Rest as that Condition

Transcript

This is a beautiful thought, this is how your life is already wonderful. I was thinking about this phrase, rest has that condition.

It comes from Sam Harris’ app, the Waking Up a kind of guided meditation app and its got a lot of interesting interviews and discourses on the subject of meditation and spirituality more generally. Spirituality coming from this more atheist aspect I suppose.

Its very fascinating, I really like this app. When people ask me how do you meditate, this is normally one of the things that I mention and recommend.

It is quite easy and quite potent even though I had a prejudice against guided meditation when I tried it.

When I tried it I found this is not at all what I expected, its very much about observing ones own mind and frequently Harris does come back to this phrase during his meditation. He says rest as that condition which is noticing that there is a part of us that is perceiving.

Who is it that’s perceiving? Its difficult to say exactly, its difficult to turn attention on itself and perhaps its even impossible although Im not entirely sure yet as I am still on that journey.

But maybe we can try to observe the condition of our minds, our brains, our consciousness that is aware. Maybe we can be self aware and be aware of awareness itself.

Maybe this doesn’t take any effort, maybe we can do this right in this very moment without having any practice or skill at meditation. Perhaps we can simply relax, rest as that condition.

In the Siddha yoga tradition its often repeated this mantra that is very old. It comes from the vedas. Not sure which one but one of them in one of the oldest texts known to bed.

The mantra is Soham and the vedas teach us, this means something like thou art that. That’s how its normally translated in the Siddha yoga tradition. What it means is the consciousness that is within you is identical to the universal consciousness.

This is interesting to experience this on your own. You might experience it by practicing the mantra. Often I like to try breathing out and in my mind chanting so representing the individual consciousness.

And then breathing in I repeat ham representing the universal consciousness.

And as I go further with this meditation I might try to maintain the awareness of the context of the universal consciousness as I am focusing on the individual consciousness.

And then breathing in, maintaining the awareness of the individual consciousness giving context to the universal context as I said ham.

That sounds a little unusual but as we go on in mediation we can attempt to include more focuses at once.

My friend Phra Jeremy once said to me that once you get to the stage of 7 focuses in one moment that is when meditation really begins. That is when you can truly call yourself a novice. I don’t know when I will be at that stage.

It’s very interesting to have that experience to be aware that what we are observing in some sense is us, and we are a part of the experience.

These things not exactly separate. WE often have this clear distinction in the western world, the interior and the exterior. The external and the internal.

As if these things can be separate. As if humans are something separate from nature, something separate from the world. Its not exactly true.

If you ask someone what or who you are you might receive a really different answer to your self image, indicating these boundaries are not as clear as we would like to think. Perhaps these are no boundaries at all. We can see that a little more clearly when we relax, dropping back into that condition as Sam Harris says.

Of awareness. Whatever is going on in your mind might be chaotic, might have a lot of experiences going on in your body. You might become aware of them right now, in your body and in your mind. Psychosomatic sensations, spiritual sensations or other.

What is seeing them? Rest now as that condition.