Lifestyle & Daily Practices Anchoring us in Meditation

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We watched Your Real Nature | What are You | Swami Sarvapriyananda

Continuing on the subject of: How to we remember our true nature in the midst of daily life? In this talk, Swami Sarvapriyananda reminds us:
You are Awareness. In Awareness you are aware of the thoughts and feelings in the mind. Through the thoughts and feelings in the mind, you are aware of the body with the senses, and through that you are aware of the world.

Antaha Karana is a concept in the Vedic tradition referring to the totality of the mind, including the thinking faculty, the sense of I-ness, and the discriminating faculty. Another description says that antaḥkaraṇa refers to the entire psychological process, including mind and emotions, are composing the mind levels that seem to obscure our true nature, the witness of all experience.

In Vedāntic literature, this antaḥkaraṇa (internal organ) is organised into four parts.

  1. Ahankara (ego)—identifies self with the body as ‘I’. The attachment or identification of the ego, also known as the ‘I-maker’.
  2. Buddhi (intellect)—the decision-making part of the mind. The part that is able to discern truth from falsehood and thereby to make wisdom possible.
  3. Manas (mind)—the lower, rational part of the mind that connects with the external world, and controls sankalpa (will or resolution). It is also the faculty of doubt and volition; seat of desire and governor of sensory and motor organs.
  4. Chitta (memory)—the consciousness where impressions, memories and experiences are stored; the part that deals with remembering and forgetting.

A silent meditation practice is simply an aspect of this intention to remember our true nature. We come together, to “just sit”. We listen to the silence. We listen to our thoughts, We listen to our feelings and emotions. When we “just sit” we just BE the witnessing awareness. And this continues as we get off our mats or chairs and DO what needs to be done to live the dailiness of our lives. The BEing and DOing, the inhalation and exhalation and the gaps in between, Having this understanding empowers us to choose the lens we perceive and experience our lives with. “Just sitting”, silent meditation, reveals the layers that veil the clarity and luminosity of our true nature and the gap between these layers. Glimpses of the background, the ground of awareness, reminds us to rest in our true nature that is the witness to all experience.