There are different techniques of meditation. Few teach imagination and visualization and the meditator is asked to close his eyes and visualize different things. Some organizations and Gurus ask us to visualize a particular God in a particular form. In contrast, some ask the meditators to visualize the head of the cult, and some more liberal ones ask people to visualize some sort of light or any similar thing in different parts of the body. I often wonder whether all these techniques of visualization serve any purpose.
Meditation is an exercise whereby we try to connect to reality in its purest form. When we talk of reality, it should be away from all sorts of impurities and falsity. I have a few questions at this juncture. First: How can a mind, that focuses on visualizing or imagining what is being told by some guru, sect, or organization, observe reality? Second: who is observing the reality? Whether it is the mind or something else? Third: How can one be sure that what one is observing is reality and not a creation of the mind?
Probably the most vocal argument in support of visualization and following the path suggested by the gurus is that there is no need to reinvent the wheel. Already, there are many realized souls who have invented the wheel and the rest of us may just enjoy the invention. We may follow what our gurus and saints have told us. However, the problem here is that there are so many contradictory things in our scriptures, and for a common man it is quite difficult to understand the essence. Moreover, the form in which the scriptures are available as of date is mostly distorted and many times the original message is lost. The scriptures have been re-written many times and every author has added his perspective leading to the dilution of the original spirit. I have read many translations of Bhagwad Geeta and when we read the original text in Sanskrit, we realize that most of the commentators have added their own perspective of life while translating it to Hindi or English. We do not have a proper translation of many Sanskrit words in English and accordingly, the entire meaning is lost in translation.
Moreover, many Gurus have their vested interests. they have set up their sects or organizations and slowly the organizations take primacy over the pursuit of truth. For running the organizations, they need funds and funds come from people. Thus, in one form or the other, they have to please people, and that results in the mixing of impurities in the purest of pursuits. That is another reason why the path shown by the Gurus may take us only a step further and not beyond that. I have seen many such organizations quite closely and have observed that at the end of the day, all these organizations have a commercial model. Finally, it is all about the numbers. How many devotees they are able to attract. How rich are the devotees? Ultimately money comes in the form of donations from the people. Babas are therefore heavily dependent upon the people financing the organizations and have to take care of their problems and give VIP treatment to the big shots and donors. Since the donors are mostly rich people, they are definitely not looking forward to the truth rather they are looking forward to some relief from stress and the burden that they carry on their shoulders by exploiting the weak such as their employees and consumers. These Babas are just there to provide some psychological relief to these people. In many cases, the rich use these babas as their brand ambassadors as well. They invite them to the Muhurata and big functions. However, all these things have nothing to do with the pursuit of truth.
In such a world where most so-called spiritual organizations are busy catering to the demands of the majority, and a majority will not leave anything including the spiritual organizations to fulfill their desires, these organizations are mostly driven by some mass hallucination technique that may provide some quick relief to the troubled people so that people continue to live the way they are living. Visualization is one such mass hallucination technique whereby everybody is asked to visualize something pious and that gives a feel-good to the people who attend the camps they become devotees the organizations grow bigger their products get a huge demand in the market and the babas become rich and enjoy their lives.
The second question is even more interesting. Who observes the reality? I feel that it can not be my mind for sure. At a quantum level, our understanding so far reveals that there is solidity at the level of a nucleus that may be identified with the Prithvi element, and when the solidity of the nucleus gets converted into energy, it signifies the Agni element. We have electrons that float around the nucleus that represent water elements since the cloud of electrons does not have any fixed shape. We also have the free movement of energy in the form of electromagnetic waves that represent the Vayu elements and we also have thoughts in the mind that the science of the day has no idea as to where the thoughts are stored in the brain and these thoughts represent the Aakash element. All the five elements are observed by the five senses we have. The mind tries to make sense of whatever inputs are received by the senses. However, meditation is not the contemplation of the meanings that the mind makes of reality, rather it is all about observing reality as it is and that can't be a function of the mind. In fact, whatever comes to the mind is also to be observed and that is the reason why observation appears to be a function of consciousness and not the mind.
That takes us to the last question as to how can we be sure that our experiences are real. The answer to this question follows from the earlier question. If the mind is the observer, when we sit in meditation, there is every chance what we observe is not reality but rather a creation of the mind. That is what visualization techniques aim at. It may provide some short-term euphoria like feeling good after taking a pain killer but the chronic pain will not disappear and will come back more forcefully after the effect of the painkiller dies down. Similarly, the harsh realities of the world will come back in a stronger form after the visualization. We may hypnotize the mind for some time but there is no fundamental change. Fundamental change can only be with observation. When we (the consciousness within us) observe, we get freed from its fixation on the mind and its memories. It observes all the five elements of nature in the form of different sensations within our bodies. The entire body and the mind look like a screen of the laptop where different words are being typed, and yet the screen has a very distinct existence from the words that are being typed. Different words are being typed on the screen that give a distinct identity to the screen and yet the screen is quite different from these typed words. It has immense possibilities beyond what has been typed and yet what has been typed on the screen gives it a distinct recognition. We experience that we are different from all the five elements and like the Higgs field, all the five elements emerge from us and merge back into us. We can experience different sensations emerging and getting merged into ourselves. Thus, the right observation brings an awareness of our true selves which techniques like visualizations may not because they operate in the domain of the mind.
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