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It seems the author is speaking of the 95% of our so-called thinking which is vain, irrelevant, superficial, mechanical. The chattering mind. Yet to be aware of this chattering, of this wastage of energy, this  also consumes energy while in a more focused way. It doesn't necessary follow that  meditative watchfulness, must , of itself, generate new insights.. In my experience, insights come through sharing the thinking of others, whosoever whose thinking  has meditative value, what is called wisdom. Which is in no way personal yet must make sense in my experience. The mind is like a huge reservoir not all of us can tap into directly. But we can tap into it indirectly through the mediation of others. This is how impersonal the mind is and how important thinking, in the meditative dimension, is.
Thought is restless, the more so as one does not attend to it. Yet this is only half of the deal. The fact is that the more one attends during daytime the more one is aware of that same restlessness at night. The more one wonders of what to make out of the confusing language of dreams. Speaking of a new dimensional  existence, I wonder if this can be accessed through sheer discipline, least of all, by some sort of wishfulness.
Intuitive intelligence must include some capacity not only to read in between the words but also an ability to  see through that wordless yet symbolic language which is also the language of myth.
 

 That question of commitment is a tough nut to crack for someone as reluctant as I am to commit myself and yet haunted by the absolute necessity of a commitment. The tension between these two opposites has been present throughout my entire existence. Reading (or listening) 's merit is to point to the difficulties one will unavoidably encounter, help one identify the enemy. But by itself will not effect a deep change other than intellectual. However it may also help one  realize  what is really at stake. Commitment to truth is in no way abstract as I once experienced. It does demand that one exposes oneself to one's psychological fears and limitations if one is to grow out of them while having no certainty about the outcome..  

As far as I can understand, the author describes adequately the process one has to go through if one is ever to tap into the unconditioned dimension of the mind. The order that ensues being the outcome of a natural process, decantation, rather than an order artificially imposed by an outside agency, the conditioned mind itself.
He makes it clear through his metaphor that meditation is not an escape from oneself but just about the opposite. One must face oneself as one is, one's double talk, one's avoidance of those things that may hurt and that have been brushed under the carpet out of complacency. That this requires a sense of order and responsibility, honesty, much skill needed in observation, sustained effort.
A great master of meditation talks of meditation as the greatest of all arts. And this I understand to mean that the art of transcending one's very self ( conditioned self) is not only the most difficult by its subtlety but that it is primarily concerned with perceiving the very essence of beauty. 
 

Dear Conrad. I have let your comment seep in and it's now quite obvious I must reconsider my position. Thank you for mirroring the fact that the want to dissolve contradiction only leads to further and more radical separation. I am usually a bit more attentive to context but I completely missed out on what the author was pointing at, shooting off in a direction the context didn't call for. I can see that this is symptomatic of a reluctance to bear with the discomfort or tension that goes with contradiction. That this wanting to achieve a false sense of peace deadens relationship, and leads to isolation.
Thanks also to Krysztof for his suggestion about 'going raw' as opposed to 'going mental', an escape to avoid feeling those things on feels uncomfortable with under the skin. A movement away from what is that creates separation.
And thanks to Amy for her appreciation of Britt's beautiful comment. It had me look more deeply into it. 
 Thanks to all who share this space.
 

Thank you for your feedback Conrad. There is little tolerance in our culture for contradiction and ambiguity and this tendency reflects in some or may be all of my comments. I'll be looking into that. Thank you.

Beautiful, Britt, as I read you I feel I am in that big sweater with you. You would love Khalil Gibran and  his poetry. But I am still confused and must go to the end of that tether, thought.
I can't identify with any set of religious beliefs. Faith has not saved me, it hasn't saved the world. So I rely on thought. Thought will see me through. The irony is I am a non believer that now believes in thought.. Thought proceeds from knowledge and knowledge is both necessary and enjoyable. Pleasurable to follow one's curiosity as far and deep as it can take you. As a result the frontiers of my world expand. Both Columbus and Jung have contributed to it. But the question remains: has knowledge helped me to dissolve my contradictions, has it unified me, has it unified the world I live in? Can it? Because if it can't then I am constantly deluding myself and my world.

In every day life and in the world as it goes thought is ever involved in trying to conciliate, unify, forgetting that it itself created the separation in the first place. Thought is always involved in creating and maintaining separation then ever involved in trying to bridge it. This is what it has been doing since Mathusala or near by. Is it because of its nature which is to dissect, take apart, analyse? Yet we tend to rely on thought to solve our relational problems and that of the world. The question is: can thought unify the world, unify me/you? The author says that thought  can unfold in a way that unifies and heals. But then, logically and for the least, thought has to see itself, observe how it tends to create separation in its very proceedings. Religion at its root is the  thirst to belong, to unify. Then see what the devil happens when thought gets hold of that. So, the question remains, can thought ever unify? There may be such a thing as a unifying insight but then is that related to thought?

Dear Rajeev, I did not mean righteousness as regards to sin but as regards to the assertion of one's faith. For instance I never quite understood the split between Judaism and Christianity nor their mutual antagonism. The bible scholars I mentioned have helped me see through it.  So have the words reported to be of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas ( logion 43, if you care to look it up).
A beauty of the  Indian tradition is to acknowledge that people have different inward complexions and that what is right for one is inadequate for the other. This is why there are different types of Yoga to suit different types of people and help them progress on their way, none being exclusive of another.

What you say of  Jesus son of God and son of Man is beautiful. But nothing can defeat one's faith better than feeling  self-righteous about it. The history of religion has taught us that much and many have turned away from their native creed for exactly that reason. Actually, I owe to some of those modern gurus and thinkers to have re-discovered the great value hidden inside the perenial teachings of Jesus who spoke through symbols, as was the use in his time. Two very enlightening 'gurus' or rather scholars I would like to recommend are Bishop Spong, an Episcopalian scholar, and Andrew Harvey, author of Jesus Son Of Man, two persons whose faith cannot be questioned.

What I find interesting in this testimony from Krishna Das is that his teacher found a way to demonstrate that meditation does not center in one's personal suffering or discomfort. But rather that  meditation encompasses  the whole process of suffering in its impersonal dimension, is inclusive of all the suffering both inflicted and suffered by sentient beings since the beginning of time. Raja Yoga would have one inquire into the causes of suffering and one's participation and responsibility to bring one to realize the personal/impersonal dimension of suffering. While I understand this teacher to have a more devotional yet no less effective approach. 
I have  been touched by someone who did sustain an unchanging love for all beings but whose teachings might appear more abstract at first view. His concern for the world and its fate was immense.

To the degree I have faced my emptiness I have, to some degree, freed myself from a certain psychological dependence. To the degree I have freed myself  from appreciation or depreciation coming from others I feel more alert and able to face and enjoy life just as it is. But this relative freedom, I can sense in myself. is not the whole deal.  Because, up to that point, where does it relate to love? And is  love the feeling of all-oneness (alone/all one) that comes with complete inward freedom and does one consistently feels it in one's daily experience? If not, then, I understand the author to say one has still to quit the drug. I can easily fool myself into thinking I am free. I have to test that against the reality of my experience.

Thank you, Rajnikant. It is the first time I hear of Syadvad and what it says makes a lot of sense to me. I must remember to pray each day for steadfastness in my practice of watchfulness and inner strength to withstand those things I find difficult to cope with. It is true that such an attitude as the one recommended is the only one helpful. I am coming to realize that there is absolutely no sense and no benefit in opposing other viewpoints and asserting my own. This includes being somewhat judgmental as regard to people that do not share my interest for inquiring into consciousness. In a sense what this philosophy recommends is profound humility. A humility based on the realization that each one is at a different stage of development. Of course any serious teaching will recommend the same for the reason that that the other is fundamentally not different from me in his/her vulnerability. An easy thing to forget. Thank you for this helpful reminder.

It is always a pleasure to discover a few new Sanskrit words such as 'arta' and 'raudra' where we find the root of the English words 'rude', 'rogue', etc. Often unknown to ourselves our Indian heritage is present in the words and structures of our modern European languages. To be aware that we create binds, attachments, for ourselves through suffering, jealousy and greed is at least a beginning. That awareness creates a movement towards inner freedom which I would'nt call a goal but rather a drive.

I don't think this passage means that one should have no goal and no direction, that one should deny the role of the intellect. There is a place for all this. But I think it means that meditation is an inquiry into the nature of the one mind, where all thoughts originate, whether yours or mine, traditional or not traditional., inefficient or efficient, futile or purpose oriented. What is the state of the mind when it is not identified with any thought? Is it different from silence and is silence different from beauty? When does one best see  the great beauty present in nature? Can there be depth and beauty in the field of relationships or must there always be struggle. I think all this is part of  meditation and I think meditation proceeds through endless observation and questioning. I may be wrong but this is what I understand Raja Yoga to be. 

Unless one has inquired into meditation with the help of those who have made it into an art and a way of living it is very common to see  silence as the doorway to some ultimate state. This is the essence of seeking and seeking implies one has a goal, a direction. Adyashanti says in another, closely related passage: 'Sitting in silence is not a goal. The goal of sitting is not to attain silence. There is just sitting in silence and recognizing yourself  to be the silence...But if I seek silence as an object, as a state I am trying to sustain, it means I am still seeing silence as an object, as something different from me.' J. Krishnamurti made a very similar answer to someone somewhat stuck with seeking something beyond silence. His answer was: ' Can silence listen to silence in silence? '. 
Both these statements make it very clear that meditation has neither goal nor direction. When this is clear, when one is not attempting to get somewhere one can, tentatively, 'feel the quality of silence'.

There is a time  when one takes stock of all the benevolence one has met through life and the often unaccounted for kindness that surrounds  one. So did the author in these monasteries. I remember a previous passage we were invited to reflect upon, from Albert Einstein, where the author suggested that, at some point, one had to answer for him/herself whether life was a good or a bad, let's say, event. A lot depended on that answer. If I answer that there is such a thing as goodness and that it manifested in my life in many occasions and still manifests, like, as it were, with this forum, then why be unhappy?
To me happiness cannot be directly aimed for, for then we look for it, as the author says, in the wrong places, we are the prey of illusion. I see happiness as the by-product of an inward balance, clarity. And if this state is not there to start with then I need first to look into my unhappiness. There is a lot to look at, a lot to see before, as someone said, one can feel free as a singing bird in a clear sky. The drive towards inward freedom is the same as the drive towards happiness.

This passage starts with the word 'imagine' which makes me wonder whether that state of being cannot be somewhat self-induced? The author's approach is not unlike that of sophrology:  taking hold of one's imagination to create a serene climate within. Using the thinking mind to induce a certain state of being. And this is best done when relaxing and sitting quietly.  I am not saying that this is wrong but I wonder if a more direct way is not to deliberately let go of the thinking mind  as one comment suggested. This means accepting being vulnerable in relationship, a very difficult thing to do if one tends to be headstrong. I think this willingness is an expression of love. It creates space for all to flower.  

I am clearer after reading this passage from Ram Dass as to the reality that lies beyond the words:'unconditional love'. Such sets of words may sometimes end up sounding like mere incantations, something detached from daily living or somewhat reserved to a few very saintly people. This reading reminds me that such love is not an abstraction and that I have already met its living expression although I may not have recognized it a such.
This passage is very dense with meaning, very accurate in its wording and I feel I may need to spend further time on it before I can fully digest it.

 

I agree with both John and jon that there is no other  exit to such dramatic crises  than getting over those feelings of hatred and revenge which might seem at first sight justified. And that, in such a situation, one is ultimately responsible for one's action. A very difficult thing to keep in mind in the midst of such a powerful mimetic process as unchained collective violence. Nevertheless, as John says, some people are wise enough not not give in to such a frantic and absurd emotional climate.  

I think the problem of gurus , and this word, 'guru', I think,  should be used very carefully, is also that they have to deal with the image the followers tend to build  around their personality.  This image distorts their relationship with the student  and gets in the way of actual understanding. More often than not one has to understand in spite of the guru's personality.