Meditation & Yogic Vision: Post-Traditional Spiritual Practice for the 21st Century

An Introduction to The Beyond Within

Meditation & Awakening

If you are reading this it’s quite likely you are already familiar with the usual proclamations that are made about the benefits of practicing meditation. Benefits like relieving stress, improved relaxation, improved focus and concentration, or the ability to ‘be in the moment’, less caught up in past attachments or anxieties about the future. Many people who have taken up meditation will readily attest to some or all of these benefits, and others besides. Doubtless many of you have, or will experience these kinds of benefits if you take up a regular meditation practice. Today an entire wellness industry has sprung up around it. As a consequence, to an increasing degree meditation (or “mindfulness”) has come under the regulative purview of mental health and even mainstream medical domains.

But if that’s all that meditation is really about, why did such practices emerge from spiritual traditions? Not only in India or from Buddhism — as it is often assumed — but many traditions both east and west across the world? For millennia yogis and initiates did not develop techniques of meditation for the purpose of relieving stress or improved relaxation. They practiced meditation to awaken.

That which is which is to all creatures a night, is to the self-mastering sage their waking; that which is waking to all creatures, is a night to the sage who sees.

— Bhagavadgītā 2.69

Awakening is characterised in different ways by different traditions, and even differently within the same tradition. One could say that it’s a word that functions as a koan might. For like the proverbial finger pointing at the moon, it is only through awakening itself that one begins to experience its meaning beyond all ideas, definitions and predicates. To an approximation, then, many Indian traditions speak of its fruition as achieving mokṣa, or liberation from the fetters of suffering. For all practical purposes, the Buddhist conception of nirvāṇa can can be regarded as more or less the same. In the yogic tradition the fruition of awakening is called kaivalya, a term that can be translated as ‘aloneness’ or ‘isolation’. While at first that could seem counter intuitive to us, what it means is to abide solely in one’s true nature— the unborn, immutable and indestructible source of being. Although these examples may sound similar, if you were to dig further into the details of each, their respective characterisations can diverge quite significantly. And along with these divergences, the cosmological implications that follow from them.

Presented with such differences one might be tempted to grasp for the ‘right’ answer, as if there were some judgment or conclusion that would finally satisfy the mind’s need to make it make sense. In certain corners of the modern discourse on meditation and enlightenment, the temptation to do just that is not uncommon. Such habits of mind may be useful when it comes to solving problems of logic, but in this instance they are perniciously unhelpful. Rather, there is an invitation here to recognise the relative value of all mental conceptions. What I am thus attempting to “point” towards by speaking of awakening in this way, is something greatly overlooked in the modern understanding of meditation practice: that the unfathomable mystery of spiritual experience — and existence itself — remains. In today’s post-traditional age, the matter is not what to think, what to believe, or what view one should subscribe to, but how to experience… that.

19th century yogic diagram, depicting the ājñā cakra or third-eye.

Meditation & Yogic Vision

One of the main purposes of The Beyond Within is to train those who are not satisfied with mere belief, doctrine, or philosophical position, but wish to experience first-hand knowledge of spiritual realities. The techniques will suit anyone from any background that wants to establish a meditation practice with spiritual depth. Contrary to modern assumptions about what ‘spiritual’ means, the approach is one that is resolutely experiential. The main factor will be to systematically cultivate a practice of meditation that opens up the field of yogic vision, or sūkṣmadṛṣṭi— the super-sensible vision of subtle bodies, our energetic environment, and the living presence of spirit which pervades every genuine tradition. It is nothing less than the recovery of a whole dimension of human experience that has been lost to the modern imaginary.

The techniques you’ll be introduced to do not require prerequisites or prior experience. It doesn’t matter what your beliefs or religious background happens to be, nor is it required that you have practiced any form of meditation before. In fact, having a background is not necessarily an advantage for the opening of perception. For some people possessing spiritual knowledge is like a key that unlocks the mysteries, but for others such knowledge becomes a mental cage, forestalling the possibility of subtle experience.

Yogic Vision & the Third Eye

In a lonely place free from disturbance, the yogi should look between the eyebrows and remain motionless, their senses restrained and body motionless.

— Śivasaṃhitā 3.98

Located between the eyebrows is the ājñā cakra or third-eye. The term ājñā means ‘master’ or ‘command’; the third-eye can thus be described as a ‘master switch’ or ‘command centre’, the subtle organ of energy which controls the senses and the mind. From the outset, rather than the usual struggle against thoughts to establish inner calmness, the third-eye radiates stillness, activating a process of internalisation that awakens the subtle energies of the body. Taking seriously the instruction given in a number of major Sanskrit texts, establishing yogic vision is therefore foundational. With its standpoint of awareness beyond the mind of thoughts, it is the gateway to the chidākāsha, or the inner worlds of consciousness. No longer is ‘the mind' just an abstract container of thoughts and emotions, but a tangibly felt vehicle of energetic forms, qualities and structures which can be transformed through practice.

— Haṭhapradīpikā 2.40

The Beyond Within

The Beyond Within is a new, full-time project. There is much to unpack. While originating from a tradition of Seers — rooted in the Great Tradition of yogic practice, inner alchemy, and spiritual transmission — if you are already committed to a particular tradition or form of practice, the work of yogic vision is not designed to compete with your current practice, but help further reveal and illuminate existing connections. It does not require one to swear oaths, follow precepts or follow a fixed teaching.

While there will always be exceptions, the epoch of gurus has passed. We are now entering the age of self-initiation. Yet, the mystery of initiation is entirely foreign to the modern imaginary. It will not make sense in any way familiar to it. Central to the project, therefore, is to teach and empower the application of yogic vision. The work of cultivating awareness of subtle realities is not for solitary practice ‘on the cushion’ alone. One’s practice must come alive in the world; in the modern lived-environment that in many ways has become blindly hostile to our subtle and energetic constitution— and humanity’s living connection to presence.

Besides the weekly drop-in classes, private Sourcing and meditation guidance sessions, there are plans (yet to be unpacked) to create downloadable courses, longer workshops and ongoing working groups. The guiding principle: to assist those genuinely seeking spiritual transformation and enlightenment. To provide an (online) enclave or refuge of high spirit and initiation for the twenty-first century: thebeyondwithin.space.

Substack

As things currently stand, the plan is to make this space a first point of contact. Where the process of unpacking what will follow for The Beyond Within, begins. As readers, I invite you to follow your curiosity and ask questions. Perhaps you want to know: “What are subtle bodies, anyway?” “What do you mean by the inner worlds of consciousness?” Or, “When you mentioned inner alchemy and Sourcing, what were you talking about?” And so on. All of this will be discussed here, along with more about meditation practice, subtle experience, and the application of yogic vision while living in a twenty-first century world.

If you feel so inclined, I also invite you to sate that curiosity, and come to one of the weekly drop-in classes or book a private session. While I am more than happy to engage in discussion, and through this Substack develop an archive of material, ultimately the approach is for those who wish to see for themselves and know for themselves.

Finally, as a full-time project, if any of the foregoing has piqued your curiosity; if this sounds like the kind of thing you want to see flourishing the world, or if you wish to be more involved, please consider subscribing to support this work.

With gratitude,

Ashok.