Subtle Conversations
When you are neither talking to someone nor holding a self- communion, in great likelihood, you are holding a subtle conversation. Since the mind is unsettled and restless, you want to keep it engaged, almost involuntarily, just like the hyper and naughty kid the parents want to keep busy. Are you wondering what subtle conversations are? When you are not talking to anyone or to yourself but you are watching others converse, you are holding a subtle conversation.
Watching TV or listening to radio are examples of subtle conversations. Stereotypically, without prejudice and justification, men do not hold the first two types of conversations as much as women, therefore, they often compensate by engaging more in the third one. You will find men glued to TV more than women and more frequently at that. The more restless the mind, the greater the flipping through channels. Reading a book is a more useful form of subtle conversation, because while reading your mind listens more than processing and directly engaging in an act of learning.
While meditating, sometimes conversations of other people keep playing in your head. By being a listener, you are effectively participating in that chat. That is an example of a subtle conversation too.
Conversations to Silence
An untamed mind must find an outlet and conversations provide exactly that. It is one of the reasons that sleep is relaxing. For, among benefits to the body, at least you are not aware of the talkative mind beyond recollection of their dreams. Is it any wonder that brain cells only get repaired during sleep? A good way to understand your reliance on subtle conversations is to make a resolution to not watch TV, read newspaper or listen to radio for a certain number of days.
The nature of conversations, material or spiritual, can have a temporary bearing on the state of your mind. Any conversation can be pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. The pleasant ones are the ones you find engaging and the unpleasant ones are the ones that you want to avoid. The neutral ones can swing either way depending on your interest. Interest in any conversation is the direct result of the conditioning of the mind. Someone who has conditioned his mind with repositories of information on politics or automobiles will find those topics interesting compared to those who may be more interested in fine arts or literature, for instance.
In any case, a sincere seeker should avoid harsh, useless, meaningless and abusive speech. Unrestrained speech and bogus conversations play a havoc on the quality of your meditation. When you sit down to meditate, your mind plays back these conversations to you. This causes agitation and restlessness.
The more you try to curb these conversations during your meditation, the more they spring up. When you are unable to tackle restlessness caused by mental chatter, it leads to frustration ruining your meditation right away. Rather than a meditator you become a mediator – trying to negotiate between the assault of random thoughts and the desire to be quiet.
Silence of the mind leads to nine different forms of awareness. It is impossible to experience any stage of awareness without silence. Each stage leads you to a unique experience.
Before I dive into the various states, it’s important to understand that a fleeting or one-off experience in meditation should not be confused with attaining a certain level of consciousness. For example, feeling a sensation in your spine or between your brows, or seeing flashes of light or glimpses into your future do not mean a meditator has reached an advanced level (unless you experience it every time you meditate). These experiences have little meaning. They can even be distractions, in fact. Consistency in anything comes from correct practice. And, practice is the basis of championing the art of meditation. Here are the nine states of awareness directly impacted by the quality of your silence and mindfulness.
1. Intellectual Awareness
This is called vitarka prajñā. Other than intellect, vitarka also means reasoning and opinion. Prajñā means wisdom, knowledge or intelligence. In this state of awareness, intelligence is limited to intellectual analysis at the external level. A mild meditator’s wisdom is often devoid of experiential intelligence and is limited to intellectual understanding of all phenomena. At this level, everything you know is second hand, someone gave it to you. Meditators at this level are happy to accept the knowledge passed on to them through their scriptures or teachers.
2. Investigative Awareness
Yogic texts call it vicāra prajñā. It means the intelligence you gain from deliberating on a thought with discerning wisdom.
The meditator now develops a degree of mental alertness. Such an individual is no longer keen to accept the scriptures on its face value, he starts to internalize the teachings and reflect on them to arrive at their own truth. The first two states are limited to mild meditators. The next two, however, are experienced by the average or medium meditator.
3. Blissful Awareness
It is called ananda pragya. It’s most interesting to note that an average meditator starts to experience an awareness of bliss long before realizing the final state (which means bliss is not the ultimate state in its own right). Beginning to rise above the social and religious conditioning, this meditator starts to feel disconnected from scriptures and preaching. He or she gains the courage to question the scriptures and validate the truth on their own. A certain stability starts to emerge in their sessions of meditation and, while experiencing tranquility, they get glimpses into their real nature. When they persist, they invariably experience the following higher states of consciousness.
4. Self-Awareness
This is called asmitā prajñā. Asmitā generally means ego. The meditator in this state experiences his individual self (a sense of ego) merging into the cosmic self. You begin to experience that you are an exact replica of the macrocosm, and that you are just about as infinite and eternal as the universe. You start to realize, not just intellectually but empirically, that you are not just the body, mind or senses, but something beyond. That you are more than the sum total of flesh and bones, more than just your desires, that there’s more than what meets the eye. Intense meditators progressively experience the next four states of consciousness.
5. Yoked Awareness
Yoga sutras and Upanishads call it vashikara prajñā. Its common meaning is subjugation of desire. This is the first irreversible state for an intense meditator. A practitioner at this level does not experience restlessness due to his or her desires even when they are not meditating. Their consciousness is now yoked to their object of meditation while carnal and other desires are curbed by superior awareness. Imagine what happens when someone falls in love. At the back of their mind, they are constantly thinking about the other person. Their consciousness is yoked to the thought of the one they love. This is a similar state of awareness with one important difference: a meditator cultivates it consciously and is in control of their awareness and not the other way around.
6. ‘Cessative’ Awareness
I am not sure if ‘cessative’ is a legit word, but I couldn’t think of a better one to explain what I mean. This state is called virāma pratyaya. Virāma means cessation and pratyaya means understanding, intelligence or consciousness in the current context. When the seeker continues to walk the path of meditation, the chattering nature of the mind starts to subside. You are able to remain focused on whatever you so wish without being bothered by internal noise or wandering thoughts. Better than subjugating your desire (however effortless) is to not have them at the first place. Hence, ‘cessative’ awareness is better than yoked. Remember that when we don’t abandon a thought it eventually either becomes a desire or an emotion.