Brahmacharini Nivedita completed four days of talks on the Complete Art of Meditation between September 23-26. The talks were based on the text called "Drg Drsya Vivek" (Discrimination of the Seer and the Seen) by Sankara.

Those who attended were taken step-by-step through the 31 verses of this text. Some brief notes from the text's main message follows. Full recording of the talks is also available on CD for those who wish to listen to the entire message. Please call (03) 9846 8359 to order your copy of these CDs.

1. What is meditation? It is going from what we are not to what we truly are. It is both the practice and the goal.

2. The question is meditation tries to answer is "Who Am I"? Am I the objects I see in the world? Am I the eye that sees them? Ami I the mind that observes the condition of eye? Am I the witness that sees the mind?

3. Witness (Seer) sees the mind which sees the eye which sees objects in the world outside. This witness can never become the "seen".

4. The correct identification of "I" is very important. If I identify myself with the seen, then all the limitations of the seen become "my" limitations. For example, if I identify myself with the mind, then all the limitations and sufferings of the mind become mine.

5. There are two types of thinking processes. The "monkey mind", our common way of thinking, starts with one thought, moves to another, and keeps jumping to more thoughts. "Vichara", on the other hand, starts with many thoughts and converges to one thought. This thought process employs discrimination (viveka).

6. The seer always remains unaffected by whatever it sees. For example, the eye does not become big or small because it is observing a large or tiny object. Similarly, the mind remains unaffected by the sense organs and the things that they perceive.

7. Consciousness is the final witness that illumines the mind itself. This realisation that "I am not the mind" is the real liberation.

8. The final seer is our Self. Consciousness is Existence. "I am" and "I know I am".

9. The consciousness is everywhere, all-pervading. It even surrounds and envelopes all insentient objects. The presence of consciousness lends sentiency to objects and makes them appear sentient. However, the manifestation and expression of consciousness depends on the medium that it is reflecting upon. For example, little light reflects from the medium of a lump of dirt, but much light reflects from the medium of water. Similarly, different worldly objects reflect consciousness in different ways. The body manifests only the existence aspect of consciousness, whilst the subtle body manifests both existence as well as the consciousness aspects.

10. When consciousness and insentient objects come together, they appear inseparable in that they come to share some mutual properties. This is like an iron ball and fire. An iron ball is cold, round and black. Fire is completely different, being hot, bright and formless. However, when they come together, the iron ball becomes hot, and gives out light, and the fire appears to take on the shape of a ball. Similarly, consciousness enlivens the "I thought" in the mind, which in turn gives life to the body. There is mutual sharing of properties between the consciousness and the "I thought" (which is actually insentient), and in turn between the "I thought" and the body.