Meditation, Yoga, and Enlightenment

Perhaps somebody should conduct a study to see whether it is first Meditation that attracts the most people to the Eastern Traditions, or Yoga. One can look around and be puzzled as to whether one sees more beginning Meditation Classes or more beginning Yoga Classes. But one thing we can hardly fail to notice, and that is that most Organizations offer them both – Meditation and Yoga.

It is relevant to speak of here of basic beginning forms of Meditation and Yoga. We need to keep in mind that the earliest traditions of these spiritual arts were by no means as elaborate as they would become after so many hundreds of years of development and elaboration. It is probable that Meditation and Yoga had very simple beginnings.

Here, we can consider the purely pragmatic value of Meditation, remembering that much of the Tradition for Meditation comes from out of the Monasteries, both East and West. Imagine yourself in the position of being the Administrator of a Monastery, with a limited food budget and a compound full of men of all ages, some of whom could be expected to be rather rambunctious. Back in an age where there are no books (and your vailable scrolls being the most precious of reference materials, not meant for casual reading to pass the time), and no televisions. One can only work the men so hard for so long without killing them. Sooner or later one must give them their own time and hope they do not tear the place down with the riotous behaviors typical to men in general. Just think of how much easier the Administrator’s job could be if he could convince even just a few of his charges to just sit down and shut up. This may have been the first important impetus behind the Traditions of Meditation – a means of making grown men behave themselves.

Of course this is not why we still Meditate today. If one lives alone, who would one be sitting down and shutting up for? Our restless energy can be channeled into any number of hobbies, not being restricted by the poverty and lack of resources of an overcrowded Monastery. Yes, a little quiet time for reflection can do us all some good, but Meditation is now considered to have gone far beyond the point of being merely a form of crowd control, where we are less in the way and a lot less trouble if we sit in the corner and keep quiet. Even so, still it remains the first Lesson in Meditation to sit down and simply be quiet.

Next, about the Yogas. We must realize that Monks were not told directly, in those very words, to just sit down and shut up for the sake of their being less trouble to Management. No, they were told that sitting down and shutting up would be immensely beneficial for them Spiritually – that it would Enlighten them if they were of the intellectual persuasion, or if they were merely sensualists that Meditation would put them in a state of Bliss, Ananda, as they call it.

This is where the Yogas enter in. Typically it starts with breathing exercises, particularly the Breath Retentions Exercises, which simulate Bliss as everybody knows who has ever held his or her breath long enough to pass out – that right before one loses consciousness one feels very light-headed, or, in the parlance of the street, very ‘high’. Is this a good thing? Well, remember, again, that these practices arose from the Monastic Traditions. While ordinary men would ordinarily go out and get drunk or wasted on drugs (for instance, men in the Military), the poverty of the Monasteries precludes all of that, but the men can make do by learning to hyperventilate themselves into a stupor after a hard days work. Again, from the point of view of the Monastery’s Administration, anything that keeps the men out of trouble at so little cost is a positive.

But of course Yuga, just as Meditation also, has come far from these earliest humble beginnings of breathing deep for a buzz.

The fortunate thing is that so many Traditions put so many collective years of practice into the Yogas that many substantial benefits were discovered. Focused attention on breathing lead into awareness of body energy flows and a heightened sense for the body’s well being. This lead progressively into the more elaborate systems of the Tantric and Kundalini Yogas.

This leads us back to Meditation. How? Well, one can only be so aware of the body while in the waking consciousness, but if one can go into the relaxed hypnogogic state of consciousness then as one physically dissociates, one ‘sees’ within the body more than just feeling it and what would ordinarily be felt as pressures or slight pains become sensations of Light. Visual Imagery becomes quite vivid. Furthermore, if one can sustain Meditation, much the same way as Dreams come after about an hour of Sleep, likewise, in Meditation these same REM cycles begin to occur, and what we call Dreams in sleep occur as Visions in Meditation. And anyone who has ever had a very intense Lucid Dream or Vivid Dream can not underestimate the intensity of a Vision experienced during a prolonged Meditation.

Of course it takes a great deal of practice before one can combine disciplined breathing patterns with holding specific postures while relaxing one’s self down to levels of deep consciousness so comparable to Sleep. But practice makes perfect.

And now we come to the notion of Enlightenment. I have spoken in other essays about how Dreams are each person’s gateway into the Higher Collective Consciousness. So it is with deep Meditation, as the same REM states are being accessed. The Collective Consciousness approaches each person as a moral-social entity, and communicates to each person for their moral-social betterment and Perfection.

There is a very common Modern Error, which has become almost Universal, which is to speak of the Dreams and Visions as coming from each individual’s Subconscious Mind – a sum of personal experiences, sensations and perceptions. Often we even hear that dreams are ‘random’. You see, Science is committed to the Materialistic View of the Universe. Materialism is the Religion of Atheists, and Science has picked up on their lingo. So while it may be entirely obvious to anybody who has had the actual Subjective Experiences, that Dreams and Visions are messages from an External and Objective Collective Consciousness, still our Modern Culture of Materialism has effectively won the Battle of Terminology and so we have even ‘Spiritual’ people speaking of ‘subconscious’ content.

Anyway, if we can get used to the Reality of being connected to the Collective Consciousness and Higher Unified Being through our Dreams and Visions, then we can appreciate how we are being lead toward Wisdom and Perfection. Often people assume that the Goal of Wisdom and Perfection consists mostly in terms of Meaning and Understanding, and this is true enough, but only in the sense that Meaning and Understanding should prompt the correct actions and responses from us as we act in the World or in our Dreams. For instance, it is most common for people to inquire as to what their Dreams ‘mean’, but the most important factor is really how they acted within their dream – whether they act appropriately or not. So it is that the “Naked In the Street Dream” (which we have all had) has an entirely different meaning depending upon whether or not the Dreamer was embarrassed or not.

The Collective Higher Mind is looking for the Correct Response. We are being monitored for Correct Behavior. And how can we determine whether we have behaved correctly in a Dream? Well, that’s easy. The Collective Higher Mind will repeat dreams and visions until they elicit the correct response. So it is that people have recurring Dreams, or Dreams with the same basic motif. What people should understand by this repetition is that they had not yet made the correct response, or that they still need more practice exercising the correct response. Once the correct actions are taken and then verified, then the Collective Higher Mind moves onto the next level of Perfection. And, yes, Dreams and Visions will come along with messages and guiding signs for those who have significant trouble in figuring out what they are doing wrong. Here we see Guides and Angels in our Dreams and Visions.

Indeed, it is one of the best arguments against the Notion of the Personal Subconscious Mind that people have such difficulty understanding their own Dreams and Visions, or that Dreams and Visions have such difficulty in communicating with individuals. Between the Collective Consciousness and the Individual there is some distance of disconnect – while generalizing for Humanity in general, the Collective Consciousness often speaks in terms that the individual may still be unfamiliar with. The same Archetypical Symbols appear everywhere in the World, even to individuals who have not had enough Cultural Education to recognize them. If everything was from personal content, then there would be little trouble in understanding what is effectively just our own regurgitated thoughts.

Now here we should appreciate the difference between supposing that dreams are random, meaningless and useless, and the viewpoint that Dreams and Visions come from the Collective Consciousness as a series of Lessons and Tests that progress us toward our Moral Perfection. In this regards, Meditation and Yoga are only useful in proportion as they allow more access to these mechanisms of the Collective Consciousness. And then we must see that Meditation and Yoga are not really geared for any entirely personal development, but, as with the Collective Consciousness, is directed more toward the Moral Perfection of the Collective – for the improvement of Society and the World as a whole. The Individual is helped only so that Society may be improved by one individual at a time. And here we should hope, if we are allowed a metaphor to express our wish, that the Tide will raise all boats at once.