Praman
Now let us discuss in detail each of the five modifications. The first modification mentioned by Patanjali is Praman. Praman can be loosely translated in English as right knowledge. Let us understand this term correctly. What do we mean by right knowledge? Does it mean intellectual knowledge? Actually it does not mean any kind of knowledge; what he means by right knowledge is an aspect of the mind. It's a capacity of the mind to act in a particular manner. Mind has a capacity to act with wisdom and maturity. Then the mind functions with more awareness. When a person meditates the modification of praman happens in the mind.
Praman is the aspect of the mind when mind ceases to be. It might sound contradictory, but praman is the knowledge that liberates. This is the knowledge of the mind, which can take you beyond the mind. Its like a flame that burns the oil and then itself extinguishes. Right knowledge has the ability to liberate you. It works at the realm of the mind but then annihilates the mind.
But we have never really experienced this right knowledge. This center has remained unused in majority of people. It's like you being in a dark room. When the room is dark you are bound to fall, you are bound to trip or stumble against something on the way. But if you have a torch with you then you can just direct the torch wherever you want and that area gets lit up for you. Then you can move without hassle. The moving become simple, it becomes effortless. All that you needed was just the torch. This torch is praman. If you have it, living becomes simple. If you don't have it, you end in suffering. It is only with the help of the torch that you can move. However much you try to move without the torch, you may practice a lot but still you are bound to stumble because the scope of life is infinite. Its not a small room that with practice you come to know the location of different objects within the room. Life is like an infinite expanse of ocean, where there are infinite potentialities. Only if you have the torch of praman, then you can cross this ocean with ease.
When right knowledge happens to you, then you start knowing things spontaneously. You don't need logic or reason. We go behind logic and reason because we are not able to see things as they are. So we like to complicate matters by giving logic and reason. This gives rise to different schools of thoughts. One school of thought says that God is without attributes; whereas some other school of thought says that God is with attributes. Both give enough logic and reason to prove their philosophy. Philosophies are good in the initial stage but you cannot hold on to them. You need to transcend it. It's like a ladder that helps you to climb. But then you have to leave the ladder and walk ahead. You cannot hold on to the ladder and be grateful to it for helping you the climb. When right knowledge happens, you will simply know. You don't need logic and reason. Just the way you know right now that you exist; if some one asks the proof for your experience of existence, will you be able to provide any proof? At the most you can show him your pulse, but can you prove your experience of existence. Your experience is your personal experience and nobody apart from yourself knows it. And you cannot prove it, it just is. Similar is the case with praman. You just know things spontaneously. So when Ramanuja said that God had attributes, he just saw God with attributes. Then for the sake of the disciples he supported his conclusion with logic. Similarly Sankara experienced God without attributes and then he provided logic to support his view. Both Ramanuja and Sankara were talking from praman, but their followers started fighting, trying to hold each other's philosophy as superior.
Vivekananda asked Ramakrishna whether he had seen God, Ramakrishna replied that he has seen God more intensely than he was seeing Vivekananda at that instant. Vivekananda was shocked; first time he was seeing a person talking with such audacity that too about God. Then he had the courage to ask Ramakrishna if he could show him God. Ramakrishna just touched Vivekananda on his chest and blessed him with an experience of Nirvikalpa Samadhi. Ramakrishna could transmit the experience to Vivekananda because Vivekananda was present there to receive it. When I say Vivekananda was present, I mean his mind. When you go to a Master, your body may be present but your mind is not. Your mind is somewhere else. The master has a torch ready with him; you just need to bring your mind there to see the light. But your mind is never there. Your mind is all over the place. So even a master cannot help you, because you are not present there to be helped. But Vivekananda was present there in totality. His quest was total; he was burning with the desire to see God. So Ramakrishna was able to bless In Vedanta there are two types of knowledge that are mentioned. One is paroksha jnana (indirect knowledge) and the other is aparoksha jnana (direct knowledge). Paroksha Jnana is purely intellectual; it is at the level of the mind. But aparoksha jnana is direct knowledge; it's an experience beyond the mind. Only aparoksha jnana is right knowledge because it is based on experience. No bookish knowledge is going to help you to transcend sorrow. It is only through the right knowledge that you can transcend sorrow.
Once there was a learned pundit going with a group of people in a boat. The pundit was very proud of his knowledge. He asked one person on the boat "have you read the Upanishads?".This person was an innocent villager and had not read the Upanishads. The pundit rebuked that if he has not read the Upanishads, one quarter of his life is wasted. Then he asked this same person if he had read the yoga sutras. The person replied no. Then the pundit said that half of his life was waste. Then this pundit asked this person if he had read the Sankhya philosophy. The person said no. The pundit just laughed and said that three quarters of his life is waste. Suddenly the river current became wild and the boat started rocking a lot. Because of the sudden rough water, people started falling into the water. Then this person asked this pundit 'Do you know swimming'. The pundit replied no. This person said that whole of his life is a waste now. Intellectual knowledge cannot help you to transcend sorrow, only experiential knowledge can show you the torch.
Paroksha jnana is just skin-deep. It is just intellectual, not experiential. But aparoksha jnana is right knowledge; it is praman. It's a pure experience and pure knowledge without any filtering. It's like seeing things without any conditioning whatsoever. We never see things the way they really are. We see things based on our idea or judgment about that thing. One person replaced all the windows in his house thinking that they were cracked but later realized that his glasses were cracked. We are like this man. We see things only through our limited glasses; through our judgments and opinions of the things. But once we have the torch of praman, then its like seeing things without any bias. Because now we know the things as they are. The illusion is transcended.
Praman is the aspect of the mind where intuition happens. There is no thinking involved. When there are thoughts, there cannot be intuition. People come to me and ask many questions and all their questions are answered. Someone asked me one day. Swamiji, you are so young, when did you read so much. I tell them, I don't have to read to answer any question. I just have to throw light on the question and the answer is revealed. Even when you don't ask the question, I know the answer. I know how to answer the questioner. I never answer your questions because that gives rise to more questions. I always answer the questioner. Only when the questioner is answered, he will see an end to all his questions. The point here is that when Praman happens to you, all your actions and words are divine. You start exuding divinity from the very core of your being. All the things you speak or do are right, because they come from praman.
Meditation gives you praman. It helps you develop this center of the mind where the right knowledge happens. That is the reason all the religions of the world emphasize on meditation. Meditation does not mean closing your eyes and sitting crossed legged. Meditation means the state of pure, unmodified, unfiltered awareness. When you rest in pure awareness, the right knowledge happens. When the right knowledge dawns, morality starts happening automatically. If all the people in the society are endowed with praman, there won't be any crime. All things would happen smoothly. Morality is something, which cannot be forced; it has to happen and praman can make it happen. Your very presence would be soothing to the surrounding.
Right knowledge is that which differentiates between a sage and an ordinary person. Sage is a person who completely works on intuition. He is in choiceless awareness. He never makes any decision, but all his actions are impersonal movements in consciousness. When the ego is absent, impersonal non-doership can happen and all the actions are divine actions. They are a result of praman. A sage never chooses. He accepts life from moment to moment. If there is pain he suffers the pain and forgets it. If there is pleasure, he enjoys the pleasure and forgets it. He does not carry the memory of these experiences in horizontal time.
Sage is like a sunflower. Sunflower always moves in the direction of the sun. It never chooses to move in that direction, it is just the characteristic and property of the sunflower to move in the direction of the sun. Similarly it's the characteristic of the sage to do the good. The sunflower does not apply logic or do math to calculate its angle of turning or any such thing; it just moves with the sun. So because of praman, it's the characteristic of the sage to do good as all his actions are divine actions. Then his words become mantra, all his actions become tantra and all his creations become yantra. He becomes a divine being. He does not falter in any situation because his very personality is transformed; there is no contradiction.
A scorpion falls into a river, and a sage who spots him, scoops him out in the palm of his hand. Once out, the scorpion stings him. The sage winces in pain, and ends up dropping him into the water. Again, seeing the scorpion struggle for survival, the sage helps him out of the river. Yet again the scorpion stings the sage. Still, a third time, the sage rescues the scorpion from death. This time the scorpion asks the sage why he keeps rescuing the scorpion, knowing that he will be stung. The sage replies, "It is your nature to sting. And it is my nature to help you." If you are not leaving your inherent nature, how can I leave mine.
Sanathana dharma has a concept of Arsha Prayogaha. Which means that whatever an enlightened person says is correct. Even if he makes any mistake in grammar or pronunciation, it is considered correct. There is no modification made to his text or scripture. The disciples have to follow the scripture as it is. Sometimes people judge sages when they speak something unconventional. People are conditioned by the society and expect the sage to follow the norms of the society. But the sage is unconcerned. He just talks from praman. You cannot expect a sage to follow the ethics of the society. It's like asking a lion to follow the rules of the sheep. Once a person is living with no-mind, he is beyond all morality. When the praman happens in a person everything starts happening right with him. He then becomes a sage.
Patanjali says that mind has a capacity of wrong knowledge or viparyaya. When we fall in the clutches of wrong knowledge everything we do ends up in misery. This happens because we are wrongly centered. Our very center has been shaken.
Once Krishna asked Dooryodhana to go and find a good man in the world. Dooryodhana searched for many days but was not able to find a single good person. He then told Krishna that every person he met had at least one deficiency. No person was a good person from Dooryodhana's point of view. Then Krishna asked Dharmaraja (Yudhisthira) to find one bad person in the world. Dharmaraja searched for many days but could not find a single bad person in the world. He said that every person had at least one good quality. No person was completely bad.
Viparyaya is like mithya (unreal). It is like seeing things that are not actually there. You start seeing the whole world through tainted glasses. Sankara says that Brahman alone is real and the world is unreal. And the individual soul is non-different from Brahman.
We currently don't see the jagat (world) as mithya (unreal) because our mind is deluded into wrong knowledge. We find pleasure in enjoying the sense world. There are two possibilities. Either we are the master and the senses our slave or the senses are the master and we are slave. In the later case the mind is centered in wrong knowledge and in the former case the mind is centered in right knowledge. We lack awareness and insight into things. We lead most of our lives unconsciously, taking things for granted. We don't allow the mind to move from the center of wrong knowledge as once we are in this center the movement becomes difficult. It is like asking a blind person to find his way from some unknown place to some other place. When the disease becomes the very essence of the person, its very difficult to realize that the person has some disease.
You might have heard the word maya multiple times when spirituality is discussed. People loosely say everything is Maya and unreal but have they experienced this unreality they are talking about. Why do they still keep running behind their senses? To tell you honestly maya is an escape mechanism. If you commit a mistake you have to find some scapegoat. You cannot blame God because you revere him and of course you cannot blame yourself as your self is most dear to you so you put the blame on maya. All happened because of maya; this is a standard statement. But let me tell you the real meaning of maya. Definition of maya is yama iti maya; which means something that does not exist but appears as if it exists is maya. So maya is something that does not exist but once any person gets caught in wrong knowledge he is trapped in the snares of maya. Then escaping becomes difficult.
Once someone asked me "What is real". I said, "What is, is real". What I mean by that is that whatever exists really is real, else it's your own creation. It's rather a deep concept but let me explain by telling you a story. Once mulla nasaruddin was teaching his son the art of drinking alcohol. After drinking for sometime, his son asked mulla nasaruddin "Dad you have taught me how to drink, but you have not taught me when to stop". Mulla Nasarrudin says "Son, do you see these four people sitting on the table there. When you start seeing them as eight, you should stop". Then the son says "Dad, but there are just two people sitting". Apply this analogy to our day-to-day life. We are like Mulla Nasaruddin; we are all drunk with wrong knowledge and so all we see is unreal.
This center of the mind gets specifically affected when we are under the influence of alcohol or a drug. What happens when you drink alcohol? The mind starts losing its balance. Then everything appears hazy. You are not able to see anything right. Sometimes you even say things, which you would have never imagined to say in your aware state. You end up in an absolute lack of awareness.
After a certain phase in your life, you enter into a phase called mid-life crisis. At that time you either resort to alcohol or some other addiction. Sometimes even work becomes an addiction. Emptiness is the best thing that can happen to a person. It gives an impetus to probe within. But many times, people miss this chance and start going behind addictions. Some people change things around them so that their mind can be involved for some time. But again when there interest in that object subsides they try something else and the process continues.
Both alcohol and meditation can take you beyond the mind. But there is a big difference; difference is between praman and viparyaya. Difference lies in awareness. Meditation floods your being with awareness and alcohol deprives your being from awareness. In both the states mind is not involved but absence of awareness gives rise to insanity whereas presence of awareness gives rise to divinity. In the former though the world considers you insane you are unaware of that. That is the reason why an alcoholic starts blabbering and thinks that the whole world around him is wrong. In his state of unconsciousness he becomes oblivious of his insanity. If all people in the world were alcoholics then how would you differentiate between normal state and intoxicated state? Or if just few of them were not consuming alcohol and rest all were under the influence of alcohol then obviously the state of the majority would be considered normal.
This is exactly the state of the world today. Majority is caught in wrong knowledge and few enlightened ones are centered in right knowledge. So the state of the majority is considered normal and the state of enlightened few is considered super-normal. That's the reason even the term for enlightened state is super-conscious. I say that there is no such thing as super-conscious. It's either conscious or unconscious. Enlightened ones are conscious and rests all are unconscious. But the problem is that we are not even totally unconscious; we sway between these two states very rapidly. Hence we are confused. We devise terms like super-conscious to explain the state of enlightened ones.
The moment we devise such terms, we think we are far from it. Hence I always tell people, don't use words like Brahman, Atman, God, Super-Conscious, Samadhi etc. The moment you utter these words, you mean something. You have already created a concept. The moment you make a concept you have missed the truth. Concept cannot be truth as a concept is at the realm of the mind. Only when the mind is not, the truth shines.
When you are established in the wrong center whatever you do, your perspective about all things would be wrong. It is said that the devil quotes the bible to support his actions. You can read anything; Geeta, Upanishads or any other scripture but as long as the wrong center is functioning the right meaning will never be revealed to you. You will start picking just few verses which support your wrong actions. You will not try to understand the exact true meaning.
People sometimes say that Krishna was a flirt. They ask why did he go around with so many Gopis. These are the people who are centered in wrong knowledge. They are not in a position to understand the beauty of relationship between Krishna and Gopis. They always see it in wrong light. They will quote Krishna to support their actions of flirting. Very proudly they will say that if God can flirt why cant we. They have never made an attempt to read the Bhagavatam and understand the divine relationship between Krishna and Gopis. They just picked up one line. In the Rasa Lila (Krishna's dance with the Gopis) never think that both Krishna and Gopis were present. All the Gopis had an experience of Saharara and had merged with Krishna. Only Krishna was present in Rasa Lila. Then with what audacity do people quote Krishna to support their act of flirting? If you can flirt, then you should flirt like Krishna; only then it's incredible. Can you give your friends the experience of Sahasrara as Krishna did? So never say that you are flirting because Krishna flirted.
People sometimes make up outrageous meanings from the scriptures to support their actions. They are centered in viparyaya. Krishna gets shocked sometimes reading your interpretation of Geeta. But nothing can be done when you are caught in wrong knowledge.
People sometimes judge masters. They go from master to master and keep judging and comparing them. They never stick to one Master. I always tell my disciples that you can go to as many masters as you want but never come empty handed. Learn something from every master and transform yourself. I tell them that pick a flower from all the gardens you visit and make a beautiful garland for yourself. But people not only judge masters but also malign them. They sometimes cannot even recognize a master. Even if Buddha comes in front of them he will go unnoticed because their vision is blocked, and filtered. They cannot see the Buddha hood in anybody. Only a person who is centered in right knowledge can recognize others who are centered in right knowledge. If you miss a Buddha, you have missed the greatest thing in life. Then nobody can save you.
A psycho killer says that he is not responsible for his actions because every action is God's actions. He says that God is committing the sin through him. He argues as to why he is being punished if his action is not really his action but its God's action. A very logical argument indeed! But he does not understand that if he argues like this, we can also argue that he is not punished but God is punished through him. He won't accept this argument. He will stick to the first argument as that suits him. The second one is scary. Which indeed is the truth. If you are not the doer, then you are also not the sufferer. He does not like this. This is what happens if one is centered in wrong knowledge.
The third modification of the mind is imagination or . Mind has a faculty to imagine. This is one of the most important faculties of the mind. If used rightly it can take you beyond, if done wrongly it can give you madness. Let us discuss how imagination can help us.
All art like poetry, dance, painting, music comes out of imagination. Its due to the imagination of Leonardo Vinci that Monalisa was painted. It was imagination, which resulted in the excellent works of Shakespeare. Imagination gave rise to the graceful dances and melodious music by the artists. All these things take you beyond the mind. When you listen to enchanting music, or see some gorgeous dance, or read a beautiful poetry or see a beautiful painting your mind stops for a moment. You enter into no mind at once. Imagination can actually help you to enter into meditation.
Some people use imagination as a jump start for meditation. They imagine a form of a deity or some beautiful flower or light or something similar. When their imagination becomes firm and solid they enter into that experience. For e.g. in the Udhava Geeta Krishna asks Udhava to imagine a two petal lotus in his heart. Then he asks Udhava to imagine his form within that lotus. When the imagination becomes solid the next step is to go beyond the imagination and merge with the absolute. So imagination helps you to get rid of all other thoughts and just hold on to one thought. Then finally this thought is also transcended. In Bharat for burning bodies after death they use a bamboo stick to light the fire. Towards the end this bamboo is also thrown into the fire. Similarly imagination is used as a mechanism to eliminate other thoughts. Once the initial purpose is achieved then the imagination is also dropped.
Sometimes people get caught in their imaginations. They start thinking that the imagination is real. While mediating they start seeing some deity or some vision. They get lost in it. Some people see Krishna dancing with the Gopis. It is nice to have such visions. They are good indicators on your spiritual path. But certainly they are not ultimate. They are still a product of your imagination.
When you travel from Delhi to Bangalore some people like to keep the window open. So they see some good scenery on the way. These scenes are like visions, like light, sound or some deity. But they are certainly not Bangalore. They are good entertainment. You will feel nice during the journey. But sometimes there is a great danger. Some people get down seeing these scenes thinking that it's Bangalore. They take their imagination to be real. There is another set of people who keep their windows closed in the train. They don't see any visions nor they have any experiences. But they will surely reach Bangalore and good thing is that they won't be misled by visions. But again there is danger involved in this path also. They might get bored and de-motivated and might get down in between thinking that Bangalore never comes.
Most of the creations are due to imaginations. When a plan for a structure to be built is made first it needs the imagination of the architect. Once the imagination is ready all further steps are chalked out. Taj Mahal, the Great China wall and all other man made monuments in the world were a result of imagination.
Likewise imagination has a tremendous capability to produce miracles. Emile Coue was a French psychologist who used to cure diseases through autosuggestion and imagination. His mantra was 'Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better'. He made his patients repeat this mantra and he saw phenomenal results. Even fatal incurable diseases were cured with this approach. Just by the power of imagination you can create wonders.
What you imagine you create a potentiality for that imagination to come true. You immediately create such a possibility. If a woman starts imagining that she is beautiful, a certain type pf beauty starts happening in her. Similarly when someone starts imagining that he is dull and tired, he looks dull and tired. People sometimes do brain-storming when they want to resolve some complex problem. All they are doing is giving vent to their imagination.
Few centuries ago man would have never thought that he would be able to fly. If you would have told man two hundred years ago that one day he would fly in air planes he would have called it science fiction. It was just through imagination that two extraordinary scientists came up with this concept of a plane. Now we see that it has become the fastest mode of transport with thousands of people flying every day from different corners of the globe.
Patanjali says that imagination if wrongly used can lead you to destruction. We have ample examples in this world to prove this. Alexander had an imagination that he would become the emperor of the whole world. So he started conquering countries and annihilating people who don't accept him as their King. Similarly Hitler had an imagination to win the world. He tried to do it and in effect many people lost their lives. Imagination is a power that lies hidden in you. It can be used discretely for creativity, betterment and more development. But it can also be misused.
In the Vishnu Puran, it talks about a king by the name Hiranyakashapu. He had a fantastic imagination to win the whole universe. So both he and his brother started looting every place they knew off. He had an imagination that they he would be ruling the entire cosmos. To supplement this imagination he declared that he is God and made every person accept by force that he is God. He had become mad with his imagination. But his son was intelligent. He opposed his father and refused to accept him as God. The imagination had entered into Hiranyakashapu so much that he even made attempts to kill his own son. His family held no importance to him any more because he was mad with his imagination. He went overboard to make his imagination come true. But finally Vishnu killed him. This is the fate of a person who goes wild with his destructive imaginations.
It is said that man cannot live without imagining. He has to imagine something. Even in a marriage relationship there are not two people who are together. It's a group of four people. One is the husband, other is the wife, third being the husbands imagination about the wife and finally the wife's imagination about the husband. When we relate to any person we always relate to an imagination. We never relate to the real person outside because there is no real person outside. The vedantist's claim that the whole world is your imagination. They call is Maya. They say that the world is a product of your mind. If you are not there the world is not there. World exists only as long as you imagine it to be. A very intriguing concept indeed!
Too much imaginations causes a person to miss the current moment. He lives too much in the future. He loses track of the blissful now. He foresees bliss through his imagination, but never experiences it now. He daydreams. Actually all your dreams are a result of imagination. It's due to either excessive imagination or suppressed imagination. So many times the things you did not want to think about in the waking state come as a nightmare to you when you sleep. You see a horror movie. You don't want to think about it anymore because it troubles you. But still your imaginative faculty will make those thoughts about the horror movie repeat in your dreams.
Sometimes people start talking to imaginary people. You might think that the person does not exist but for them the person is real. He is not imaginary. If he were imaginary, they would not have talked in the first place. They go one talking to a person as if he is real. That is the power of imagination. All of you must have heard the story of John Nash. He started relating with imaginary people. But for him, they were real.
Imagination can be a gateway to both heaven and hell. It can drive you completely insane or it can be a stepping-stone to bliss. It's up to an individual to use the faculty of imagination properly. If an imagination leads to lack of awareness it can destroy you. If an imagination helps you to become more aware it can help you.
The forth modification is sleep or nidra. Sleep is a state of complete oblivion. We have discussed in the introduction the four states of consciousness. One is the waking state where awareness and thoughts function together. In the dream state there is no awareness but there are thoughts. In deep sleep we lack awareness as well as thoughts. Finally in Samadhi or super-conscious state we are fully aware without thoughts.
Normally when we sleep at night, most of the time we spend in dreaming. Hardly do we touch the state of deep sleep. Lack of mental activity is extremely soothing to us. And that is the reason when we get up in the morning we feel rejuvenated and energetic; ready to start the next day. But we have lost the ability to even sleep peacefully. We go on dreaming all night. Sometimes even after a long sleep we feel tired when we get up. We experience headache. This happens as a result of continuous dreaming. We might feel that we have slept a lot but mentally we have no slept. Though the body was at rest the mind was moving continuously. You might have observed that even a short sleep for few hours makes you feel refreshed and energetic. Sleep is extremely energizing and healing. Medicine says that body heals itself during sleep. But it's not the quantity that matters but the quality.
When we are clogged with thoughts throughout the day, we continue this process even when we lie down at night. Our mental state during the day largely affects how we sleep. If we are blissful and more aware in our waking state automatically our sleep will be blissful. We will continue our state of mind when we lie down. But if our mind is chaotic during the day it will continue its chaotic nature even at night. Sometimes people resort to sleeping pills because they cannot sleep. They suffer from insomnia. But sleeping pills is a very superficial solution. It will help you to forget yourself and sleep but then you become addicted to that. You cannot sleep without that. Sleep is a natural state that should happen to us. If you are suffering from insomnia, we have to cure this problem at the root. If we fix the root then we have solved the problem permanently. If we just try to fix it superficially its just a temporary adjustment. If you have problems sleeping, I suggest that you should work on your waking state. Meditate and you will see the difference. Mediation will infuse so much awareness that automatically this energy will help you to sleep blissfully. Meditation is the ultimate solution for all sleep problems. It is like working on the root. Meditation will help you to get over the constant irritation.
I have been asked on multiple occasions; what is the difference between sleep and Samadhi. The difference lies in awareness. In sleep there is a complete absence of awareness where as in Samadhi there is full awareness. If a fool sleeps he wakes up as a fool but if a fool enters into Samadhi he comes out wise. That is the difference. In Taitriya Upanishad it talks about the five sheaths (pancha koshas). The fifth sheath is the anandamaya kosha (bliss sheath). We rest in this sheath in deep sleep. Our nature is bliss when we sleep. That is the exact reason why we feel so fresh after we get up. We say that we had a blissful sleep. But this statement is followed by another statement, which says that I knew nothing. I was in total ignorance about myself and also about my surrounding. We come to the conclusion that we did not exist when we were sleeping. We could not experience our existence. But I ask you a question. Can you talk of your non-existence as an actual experience? How can you say that you did not exist unless there was someone experiencing your non-existence? This leads us to the conclusion that even in sleep you are fully present resting in your own swarupa (true nature). But since the mind was absent the faculty of memory was also absent. When there is no memory there are no objects. And since we are so used to associating with objects we fall into the habit of asserting our existence only in the presence of objects. In deep sleep there are no objects and so we lose the awareness of ourselves. We start feeling that we did not exist as we rely on memory for our existence. Memory is a very unreliable thing to assert our existence. It is not permanent. We exist irrespective of the memory. Memory creates an illusion of imaginary identity, which we call as I and since we are hooked onto this small I, we disappear in deep sleep when the memory snaps. Discontinuity in memory is related to the discontinuity in existence. This wrong notion has to be abolished.
If we are able to accept this fundamental concept from our heart then we can have an experience of jagrat shushupti (aware sleep). You will be perfectly aware in your sleep. This state is also called as yoga nidra. Normally what happens is that we never enter into sleep directly. We always pass through the dream state before entering into sleep. We lose our awareness in dream and this continues when we sleep. If we directly enter from waking state to deep sleep the awareness will continue and we can have a conscious sleep experience. From the point of view of charkas, when we are in the waking state the consciousness resides in the ajna chakra. In the dream state it slips to vishuddhi and in deep sleep the consciousness resides in anahata. When we sleep our consciousness gets stuck in vishudhi and then it falls into anahata. That is the reason we always dream before entering into sleep. But if the consciousness slips from ajna to anahata directly without staying in vishudhi, we will enter into a conscious sleep experience. There is a very simple yet powerful meditation technique to experience jagrat shushupti. We should try to meditate on darkness and eventually fall asleep in the sitting position with the neck straight. If our neck is bent then the meditation is not complete. Only if we are able to sleep with our neck straight, the consciousness will fall from the ajna chakra to the sahasrara chakra and we would have a conscious sleep experience. This experience is so soothing and refreshing that after such an experience, you won't be able to sleep for the next couple of hours due to high energy and bliss. You wont be able to fall into the unaware state immediately after touching the ocean of awareness.
When you are in deep sleep, bliss is your nature. You are not even a witness. You are bliss itself. Sleep is not an object but it's the subject. Our mistake is that we think of sleep as an object and so we lose the awareness. Because there is nothing there; it's completely objectless. Only you are there. In sleep you are in the same state in which Krishna or Buddha existed. Only if you become aware of this, the experience can become Samadhi. Then you will experience the Krishna consciousness or the Buddha hood.
The last modification is memory or smruti. Memory is a function of the mind. Its an undeniable experience to man. We remember certain things from the past and that's what we call as memory. For e.g. you might have attended a music opera few days ago, and you remember that incident very clearly. The reason is that incident was special for you. You were looking forward to it or you really enjoyed it or even disliked it. If I asked you what were you doing three days ago at 3pm, you may not able to answer. Even if you think hard you may find it difficult to recollect your state three days ago. Again the reason being that nothing special happened. Nothing worth remembering happened that time. You did not care to mark that time as special. The point that I am trying to make here is that you remember only certain things. You don't even know you past properly. You know just the things that you want to know. If you see the past clearly as it is you will not repeat the mistakes you committed in the past. You will keep progressing all the time. But that does not happen because we remember just some pleasant or unpleasant things in the past and we color our future with that. We edit our past and make the future. If every moment in our life becomes a learning experience we would have become enlightened long before.
Memory plays an important role in creating this illusion of the world. Memory gives us the sense of continuity, which is the root cause of ego. Memory gives rise to the sense of doer ship. We think that we did something, we felt something, and we experienced something. All this happens because of memory. We connect these events and create bondage. In reality you are never the same person. You are changing all the time. Even biologically you change. The body cells are replaced after every few months or years. Similarly your mind changes all the time. We have discussed that mind is collection of unconnected and un-clutched thoughts. Our body and mind are constantly changing. In reality there is no person. It's just a bundle of thoughts. But because of memory these thoughts clutch with past thoughts and create bondage.
Memory if rightly used can help you go beyond the mind. You can even access your past lives with right memory: memory that is devoid of fear and greed. If you see your past as it is without any modification of your own, the past can teach you how to live you present and then shape your future. For you the past is always beautiful or horrible. And based on these two experiences you are trying to make your future beautiful. We can never have a beautiful and blissful future based on fear and greed. Only when you live your present in complete awareness the future will be beautiful. The current moment is the mother of the next moment. If the current moment is bliss automatically the next moment becomes bliss. But if the current moment is sorrow, the next moment can never be bliss.
Knowledge of objects is also based on memory. When do you say that you know? Only when you remember things for e.g. if you were asked if you know Heisenberg's uncertainty principle you would say yes or no based on the memory of this principle or theorem. Unless you don't have the memory you cannot positively say you know. This is our common experience. But when the object of the knowledge is removed and just knowing remains devoid of any memory, ones true nature is realized. As long as there is something known, it would be based on memory. When the known merges into knowing, then the pure knowledge or the pure consciousness shines without any object. Knowing has no connection with the object. It is pure knowledge alone. Memory plays an important role in making you believe what you are not because it's the sole reason for objectification. When there are objects there is association with the objects and this leads the bondage.
Sankara says that memory becomes the reason for maya, the illusion of the world in his commentary on Brahma Sutra the first section of Adhyasa (superimposition).
smriti-rupah paratrapurvadrstavabhasah
Where memory appears it forms a show of something seen before – something in the past and not now and here
Memory creates judgments and opinions based on past events. It superimposes the past on the present. We are not able to see the present in its true light. It creates an illusion of the past on the present. We start associating because of memory and the present is lost in that process. When we see a rose, immediately the act of being gifted a rose or we gifting a rose or some other memory springs up in the mind. Then the mind moves to the details of the person whom you gifted or you were gifted by. In this process the beauty of the present moment, the rose itself is lost.
When you get up from bed you remember your dreams. You know very well that the subject (you) and the objects in the dream both are unreal. Even if you were hurt in the dream or had suffered in the dream, you don't really care about it once you get up. Because you know that it was unreal. But how did you remember the dream? It was because of memory. So memory here proved unreliable in the case of dreams. Extrapolating this to the waking state we can say that memory by itself is illusory and deceptive. It is the last link of bondage left in a human being. Memory is a cheat outright as it makes you believe that something that never happened, happened.
In the case of a sage memory is always object driven. The subject is not tied with the experience. So a sage is able to live any experience fully without any baggage from the past. The sage uses memory as a tool. It is never a source of bondage for him. If you go and meet a sage yesterday and you go again today he will remember you. Its not that he won't recognize you. But the difference is in the seer. For a sage the subject was not there as he is devoid of any ego. When you met him yesterday, for him you met nobody. When you meet him today, again you have met nobody. For him memory is always the memory of objects and never the subject. As there is no subject in his case. Really speaking even objects are absent for a sage as both the knower and the known merge into pure knowing consciousness. This is an extremely subtle point you need to understand and only experience can be the best testimony.
प्रत्योक्षानु मानुगामाः प्रमाणाश्चिनु
Pratyaksaanumaanaagamaah pramaanaani