These are valid doubts of an intelligent armchair-Vedantin who lacks the heroism to slip his seat of contemplation. However, Vedanta is a subjective science, and any amount of mere study and argumentation will not bring a clear understanding.
When a mind gets fully engaged in the practice indicated in the previous verses, the quiet mind, uncluttered with thoughts of the world of objects, expands to embrance the concept of the infinite Self, the sole substratum of the entire perceived world of experiences. In this thoughts of the infinite Self, thought is no more a thought: the thought-wave becomes a wave with no amplitude, and therefore becomes a no-thought wave. Thus, when one arrives at the Self, thoughts cease to be thoughts. The individuality merges into the vision of the Reality.
The very “thought” of “The Self am I” (aham brahasmi iti vrtti) is a “no-ware” (no vrtti); it merges to disappear in the direct experience divine. This idea that the thought will merge and disappear by itself is not easy for the intellectual student to grasp, and hence Sri Rama offers one of the classical examples often used in Vedanta :
The medicine (rasayanam) taken by the sick corrects the disturbance in the physical system (rujah) and then itself gets eliminated from the system, all by itself; so too the brahmakara-vrtti (the thought “Brahma am I”) ends all by itself when the seeker arrives at the realizion of the Self.
vivikta asina uparatendriyo vinirjitatma vimalantarasayah vibhavayedekamananyasadhano vijnanadrkkevala atmasamsthitah
Settling oneself down in an undisturbed place, quieting the sense organs from all disturbances of sense objects, holding the body steady and unmoving, calming the mind from all its oscillations – established in the pursuit of steady meditation and withdrawn from all other yoga-means – one should steadily contemplate upon the one Self, the spring of life within.
Sri Rama explains a scheme consisting of five adjustments for the contemplative student to strive for and successfully achieve in establishing himself or herself on the path of contemplation. Newcomers to the path must very diligently attend to all five adjustments:
Select the right place and time for your practice of meditation. Choose a quiet place: there should be no disturbances, at least not from the outside.
Clam the senses, and disengage them from all their preoccupations with sense objects.
Learn it sit firmly (sthira) and to hold the body without any swinging movement (acala). When the body is thus held firm and steady, the mind automatically enters into a state of inner poise and balance.
Many other yoga-means may have been pursued at one time or another by the student: Dedicated service to others (karmayoga), devotion to the Lord through worship of Him at the altar (bhaktiyoga), even serious and laboriously concentrated efforts to study and reflect upon the subtle declarations of the rishis in the Upanisads (jnanayoga), and so on. Memories of these might come up in the contemplative student’s mind as he sits in his seat of meditation. Let him learn to rise above these thoughts, and bend his entire attention to the nature of the Self, exclusively.
Let him then contemplate solely upon the one infinite Self, without allowing any other dissimilar thought current to crisscross his mind pell-mell.
These five adjustments are repeatedly indicated in many places along the vast expanse of Upanisadic literature. Thus gathering all the wandering rays of the mind, turn its entire attention to the one Self and learn to merge into the higher state of Consciousness.
Text XXXXVII
visvam yadetatparatmadarsanam vilapayedatmani sarvakarane purnascidanandamayo ‘vatisthate na veda bhayam na ca kincidantaram
English Meaning:
This dynamic world of things and beings perceived by us is nothing but the supreme Self. One should merge it into that Self, the cause of all. He who accomplishes this in himself is merged into the limitless, blissful Self, and remains “knowing” nothing of his outer or inner worlds of plurality.
This dynamic world of names and forms is perceived by our instruments of experience: the body, the mind, and the intellect. The experience of this world of plurality is the perceiver-feeler-thinker entity, who, in his present state of consciousness, perceives the world as a march of events, a clamoring, noisy field of happenings. The individualized ego feels persecuted by the tensions and struggles brought to him by the merciless situations in his environment. Sri Rama is advising Laksmana that in the seat of meditation the student must try to recognize that the entire world of plurality, the endless crowds of confusing names and forms, are all but a disturbance in the infinite Consciousness.
The roaring, thunderous hosts of oceanic waves are all nothing but their own essential substratum, the serenely tranquil ocean.
One who accomplishes a full awakening into his own real nature merges into the Self to become the Self. From that realm of pure Consciousness, removed from all inner and outer pluralities of objects, he revels as the one objectless Awareness.
Names and forms are the interpretations of our sense organs. In deep sleep none of these names and forms disturb us. In the mood of contemplation, the mind rises above the inner and outer worlds of plurality and arrives at a unique state of consciousness where the Self alone is. It is a state wherein all the mental and intellectual fluctuations have disappeared; therefore, the mind-intellect (dhi) has become thoughtless, totally undisturbed (sama). In this samadhi-state, thoughts cease, the mind-intellect withers away, and the Consciousness that was caught in the web of thoughts gets released totally from all its encumbrances. In this total state of liberation one recognizes neither an outer world of names and forms, nor an inner world of emotions and thoughts. The individual and his world of plurality merge to disappear in the experience of the substratum, the Self.
