Engaging and Emptying:
Cultivating Spiritual Maturity through Abhyasa and Vairagyam

The practices of Emptying and Engaging are actually very familiar to all in their beginning stages as they are the foundation of all growth and evolution. Growth on all levels requires periodic stages of emptying, such as molting’ old shells or skin, or outgrowing childhood toys. We naturally let go of what is no longer serving us. Simultaneously arises the ‘engaging’ of energy and passion with something new. We see this in children and their capacity to continually find delight in new things.

Although theoretically, we can continue this process of emptying and engaging up to the grave, most adult humans somewhere along the line, become stuck and stop growing. This may be intellectually when curiosity dies and we stop asking questions, locking into a fixed belief system about the world. Or it can be emotionally, when trauma inhibits our capacity to give and receive love and open to new relationships.

Collectively, cultures can also become stuck in patterns of belief and behavior that inhibit collective growth and maturing. We see this operating today in the clash of cultural values taking place across the planet.

We also can become stuck spiritually when our practice becomes mechanical and dry. In meditation, the practice I am calling ‘Engaging’ is learning how to ‘turn on’ (waking up, activating, engaging, nurturing, supporting) any neural circuits that deepen our capacity to be vibrantly alive and fully present moment to moment. Some of these specifically involve evoking the heart center, such as the conscious cultivation of gratitude, joy, compassion and loving kindness. (see Love, Death and the Skandhas, pt 3).

Others work to cultivate stability, equanimity and presence and all of these variations are included in the practice Patanjali calls abhyaasa. Abhyaasa requires discipline, patience, persistence and devotion, and those of us engaged in somatic meditation immediately recognize asana as a foundational component to abhyaasa. By deeply and mindfully engaging with and surrendering to gravity, the macro-phase expression of the cosmic field, the organism can learn to relax and feel completely held and supported in wholeness.

Patanjali’s three sutras on asana clearly delineate this process: (II-42) posture is stable and elegant; (II-43) (asana is mastered by) relaxing all effort and dissolving into the cosmic field (as represented by the serpent ananta); (II-44) Then all dualities are resolved. If we dive into this trinity and practice with sincerity and diligence, we awaken a deep billion year old biological intelligence. We engage with life itself.

‘Emptying’ practice is the complement to Engaging. From the perspective of neuroscience, ’emptying’ is learning how to turn off the specific neural circuits (‘letting go’, inhibiting, ‘restraining’) that are inhibiting our spiritual growth and evolution. This allows our attention to open to and explore untold layers of stillness at the heart of creation. It is analogous to walking into a room where a tv, radio, and noisy fan are all blaring away, disturbing and distracting your attention. Slowly you find the switches and turn them all off, leaving a healing stillness in the room.

The room is the mind and, unfortunately, the noise generating mental habits don’t have switches, and directly turning them off is next to impossible. But with patience we begin to realize that our reactivity, and the energy of attention it adds to the noise, does have an off switch. This is described by Patanjali in sutra I-3, ‘yogash citta vrtti nirodha‘: yoga is the restraining of mental activity.

Restraining, (nirodha), is the process of ‘turning off’ the reactivity to the mental activity, the citta vrttis. Nirodha is more like a conscious circuit breaker, where we choose to break the circuit of the reactivity with our will power. But because of deeply ingrained habits, it keeps resetting on it own. We have to be amused at the process and in time we might discover many of the circuits stay broken and then dissolve.

Another useful analogy to ’emptying ourselves’ of reactivity is fire. If fire is the distracting mental noise, our reactivity is the fuel. When we learn to stop feeding the fire, it eventually burns out, or at least becomes much less distracting, allowing our attention to move away from it and come to rest in the ever present background stillness. Or move on to other fires!

In Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, this emptying practice is known as vairagyam, often translated as ‘dispassion’. Vairagyam can be seen as the dissolving of ‘seductivity’. When we feel inadequate, insecure, or lacking in ‘something’, the world of form can be very seductive. We grasp after some sensory pleasure and are temporarily relieved of our discomfort. However, suffering always returns. Learning to ‘distance ourselves’ from our cravings is a life long practice.

Formal meditation requires a leap in emotional maturity, as a mind that is constantly being churned by unresolved cravings can never settle down to the point where meditation can begin. In the opening chapter to the Yoga Sutras, the Samadhi Pada, Patanjali introduces abhyaasa and vairagyam as the first and most important practices for serious spiritual students.

(The following is from my on-line Yoga Sutras Study Course.)

I-12  abhyasa vairagyabhyam tan nirodhah
Practice and dispassion lead to the resolution (of the dysfunctional mind states).

Patanjali now introduces the two fundamental practices of life that lead to greater health, well-being and deeper spiritual awakening. Do not be intimidated by the Sanskrit words, as abhyasa and vairagya are very familiar experiences involving the two basic choices we make in all of our life activities; what do we choose to encourage and nurture, and what do we choose to drop or let go.

Abhyasa begins with the choices we make in how we invest our vital energies in thought, word and deed. We are asked to consciously and continuously choose behaviors and actions that create, sustain a grounded, compassionate and wise state of being. This is a simultaneously disciplined and relaxed state of the mind where we are aligned with the healing powers of the body/mind and the Cosmos at large. This creates specific neuronal pathways of action and perception that become deeply wired into the brain. The second and key part is to then stabilize these patterns so they become integrated into our moment to moment behavior. This is not a simple process, as sutra I-14 explains further.

Vairagya can be conversely seen as a state of consciously and continuously choosing to let go of thoughts, habits and patterns of behavior that perpetuate suffering, in ourselves and others. From a neuroscience perspective, we are inhibiting specific neuronal pathways through our use of will power, refusing to react to the habits and patterns that are perpetuating fear, anxiety and confusion. Craving, and constantly responding to this, is a classic category here. Vairagya also has levels of depth.

As Patanjali introduces these practices in the Samadhi Pada, he is referring to the advanced level of their expression, but even as beginners on the spiritual path, we can see them as expressions of growing maturity. Behaviors that may have seemed cool as an adolescent are naturally dropped as we become adults. We somehow decide that it would be wise to try yoga or meditation and become invested in growing our practice. Patanjali takes these choices and dives into the moment to moment unfolding our our minds to give birth to a new spiritual being, ourselves.

I-13  tatra sthitau yatno’bhyasah
Practice leads to stable healthy mind states and stillness.

I-14 sa tu dirgha-kala-nairantarya-satkarasevito drdha-bhumih
That (stability of mind) however, requires continuous practice, over a long period of time, without interruption, and with an attitude of devotion and love.

Deeply ingrained habits do not go away overnight, whether in an individual or a society. The neuronal connections and cultural fields can be strongly wired, especially if they have been repeated over and over. To lay down new neural pathways and weaken the old ones takes time and patience. Devotion and love are required to make sure the new pathways are healthy and not dysfunctional. It is quite easy to react to an unhealthy pattern by creating another unhealthy one. ”I hate myself for having all this judgment,” is a common thought/vrtti. Learning to gently and compassionately see the thought and recognize it for what it is requires discipline and patience. Meditation practice allows us to see these thought and behavior patterns from a distance, as a witness to them, which is the first step in transforming them.

What we pay attention to receives our energy. By choosing to not react to our thoughts, but just let them come and go, we are withdrawing from them. We are letting them go. This is vairagya, described in the next sutra. There are many vrttis floating about the mind field that are triggers for suffering, and they will keep returning, even if we let them go, if they have strong roots. That is why patience and persistence are the two key supports. Vairagya is sustaining a healthy and alert immune system for the mind.

I-15 drshtanushravika-vishaya-vitrshnasya vashikara-sanjna vairagyam
The control over craving after any experience, whether sensual, psychological or spiritual, is known as dispassion.

The root of dysfunctionality is craving, the intense desire to acquire or get rid of ‘something’, to create a temporary feeling of wholeness or relaxation. These are emotional or limbic responses, that evoke a threat to our existence. To a self-sense that feels inadequate, there is always something that is threatening, that needs changing. Craving, as we soon find out in life, is a self-perpetuating path of inadequacy and subsequent suffering. Life is what it is happening moment by moment and true happiness is not dependent upon the constantly changing circumstances of life. If I believe that my happiness depends upon this moment being different from what it actually is, I will suffer. Seeing through this delusion is a crucial component of yoga. The true nature of the Self, the unchanging limitless existence and consciousness, (sat – chit – ananda) is undisturbed by any and all possibilities life throws our way.

With the discipline of vairagya we stop believing the craving thoughts, even if they keep arising. No, my happiness is actually not dependent upon getting rid of Donald Trump! This eventually leads to dispassion towards most craving. The subtle forms are dealt with in the next sutra.

The neuroscientific perspective on inhibition offers tremendous insight for yoga students. In Buddha’s Brain” authors Rick Hanson and Richard Mendius  describe the capacity to “simply not respond” to limbic (emotional) activity. There is not the inhibiting of the emotional activation which manifests as physiological sensation, but rather inhibiting the next level of neural activity, the story I tell myself that perpetuates the suffering. Repressing emotional content is not healthy on any level, but recognizing it as it arises, positive, negative or neutral, awakens a meta level of awareness. Then I can use skillful means to help the emotional energies move to a more integrated state.

Important note! Vairagyam is not the absence of passion! An integrated self is highly passionate, just not insecure and needy.

I-16  tat param purusha-khyater guna vaitrshnyam
The more advanced form of dispassion involves the full realization of self as the absolute and the dropping away of the most subtle forms of craving and attachment.

see also sutras II – 26, III – 5, IV-29 – 31

In I-16, Patanjali restates I-3, the knower/seer resting in its own nature, as an example of the culmination of refined discipline/dispassion. My mind may generate wants, needs and desires, but I can see their origin and not turn them into issues of survival. I may want an ice cream cone, but getting one, or not getting one is not a big deal in the overall scheme of things. Or, I have been diagnosed with cancer, which is the last thing I want, and the mind wants to rebel. At some point in time, I will face the reality of this and do whatever I can, in the world of form to help heal. But in any case, I recognize and know the undying Nature of the Self, and take refuge there.

Vairagya, a form of restraint sometimes translated as dispassion, begins as the natural process of the emotional maturing as a human being but continues throughout the depths of our meditation explorations. Like all ‘Emptying’ practices, vairagya asks us to keep letting go, only now that extends to anything that interferes with our full spiritual awakening.

Abhyasa is choosing to awaken deeper and deeper levels of stability in the inner levels of consciousness so we can sustain an awakened consciousness amidst the karmic turmoil of the inner and our realms of existence. Gravity and awakened soma are key components in this life long practice.

On the Meditation Cushion

The exploration of Emptying reveals that there are many layers of mind activity that interfere with our growth and these also can be turned off. We begin with by turning off our phones, computers, bright lights and any other distractions in our immediate environment. Finding a quiet space and time to practice is a nice way to ease into this. This can run the gamut from a quiet corner in our home, to a meditation retreat, to a  monastery to a cave in the Himalayas. For most of us, a quiet space at home will be more that sufficient to get started and anchor our practice.

Secondly, we create the intention for the practice to be empty of our personal story, and any thoughts and beliefs about ourselves, our limitations and how this moment should or should not be. It is a willingness to be total receptive to the fullness of the present moment as expressed in our own True Nature. At this level, turning off means to just ‘let go’ or drop the everyday business of the mind. It is not repression, but the recognition that it is not necessary in this moment. The stories will come back on their own, again and again, but it is surprisingly easy to discover the present moment does not need any support from the mind. Presence is self sustaining and as we learn to get out of the way, through years of dedicated practice, our ‘sense’ of Presence strengthens.

If meditation is like a conversation with our own Divinity, we want to be listening with full attention and openness to our own inner depths. In the beginning, our meditation practice is like having a conversation with someone who cannot let you get a word in edgewise. Of course we are the one’s who cannot stop talking while our Divine Self is the one left out of the conversation. The Cosmos and our biological intelligence cannot use us to give birth to something new if we keep rehashing the past through thought.

But if we have the intention to make the effort, even beginners can find some sense of quiet spaciousness, if only for a very short period of time, and this is crucial. As the body mind finds integration through our asana focus, the breath settles. We stabilize our posture so we sit with lightness and ease. Then, just a glimpse of the innate stillness of our natural state leaves a powerful imprint and is the seed of deeper growth.

After we find a quiet space, set our intentions, and stabilize our posture, emptying practice begins with the next intention; to sit for this practice time allowing the comings and goings of the mind to be as they are, without needing to manipulate or change anything. The reality is that thoughts, sensations and emotions will keep arising in the mind field. If we are to truly let things be as they are, we try not to suppress them, but to observe them with curiosity. To change the habit of non stop mental activity and cultivate deeper capacities for listening, we need to study the mental processes in the lab of meditation practice. We begin to notice that emptiness/stillness is undisturbed by what is arising. Only our attention, a powerful source of energy, is affected.

As our meditation experience will include lot of distractions, frustrations, other emotional energies, and even fear, patience, compassion and a sense of humor is also required. Habits do not change immediately and there is no finish line to our journey; only life unfolding moment to moment through the precious vehicle of our incarnation.

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