DR SANJAY TEOTIA describes the states of delusion and suggests different types of meditation that help you to overcome them
What is delusion? Does it happen when you superimpose an idea or memory onto something else and create an entirely different reality from what’s actually there. Delusion can occur with anything you can experience with your senses or imagine is not real in the true sense. You end up identifying with what you are not.
But it can be set right when you embark on a spiritual journey. You bring out the light, step out of the boundaries and enjoy the unlimited freedom of what is really real. Your path from the unreal to the real is actually quite simple. You don’t have to learn anything new, for the truth is who you are. Your spiritual journey is all about remembering and recognizing who you really are. In forgetting the real, you, yourself, have created your world of delusions. The delusions listed in the Vedic texts are delusions of limitations of space, the delusion of time, the delusion of the limitations of attachment, the delusion of limitations of knowledge, the delusion of the limitation of creativity, and the delusion of fear.
When you become ensnared in these various types of delusions, you are bound to suffer. Suffering is a result of not knowing who you really are, and this leaves you to live a life of doubt, confusion, pain and frustration. Suffering itself is a delusion. But with awareness, and when you are on a spiritual path, you can step out of your delusions.
The great mystic, Osho, said that when you are absolutely dissatisfied with things as they are, only then do you go in search, only then do you start rising higher, only then do you make the effort to pull yourself out of the mud. Therefore, it is up to you to choose to live the true qualities of life, expanding your view of reality and effortlessly moving beyond the delusion. You can transcend worldly limitations, stepping into the wisdom of the unlimited unknown.
Meditation is a deep intellectual insight into the fundamental elements of the Buddha’s teachings. The deeply ingrained belief in a personal controlling self or soul within each person is the fundamental ignorance and primary source from which all individual and collective suffering arises. According to Paramhansa Yogananda, kriya yoga helps to magnetise the inner spiritual spine and thus bring everything into alignment with a higher reality. The truth is that all matter is energy and that energy is really consciousness. The one sure way to experience that expansion of awareness that all human beings are seeking is to rise above body consciousness. This can only be done through deep meditation. The more you meditate, the more your senses become refined and everything becomes a part of you. When you can really rise out of body consciousness, you suddenly discover that all is you. With the help of kriya yoga, you can change yourself and from your spiritual centre, you can help transform this world. In meditation and near-death experiences, it has been experienced that our consciousness can rise above the physical, but since the cord that binds us to this world is not yet cut, we eventually return to our physical body. In actual death, this cord is cut, so no one who has died ever returns to the same physical body. Paramhansa Yogananda said that when the yogi starts to meditate, he must leave behind all sensory thoughts and all longings for possessions by quieting the waves of feeling (chitta) and the mental restlessness that arises therefrom, through the application of techniques that reinstate the controlling power off the untrammelled superconsciousness of the soul.
There are different ways to meditate and since it is such a personal practice, there are many different forms of meditation. There are people, who are focused heavily on scientific research. They describe meditation as focused attention or mindful meditation, in which you focus on one specific thing, such as your breathing, a sensation in your body or in a particular external object. The point of this type of meditation is to focus strongly on one point and continually bring your attention back to that focal point if your attention should wander.
The other type of meditation that’s often used in research is open monitoring meditation. This is where you pay attention to all of the things happening around you, but you have reached a point when you simply notice everything without reacting.
Dr Sanjay Teotia is a senior consultant eye surgeon at District Hospital, Barabanki in Uttar Pradesh. He is a prolific spiritual writer and his articles appear regularly in Navbharat Times and in Times of India, apart from YoursPositively