A Mind Empty of Itself

To completely empty the mind is to die a psychological death—a death that is necessary if you hope to become fully present. A full mind is diametrically opposed to being present in the Now. A mind occupied with thoughts lives exclusively in time: When we think, we think of either the past or the future—i.e. we lament something that has happened, replay a pleasant experience we want to hold onto, savor the fading delectation of a snack just finished, anxiously anticipate a presentation we have to give at work later in the week, etc.

It is not possible to think and remain in the Now. Investigate this for yourself and see that it is true. For example, let’s say you’re having dinner with a friend. Can you think about the experience of having dinner with your friend and somehow remain in the Now? No, you can’t. If you start to think about some aspect of the experience—the food, your friend’s outfit, the server’s attitude—you are consequently ruminating on some aspect of the experience that has already happened; for example, your friend may be presently wearing the outfit on which you are ruminating, but your contemplation is based on an image your eyes fed to your mind a split second ago. Granted, this contemplation is happening about something closer to the present than if you were thinking about an event from last year, but it is nevertheless at some remove from the Now. Thinking is always about something that is in the distant past, the immediate past, the immediate future, or the distant future. Thus, thinking always takes us out of the present.

Falling into the Now only happens when thinking comes to a complete stop. This is one reason why meditation has as its goal the cessation of thought. Self-enquiry—as explained elsewhere on this site—is another strategy for bringing thought to an end. This is not to say that thinking doesn’t have any practical use—it certainly does. But in order to make the vertical shift into the present moment, one must still the mind.

When one becomes present for the first time, it can feel like a sort of falling, and can be a bit unsettling. If you’ve ever been on a rollercoaster, you know the experience—it’s the feather-light falling-upward feeling at the very beginning of a big drop. It is simultaneously scary and exhilarating.

Self-Enquiry: A Primer

Self-enquiry is the basis of our practice at the Advaita Vedanta Center of Las Vegas. This practice was advanced by Sri Ramana Maharshi (1879-1950), a Hindu saint whose teachings inform the practice of many modern day Advaita Vedantists all around the world.

The goal of self-enquiry is to realize what many Hindus call the “Self,” (or God, or the Absolute, or pure being). One might also describe the Self as the fundamental essence of creation. Self-enquiry is a process by which a devotee can direct his attention inward and discover this pure beingness, or Self. A full exegesis of this process can be found in Be As You Are: The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi (Edited by David Godman), but I will present an abridged version here.

To practice self-enquiry, one must turn away from the thoughts that normally command our attention, and direct that attention instead to the inner feeling of “I,” and to hold it there for as long as possible. This part of the practice is relatively easy for most devotees; however, they will soon find themselves distracted by thoughts (i.e. , the nagging feeling that their inbox is full of unanswered emails, the memory of something that happened earlier in the day, worries about an upcoming project at work, etc.). Whenever these distractions happen—and they will—one must constantly revert one’s attention back to this inner feeling of “I.” Fortunately, with practice, the distractions become less and less, and the ease with which one reverts attention back to the inner feeling of “I” gets easier and easier.

The key is to hold to the subjectively experienced feeling of “I” rather than creating a thought about yourself as someone who is holding to the inner feeling of “I,” which is subtly different from what we’re trying to do. Also, it is important not to create an artificial perception of what you think the inner feeling of “I” is like and hold onto that rather than onto the actual inner feeling of “I.” We are trying to experience what really is, rather than what we think what really is is. Yes, you read that correctly. The trick, if it can be called that, is to let go of thinking entirely and fall back into being-without-thinking, which is the ideal orientation for attending to the inner feeling of “I.” When done correctly, all that remains is an experience of being in which the sense of one’s individuality has disappeared, at least temporarily. This experience of pure being is an experience of the essence of all things. This experience may be fleeting at first but, with consistent practice, it becomes easier to reach and sustain.

As David Godman explains: “When self-enquiry reaches [the highest level] there is an effortless awareness of being in which individual effort is no longer possible since the ‘I’ who makes the effort has temporarily ceased to exist [because one’s sense of one’s individuality has disappeared]. It is not Self-realisation since the ‘I’-thought periodically reasserts itself but it is the highest level of practice. Repeated experience of this state of being weakens and destroys the […] mental tendencies which cause the ‘I’-thought to rise, and, when their hold has been sufficiently weakened, the power of the Self destroys the residual tendencies so completely that the ‘I’-thought never rises again. This is the final and irreversible state of Self-realisation.” In other words, one’s sense of individuality eventually disappears altogether, forever, and only pure being remains—this is the final state of self-realization. According to Hindu thought, the meaning of life is to realize the Self—one is reborn (reincarnated) again and again until one reaches this final state of self-realization. At this point, one is no longer reborn since the final goal has been achieved.

If the Godman quote above seems a bit esoteric, that’s okay—it is not necessary at the beginning stages to understand what self-enquiry looks like when taken to its conclusion. For now, holding to the inner feeling if “I” is enough. If your attention wanders, gently bring it back to the inner feeling of “I.” Eventually, with enough commitment and earnestness, the rest of the journey will happen of its own accord.

It is important to note that this practice is not about mind control or repressing certain thoughts; rather, it is a gentle technique geared toward letting attention rest on awareness of the source, and abiding there for as long as possible. At first, this may seem to take a kind of effort, but eventually self-enquiry will become effortless; at this point, abiding-as-being will be your natural state and it will take great effort to direct attention away from the experience of being. This abidance gives you the best chance of reaching the final state of self-realization.

Self-enquiry should not be viewed as a meditative practice that is done on a cushion, in a certain room, at a certain time of day. Rather, it can be practiced at any hour regardless of what you might be physically engaged in. You can do it while cleaning the house, cooking dinner, exercising, etc. Yes, regular periods of formal practice might be good for beginners, but compartmentalizing self-enquiry soon becomes unnecessary.

The Infinite Masquerading as the Finite

Bear with me--there is a reward.

The infinite can only know the infinite. If the infinite were to ever find something finite, that finite thing must necessarily occupy space in the infinite and there would be a hole in the infinite where the infinite is not, which would render the infinite not infinite. This is absurd. Similarly, the finite cannot know the infinite. If the finite were to ever come into contact with the infinite, the finite would instantly recognize itself as the infinite since the infinite is all encompassing/all pervading/all-there-is, and so the finite that seeks the infinite eventually realizes itself as never having been finite but rather as always having been the infinite all along, as always having been itself part of the whole. If the finite can ever be said to exist, it is only as the infinite seeming to forget its true nature, and then going out in search of itself, not knowing that it was itself for which it was in search all along. The finite is illusory, there was always only the infinite, there can only ever be the infinite. The existence of the infinite precludes the existence of its opposite.

Be open to the possibility that each of us is a slightly different way God has of seeming to forget himself so as to have a human experience in as many ways as possible, that each of us is a divine localization, that each of us is the infinite masquerading as the finite. Be open to the possibility that this was the fall that had to happen. Be open to the possibility that the purpose of life is to delocalize and realize our true nature and lack of separation--a separation that for most of our lives seems all too real. Be open to the possibility that Jesus, Buddha, Ramana Maharshi, Krishna are examples of delocalization, of the finite realizing its true identity as the infinite. In a relative sense, God became like us so that we could become like Him; in an absolute sense, as the Sufis say, "There is no God but God." Be open to the possibility that this is all part of the divine play, that it is gravely serious and not very serious at all.

This understanding--if understood both intellectually and empirically--has tremendous implications for your life, if you let it.

Hallways

I like sitting inside things. The other day at work, for example, I sat inside an empty room and examined the spot where a wall meets the ceiling. It was gorgeous--such a perfect meeting of two things. I got to thinking how well insulated the wall must be, why the planners decided on beige, whether I was the only one to ever love this wall. On the other side of the wall is a hallway with slightly curved walls, curved in such a way that a person standing at one end of the hallway is prevented--by the south wall--from seeing someone at the other end of the hallway. This hallway is also a nice place to sit. I'm so glad to have things to sit inside of, and to be here to do the sitting.

Exploring Yourself

I cannot think of a better way to start a blog than by offering the following words from Jiddu Krishnamurti’s “Freedom from the Known” (published by HarperOne):

“So now we are going to investigate ourselves together—not one person explaining while you read, agreeing or disagreeing with him as you follow the words on the page, but taking a journey together, a journey of discovery into the most secret corners of our minds. And to take such a journey we must travel light; we cannot be burdened with opinions, prejudices and conclusions—all that old furniture we have collected for the last two thousand years and more. Forget all you know about yourself; forget all you have ever thought about yourself; we are going to start as if we knew nothing.

It rained last night heavily; and now the skies are beginning to clear; it is a new fresh day. Let us meet that fresh day as if it were the only day. Let us start on our journey together with all the remembrance of yesterday left behind—and begin to understand ourselves for the first time.”