‘… I touched this realisation, as it were, not by achieving a mental state, but simply through steadiness and control of thought. I understood that I would need long, very long hours of contemplation to be able to perfect this realisation. This is one of the things I expect from the journey to India, if indeed Thou dost consider it useful for Thy service, Lord.’
1) Mother seems to be saying that the object of one’s contemplation is achieved not by mere thinking but by ‘steadiness and control of thought.’ What exactly is the difference between these two states?
[Prayer – March 24, 1914: (Ref. https://incarnateword.in/cwm/01/march-24-1914)]
Thinking is an active process that can keep us circling around the doorsteps of the Truth that the thought holds for contemplation. But beyond a point, one uses thought as steps to ascend and it is here that one needs steadiness and control. One replaces a limited understanding that thought provides by a higher and greater and wider thought. This is achieved through a dynamic meditation. Finally, the thought drops off as one enters the experience.
(2) Do meditations like Vipassana achieve the same result that comes by ‘steadiness and control of thought’?
Vipassana meditation is akin to the witness state. One simply watches over thoughts passively without judging them or sanctioning and sifting them. Gradually, it leads to a quietening of the mind. There is no object or subject of contemplation here, but simply a stepping back from the surface activity of thought to the deeper inner witness state.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
