Concentration & Meditation - Vedanta

22 Swami Bhajananandaand repeat a divine name or mantra, it brings to your mind onlyan image of the real Deity, for that is all that you had experienced.But — and this is where the mantra differs from ordinarywords — if the mantra is repeated with faith and purity, it willgradually awaken the subtle, pure vritti which will directly revealthe reality which it symbolizes.Here it is enough to understand that our normal thinking is impossiblewithout both forms and names. What is called vritti consistsof two parts: the form of the object and its name. Meditationis the maintenance of a single vritti, which means the maintenanceof a single name and form and the exclusion of all othernames and forms.We now come to the fourth principle of yoga psychology: everyexperience leaves behind an impression called a samskarawhich has the power to produce that vritti again. The unconsciouscellars of the mind are the storehouse of countlesssamskaras. These latent impressions are continuously sproutinginto desires, emotions, memories and ideas which go on disturbingthe mind all the time. That is why it is difficult to maintain theright type of single vritti during meditation. Considering the importantrole that samskaras play in the life of a spiritual aspirant,we shall discuss this topic in greater detail later on.What we need to note at present is that vrittis producesamskaras, and samskaras produce vrittis. This cycle can be brokenonly by destroying samskaras. Samskaras can be destroyedonly by the light of higher spiritual illumination. But their powercan be reduced and kept under check through purificatory disciplines.Without purification of the mind true meditation is difficult.The fifth fundamental postulate of yoga psychology is that themind is continuously changing and can never be stopped completely.According to all schools of Hindu thought, everything inthe universe except the self is always in a state of flux. Vrittis arecontinuously appearing and disappearing in the mind. When themind is distracted different vrittis appear and disappear, but whenthe mind is concentrated, one and the same vritti appears anddisappears continuously. In deep meditation the image of theChosen Ideal appears to be stationary, but this is because thesame vritti is continuously reappearing in the mind with uniformfrequency. Meditation is not the stopping of all the vrittis but the