Introduction to Yoga Philosophy (Pt. 7)

Last night I did something that was quite weird: I randomly contacted this girl I know, who was my best friend for many years, and kind of like a foster-sister to me for a while, as well. She and I met in the sixth grade and hit it off almost immediately. However, a few nasty things happened during seventh grade that caused several very sad and tearful fights between us, which resulted in an enstrangement that lasted for nine or ten months. We began to experiment with hanging out again and having fun during about the midpoint of eighth grade and eventually succeeded in rekindling the great and true friendship that had once been ours. And I was absolutely elated when that happened, of course; I thought that it would last forever, or rather, I hoped and prayed that it would last forever. However, the second part of the awesome saga belonging to Jenni and I only lasted until about our second year of high school, during which she was in a lot of bad relationships with guys and my way of life at home seemed to be further deteriorating. To explain things very briefly, I'll just say that we left each other's company and concentrated on the separateness of our own paths with only short, possibly hour-long intervals of bland and awkward communication. Because of this, and because of Jenni's apathy and the indifference I sought to force on myself, our relationship became stagnant and painful to even reminisce on. Jenni and I grauduated from Reynolds High School in May or June of 2006, and up until only late yesterday evening, we hadn't spoken a single word to one another. It was me who called her, of course, but I shouldn't be glorifying in that and thinking of it as a way to prove, once again, that I was always the one who tried to keep us friends when she was out running around with all these horrible guys who cheated on her and did drugs. In truth, after something else that happened to me last night suddenly inspired me to put aside my pride and give Jenni a ring, I flipped a penny on the matter to help me decide if I should try to call her at all. I said that if the penny landed one way, then I would call Jenni, no matter how angry I still felt towards her. If the penny landed the opposite way, I told myself that I would go for another solid year without attempting to speak to her. But dharma, it seems, intervened in my desperate divinination by penny-tossing, and I found myself facing the coppery profile of Abraham Lincoln before I could chicken out and change my mind. I gave Jenni the call, and her mother answered, not even recognizing the sound of my voice on the phone. I think I must have been near to tears at that point, anyway, and maybe I subconciously pitched my voice slightly lower so that I could hide it. Thus began my planned rendesvous with Jenni, which lasted for about three hours downtown under the bright, blistering sun. She did most of the talking during our brief get-together, as I knew and hoped she would. I just walked by her side as we passed Lexington, Broadway, Chesnut and pretty Holland Street.

When Jenni and I were walking the dusty, mica-flecked length of that street that Malaprops is on, we came upon a small knot of people in straw hats, orange and white robes that reminded us of the Buddhist monks of Southern Asia. However, these people were all Hindus, and when Jenni and I got to talking to them, we found out that most of them had come straight from some city in Germany, or at least two of the women had. Those girls were hardly older than us, I think, and they had the kind of pollen-like yellow paint on their foreheads that those who consider Shiva to be their personal diety usually wear. However, instead of Shaivites, they were members of the ISKON (International Society for Krishna Conciousness), and therefore aspirant devotees of Krishna. These people were standing on the edge of the street with books about Hinduism and their philosophy, asking for donations. Depending on how much of a donation you gave them, one of the women would give you some kind of a book in return, as a ploy to spread the philosphy. Jenni handed the woman handling the books a dollar, and she handed us a couple of small copies of a rather well-made illustrated pamphlet called Beyond Birth and Death, by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivendanta Swami Prabhupada, who is the founder of the International Society for Krishna Conciousness. All right. So, when it was about time for Jenni and I to be leaving downtown, we got into the red car she drove us there in, and she shoved her copy of the pamphlet at me, claiming that she just didn't want to have anything to do with "any of that really religious stuff", though, only about an hour and a half before that, Jenni had claimed that she was "no longer an atheist, by any means". Whatever. Jenni drove me to my mom's house back in Oakley, and I left her car carrying both copies of the pamphlet, as well as the yellow disposable camera I'd been taking pictures of certain places in the city with, to show people when I go back to Finland here in the next couple of days, and barely said good-bye to her. I didn't hug her or anything, as I'd thought I might like to do, earlier. I know how that one additional year will go by before I ever speak to Jenni again. It's easy to see that she and I come from completely different worlds. And this is something very complex, which I must definitely think on, carefully and extensively.

Which, of course, brings me directly to tonight's essay, which is on dhyana, or an aspect of meditation having mostly to do with thought and conciousness itself. Dhyana's beginnings are traced back to Hinduism in ancient times, when it was a concept considered to be an instrument used to gain self-knowledge, seperating this from reality, or the reality of others in order to attain eventual enlightenment. In the Bhagavad Gita, which is a holy text thought by some historians to have been written at some time between 400 and 100 BCE, dhyana was mentioned in correlation with Lord Krishna's in-depth explanation of Raja Yoga. The definition of the art of dhyana is also mentioned several times throughout Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. The concept of dhyana also exists entirely in Buddhism. Dhyana is only possible through the complete transendence of five earthly hindrances, which are listed in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras as being craving, aversion, sloth, agitation and doubt. Any one of these hindrances that are not transcended cause the person meditating to be totally incapable of discursive thinking; but when all five of these earthly hindrances have been entirely transcended in every possible way, the mind of the person meditating becomes empowered with the unshakable ability to penetrate into the deepest truths of our existence, and the existence of the universe in which we reside. These are the six steps towards enlightenment through the process of dhyana, listed according to the teachings of Patanjali:

1.) Vitakka: The movement of the mind onto the object.
2.) Vicara: The retention of the mind onto the object.
3.) Piti: The joy that comes with meditating and growing closer towards enlightenment.
4.) Sukha: The extreme happiness and bliss that comes with attainment of piti. (It just keeps getting better and better after this.)
5.) Ekaggata: One-pointedness.
6.) Upekkha: Finally, total equanimity with the meditative state.

Dhyana in Jainism is known as samayika. That's all I have to say.

Coming Soon: The last part of my essays concerning yoga philosophy, and what it means to me, though certainly not the last part of my posts having to do with the way I see yoga philosophy in general. This one will be about the eighth limb belonging to Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, called samadhi. I'd really like it if everybody actually read this essay, very closely, and tried to understand what I'm saying, even if it sounds like I don't even really understand what I'm saying. Trust me, it's important.