Hi Weaver:
It sounds like you are having good results with the mantra without interrupting the process to introduce the thought “let the mind be relaxed.” So I do not recommend adding that extra thought, which is a move to less inner silence not more. It is not necessary to keep picking the mantra up over and over if you are absorbed in it. It is okay to be absorbed like that. It is not concentration. It is samadhi, which is absorption in inner silence.
In Patanjali’s yoga sutra’s it is a three stage process comprising the last three of the eight limbs of yoga:
- Concentration - attention on an object (dharana)
- Meditation - dissolving of the object (dhyana)
- Absorption - pure bliss consciousness with no object (samadhi)
All of these are included in our easy deep meditation procedure. First we pick up the mantra (1). We don’t try and keep it as a rock solid clear pronunciation – we just easily repeat it inside, letting it go how it will to less and less distinctiveness (2). At some point we will lose the mantra completely (3). Then we will be out again on some thoughts or feelings and pick it up again (1). Or, if we stay in (3) for the entire session, that is fine. We don’t have to deliberately pick up a thought to come out so we can pick up the mantra again. In fact, if we do that, we have had a thought already, and that is the time to pick up the mantra instead (1). We can do this in a very fuzzy way, with the mantra barely touched as a faint impulse. Wherever we left off in clarity of pronunciation is where we pick up the mantra again. That is the easiest, most natural and effective way to be going inward. It is highly efficient. As soon as we become passive in the process (like “observing” or “relaxing”), we are losing the natural inward momentum set up by the mantra procedure. It is not a plus to diverge in this way.
In the end, concentration, meditation and samadhi are all happening in virtually the same place in the mind/body, blended with inner silence. That is where you appear to be in the process you described. It is the same mantra procedure going forward from there. No change is necessary.
Keep in mind that your meditations will not likely stay in this mode all the time. As purification advances, the experience will change. You may find yourself back out in surface thoughts at any time, like the original inquirer above. It is not a bad thing. And she can find herself in absorption at any time too. It is all part of the process of purification going forward. The experience will change over time. Guaranteed!
It is very important that the procedure with the mantra not change through all this. If we keep adjusting the procedure to what we think fits our experience in the moment, we will not have a stable and effective long term practice. And that is a big “uh oh.”
Interestingly, samyama utilizes the same three limbs of yoga going in the reverse direction – from inside outward. When we have developed to the point where we can have 1, 2 and 3 happening more or less in the same place (translation: some degree of resident inner silence), then we can initiate and release thoughts in inner silence and they will boomerang out, greatly amplified, through our nervous system and into the world. This is how stillness moves into action. It is a morally self-regulating process because neither ego nor negative intentions exist in our infinite field of pure bliss consciousness. As time goes on, this process of intentions flying out from inner silence becomes an avalanche of divine love flowing out from us into the world. And here we are!
All the best!
The guru is in you.