9. Meditation and Samādhi on Divine Forms

[The following conversation took place in March 1981, at Sringeri. It started at the Kālabhairava temple, continued on the way back from there to Acharyal’s abode, Sacchidananda Vilas, and ended at Sacchidananda Vilas when Acharyal went for His evening bath. One evening Acharyal walked to the secluded Kālabhairava temple, situated on the top of a hill in Narasimhavana. He took me with Him, as He often did. There, after prostrating before the deity, He sat down facing east. The sky was visible through the open door. Having directed me to sit, He said, “Let us remain in nirvikalpa-samādhi (the acme of yoga) for some time.” Acharyal then started to meditate. As had happened in the past, purely by the power of His presence and grace, I automatically became thoroughly absorbed in indescribable, non-dual bliss. When I regained awareness of the body and opened my eyes, I saw Acharyal opening His. In the past too, whenever He had asked me to meditate with Him, He had compassionately ensured that I emerged from samādhi at the same time as He did. Acharyal remained silent for some time. Then, He said, “This is where I first started meditating in the evenings. This is also where I first attained savikalpa-samādhi (the exalted stage of yoga preceding nirvikalpa-samādhi).” I requested Acharyal to tell me about His attaining savikalpa-samādhi and the meditative practices that led up to this. Acharyal condescended to do so.]

Acharyal: After Acharyal taught Me the way to begin meditation, I started meditating every day. On the day I learnt about directing the gaze to between the brows, I focused on Śāradāmbā in the morning and on Bālā-Tripurasundarī in the evening. Śāradāmbā's temple being very sacred, I started My serious practice of meditation next to Her sanctum. At that time, other than My attendant and the temple staff, there happened to be no one else in the temple. From then on, I normally meditated in solitude.

For about a fortnight prior to Acharyal’s teaching, I had, in response to an inexplicable urge, been doing prolonged japa of the Bālā-mantra in the mornings. While engaged in such japa with My eyes open, I had, on some days, imagined Her form as remaining in My heart facing in the same direction as Myself. On others, I had imagined a bigger version of the same form as present in front of and facing Me. The special attention that I had been paying to Bālā’s mantra and form motivated Me to meditate on Her on My first engaging in meditation here (the Kālabhairava temple).

Initially, I meditated twice a day; in My room in the afternoon and here (the Kālabhairava temple) in the evening. The idea of meditating just before or immediately after My morning āhnika and of going for My bath earlier than usual to facilitate this appealed to Me. However, I did not implement it for a couple of weeks. The reason was that I was not in a position then to predict or regulate the duration of meditation. I used to go to Acharyal’s presence after My morning āhnika to offer namaskāras and I did not want to take the risk of becoming delayed because of unintentionally meditating for too long.

With regard to the estimation and regulation of the duration of meditation, I reflected, “Once I lose awareness of the body and the surroundings and My mind locks on to the divine form, I have no awareness of the passage of time. So, I am not in a position then to decide how long more I am to continue meditating. Even during deep sleep, I am unaware of the passage of time and am in no position to determine how long more to remain in that state. Yet, it is not as though the duration of My sleep is quite unpredictable. Further, it is not that I cannot, on My own, alter the time for which I normally sleep.

“Habit influences how long a person sleeps at night. Other factors being the same, he is likely to sleep at night for as many hours as he usually does. Moreover, if he has the habit of sleeping for half an hour every afternoon, he is likely to awaken on his own after a half-an-hour siesta. Presumably, if I were to regularly meditate for fixed periods in the mornings, afternoons and evenings, My mind will spontaneously emerge from deep meditation at the end of these periods. Just as one can choose to go back to sleep, I should be able to revert to a state of deep concentration. By doing so for some days, I should be able to increase the time before which My meditation tends to lighten.

“When, on some night, I decide before sleeping that I must get up at a particular time, I awaken at that time on My own notwithstanding My having slept much less that night than usual. In like manner, I should be able to influence the duration of a session of meditation by making a resolve about the duration before beginning to meditate.”

My experiences of the first two weeks accorded with this analysis. Confident that I could now estimate and regulate the duration of My meditation, I ceased to have any inhibition about having a session of deep meditation even before going for Acharyal’s darśana. So, I began to regularly meditate before starting My morning āhnika procedures; apart from this, I continued to meditate in the afternoon and evening, as before.

Before I became a saṁnyāsin, I had heard a person say, “I went to get my eyes tested. At some distance in front of me, there was a chart with letters of different sizes. I found that the letters in the bottom were hazy and unreadable. The doctor put a spectacle frame on me. I immediately felt that I could see the chart better and told him so. I was surprised when the doctor smilingly said that he was yet to put any lens into the frame.” A little later, for the fun of it, I had thought, “Let Me try to imagine that there is a leaf in front of Me on the road.” Having done so for a few seconds, I had told Myself, with as much conviction as I could muster, “There is a leaf there that I am seeing.” This had somehow facilitated the visualisation.

Recalling all this, I reasoned “It should be better to regard the form meditated upon in the heart as present there and visible like an external object rather than as something that one has to try to imagine and keep conceiving. God is indeed present in the heart of every one and, though intrinsically formless, can manifest there with a form for the sake of His devotee. Mantras have the power to reveal their devatās. The dhyāna-ślokas describe the divine forms associated with the mantras. Sages have chanted mantras, meditated on the prescribed divine forms and thereby obtained, in due course, the direct vision of God in such forms. There is thus additional justification for one to feel, ‘God is indeed present in my heart in the scripturally-prescribed form in which I meditate on Him.’ Moreover, one would feel more drawn to a form deemed divine and real than to one regarded as fanciful.”

Having thought on these lines, I adopted two means to facilitate My viewing the form meditated upon as realistic and divine. I sought to see the form as emerging from the light apprehended by Me on My directing My gaze to between the brows. Even when I initiated My practice of meditation at Śāradāmbā’s temple, I deliberately visualised a small version of Her idol as manifesting from the blue disc of light that I perceived between My brows. Another practice I resorted to was to deem that My eyes were looking inwards and perceiving the form as it emanated from the light and as it entered and abided in the lotus of My heart. I incorporated this in My meditation on the day following the one on which Acharyal instructed Me about meditation.

I: Did Acharyal have any difficulty in regulating the mind, with dullness or wandering acting as an obstacle?

Acharyal: No. Right from the start, I was able to concentrate very easily and awareness of the body and surroundings invariably faded away.

I: What would Acharyal attribute that to?

Acharyal (smiling): Acharyal’s grace was on Me and I suppose that I must have acquired suitable tendencies by My practices in My previous births. What else can I say other than that meditation progressed without any problem whatsoever?

I: Would Acharyal please tell me further about the first few months of meditation?

Acharyal: All right. After meditating here in the evenings for over a month, I started doing so on the top of a nearby hill. (Acharyal gestured to indicate the direction in which that hill, which was not visible, was situated.) From there, the Malahānikareśvara temple (situated atop a hill in the town of Sringeri) can be seen.

On the day I first went there to meditate, it was about half an hour before sunset. As I sat down facing west, I thought, “I have been meditating on Narasiṁha as shining just by His own lustre. I could try to see Him today in the light of the setting sun.” I started by first focusing on Him as usual. I then pictured Him graciously curtailing His brightness. He now resembled the moon seen through a thin cloud. After this, I visualised Him being bathed in the orange glow of sunset. The meditation went on smoothly and lasted an hour. This experience led Me to understand that at the commencement of deep meditation, the luminosity of the divine form focused upon and the intensity and colour of the background lighting, if any, can be comfortably adjusted. I confirmed this in My subsequent sessions of meditation.

A few days later, after perusing a text, I reflected, “At any instant, the portion of the page that I focus on appears far clearer than the portion distant from it. While meditating, I seek to apprehend a divine form as if I were seeing it with My eyes. So, the portion towards which My attention is particularly directed, such as the face, is presumably clearer to Me than a portion that is removed from it.” In the next session of meditation, I found that such was actually the case. It was not as though any portion was unclear; only, a portion was clearer. When I tried to remedy the situation by simply trying to see every part of the form equally clearly, I experienced difficulty in doing so. I completed that session by meditating as I usually did. I then thought, “Rather than forcefully attempt to grasp the complete form with uniform clarity, let Me expand the particularly clear zone in stages. To facilitate this, I could rid Myself of the notion that during meditation My vision is subject to the same limitations as when perceiving an external object. Next, I could increase the intensity of My concentration. This should enhance the clarity of the other portions of the form.” Over the next three sessions, by implementing what I had planned, I learnt to see the entire divine form in the heart with total clarity.

It then occurred to Me, “I have so far been meditating only on a devatā’s full form. I can now try to meditate not just on the complete form but also on parts of it, such as the feet. This should be straightforward because I am already used to thinking of just Narasiṁha’s feet when I wash them while mentally worshipping Him every day.”

The next time I meditated, I first visualised Narasiṁha as I normally did. I then focused exclusively on His feet. Promptly, they occupied the entire range of My vision. As I had already learnt to see the full form with uniform clarity, seeing the feet in the same manner required no special effort. Though I saw just the feet, I did not forget that they were a part of Narasiṁha. Towards the end of My meditation, I again visualised Narasiṁha’s full form. Thereafter, the session ended. Following this, I sometimes meditated on parts of a devatā’s form too. However, whenever I chose to do so, I always started and ended with the complete form.

All these days, I had been meditating only on the forms of Bālā and Lakṣmī-Narasiṁha and that too in keeping with the dhyāna-ślokas of their mantras. This is because I felt that it would be inadvisable for Me to take up other divine forms till I acquired proficiency in meditation by repeatedly concentrating on these two. I was sure that when My preparations were adequate, God would, in some way, make this known to Me. I received such a sign soon. One evening, without any premeditation or effort on My part, the form of Kṛṣṇa emerged from the light that I apprehended between My brows and entered My heart. Clad in a yellow vestment, He wore the vaijayantī garland. Peacock feathers adorned His crest and flowers His ears. He held a flute to His lips and was breathtakingly attractive.

I felt, “The charming form would be even more attractive, if it were bigger.” So, I promptly imagined that His feet rested not in a lotus in the chest but in one at the level of My navel. Then I pictured the Lord’s body as expanding till His crest was at the level of My neck. As the intensity of My concentration increased, I beheld His complete form with uniformly great clarity and much joy.

{Later that year, I asked Acharyal whether the form beheld by Him tallied with that described in the following verse of the Bhāgavata that I had come across in an essay penned by Him in the 1950s:

With peacock feathers forming a head ornament, karṇikāra flowers on His ears and wearing a golden yellow vestment and the vaijayantī garland, He (Kṛṣṇa), whose body is like that of an excellent dancer and whose glories are sung by the throng of cowherds, entered Vrindavan, made lovely by His footprints, while filling the openings of His flute with the nectar of His lips.

Acharyal said, “Yes, it did.”}

(Acharyal:)

The next morning, I spontaneously beheld the form described in this verse emerging from the light between the brows and occupying My heart-lotus. The Lord as a child filled Me with vātsalya (parental love). That afternoon too, a divine form manifested without any volition on My part. It was that of Viṣṇu with eight, rather than four, arms. The Lord displayed in His four right hands the sudarśanacakra, a rosary, the kaumodakī mace and the symbol of granting fearlessness. In His four left hands, I saw the pāñcajanya conch, the śārṅga bow, the nandaka sword and the symbol of granting boons. He was adorned with various ornaments, such as a diadem, armlets and bracelets, and wore a garland.

For some time, I found Myself mentally chanting the Nārāyaṇaaṣṭakṣarī. Thereafter, My mind locked on to just the form. By the time I regained some awareness of My body, over an hour had passed. Even after I got up, I continued to see the form in My heart. That evening, I meditated on this form itself. The next morning, as I started My meditation, I found this form, which I had been perceiving since the previous day, replaced by one in which the Lord held just a rosary. His visage was extremely calm and He radiated peace. I continued to apprehend the new form in My heart even after My meditation ended.

That afternoon, at the start of meditation, the form underwent a change and I now saw Him not merely without weapons but also without ornaments, such as a diadem. My evening meditation began with My focusing on this form. Abruptly, My attention was drawn to just His smiling face. Up to almost the close of the hour-long session, My focus was exclusively on this. Till I completed My bath the next morning, I could see in My heart, the Lord as bereft of ornaments and weapons and holding just a rosary. The form then vanished.

When I reported My experiences with the forms of Viṣṇu to Acharyal, He said nothing. However, a little later, He sent Me a copy of the Viṣṇu-Purāṇa in which He had kept an empty sheet of paper. In the portion indicated, I found verses describing the very forms that I had seen and advising meditation on them.

{Later, in response to my request, Acharyal read out the verses concerned of the Viṣṇu-purāṇa. They are part of the advice given by sage Keśidhvaja to Khāṇḍikya. The verses are:

The yogin should, O king, concentrate His mind thoroughly on the Lord as adorned with a diadem, garland, armlets, bracelets and the like, as having in His (eight) hands, the śārṅga (bow), conch, mace, sword, discus, rosary and the signs of granting boons and fearlessness and as wearing rings of gems in His fingers till his attention becomes steady there. Success is to be understood as achieved when this thought does not leave the mind even when walking, standing or engaging in some activity of choice.

Thereafter, the wise man should contemplate the form of the Lord as tranquil, with a rosary, and bereft of a conch, mace, discus, śārṅga and so on.

After that focus becomes as firm as before, he should think of God as devoid of adornments, such as the diadem and armlets. Next, the wise man should fix his mind on a prominent part of the Lord.

The Bhāgavata-Purāṇa records that after telling Uddhava that one should meditate on the full form of the Lord, Kṛṣṇa said:

Then one should concentrate the mind that is distributed all over My body on one part and think of nothing else but the smiling face.}

(Acharyal:) After these experiences, I did not deliberately limit My meditation, as I had done earlier, to just the forms of Bālā and Narasiṁha. I started meditating on other divine forms too. For example, I focused on Śiva as seated with Pārvatī, as Ardhanarīśvara, as Dakṣināmūrti and as Natarāja; on Viṣṇu with four hands bearing the sudarśana-cakra, pāñcajanya conch, kaumodakī mace and a lotus; on Rāma; and on Gaṇapati.

I found that short mantras such as the Praṇava are more convenient to chant mentally while directing the eyes to between the brows than long ones like the Śrīvidyā. The length of a mantra hardly made any difference after My conceiving a divine form. Hence, I often commenced My meditation with the Praṇava and then switched to the mantra of the devatā meditated upon. The chanting of the mantra occasionally persisted till the end of a session of meditation but generally it automatically stopped after a short while and, thereafter, only the form remained.

Whenever I did not go in the evening for meditation to the Kālabhairava temple or to the nearby hill, such as during the Śaṁkara-jayantī celebrations and cāturmāsya, I largely compensated by meditating more in the mornings and afternoons. It was during the cāturmāsya that I gained proficiency in readily setting, at the time of beginning to visualise a form, the level of My concentration.

{In the year Bhava, the Śaṁkara-jayantī celebrations were from 14.5.1934 to 18.5.1934 and the cāturmāsya was from 26.7.1934 to 23.9.1934. Acharyal was then going on seventeen.}

(Acharyal:) Let Me give you an example. I could adjust the intensity to block out the sound of a loud peal of thunder or to allow it to be heard but not the sound of rain or a not-so-loud peal of thunder. If I felt like chanting a mantra throughout a session of meditation, I pegged the intensity of concentration on the form at a lower level than otherwise. I did not, however, normally curtail the depth of My meditation.

I had heard people say that their minds wander when they perform japa or when they try to meditate on a form. Since the time I began meditating, I had not experienced this difficulty. To appreciate the problem of mental wandering, I once experimented, during the cāturmāsya, with progressively lowering My level of concentration on the form. I found that when the concentration fell to a level far below that during My normal meditation, My mind started to wander a little to extraneous sounds. By deliberately keeping the intensity of focus low enough to allow some distractions, I determined, during a couple of sessions, over a dozen aids to deal with the disturbances. Chanting the mantra with greater vigour, temporarily holding the breath and stressing the importance of meditation were some of them.

About a year passed. One morning, when I was about to visualise the form of Lakṣmī-Narasiṁha, the form of Bālā made its appearance. I meditated on Her. That afternoon, I felt a strong urge to meditate upon Her as remaining in front of and facing Me and did so. It was months since I had focused on Her in this fashion. After the session, I thought, “Today, God is especially and explicitly determining the form I am to meditate upon just as He had done nearly a year ago when He had caused Me to focus on Kṛṣṇa with the flute, child Mukunda and Viṣṇu with eight arms.” I somehow felt sure that the evening session would be extraordinary.

When I commenced My evening meditation at the Kālabhairava temple, in response to a powerful urge, I thought of Bālā in the same way as I had done in the afternoon. That day, when I was focusing as usual on the full form of Ambā, My mind suddenly locked on to Her feet. I had always been seeing Her form clearly. However, the experience of that day was quite extraordinary. I saw Her feet throbbing with life. I beheld Ambā Herself and not merely the form that I was visualising earlier. The sense of reality of the vision was highly profound and left no room for doubts. This was My first experience of savikalpa-samādhi. During the samādhi, I almost totally forgot Myself and that I was meditating; Ambā’s feet alone manifested.

{Mahaṛśi Patañjali has aphorised in his Yogasūtras:

Explaining the scriptural position, Acharyal has said, “As the name implies, savikalpa-samādhi is samādhi with vikalpa. Vikalpa here refers to the triad of the concentrator, concentration and the object of concentration. In this samādhi, while the object of concentration manifests clearly and steadily, an awareness of the form, ‘I am meditating’ is almost, but not totally, absent. The awareness of the distinction of the concentrator, concentration and the object of concentration is thus not fully obliterated. On the other hand, in nirvikalpa-samādhi, the object alone shines and there is then no awareness of form, ‘I am meditating.’”}

(Acharyal:) After about one and a half hours, I regained awareness of the body and opened My eyes. I could literally see Ambā in front of Me within the temple. I reached out and touched Her feet with My hands. A few moments later, She disappeared.

Such was the will of God that the forms that constituted the objects of the four savikalpa-samādhis following this one were those of Lakshmi-Narasiṁha, Kṛṣṇa with a flute, child Mukunda and Viṣṇu with eight arms. The significance of this order should be obvious to you.

Thereafter, I was easily able to attain savikalpa-samādhi with any form of My choice as the object.

{Acharyal's first savikalpa-samādhi as also the next four savikalpa-samādhis occurred months before Acharyal completed eighteen on October 26, 1935.}

I: Did Acharyal try out anything novel in the weeks following the first savikalpa-samādhi?

Acharyal: Yes, I did. I was used to meditating in only a seated posture. One morning, I thought of testing whether I could readily experience savikalpa-samādhi while lying down. So, when doing śavāsana (in the course of which one lies flat on one’s back), I pictured My heart-lotus as facing upwards rather than towards My head and then visualised Lakṣmī-Narasiṁha as seated in it. Thus, while I lay supine, I saw Him as seated with His back vertical. I concentrated on Him and quickly went into savikalpa-samādhi.

The next day, while performing śavāsana, I conceived of the heart-lotus and Narasiṁha’s back as being in line with My body, as usual, but to avoid any sense of oddity, I deliberately ignored My horizontality. I kept in mind only the position of Narasiṁha relative to My head. In moments, I was in savikalpa samādhi. These two experiences convinced Me that, by God’s grace, I was in a position to readily experience savikalpa-samādhi even while lying down.

A few days later, I thought, “While I am in samādhi, My back and neck remain erect. It is likely that even if I were to enjoy samādhi while in śīrśāsana (wherein one stands on one’s head), My back and neck will remain in a line.” I performed śīrśāsana near a wall to arrest a fall, if it occurred during meditation. Then, I visualised Narasiṁha as seated normally in an upward-facing lotus in My chest and attained savikalpa-samādhi. When I regained awareness of the body after some time, I found that I remained in śīrśāsana exactly as before. On the next day, without any precaution to cater for a fall, I performed the śīrśāsana. Then, I deliberately ignored My being inverted and meditated on Narasiṁha as seated in My heart-lotus with His head towards Mine, as usual. In moments, I was in savikalpa-samādhi. I did not bother to go into samādhi in śīrśāsana in the future.

I: Did Acharyal keep Paramacharyal regularly posted about the various experiences and experiments with meditation?

Acharyal: I reported to Him on several occasions. In the periods when He was in His state of seclusion, I did not disturb Him by talking about My meditation.

I: How did Paramacharyal respond to Acharyal’s reports?

Acharyal: He normally expressed His satisfaction and approval.

{That meditation on the Supreme as possessed of attributes such as a form leads to the realisation of the Supreme bereft of the superimposition of attributes is clear from scriptural declarations such as:

Having meditated on the highest Lord (Śiva) who is powerful, has three eyes and a blue neck and is allied to Umā, the sage reaches Him who is the source of all, the witness of all and beyond avidyā.

In the Vedānta-kalpataru, it is said:

(Gloss relating to Brahmasūtra I.1.20)

When their minds are brought under control by meditation on Brahman as possessed of qualities, that very Brahman will directly manifest Itself divested of the superimposition of limiting adjuncts.}

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