stitha prajna - a goal or natural happening?

[s1va]

Gita 2nd chapter talks about "stitha prajna" in length -- beautiful words on being  steadfast, unshakeable.  Not letting external factors (example: as simple as weather -- seedoshna ) affecting the inner core, resulting in suka and dukha.  Letting them happen at surface level, sounds easier said than done.

 

I had a transitory experience for few days last month, it felt like nothing can touch the inside or core it was separate & unshakeable, things were happening around it.  The state reminded me of "stitha prajna" from Gita.  Can such steadfastness come and go?  

 

It was like I was given me free sample packet, that lasted only few days --perhaps to show me what I need to work for!   Now, I want that back (lasting) and willing to pay the price.  This brought up another question.  

 

When I want 'something' (anything), what is standing in between me and the attainment of that 'something', assuming I am willing to put in the effort or pay the price.

 

 The obstacles, are these karma?  lack of will power?

if anyone would to share, how or what it takes to attain this state.  Is it tapas (austerities) that makes one get to that state?   I am looking for an answer that is more than "just do the karma yoga...".  Perhaps an illustration or example, how to get to that point B (stitha prajna), from point A, how some one got there.

[silent thunder]

so potent!  these glimpses, tastes...

momentary and shining and resonant

 

and upon fading. yes... more... again... more of this...

compulsion to strive at seeking to create it

 

how do I create it?

where is it?

what is its source?

how can I make/have more?

 

I took up seeking and working and striving and creating and trying, always the trying

and with that the judging of the trying and the striving and the work and the quality of the seeking

 

when exhausted

then in stillness, in silence

another glimpse

 

 

now rather than strive and work and create

I allow

I breathe

let go of noise and action and seeking

let go of all of it

 

that which remains

is awake

[dwai]

Gita 2nd chapter talks about "stitha prajna" in length -- beautiful words on being  steadfast, unshakeable.  Not letting external factors (example: as simple as weather -- seedoshna ) affecting the inner core, resulting in suka and dukha.  Letting them happen at surface level, sounds easier said than done.

 

I had a transitory experience for few days last month, it felt like nothing can touch the inside or core it was separate & unshakeable, things were happening around it.  The state reminded me of "stitha prajna" from Gita.  Can such steadfastness come and go?  

 

It was like I was given me free sample packet, that lasted only few days --perhaps to show me what I need to work for!   Now, I want that back (lasting) and willing to pay the price.  This brought up another question.  

 

When I want 'something' (anything), what is standing in between me and the attainment of that 'something', assuming I am willing to put in the effort or pay the price.

 

 The obstacles, are these karma?  lack of will power?

if anyone would to share, how or what it takes to attain this state.  Is it tapas (austerities) that makes one get to that state?   I am looking for an answer that is more than "just do the karma yoga...".  Perhaps an illustration or example, how to get to that point B (stitha prajna), from point A, how some one got there.

The wanting is the very thing that blocks it.

You want to be something you already are, assuming you are not it.

It is not a state. It is your true and original nature. 

You have never not been it...how then can you "find" it?

 

Where will you look?

Where will you go?

What will you do?

What will you know?

 

That which you are, cannot be found.

It is not a thing, that exists outside of you.

You already are the stitha prajna. 

Your identification with your body, mind and the objects you sense and grasp, gives you temporary amnesia.

 

Please follow this meditation, it will become apparent --

 

Edited April 21, 2017 by dwai

[s1va]

@silent thunder - Your words are so beautiful.  The experience I described came about when the trying and wanting stopped momentarily.  How did the trying and wanting stop momentarily?  I don't know.  Why on that day?  I don't know.

Can I consciously give up wanting, trying and striving again?  No, as dwai points out rightly, that itself is wanting and the road block.  

 

 

@dwai:  I get what you say or I think I get it.  So, it should boil down to striving without wanting.  But striving or trying cannot stop.  I think you would agree.

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Thanks to these beautiful responses.  I am looking for something more at this point.

 

What brought about the sudden change, the momentary state of utter surrender and acceptance?  Should I sit and wait for it to happen again without trying or striving?  Would that not prove I am a puppet under the control of fate?

 

Let's go back to Gita itself, it is unique.  The enormity of the outer situations bother Arjuna.  He is shattered.  He wants to renounce the world.  Shall we tell him, don't strive, don't fight to win the war?  Just accept the misery of this situation?  

Accept, take sanyas.  Listen to your heart, if it says get away from this war, then you should...   That was not what was told...  He was told to strive...  fight the war, something clearly he disliked at the point.

( At some level, I feel where this is going to go next, but I am missing something somewhere)

 

I think we all will agree that effort and striving are needed (wanting is different).  Correct me, if I am wrong.  Without striving we can't live or as much breathe.  We live, eat and move around because we keep trying and strive.

 

One can listen to statements like, give up wanting.  Or like the statements from Gita - Atman alone is real, everything else is unreal.  Atman cannot be burned, it can't be cut with knife.  It is eternal.

 

I have read these many times.  Though it helped many times when I needed, it has not brought forth the transformation.  It's like how Swami Vivekananda says in his book Raja Yoga, I can hear 1000 sermons and learn nothing.  They may be the best sermons ever given.

Next question that comes to mind:  Is physiological and nervous system transformation or awakening needed and mandatory to bring about such states,  or to even read and take some real value from scriptures or sermons?  Is striving for yoga, the answer?

 

 'Give up wanting' is understood by mind, or so it thinks.  Such understanding has not brought about any transformation.  Is acceptance, just settling for what life hands over?  Is it prarabdha karma that determines whether the wanting will stop or not (or who becomes a karma yogi and who doesn't)?  If so, and this is fated, we just wait for such state to happen?

We become stitha prajna when we do....   Then why should Krishna even talk about it?  My question is also about what to do in the mean time?  Accept and be in the clutches of sukha and dukha caused by external circumstances?

Edited April 23, 2017 by kāvēri

[s1va]

I took up seeking and working and striving and creating and trying, always the trying

and with that the judging of the trying and the striving and the work and the quality of the seeking

 

when exhausted

then in stillness, in silence

another glimpse

 

 

The chain or the loop

1) potent glimpses tastes

2) compulsion to strive 

3) exhaustion

4) stillness, silence

5) back to step 1

 

You do acknowledge the existence of this chain or loop.  You have described it accurately.  

 

now rather than strive and work and create

I allow

I breathe

let go of noise and action and seeking

let go of all of it

 

that which remains

is awake

 

Something changed from that chain or loop.  Now, rather than striving you allow.  What prompted this change that brought about the 'letting go'?  Did that 'letting go' just happen, or is it a result of all your prior strivings?

Edited April 23, 2017 by kāvēri

[silent thunder]

It seems to be a natural response...

 

there certainly is a convincing seeming correlation between deep silence, stillness and this awareness/experience.

 

when all processes either fall away out of exhaustion or are thrown from and released me in exasperation

however that happens, when it happens it seems

 

then awareness shines through unimpeded

 

radical acknowledgement of conditions and release of expectation or reaction seem to be involved

whether that is due to my dililgent spiritual pursuits of effort and striving...

or from the inevitable exhausted dropping of them when i grow exasperated with them...

or from some alltogether unintelligible and unremittable process or force... i just don't know

 

 

my experience, the parts i can try and talk and share about seem to indicate that

 

the awareness is abiding, foundational and never waivers...

 

yet my experience of that awareness is often occluded, clouded over, shrouded or obscured by senses and mind stuff.

[s1va]

radical acknowledgement of conditions and release of expectation or reaction seem to be involved

whether that is due to my dililgent spiritual pursuits of effort and striving...

or from the inevitable exhausted dropping of them when i grow exasperated with them...

or from some alltogether unintelligible and unremittable process or force... i just don't know

 

Thanks for the honest response.  

 

The thing that prompts the change, breaks the chain, or moves the cloud obscuring.  I was trying to understand that if it is a replicable process.  

It is puzzling why that radical acceptance or 'letting go' happens at a certain point of time, what prevented it from happening earlier? 

[dwai]

@silent thunder - Your words are so beautiful. The experience I described came about when the trying and wanting stopped momentarily. How did the trying and wanting stop momentarily? I don't know. Why on that day? I don't know.

Can I consciously give up wanting, trying and striving again? No, as dwai points out rightly, that itself is wanting and the road block.

 

 

@dwai: I get what you say or I think I get it. So, it should boil down to striving without wanting. But striving or trying cannot stop. I think you would agree.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks to these beautiful responses. I am looking for something more at this point.

 

What brought about the sudden change, the momentary state of utter surrender and acceptance? Should I sit and wait for it to happen again without trying or striving? Would that not prove I am a puppet under the control of fate?

 

Let's go back to Gita itself, it is unique. The enormity of the outer situations bother Arjuna. He is shattered. He wants to renounce the world. Shall we tell him, don't strive, don't fight to win the war? Just accept the misery of this situation?

Accept, take sanyas. Listen to your heart, if it says get away from this war, then you should... That was not what was told... He was told to strive... fight the war, something clearly he disliked at the point.

( At some level, I feel where this is going to go next, but I am missing something somewhere)

 

I think we all will agree that effort and striving are needed (wanting is different). Correct me, if I am wrong. Without striving we can't live or as much breathe. We live, eat and move around because we keep trying and strive.

 

One can listen to statements like, give up wanting. Or like the statements from Gita - Atman alone is real, everything else is unreal. Atman cannot be burned, it can't be cut with knife. It is eternal.

 

I have read these many times. Though it helped many times when I needed, it has not brought forth the transformation. It's like how Swami Vivekananda says in his book Raja Yoga, I can hear 1000 sermons and learn nothing. They may be the best sermons ever given.

Next question that comes to mind: Is physiological and nervous system transformation or awakening needed and mandatory to bring about such states, or to even read and take some real value from scriptures or sermons? Is striving for yoga, the answer?

 

'Give up wanting' is understood by mind, or so it thinks. Such understanding has not brought about any transformation. Is acceptance, just settling for what life hands over? Is it prarabdha karma that determines whether the wanting will stop or not (or who becomes a karma yogi and who doesn't)? If so, and this is fated, we just wait for such state to happen?

We become stitha prajna when we do.... Then why should Krishna even talk about it? My question is also about what to do in the mean time? Accept and be in the clutches of sukha and dukha caused by external circumstances?

Sukha and dukkha are not due to external circumstances. They are due to our holding on to positions this is good, that is bad; I want good and avoid bad; and so on. It is a mental game entirely. Real sukha is absence of striving for sukha. When we stop striving for sukha and stop avoiding dukkha, we are sukha itself.

[Bindi]

Many people have had temporary glimpses of the Self. Sometimes it happens spontaneously, and it is not uncommon for it to happen in the presence of a realised Master. After these temporary glimpses, the experience goes away because there are still thoughts and latent desires which have not been extinguished. The Self will only accept, consume and totally destroy a mind that is totally free from vasanas. (Papaji in Nothing Ever Happened, vol. 3, p. 405)

 

http://www.thedaobums.com/topic/43425-effort-vs-no-effort/#entry737903

[s1va]

Sukha and dukkha are not due to external circumstances. They are due to our holding on to positions this is good, that is bad; I want good and avoid bad; and so on. It is a mental game entirely. Real sukha is absence of striving for sukha. When we stop striving for sukha and stop avoiding dukkha, we are sukha itself.

Rather than good or bad, would it be more accurate to describe, "I like this and I don't like that", causing joy and sorrow.

 

But, these 'I like' and 'I don't like' are imprinted.  I can't will them off.  The mind understands that there is no use in striving.  Yet, it does not know a way out.  Functioning dispassionately like karma yogi, sounds right, but lofty.

The how is not given.  Be a karma yogi.  Not getting in the sway of likes and dislikes.  How?  By mere will to give up striving?  That is striving and it becomes a vicious circle.

 

Why don't animals get enlightened?  Is it because, they simply are not evolved or have the faculties to achieve that state?  

Similarly is it that some humans are not just evolved enough to move on to other states?  Is the physiological transformation and awakening that happens through ashtanga yoga, a precursor to the entire spiritual journey (or the only way)?

[dwai]

Rather than good or bad, would it be more accurate to describe, "I like this and I don't like that", causing joy and sorrow.

 

But, these 'I like' and 'I don't like' are imprinted. I can't will them off. The mind understands that there is no use in striving. Yet, it does not know a way out. Functioning dispassionately like karma yogi, sounds right, but lofty.

The how is not given. Be a karma yogi. Not getting in the sway of likes and dislikes. How? By mere will to give up striving? That is striving and it becomes a vicious circle.

 

Why don't animals get enlightened? Is it because, they simply are not evolved or have the faculties to achieve that state?

Similarly is it that some humans are not just evolved enough to move on to other states? Is the physiological transformation and awakening that happens through ashtanga yoga, a precursor to the entire spiritual journey (or the only way)?

The how is to become awakened, to be Present, remain in the here and now.

 

Did you try that meditation led by Rupert spira? It is very powerful and following it regularly (everyday) with no preconceptions but purely feeling, you can enter into the here and now. If you let it mature by staying with the "I am", the futility of positions will become apparent not just intellectually but practically as well. Then you will see that the choices of holding positions or not become so easy, you'll think "wow! Is there all that is to it!?"

[s1va]

The how is to become awakened, to be Present, remain in the here and now.

 

Did you try that meditation led by Rupert spira? It is very powerful and following it regularly (everyday) with no preconceptions but purely feeling, you can enter into the here and now. If you let it mature by staying with the "I am", the futility of positions will become apparent not just intellectually but practically as well. Then you will see that the choices of holding positions or not become so easy, you'll think "wow! Is there all that is to it!?"

I am sorry, I did not watch the entire video.  

 

At present, there is a mental block to watch such videos, for unknown reason.  Just restlessness or impatience, may be.   Cycling between tamas, rajo and some tiny sattwa, back down to tamas....

 

Now that you reiterated, I will watch it today.  Thanks.

[s1va]

Many people have had temporary glimpses of the Self.

 

 Temporary is certain.  Not quite sure about the glimpse of Self part

 

Thanks for the link to that other topic.  Very interesting dialogue.  Especially the following post from that thread was timely & helpful, where dwai talks about impatience and how patience is the hardest part.  I just typed impatience on the post above, before reading this.  This just addressed directly what I was looking for in a timely way.  Just reading that, mind calmed down -- to certain extent.

 

http://www.thedaobums.com/topic/43425-effort-vs-no-effort/?p=737930

 

 

The hardest part imho is patience...ie for the mind to accept that patience is a necessary virtue in this path. Until there is Presence. That is the effort...to take a practice and keep doing it, without feeling bored, tired, exhausted etc etc. It takes a "trick" of not attaching to the results of said effort...if we think about the effort, we become impatient. 

 

Edited April 24, 2017 by kāvēri

[dwai]

[3bob]

there is the lesson of Chinese finger trap, 

 

Btw, how does a swimmer get out of a riptide,   (as in the meantime)

[s1va]

there is the lesson of Chinese finger trap, 

 

Please elaborate, if you could.

[3bob]

if you don't get out of the finger trap you can't swim to well

 

btw, all that profound mental stuff can be useful but the Ocean is a hands on teacher

[s1va]

if you don't get out of the finger trap you can't swim to well

 

btw, all that profound mental stuff can be useful but the Ocean is a hands on teacher

I guess you like swimming a lot

 

I agree, ocean is hands on teacher.  Depending on 'who' the mental stuff, books or videos can be as good a teacher as ocean.   

Michael mentioned about this boy reading a book and going the pool -- and swam!

http://www.thedaobums.com/topic/43781-do-all-enlightened-masters-agree-on-any-one-single-thing/?p=745657

 

When I read Michael's post, I wondered really if this could be possible.  In few days, I turn TV, and this thing comes on top news. about a 8 year old boy determined to get burger, watches youtube video on driving, goes to minivan, drives himself and his sister 'effortlessly' to the McDonald's drive-thru without any traffic mistakes!

 

USA TODAY:  8-year-old learns to drive on YouTube, heads to McDonald's

Edited April 27, 2017 by kāvēri

[3bob]

a good thing about elemental forces like the ocean is that they don't break their own nature, so they can always be counted on whereas doctrines, etc. can get very iffy. 

[s1va]

a good thing about elemental forces like the ocean is that they don't break their own nature, so they can always be counted on whereas doctrines, etc. can get very iffy. 

It seems like there is a point where even oceans and elemental forces get iffy.  We are in a very narrow space here.  There could be confusion, because we thought we can trust on the ocean and forces and they don't break nature.  At this point, doctrines take a different picture, give different meaning -- that can be useful at this point.  They are iffy.

[3bob]

not sure of your  meaning related to elemental or natural forces getting iffy?  I'd say such forces can only get iffy if willfully screwed with in their normal functioning and not by themselves.

[s1va]

not sure of your  meaning related to elemental or natural forces getting iffy?  I'd say such forces can only get iffy if willfully screwed with in their normal functioning and not by themselves.

So long as we think the ocean is out there, it won't get iffy.  

 

Edited to Add:  You mentioned on the other post about Zen  masters saying mountain appearing and disappearing.  This is entirely true.  So, does the ocean.  If it appears and disappears, is it true in the first place?  Ocean exists and does not exist at the same time.

Edited April 27, 2017 by kāvēri

[3bob]

various elemental forces follow the way of Tao and that is not iffy at any time or place or in coming and going, I'm just saying those derived and manifested forces can be willfully screwed with - meaning not through natural actions of their own.

 

while an internal dichotomy we may feel or doubts we think about concerning what is real or not real is often iffy, in the meantime true dharma is not iffy just as truly un-screwed-with elemental forces are not iffy.

[s1va]

There are many ways and angles and to look at this.  I am saying the following from my own inquiry and understanding (if that counts for anything).  

 

Everything that we perceive outside is perceived through the sense organs.  Behind the sense organs is the mind.  From the sense organs, mind gets the input and perceives the world outside.   Ocean is another input just like anything else.  If we bundle everything that is seen, heard, touched, smelt & tasted into one bundle as just 'input'.  Ocean is no different than other inputs.  At one point, all these inputs become just minds chatter.  There is another part of mind or intellect that is able to see this chatter.  When it does, the chatter quietens.  Then there is just that awareness on the meditation and nothing else (or very minimum chatter), or chatter looses meaning.

 

This does not stay all the time.  The ocean and the million other things,  become million other things again, mind is scattered again through sense organs.

Edited April 29, 2017 by kāvēri