Unless one has a fundamental level of awareness, it becomes difficult to dive into intensive meditation practices. Throughout this lifetime and many previous ones, we have accumulated layers of sankharas (mental imprints or habitual patterns), which can obstruct our meditation. These deep-rooted patterns can hinder our spiritual progress, making it all the more important for us to first understand how to develop awareness. Without achieving this basic level of awareness, meditation practices will not bear fruit. This is why some people practice “pre-meditation” — a method for attaining awareness before starting their actual meditation.
In this article, we will discuss a few techniques that can help develop awareness before engaging in meditation. It’s important to remember that the goal of any method is the same: heightened awareness. Here, we’ll focus on simple steps that can be applied right away to improve your spiritual practice.
Our body has five basic senses, or gyan-indriyan, each of which plays a crucial role in how we perceive the world around us. These senses, however, can also lead to unhealthy attachments and excessive indulgence, which in turn result in the accumulation of negative sankharas that cloud the pure consciousness. It’s important to note here that living a life full of luxuries is not inherently wrong — what is wrong is allowing these luxuries to control us, instead of mastering them.
The first sense is “Chakshu” (the eye), which is associated with the “fire” element and the sense of sight. Before beginning meditation, it’s essential to perfect our sense of sight. This means learning to prevent our eyes from becoming easily distracted by what they encounter. The visual world is vast, and as we engage with it, our mind often attaches to things, triggering emotions that range from joy to frustration, leading to likes, dislikes, and attachments.
When we see things for what they truly are, without being swayed by our perceptions, and observe the transient nature of those feelings and attachments, we begin to free ourselves from the grip of these mental patterns. It’s not just the negative perceptions we must avoid but also the positive ones, as both types of attachments keep us trapped in the cycle of life and death. By first working on our sense of sight, we take an important step toward minimizing mental defilements and beginning our journey toward spiritual awakening.
In the next article, we’ll explore the second of the gyan-indriyan: the ear, or the auditory sense. But for now, let’s put into practice what we’ve learned about the sense of sight. Taking concrete, practical steps with one sense at a time is the foundation of any good spiritual practice.
Sadhu! Sadhu! Sadhu!
Satisfied