Tract on Detachment
Writing by admin on Friday, 31 of August , 2007 at 8:54 am
Manas follows the senses in their involvement with their respective objects while Buddhi follows the indications of manas.
The organs of senses suffer constantly a conflict between joy and sadness and vice versa, lust and detachment and vice versa. Opposites are always in conflict.
The yogin does not get himself entangled in the conflict, but remains relaxed during their risings and becomes a witness to this war. He does not permit his consciousness to waver on either of the sides.
Attachment to objects of senses, manas and buddhi is the main obstruction on the path of Yoga.
Before understanding how one can become detached, it is essential to understand the functioning of the mind.
Mind is somewhat antithetical in its behaviour inasmuch as the more we seek to make it detach itself from a particular object, the more it seeks to cling to the same.
Accordingly, one may get more and more deeply engrossed in attachment while seeking to detach oneself from a particular object, even or notion.
Conversely, he may become completely detached from the same in the midst of his deepest attachment.
This is how the mind works and yogins are perfectly aware of it.
The Upanishads are of the view that one should develop detachment in course of attachment and hence enjoyment.
This can be done through the development of self-awareness in course of enjoyment.
Withdrawal of the focus of attention from the diversity instantaneously is a difficult proposition. A rare example of it is seer Vamadeva, who realised in one stroke the unity of multiple principles of existence.
The gradual assimilation of the diversity into one’s consciousness takes place in two ways, through cittam jyohomi or layabhavana – meditation of dissolution, or through meditation on the fire of consciousness.
Method of dissolution is a form of contemplative awareness through which the outward movement and progressive differentiation of consciousness is reversed in successive stages.
The yogin meditates on the deployment of consciousness as it emerges from itself through the flux of perception ranging from the level of pure awareness to gross objects.
He visualises in his body the emergence of lower elements from the higher and thus strengthens and extends his unifying awareness.
He moves from gross elements – the physical body — to pure sensations, from sensations to the senses and mind, etc. back to their primeval source with the result that finally the mind gets dissolved.
He rises from the embodied subjectivity of the waking state to the Fourth State where he is at one with the all-pervading which initiates the creative vision of consciousness.
The second method is meditation on the fire of consciousness which involves visualisation of the fire of consciousness, arising from the toe of the right foot and traversing throughout the body as also the latter’s getting burnt by it.
After the burning of the body what remains, is only the undifferentiated consciousness witnessing things and happenings with a perfect sense of detachment, saksibhava.
Developing the witnessing state is the real detachment, wherein consciousness is no more fettered by fluxes and rests in its tranquillity and bliss.
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Category: Tractatus Of Yoga By Mukesh
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