Meditation According to the Upanishads - 5. Swami Krishnananda
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18/10/2019
(Spoken on January 14th, 1973)
Post - 5.
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The waking consciousness, the condition in which we are at present, is that state of consciousness where it is in relation to physical objects. The confrontation of consciousness in the waking condition is with physical things, the physical universe. We are struggling to find a proper relationship of our consciousness with the world outside. The activities of life, all the enterprises of whatever kind in which we may engage ourselves in the waking condition, are a struggle of consciousness to recognise a balance between itself and the object. This is waking life. We are busy throughout the day in various professions and fields merely to bring about a balance of our consciousness with the outside world, in which we do not succeed. Whatever be our effort in bringing about this equilibrium of ourselves with the world, we remain a failure. No man has established a balance between himself and the world, but yet this is the aim behind the activities of the world. And when the mind is tired of this effort at striking a balance between itself and the world outside, it withdraws itself due to sheer fatigue and the inability of the bodily condition to maintain this period of tension for a long time. Then we fall back into an internal struggle similar to our struggle with the external world. This is called dream. The condition of dream is that in which consciousness is in a state of tension similar to the one in waking, except that the objects in dream are psychic while in waking they are physical.
The struggle continues, but with imagined objects. There is very little difference between the waking and dreaming conditions as far as the efforts and struggle of consciousness are concerned, and pain and pleasure are concerned. Irrespective of the fact that there is a difference between physical and psychic objects as they appear in waking and dream, as far as the experiencer himself is concerned, there is very little difference. The sorrows and joys of our waking life can come to us also in dream, and consciousness may not find itself in a different situation.
But the purpose of consciousness is to cease, to put an end to all tension with the objects, in which effort it has not succeeded in the waking condition, and it is not going to succeed in the dreaming condition either. Merely because we only contemplate objects in the mind instead of actually confronting them physically, it does not mean that the mind has ceased from its efforts. What gives pain, inconvenience and discomfort is struggle of every kind. Consciousness falls back into a condition of inactivity in sleep where, though it is not in a state of harmony with its objects, at least it is unconscious of the disharmony that is there.
To be continued ....
========================================================================
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
18/10/2019
(Spoken on January 14th, 1973)
Post - 5.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The waking consciousness, the condition in which we are at present, is that state of consciousness where it is in relation to physical objects. The confrontation of consciousness in the waking condition is with physical things, the physical universe. We are struggling to find a proper relationship of our consciousness with the world outside. The activities of life, all the enterprises of whatever kind in which we may engage ourselves in the waking condition, are a struggle of consciousness to recognise a balance between itself and the object. This is waking life. We are busy throughout the day in various professions and fields merely to bring about a balance of our consciousness with the outside world, in which we do not succeed. Whatever be our effort in bringing about this equilibrium of ourselves with the world, we remain a failure. No man has established a balance between himself and the world, but yet this is the aim behind the activities of the world. And when the mind is tired of this effort at striking a balance between itself and the world outside, it withdraws itself due to sheer fatigue and the inability of the bodily condition to maintain this period of tension for a long time. Then we fall back into an internal struggle similar to our struggle with the external world. This is called dream. The condition of dream is that in which consciousness is in a state of tension similar to the one in waking, except that the objects in dream are psychic while in waking they are physical.
The struggle continues, but with imagined objects. There is very little difference between the waking and dreaming conditions as far as the efforts and struggle of consciousness are concerned, and pain and pleasure are concerned. Irrespective of the fact that there is a difference between physical and psychic objects as they appear in waking and dream, as far as the experiencer himself is concerned, there is very little difference. The sorrows and joys of our waking life can come to us also in dream, and consciousness may not find itself in a different situation.
But the purpose of consciousness is to cease, to put an end to all tension with the objects, in which effort it has not succeeded in the waking condition, and it is not going to succeed in the dreaming condition either. Merely because we only contemplate objects in the mind instead of actually confronting them physically, it does not mean that the mind has ceased from its efforts. What gives pain, inconvenience and discomfort is struggle of every kind. Consciousness falls back into a condition of inactivity in sleep where, though it is not in a state of harmony with its objects, at least it is unconscious of the disharmony that is there.
To be continued ....
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