19-(Continued from post 18) Swami Nirgunanandaji answers..... Q. Is it necessary that body and mind should be in tune in spiritual practice? A. Ofcourse it is necessary. Physical state acts upon the mind and vice versa. As long as there is identification of the body with the self, physical well being is obligatory in spiritual pursuits. Q. Why do we mostly feel disturbed during meditation? A. A good question indeed. Let us first see what happens during meditation. Here we are considering objective meditation. We first select an object, try to focus attention on it and contemplate on it. The object can be of any type like visual, audio, smell, taste and touch. Repeatedly we try to bring our attention to it. During the wakeful state sense organs are in continuous interaction with the world outside and the mind is occupied in quick sequences with these objects. We are left with scattered mindfulness. In the contemplative state when we select a single sense object by cutting off the interactions of other sense organs for the moment, the stored memories of the interactions of those sense organs which also are in active states come in the fore. The world within replaces the world outside. It is to be remembered that cutting off the interactions of the sense organs does not mean deactivation of the sense organs. For example, sitting in silence neither makes one deaf nor negates the audio capability. Only there is absence of objects of hearing. Take for instance this quartz table clock in my room. There is no audible sound from it now. But every night I put this clock in the closet because in the silence of the night the sound of this same clock seems like drum beats and is most disturbing. Neither the apparent inaudible sound increases during night nor there is any change in my audio capability. My audio reception is undisturbed because of silence all over. (Will continue.....) Jai Ma.
Posted on: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 01:42:40 +0000