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Main Index
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| | | Book Name: Yoga - The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 3 | Previous Next | |
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is arrowed towards the other, meditation towards oneself. In contemplation, duality exists. There are two, the contemplator and the contemplated. In meditation there is only one.
The English word "meditation" is not very good, does not give the real sense of dhyana or samadhi, because in the very word meditation, it appears that you are meditating upon something. So try to understand: contemplation is meditating upon something; meditation is not meditating upon something, just being oneself, no movement away from the center, no movement at all... just being yourself so totally that there is not even a flickering; the inner flame remains unmoving. The other has disappeared; only you are. Not a single thought is there. The whole world has disappeared. The mind is no more there; only you are, in your absolute purity. Contemplation is like a mirror mirroring something; meditation is simply mirroring, not mirroring anything -- just a pure capacity to mirror but not actually mirroring anything.
With contemplation you can attain up to nirvichara samadhi -- samadhi with no thought -- but in nirvichara one thought remains, and that is the thought of no-thought. That too is a thought, the last, the very last, but it remains. One is aware that there is no thought, one knows that there is no thought. But what is this knowing of no-thought? Vast change has happened, thoughts have disappeared, but now, no-thought itself has become an object. If you say that "I know emptiness," then it is not enough emptiness; the thought of emptiness is there. The mind is still functioning, functioning in a very, very passive, negative way -- but still functioning. You are aware that there is emptiness. Now what is this emptiness you are aware of? It is very subtle thought, the most subtle, the last beyond which the object completely disappears.
So whenever a disciple comes to a Zen Master very happy with his attainment and says that "I have attained emptiness," the Master says, "Go and throw this emptiness away. Don't bring it to me again. If you are really empty then there is no thought of emptiness also."
This is what happened in the famous story of Subhuti. He
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