

Jai VijayRaya,
Jai Vyasaraya,
Jai Bedi Anjaneya,
Hare Srinivasa !!!


Modern Meditations : There are scores of modern meditations nowadays on the internet, each one claims to be true but very different from each other.

A practitioner of Kriya Yoga has given the below explanation. Other meditations are similar in some respect or another.
"The three higher chakras seem to be energy gateways in which one can pull or send energy trans-dimensionally. I believe the chakra directly above Sahasrara to be connected to the causal realm.
I have found through experimentation, if you send love energy from the heart up, through the thousand petaled lotus, then through the higher chakra with the intention of sending love out of our universe, a line of energy can be sent to other realms.
If you send love out and whilst it is travelling at the speed of consciousness, out of our universe, turn off all thoughts, holding the mind empty, this gives the love energy the extra kick it needs to make it out of our own universe into other realms.
By sending love energy to another realm it will invariably make contact with other consciousness. Once a link is formed, love can be sent back and forth between the two realms. The wondorous snowball effect from sending and recieving love, trans-dimensionally, raises ones own energy levels exponentially.
Initially you can practice sending and recieving love to planetary bodies in our own solar system, through Sahasrara. As you become more adept at this practice the higher chakras will activate which allow the sent and recieved love energy to be strenghtened into a potent laser like ray, which is capable of traversing the vast distances involved."


This is a classic example of the extent to which advaita is prevailing today. advaita is very loosely defined; so each author has his own interpretation. People after shankara corrected his works and said this is what he actually meant.
When Sri Vyasarajaru, wrote the Nyayaamruta, he collected all the different and loose definitions of advaita, summarized them and then criticqued them. So perfect is his work, that advaita scholars recommend reading NyayaAmruta in order to understand advaita.
The genius and calibre of Sri Vyasarajaru is such that, advaita scholars ask people to read Nyaya amruta to actually understand advita better.

Coming to the main point
If you google chakras, you’ll find scores of theories and pages of results. How to distinguish them, each one claims to be true?
I want to address this issue as more generic one and then talk about Kriya Yoga in specific.
Throughout history and scriptures, you’ll find scores of people doing all types of Sadhane. There is one common factor in all of them; unless it is directed to Sri Krishna it is all a waste of time.
There are scores of methods, meditations, practises out there in the Neo-Vedanta market.
Neo-Vedanta means a quote or two from scriptures, the rest are theories around the quote. Rather than trying to understand the quote (Sri Hari is the root meaning of all shastras), they try to fit the quote to their practice.
It’s like a remixed song, with some shlokas in between; having people say wah wah what a song :)
Now why is the Kriya Yoga explaination given so far advaita ?
1# Nirguna upasana – You meditate on sending love to some universe? Any gunas ?
2# No clear cut definition of upasane –
Sending love to Whom? Dunno?
How much love ? Not Sure ? Love for child is differnt from Love for Wife different from Love for Parents different from Love for Friends different from Love for humanity. All Love but which Love to send ?
Why do I love someone out there ? Dunno Practically, how do I love someone/something/some place I don’t know? I need to know this, because of dharma sookshma.
Sadhane has to be like Arjuna seeing the eye of the sparrow and nothing else. Do you honestly believe that the meditation described above is like that.
3# No Concept of God – If the philosophy does not mention dasatva or bimba-pratibimba; step away. Sri Hanuman and Sri Krishna mention that this is the most important aspect.
4# No clear destination – What is the definitve end point of the meditation? Samadhi is not an end point. It’s a state.
There are hundreds of meditations, all of them give sense of achievment and feel real. You feel energy flowing through you etc. etc.But is it really helpful ?

You should not tamper with chakras unless you know what you are doing.
Let me give you an example, if you just make the replace the engine with a more powerful one, the car can’t stop. If you make the wheels bigger, power will go down. If you put some rocket fuel, it’s catch fire.
Basically, you can’t just fiddle or jazz up something and expect the problem to be solved.
There is one way however where the whole car will be upgraded, the spiritual wattage will increase, etc. The age old testament of Rishi’s “The Gayatri Mantra”.
It all boils down back to Sandhyavandane. Doing a 100 japas @least once a day for a month with dedication; should be enough to convince you about the power.
Personally, I’ve tried scores of meditations and attunements, not one comes even close to Sandhyavandana. Jai Sri Ram !!!
So in a nutshell, although it seems that they have picked up some lines from the scriptures, what is being followed is a neo vedanta thought; that has no backing of the scriptures.
Sri Vyasarajaru has written Nyaya Amruta to show how to identify advaita in every form and how to refute them. Don’t fall into such traps, read Tattvavada and join the path to Moksha.
Also, this is how advaita spreads nowadays in the garb of meditation/healing etc

 Most meditations in the market talk about state of nothingness.



Narsimha purana mentions meditation as dhyana (nidhidhyasana) : continuous flow of thought towards an object. Note the term flow of thought.

Asthanga Yoga comprises of
Yama - moral codes
Niyama - discipline, self-purification and study
Asana - posture
Pratyahara - sense control / mind control
Pranayama - breath control
    - Sagarbha (pranyama through mantras)
        - Keval ( just breath control )
Dharana - intention
Dhyana - meditation
Samadhi - contemplation

The first five are preparatory towards the meditation. When the mind is pure, sense organs are under control, chitta is still/calm, the mind can contemplate on the known issues.

Shravana of shastras is what follows, Contemplation on the matter of Shastras (Sri Hari) is called manana. Doubts are cleared by Guru and the knowledge becomes steadfast. But we have difficulty in holding onto this knowledge, this phase is called dharana. When we can hold this contemplation without breaks i.e. continuously , the next state Dhyana is acheived. When external sounds are not heard the state is called Samadhi.

Sri Hari is above all senses, as long as we are even remotely occupied with our senses we cannot  experience Sri Hari to the fullest measure. Sri Hari is totally above all influences and infinitely auspicious. Sri Hari is described as "Neti Neti", meaning Sri Hari is beyond comparison... Sri Hari cannot be compared to anything in the Brahmanda. This type of realization can come fully (as per souls capacity) only when all the senses are completely under control.

Any activity if it is not directed to Sri Hari is futile.


Any modern meditation will try to focus on emptiness of mind. To negate this; a quote from Brhadaranyaka Upanishad
yathA yathA upAsate tathA bhavati - As you contemplate more and more, so you achieve

This is even very practical, if you keep thinking of someone, you will act/get characteristics of that person.

So if you think about nothing/emptiness what does that make you ?

Now see, if you keep thinking about Sri Hari, he'll keep you close to him. Hanuman is always meditating, is he meditating on nothingness ? Even a layman knows Sri Hanuman is constantly meditating on Sri Rama !!!!

Jai Vyasaraya !
Jai Vijayraya !
Jai Bharateesha,
Hrishikesh

1 comment:

  1. Well said, dear bhagavatha.
    These days there are so many people who vehemently go for yoga/meditation, et, without understanding why it is needed for,what is the real purpose,etc. They blindly proclaim that samadhi is the ultimate destination, deriding all vedic practices as being waste of time. there is a 2nd class of people who maintain that all religions lead to the same destination , and that all vedic customs and lifestyles also lead to the same end point as obtained by their respective babaji's meditation techniques.
    These clearly show how advaita, buddhism and atheism are closely related.
    May Bhagavan Sri Krishna save us !

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