Samyama, friends!

Published on 2021-4-25 by Michael Stanton


Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

The Samyama

In meditation I spend a few minutes in a practice called samyama. It consists of holding a space of silence, peace and relaxation, and seeding the space with a single word. The word drops into consciousness like a small stone into water. You only watch the mind from this point. You can dimly feel the ripples spreading out from the "word-stone," and after about 15 seconds, you'll feel a change in consciousness. That is, interior furniture has shifted somehow. You've entered a new "moment," relative to what was. An instant of psychological time has passed, and to the extent possible, you've initiated that moment and state change with the seed word.

Think of a GIT repository. Timestamps are meaningless. Instead, the commit hash of a real code change is used to measure difference from an initial state. So, in our own systems, we already recognize time is only meaningful as a container in which work might occur. The true measurement of progress is the commit itself.

As a complex being, you grow not through the passage of time, but through the use of time to promulgate work which causes real state changes or "code checkins" to the psychic substrate.

Samyama is a deliberate small checkin to the repository, combined with a focused attention on the rippling effect of the change. Here the metaphor must be set aside, because a GIT repository doesn't have the depth that our psyche does. Believing in this depth, we can easily imagine that the word drops into the pool and sinks down to layers as yet unknown to you -- this would be the subconscious. And just as you are capable of saying "ow! Hey!" as a rock drops on you from above, the subconscious may respond in its own way.

This response is precisely the felt psychological state change. It seems to take about 15 seconds.

What are the contents of that change? Or rather, what is the meaning of it? The subconscious doesn't communicate with words. I only know a response of sorts has arrived. Here, humorously, we could imagine that we are playing with fire -- something like the eager astronomer sending radio signals out hoping for friendly aliens to "write back." Instead, perhaps a warship arrives, or a deadly novel virus!

But no...we have to turn away from that. Seriously, if we can't have faith that our deeper, poorly understood layers are essentially friendly to our aims, then on what kind of foundation is our house even built? I prefer not to add this to my worries, and so I'll proceed, much like the eager astronomer, on the basis that my depths may be deep and even dark, but they are generally benign in relation to my aims.

And if they are not, why, it is better that we begin a conversation, yes? Rather that thwart each other by day and by night.

Seed words

I've shared two principles of the thing. One, that the word is dropped and we await a response. Two, that we regard our partner in this conversation as essentially benign. From the yogic literature there is the idea that the response will be actively positive in its effects. Even, that no matter what the word dropped into the subconscious is, the response will consist in the highest reachable good from that word.

A word is an onion. But an inter-dimensional onion! Remove the outer later, merely the sound, and come to the imaginative "thing described" by the word. This is only another layer. Go into that thing-described, and find the cause behind the thing.

Each layer reveals another one, but they continually climb a ladder of abstraction. Whats more, some "floors" reveal rich interconnected concepts, while other floors are relatively barren.

It seems to me a great way to deepen intellectual inquiry -- climb and descend the causal ladder from any concept or instance, and investigate the links. Descent goes to instances of, and ascent climbs to the "why" of. We need the rich detail of instance to seed our imagination, otherwise, higher stations on the casual ladder are dry and lifeless.

In the door example above, the concept of privacy is especially rich. You could follow a lateral link from privacy to invasion of privacy. And thus, what is invasive? And thence down into instances of or hallmarks of invasion. I think it is wise to spend time in this activity.

Many words that sound destructive can point to something positive. "Fire" is a good example. Sometimes structures exist that are only weakly helpful to life, and it would be better if the energy bound up in their maintenance be returned to the general flow. I'm thinking about deep forests here -- not that I mean to burn them all down! But it is true that the nutrients of the soil are bound up in the woody structure of the trees. Animals can't find much to eat in a deep forest. And so, lightning storms which set fires are useful. They create browsing areas for animals, who feast on the berries and other plants that grow in the richer soil, impregnated by the nutrients formerly bound up in a static way.

Do you need "fire" in your life? Sometimes, yes. And indeed, it should be used sparingly, because it offers no way back. Fire associates with the concept of the Will. We know how strong we can be inside -- we can even be dangerous!

And so...even simple words connect to deep ideas.

My words

At this time I go through a cycle of 9 words. I got them from "Advanced Yoga Practices," by Yogani. And he refers to Pantanjali's Yoga Sutras for the source of this set of seed words.

I find it interesting that at the beginning, I didn't see the relationship between the words.

Now it is as obvious to me as the sun that the words follow a define sequence.

Love

Why shouldn't this be the initial word for we humans? Just think on the condition of our birth. A womans body is transformed, and this is the least of it, such that we might appear in this world and begin independent life. We arrive through sacrifice -- but one made with joy. And we are immediately held, protected and kissed for years only that we might finally respond in the smallest way.

My goodness. Yes. Love, for God's sake. Begin there.

Radiance

Hmm. These days the only place I hear that word is in connection with women who are either recently married or in love or pregnant. It expresses this quality of light coming from within. Can that really be true, at times?

When I release this word, the response contains the warmth of a fire by which I sat with my grandpa, and the stars were above us and the ocean could be heard.

If my subconscious could use words, I believe it tried to convey to me that the Light Within is "like that." "Like" my deepest memories of warmth and security.

Indeed, we are all "pregnant" with the child of our full understanding. The feeling of that child growing within must be...radiance.

Unity

This word seemed very dry to me at the beginning. Hmpf, I thought, what about diversity? What's so great about "unity?" My cultural programming brought up images of stultifying conformity, against which it's my duty to fight.

However, after a few weeks of dropping this word into the pool, I noticed an aspect of my own movement in the world -- in what I found to be "the good," and what was its opposite.

My objection to the word was focused on its most negative manifestations -- the brute force, essentially lazy pushing forward of any idea which has obviously outgrown its usefulness. This would create "woody structure" that frankly, needs to burn. I mistakenly apprehended the word-concept to mean "I should" prefer or promulgate unity above all else. And from my short-sighted position, I'll make grevious errors in judgment, and end up broadcasting those errors near and far because I've interpreted the word to mean "the same everywhere."

So my first appreciation here was that I had the wrong idea.

How did I come to understand that?

I don't precisely know. Lamely, I have to answer that I simply began to notice my behavior more.

Was this the "content" of the answer from the subconscious? To nudge consciousness to take more notice?

This brings up an exciting possibility: the idea of a conversation whose apparent content is a single word, passed back and forth. Where the actual change is entirely in the contextual container in which the conversation takes place!

So...it was the case that I first changed in my relation to the word. And now, I am becoming a partisan of the concept. I see Unity behind good things we have.

Our tremendous age of science. People put before themselves the concept of truth above all. They wanted to express that concept. The scientific method is an algorithm to move in the direction of truth when faced with the maelstrom of data coming in at each moment of time. We bind ourselves to fidelity to this concept (religio, meaning "to bind" -- religion!), and so profit. We do achieve our goal in most instances. We've wrested (apologies for 19th century language) some underlying "law" from the data, isolated it, and pushed that truth to a lower level of instances. We've sought "unity."

I'll have to write up the remaining 6 words later -- this has been a long post! Thank you for the attention, good sir and madam!