States of Mind

          If you observe your thoughts in the course of a day, you'll find that your mind has fluctuated through a series of "states." Sometimes, you're scattered, sometimes focused, sometimes emotional, sometimes lethargic.  This mental fluctuating is not a new phenomenon, and Indian yogis wrote about this tendency of our minds centuries ago.  They categorized these fluctuating states into five general categories, which the article below (excerpted from Crystallotus.com) describes.  The actual text from the original article is displayed in yellow font, and my personal commentary is beneath it. 

          For fun, after you read this article, for the rest of the day carefully observe people around you. Try to determine which "states" their minds are in.

          And observe your own states of mind.  Observe the thoughts that triggered each major fluctuation. Which thoughts arose in your mind, that you then allowed to be the cause of your feeling agitation? Which thoughts did you allow to be the cause of your feeling peacefulness, harmony?  Most importantly, try to determine why these particular thoughts tended to have this effect on you.  Perhaps the very same thoughts have little or no effect on the next person, or perhaps they do. And why is that?

          You’ll find that this is a very, very interesting experiment!  You’ll also find that you always have a choice.  We don’t have to think or act a certain way, based on a story we’ve wrapped around a particular thought. We could choose to act/think differently.  Our awareness could even be centered in the oasis that lies outside a particular thought ...of course, I have found this to be a lot easier said than done!

          This is because we are conditioned by our perceptions of our experiences and default to the resultant habits of mind we've created, based on those perceptions.  These habits can become quite deep-seated.   It often takes a Herculean effort to uproot them.  But anything’s possible.  It all begins with awareness.

          And now, on to the article...


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Yoga has identified five states-of-mind classifications:

1. Autism

2. Stupefaction

3. Restlessness

4. One-pointedness

5. Suppression

1. Autism (Sanskrit: ksipta) 

[Note: I don't think the author is referring in any way to autistic people; I believe he or she is using it in the context of its other definition, "absorption in self-centered subjective mental activity..." --Webster's Collegiate. Honestly, I've never seen autism used in this way, nor have I ever seen anyone actually use "stupefication," (see below). Perhaps author may not be a native English speaker...]

          In this state one has neither the patience nor the intelligence necessary for contemplation of an object and consequently cannot think or comprehend any subtle principle. Through intense envy or malice, the mind may at times be in a state of concentration, but this is not yogic concentration.

          In yogic terminology, one would say that in this state of mind "rago-guna dominates." People in this state might be under the influence of some drug, alcohol, etc. Or they may generally just have a very distracted, addictive personality, and "whatever" is in front of them that appeals to one "appetite" or another, gets their full attention --for the moment. They have knee-jerk reactions to everything, without pausing to reflect. This might be the anger that a rage-oholic feels, the lust to which someone with no control over the body is enslaved, or the compulsion to buy things one can (or can't) afford, to which the shop-oholic is enslaved. Whatever it is, in this state a person can't concentrate on anything spiritual, and unable to distinguish wants from needs, lives for the rush of instant-gratification. In the Western world, accustomed to a sense of entitlement with everything, it seems many people stay in this state all the time.

2.  Stupefication (mudha)

(Now there's a word you don't see every day. --Elisa)

          In this state of mind, obsession with a matter connected with the senses renders one unfit to think of subtle principles. An example is someone engrossed in thoughts of wealth to the point of infatuation


         In yogic terminology, one would say that in this state of mind "the tamo-guna dominates."  This person is in a state of dissociation. People in this state are just "not there."  They are probably bordering on mental illness, if not already suffering from a full-blown pathology of some sort.  They're often depressed, as depression is a fixation on a single thought, or wish, or emotion, etc., that eventually causes someone's psyche to implode within itself.

          For instance, I've seen widows and widowers bury their own spirits next to their dead spouses, so that though once vivacious, only a shell of them walks and talks every day, the living dead.   Elvis has left the building.  It's sad to see someone in this state.  But we all have to "shut down" sometimes, maybe not to that extreme.   Once in a while we all get depressed, or fixated with some issues, at least until we get them resolved. 

3. Restlessness (vyagra or viksipta)

           Most spiritual aspirants basically have this type of mind. A mind that may be calm sometimes, and disturbed at other times.  When temporarily calm, a restless mind may understand the real nature of subtle principles when it hears of them, and can contemplate them for an extended period.  But although concentration is possible with a restless mind, it is not long-lasting.  Liberation cannot be secured through concentration alone when the mind is habitually restless, because when concentration ceases, distraction arises again.

            This would be me, lol!  When people first undertake a spiritual path, they often get disgusted with their thoughts. They are shocked at how "unspiritual" they can be. But it's not that they're unspiritual (whatever that means), it's just that they're aware, perhaps for the first time consciously, of the imprints and impressions their experiences and surroundings have left on their minds.  It's like a lamp was turned on --they see the dirty clothes lying all around a room that, in the dark, they figured was straightened and tidy.

          Recently, a new person attended our meditation group.  She complained afterward about the "sudden" pain in her neck she hadn't noticed earlier that day, the restlessness in her limbs making her breathe heavy and rock back and forth.  She lamented that she was "doing it wrong" because of all this.  But I congratulated her, and told her that I believed her observance of these things meant that she, perhaps for the first time in a long time, was fully "aware," she was "in her body."  Many of us spend most or all our days rather "out-of-body," our awareness centered on everything and everyone around us, except in our heads. 

          I believe this state is a necessary step in the path that leads to higher states of mind.  Having said that, I also believe that many of us "householders," since we aren't monastics, will never progress beyond this state.  We can't devote the time it takes to abide in a permanent state of ekagra or niruddha ("one-pointedness" and "suppression, see below), as perhaps a monk, priest or nun could devote.  Our awareness needs to be concerned with the material world in order to fulfill our obligations to others.  Due to a householder's choice of lifestyle, multi-tasking is a necessity.  We will experience moments of it, but we can't stay permanently one-pointed.  But again, this is just my commentary, and many highly-accomplished yogis, like Sri Lahiri Mayasaya, Sri Ukteswar, Sri Ramakrishna, and the like, were themselves married householders.   So, apparently, it could be done somehow.

4. One-pointedness (ekagra)

          Patanjali, the codifier of the Yoga Sutras, has defined this as a state of mind, wherein, 
on the fading away of one thought, another thought is in succession with the previous thought, and when a continuous succession of such states continues, the mind is called 
"one-pointed."  Slowly it becomes a habit of the mind in waking consciousness, and 
even in the dream state.  When one-pointedness is mastered, one attains 
samprajnata smadhi.  This samadhi bliss is true yogic samadhi.

          One-pointedness is an attribute especially useful in this modern age.  Peace within and around us, without distractions or disturbances is essential for self-expression.  Individually, we need to understand our latent potential.  We need self-research and to understand ourselves as a microcosm, and our relationship with the macrocosm.  Spiritual sciences perceive Unity in diversity.  Although it is indeed necessary to study part by part, it is also necessary to create a whole from those parts.  Too much individualism, subjectivity, and importance of one's own interests creates veils and closes the windows of open-mindedness.  An emphasis on the individual self will create feelings of loneliness and pessimism.

        This writer really places a lot of importance on ekagra, or one-pointedness. Personally, I think niruddha (see below), is even more important than one-pointedness, and I think the glowing paragraph directly above should refer to nirudda instead of one-pointedness.  But on a practical level, certainly all of us need to observe some level of one-pointedness, to even be able to function daily.  Star athletes, business people, performers, etc., can get very one-pointed when they need to be.  Besides innate talent, that ability, that discipline, is a big part of their success.  If we stayed in a worked-up ksipta state all the time, or a dulled-down muddha state, we'd be quite useless and miserable.  And the reason one could even attain as much as a vyagra state to begin with, is because one managed to remain one-pointed long enough to do it.

4. Suppression (niruddha)
 

        This is the state devoid of thought. By constant practice of the cessation of thoughts, 
one can truly understand the world of names and forms as a product of the mind. 
When the mind ceases to exist in a practical sense of the term, all else dissolves.

        "Devoid of thought" here does not imply a robotic, catatonic state, as though one has gotten a full frontal lobotomy, or something.  Rather, it refers to a state of carefully cultivated equanimity, derived from a cessation from clinging to the illusions of what we've never really been, and to the illusions of what we don’t really need to be, and it promotes an ability to see beyond pervasive "cultural spells" (as intuitive advisor, Robert Ohotto, calls them), seeing them for what they truly are.  This state brings a certain inner placidity, a deep, calm joy in knowing that "we are not this, we are not this" (Sanskrit: "neti, neti").  There's nothing like abiding within that pure awareness, that space around thoughts.

        You don’t feel compelled to “name” things there, you don’t feel compelled to label phenomena encountered in your awareness. Words describing races, religions, concepts of rich, of poor, self-criticism and judgmentalness ...all don’t exist there.  So there’s no fear.  There is only a fearless “is-ness,” and we can take things for what they truly are, without judging, without projecting our many limiting definitions upon them, without all the "names and forms."  This state of mind resembles that of young children, before their environments have had a chance to inundate their pure sense of awareness with truckloads of predjudices, us-against-them thinking, and the general fear consciousness humans carefully hand down generation to generation, as though it were a precious steamer trunk of anything useful.

        The space around thoughts is beautiful, hard to describe. It is free, free from worries about the future (which are just thoughts, and could be abandoned), free from oppressive thoughts about past experiences we may have labeled “bad” (those, too, are merely thoughts now, and we don't need to carry them forward any more; we could “drop the rock,” as Buddhists say.  We have that choice).  Self-realized masters stay in this state, and are charismatic, magnetic. 

        I have, through meditation, managed to experience blissful occurrences of the niruddha state, even enjoy extended periods of it, perhaps a couple weeks, at best. But true to my viksipta self, I haven't, as yet, managed to abide in this state all the time, every single day, all day. And honestly, I doubt I ever will.  But again, I guess anything’s possible...