All our texts—the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, the Brahma Sutras and many of the introductory texts called the Prakarana Granthas—point out to the One state: The state of bliss, the state of aloneness, Kaivalya or the state of oneness, emotional practices of considering all as one family, being in the present one moment, focusing on one thought... there is so much importance given to the One in our books of knowledge. Why?
One is who you are. One is who I am. That is the reality. There is nothing other than that One, which is truth, reality, life, self and consciousness. It is known by many names. But how many ever names it may be called, it boils down to just the one common denominator called I, the self. However, why should it be spoken about so much, because the mind does not have the capacity to revel in, rest with, focus on the One and only thing it has.
The nature of the mind is to chase illusions. It keeps going after things and beings that are not there. It goes behind untruth, non-existential things and in the process fritters away the time spent with this precious one it has with it—life and all its blessings called time, energy, focus, concentration, knowing, bliss and existence.
The Patanjali Yoga Sutras, which is an aphoristic elaboration of that one word called yoga that means samadhi or an integrated state of mind and intellect also, hovers around this One.
At the very outset itself it asserts, yoga is cessation of the modifications of mind called vrittis or repetitive movements. So what happens if the mind stops moving on its previously-created grooves called thoughts? It will then remain in its own true self called the seer or the experiencer of everything. If not, what happens? The awareness then takes the forms of the vrittis or thought movements which follow three main patterns of existence, dynamism and inertia. Then there are only five thoughts to deal with.
These thoughts can throw light on our real existence or they can give us sorrow by diverting our attention from reality. What are they? Pramana or a clear measurement of what is right in our experience, an intelligent guess of what something could be—like the presence of fire on seeing smoke or the presence of heat on seeing a mirage and the books of knowledge that point out to us the existence of what we don’t know by ourselves, but has been studied over many generations’ observations.
Then the other four thoughts are Viparyaya—a thought based on perception of a fleeting phenomenon, which is by nature fleeting and hence not real, Vikalpa—wild imaginations which have no meaning for its basis, thought of non-existence and memory.
Choose the One—consciousness. Else, the trap of five is the only other way. That trap is illusory. With knowledge, we can get out of the illusion and repose our awareness on the one reality. Out of ignorance, we can really get enmeshed in the trap, not just now, but for many lifetimes on end, until we chance upon a compassionate guru to lift us out.
Brahmacharini Sharanya Chaitanya (www.sharanyachaitanya.blogspot.in)