ANNAPURNA SARADA, Friday, August 21, 2015 8:29 am

Manana – Contemplating the Teachings

The “Light Mantra” from the Upanishads (Katha and others), is one of the first verses we learn in SRV Associations.  It is recited in our arati services and pujas.  Unbeknownst to me, my daughter had memorized it merely by hearing it a few times.  When she was 8 years old approximately, we were at an informal house gathering, and our teacher, Babaji, asked those assembled to offer a prayer before we ate.  The adults remained silent so she offered the Light Mantra:

(Aum) Na tatra suryo bhati na candra-tarakam

n’ema vidyuto bhanti kuto’yamagnih

tam eva bhantam anubhati sarvam

tasya bhasa sarvam idam vibhati

Aum shantih shantih shantih

There, within the indivisible Self of every living being, the sun shines not, nor moon, nor stars, nor fire, nor lightning, much less this tiny mortal flame.  That One light shining, all else shines.  By Its light all is made radiant.  Om peace, peace, peace.

Sixteen years later, the Light Mantra has entered our children’s curriculum and is taught in six lessons. They learn the word-for-word meaning of the most important Sanskrit words, and through discussion, riddles, and contemplation (manana), the meaning of the mantra is unwrapped according to their individual capacity.  To all of this, art is incorporated, giving the child a chance to further assimilate the teachings in that unique mental space afforded by artistic expression.

The first tenet of higher knowledge according to traditional Yoga is that all knowledge lies within.  We have only to uncover it.  Swami Vivekananda stated, “The external teacher offers only the suggestion which rouses the internal teacher to work to understand things.”  The student learns on her own.  No one can understand something for someone else any more than a person can eat and digest food for another.  For this reason, we include a period of contemplation after each study and before moving on.  Contemplation on what has been heard gives the child an opportunity to discover the inherent knowledge of it (and more) lying within her.  Swami Vivekananda illustrates this in his Karma Yoga lectures:

      “No knowledge comes from outside; it is all inside.  What we say a man ‘knows’ should, in strict psychological language, be what he ‘discovers’ or ‘unveils’; what a man ‘learns’ is really what he ‘discovers,’ by taking the cover off his own soul, which is a mine of infinite knowledge.  We say Newton discovered gravitation.  Was it sitting anywhere in a corner waiting for him?  It was in his own mind; the time came and he found it out.  All knowledge that the world has ever received comes from the mind; the infinite library of the universe is in your own mind.  The external world is simply the suggestion, the occasion, which sets you to study your own mind, but the object of your study is always your own mind.  The falling of an apple gave the suggestion to Newton, and he studied his own mind.  He rearranged all the previous links of thought in his mind and discovered a new link among them, which we call the law of gravitation.  It was not in the apple nor in anything in the centre of the earth. 

     All knowledge, therefore, secular or spiritual, is in the human mind.  In many cases it is not discovered, but remains covered, and when the covering is being slowly taken off, we say, ‘We are  learning,’ and the advance of knowledge is made by the advance of this process of uncovering….“  Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, vol 1, p. 28

Today, in our modern society, people go from subject to subject, fact to fact, url to url, without taking time to assimilate and make the connections within.  In his classes of late, Babaji has been pointing out that the digital technology revolution of computers and hand-held devices is taking away our time for manana, for rolling the teachings around in our mind – this is more than merely reading words on the screen.  We simply gather facts and try to remember where we found them.  Later, later, we think.  It is like the proverbial donkey carrying a load of food and never getting nourished by it.  The next fact pushes out the one before it.  A couple generations of multi-tasking, which has escalated into keeping many “windows” open on the screen along with chats, texts, and emails all happening simultaneously, has made many people unfit for memorization as well.  Why? It requires focus, concentration, contemplationŠ.

This phenomenon is true for both secular/aparavidya (lower knowledge), and spiritual/paravidya (higher knowledge).  In the spiritual realm, it used to be that one had to qualify oneself, sometimes for an entire lifetime, if not longer, before gaining access to the teachers and teachings that deal directly with Moksha, Liberation.  These were delivered according to one’s capacity and in a sacred, concentrated atmosphere and lifestyle complete with sadhana/spiritual practice.  Now, it is all on Google.  Avoiding fruitless debates here, let me say the pertinent issue is that contemporary spiritual seekers have access to the written form of the teachings – the external meanings of the teachings – mostly without guidance, without practice, without sacred atmosphere, and without contemplation, manana.  The pearls of great price are treated like mere facts and gathered relentlessly on Kindles or iPads.

How many of us penetrate to the inner meaning via that subtle linking and association of concepts that occurs during manana?  Who do we go to in order to verify what we have discovered within?  The serious spiritual aspirant must eventually take a teacher and follow the discipline prescribed by him or her.  The age-old Vedic formula for sadhana is just as relevant today and of universal application: shravana, manana, nididhyasana – hear the Truth from the revealed scriptures and luminaries, contemplate It and put it into practice, and finally, realize It.  Another form of this formula places the emphasis on verification: shruti, yukti, anubhava.  To be held as true, a teaching or realization should stand on three feet of verification: the words of revealed scripture and/or the illumined teacher (shruti), it should accord with reason (yukti), and one’s direct experience (anubhava).

Back to our children’s classes, incorporating a period of contemplation is essential to the “uncovering” (learning) process.  Contemplation is not the same as meditation.  It is akin to concentration, focusing the mind on one idea or series of related ideas to the exclusion of others.  If the things that one “knows” are like individual chain links, contemplation is the atmosphere in which the related ones get linked together to access deeper realizations.  From there, meditation can occur.  We need not rush into meditation, but let the mind be conditioned, purified, and exalted in preparation for the subtle shift into meditation and Samadhi.  This concentration/contemplation/dharana is the first step in what Yoga refers to as samyama, the combined power of dharana, dhyana, and Samadhi – concentration, meditation, and absorption.  It is this yogic tool that enables one to penetrate past the surface mind, deep into a subject of one’s choosing, and gain access to the inner meaning, which becomes the doorway to the highest Samadhi and Self-Realization.

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