Meditation According to the Upanishads - 3. Swami Krishnananda.

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The Mandukya Upanishad is an analysis of the states of consciousness, as the Vedantic meditation of the Upanishads is mainly a meditation on Consciousness. Consciousness is the Supreme Being, prajñanam brahma; therefore, a study of Consciousness is imperative for meditation on Consciousness. The bound soul is a state of consciousness, the liberated soul is also a state of consciousness, and meditation is a condition of consciousness. The whole of the Upanishadic teaching is, therefore, a huge essay on consciousness.

Thus, entering into a study of the states of consciousness, the Mandukya Upanishad gives us a beautiful exposition of at least three of the strata of consciousness, which we generally call the waking, the dream and the sleep states of consciousness, the condition through which our essential being passes in respect of its object. There are really no states for consciousness; it is eternal, yet it appears to have states when it sets itself in opposition to an object. The three states mentioned here are really three states of the conflict of consciousness with its object. If consciousness were not set in opposition to its object, there would be no states at all. But there are objects of consciousness, and it is these objects that create a series of states. The difference in the states of consciousness is due to the difference in the kind of object that is presented to consciousness in the different states. When the objects change in their relationships and intensity, consciousness also seems to change.

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 at trying to bring about this equilibrium between ourselves and the world, we remain a failure. Nobody has established a balance between himself and the world, but yet this is the aim behind the activities of the world.

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 tension in waking, except that the objects in dream are psychic while in waking they are physical.

In dream the struggle continues, but with imagined objects. There is very little difference between the waking and the dreaming conditions as far as the efforts and struggle of consciousness are concerned, and the experience of 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 than the one in waking.

To be continued ....

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