Are you really the body and mind?🔗

October 10, 2010

In the Vedic tradition, manana is the second step in any spiritual practice. The first step is shravana or right listening.

In Sanskrit the word ‘manana’ means contemplating, ‘What am I? What is really going on in my brain? What are the memories I am trying to dump into my irretrievable archive? What are the memories I am trying to dump into my ‘most cherished fantasies’ memory?

Just have a few minutes of looking inwards. Everything will boil down to, what am I? See when that what I am, who am I starts in you. Bring your awareness to manana.

First thing you will feel is, the identity which you carry is a mixture of body and mind. Just look a little more deeply: Am I really this body and mind? Suddenly the shsastra pramsana, the scriptural truths, or apta pramana, the Master's experience, may come to your help. It will say, 'No, no, Swamiji said I am not just the body? Yes, even Ramana Maharishi says, I am not just the body. The Upanishads say, I am not just the body.' When the shaastra pramana and apta pramaana come to your help, how much of vitarka (feeling-connection) you have with them will determine how much these two will become atma pramana (your own experience). Understand, it will not become a one hundred percent experience in you immediately, but these two will be of tremendous help.

Let’s say the identity which you feel, the mixture of your body and mind, weighs a hundred grams. When you remember these two, shaastra pramana and apta pramana, maybe based on your shraddha (authenticity) and vitarka (feeling-connection), sixty grams of weight may drop from your identity, or even ninety grams of weight may drop. Rarely a hundred grams of weight drops. That is very rare. You have to have that tremendous shraddha with the Master. But usually, at least more than fifty grams weight will drop.

After that, try to look, look, look, with awareness, at that remaining identity which is there. What is this? What am I? If one hundred percent drops, no problem, nothing more needs to be done. You already have the ultimate mouna (ultimate silence). So nothing more is required.

Understand, who am I or what am I is not a question for you to get an answer. No. It is a process for you to get prepared for an experience. Don't expect to have answers. Don't expect that suddenly, somebody will appear saying, 'O my son, this is who you are.' No. No. This is not a question to be answered; it is a process to be experienced. So I am giving you a very important powerful process and technique. It is one of my great gifts to all of you.

Your brain has certain capabilities. It can be alert, aware, and hold onto a particular truth for few minutes. The capacity will vary from person to person. Don't bother about the capacity. However much capacity you have, that much time, that many minutes, your brain will hold onto that manana, 'Who am I?' When it drifts away, slips away, don't have worry or guilt. Don't create one more engram. No. The moment it slips away, understand, you are done with your manana today. Today's manana is over. Don't do it a second time.

Go to dhyana. Start Mahamantra, the intense humming meditation technique. Do it maybe for twenty minutes, but so intensely that after that, the manana will be happening by itself in your system the whole day. Automatically the manana goes on and on and on. Manana leads to mouna, the ultimate silence.

Just have a few minutes of looking inwards. Everything will boil down to, what am I? See when that what I am, who am I starts in you. Bring your awareness to manana. First thing you will feel is, the identity which you carry is a mixture of body and mind. Just look a little more deeply: Am I really this body and mind?