Question and answer 30

Granted that the Heart and the crown are the true meditation-spots — is it still all right, if it helps, to take up visualising the six bodily centres too?

The six centres, and every such visualisation taken as a meditation-spot, are themselves nothing but the mind's own constructs — fit only for beginners on the path. On this the Śiva-yogis say: 'It is a grave wrong to build up, in mere imagination, and then tear down again, the deity who is the Self — the one non-dual, all-full knowing, who creates, sustains, and dissolves us — into the shapes and names of Gaṇapati, Brahmā, Viṣṇu, Rudra, Maheśvara, Sadāśiva, and the rest.' And the Vedāntins say the same in their own way: 'All of that is nothing but a construction of the mind.' So know yourself, the very knowledge that knows everything else, and you have known everything. The great ones also say: know that one thing as it is, and everything you did not know is known. If we — caught up as we are in one conception after another — come to hold the Self who is God in a single conception, that one conception will clear away all the others, and then even it will fall away in turn. That, and nothing less, is knowing yourself — or knowing God. That is liberation.

Even granting that the Heart and the brahmarandhra alone are the places fit for meditation, may one, if it should be necessary, also take up the visualisations of the six plexuses (ādhāra-darśana)?

The six plexuses and the rest, taken as meditation-spots, are themselves nothing but constructs. All of these belong only to beginning yogis. Concerning the six-plexus visualisations, the Śiva-yogis say: "It is a great sin to construct, by mere imagination, and then destroy, the deity who is the Self — of the nature of non-dual, all-full knowledge, and who creates, sustains and dissolves us — into the names and forms of Gaṇapati, Brahmā, Viṣṇu, Rudra, Maheśvara, Sadāśiva and the rest"; and the Vedāntins say: "All of that is nothing but mental constructs." Therefore, if one knows oneself, who is the very knowledge that knows everything, everything is known. The great ones have also said: when that one thing is known as it is, everything not yet known becomes known. If we, joined as we are with manifold conceptions, come to hold the Self who is God in a single conception, then, through that one conception, the many will depart, and even that remaining one conception will itself perish. This itself is knowing oneself, or knowing God. This itself is liberation.