On Jun 25, 2005, at 12:32 PM, Rick Archer wrote: > I also find that some > gentle attentiveness vs. allowing the mind to just mess around makes a > big > difference in terms of clarity and frequency of transcending. > > At Estes Park, M quoted the Vedas as saying, "Be easy to us with gentle > effort." >
And indeed this very simple attentiveness--or mindfulness--is one of the key antidotes to laxity and torpor. But of course this is not taught as part of TM, it's sad Rick that this is buried in some old tape and not integrated into practice. I don't know about you, but I've met a good number of meditators who ended up being drained by such torpor. Laxity is believed to be a intentional mental process where the meditative object (in this case Self or mantra) is not perceived with vividness. Once meditation reaches the "effortless" stage (where one simply sits and can transcend for at least an hour at a time with no breaks) this tends to disappear as delusion is dissolved. Without mindfulness and some forcefulness its hard if not impossible to get to the deeper levels of meditation. I always liked the analogy of Shakyamuni of having the lute strings 'not to tight or not to loose'; that's just how mindfulness is. It's said that if torpor is not conquered, ones intelligence will decrease. Now there'd be an interesting scientific study! :-) To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
