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The sense of spontaneity, experienced in the pre-spiritual "meditations" concerned with worldly objects and pursuits, is due to the interests created by sanskaras. The pre-spiritual "meditations" are the working out of the momentum of accumulated sanskaras of the past; and they are not only far from being the expression of true freedom, but are actually symptoms of spiritual bondage. At the pre-spiritual level, man is engulfed in unrelieved ignorance concerning the goal of infinite freedom; and, though he is far from being happy and contented, he gets so deeply identified with sanskaric interests, that he experiences gratification in their furtherance. But the pleasure of his pursuits is conditional and transitory, and the spontaneity which he experiences in them is illusory, because, through all his pursuits his mind is working under limitations.

 

The mind is capable of genuine freedom and spontaneity of action only when it is completely free from sanskaric ties and interests, and this is possible only when it is merged in the state of the Sahaj Samadhi of the Siddha. It is, therefore, important to note that though there may seem to be a superficial resemblance between the Sahaj Samadhi of the Siddha and the pre-spiritual "meditations" of the worldly man, this resemblance really hides the important difference between illusory spontaneity and true spontaneity, bondage and freedom, fleeting pleasure and abiding happiness. In the pre-spiritual meditations, the movement of the mind is under unconscious compulsion, and in Sahaj Samadhi, mental activity is released under conscious and unfettered initiative.

 

The different forms of meditation which characterize the life of the spiritual aspirant stand midway between the pre-spiritual "meditations" of the worldly man and the final Sahaj Samadhi of the Siddha; and they constitute the joining link between them. When man's primary acquiescence in sanskaric interests is profoundly disturbed by set-back, defeat and suffering, or is shaken by an imparted spark of spiritual understanding, he becomes conscious of his bondage and the falseness of his perceptions; and all the different forms of meditation, which are resorted to by the aspirant, arise as parts of his struggle towards emancipation from the bondage of the deceptive desires of the worldly man. The forms of meditation which are spiritually important begin when a person has become an aspirant or Sadhaka.

 

The meditation of the aspirant, in all its forms, is deliberate in the sense that it is experienced as counteracting some given instinctive tendencies

 

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