Silent Meditation: Awareness, Understanding and Management

(AUM in Mind Awareness and Management)

Dr Kannan Parameswaran

Silent meditation, in the present context, means to stay in Awareness, Understanding and Management (AUM). These three aspects; Awareness, Understanding and Management are the inner qualities of a human being which are essential in our day to day life.

To be Aware is the nature of Jīvātma. To Understand and to Manage are the activities of Prakṛti (body-mind mechanism). These are the functions of Buddhi (the deeper aspect of body-mind mechanism), which is nothing but Jñānam. Therefore, in this system, staying deeply involved in the status of Jīvātma through Awareness, at the same time as remaining in the higher subtle nature of Prakṛti through Understanding and Management is called Meditation. In essence this means that one must be Aware, Understand and Manage properly during practice.

Being in Awareness means to be aware of everything. Initially, it is necessary to be aware of the body and still the body; it should not move at all. Feeling the surface where you sit, feel the gravitational force; feel the atmosphere around you; feel the heat and cold on your body; stay in perfect communion with the surroundings and the visible Prakṛti. Stay in this silent posture, with eyes closed, for some time. When you are sitting like this, naturally the body will create some issues because it does not like to be stilled or to be controlled. However, through Awareness, Understanding and Management, the body can be managed without much effort and eventually, with consistent effort applied over some days, the body will start yielding and obeying your instruction to be still for the desired duration of time.

Managing the mind in order to bring it into an internal silence is not as easy as we might imagine. But through patient practice and effort, the inner silence can be built up in mind. Observe the mind. Be aware of the movements in the mind and try to understand the significance. Naturally when you try to bring your mind into silence, it will protest because the mind does not want to be subdued or silent. It will create problems. It might create various emotions and many visual displays as well as sounds. A number of thoughts will come and go to disturb you because the mind does not want to be still or silent. Whatever the creations of your mind, do not entertain these by giving attention. You should not give the slightest of importance to the mental formations in meditation, just reject and ignore them since all the movements, acrobatics and violence from your mind are only to destroy your silence. What you need to do in Meditation is just to ignore the creations of your mind. Whatever it may be that you are seeing: faces, actions of creatures or human beings; images like circles, patterns, colours or light, all these are creations of your mind which arise just to destroy your quality of silence. Therefore, be Aware of these facts so you can Understand and Manage them in order to lead you towards ultimate internal silence. There is no need to force the visions to vanish, because that will not work; just ignore them. When you ignore the visions, they lose their significance and gradually these deviatory circus-like performances will stop, leaving the mind to settle into a perfect silence. Once your body and mind are in silence, you can stay peacefully in Awareness, Understanding and Management.

It is necessary to manage this situation in order to prolong the practice for some time because your mind will definitely possess some habits and attachments. It is natural for your mind to turn towards those objects with which it is attached. Therefore, when your mind turns towards those attachments, thoughts associated with it will enter into your mind. Thoughts related to some incidents, some individuals or ideas; anything can be invited. Since the mind has attachments, it will naturally welcome such thoughts of objects and subjects. When such thoughts are welcomed by the mind, into the mind, you should completely ignore the thoughts.

Always remember that you are not the mind; you are the Jīvātma, the controller of your mind. Nevertheless, be careful not to fight with your mind, for fighting with your mind will create another kind of violence which can easily destroy the silence. We need a violence-free mind. We need peace and silence at heart. So, we should not fight with the mind but just ignore it! We need to learn the art of ignoring thoughts and emotions. Let the mind do whatever it wants. Once you ignore the mind, gradually, but progressively, it will discard its attachments and come to take rest inside you. Then you can be in perfect Awareness, Understanding and Management (AUM). That is silence. Through this silence, you can experience ultimate Jñānam, via which you become aware of the Jīvātma separated from your body-mind mechanism. Attaining that Jñānam is the purpose of Silent Meditation.

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