The Remedy
It’s quite simple, do not react at any thought, just drop it and get back to your point of meditation. Treat all thoughts with equal indifference. Do not examine or place any importance on any thought. Use mindfulness and alertness to detect the thought at the point of emergence and drop it that very moment. As you continue to practice your meditation with mindfulness and vigilance, thoughts not only become feeble but almost stop emerging after a certain point. In that supreme quietude, when you continue your meditation with awareness, you inevitably experience transcendental bliss.
Random Images
Flashing of random images present one of the subtlest forms of hurdles. After you have diligently worked towards pacifying your mind, the onslaught of the thoughts poses a great challenge. Once you are past restlessness, dullness and thoughts, random images with no connection to your current state of mind start appearing out of nowhere.
Let us say you sit down to meditate with resolve and attentiveness. After a while you start to feel restless, you feel the urge to move or to end your session. After you check restlessness by calming your mind, a sort of lethargy and dullness blankets you. Many people erroneously term it relaxation or a good meditative experience. Good meditators, however, staying alert, apply mental exertion with attentiveness to overcome this hurdle. As you progress with a mind that is neither dull nor restless, the natural tendency to engage in thoughts spring up. Soon, you find yourself either pursuing a thought or actively engaging in it.
For example, you might recall a conversation, an unpleasant one. Forgetting that you are meditating, you start to mentally pursue that conversation, you start to think how you should have said this or said that, or, how you should have responded in such and such manner, how the person was ungrateful, shallow, rude, wrong and so on. When you are mindful to not pursue a thought, the fourth hurdle still affects the quality of your meditation as random images start flashing in front of your inner eye.
You may see a banana, with mindfulness you remind yourself not to pursue the thought and image of banana. You drop the thought, but then out of nowhere you may see a Ferrari or a beautiful sandy beach or something. Continuous flash of images means there’s an undercurrent of restlessness still present.
In a way, this is the greatest and the subtlest hurdle because it is innate, a natural fabric of conditioned mind. It does not leave you even when you are sleeping, causing dreams. As you try to focus on your object of meditation, you find yourself battling with appearances, images stored in your memory. You are not engaging in any thought process or pursuing any mental conversation and yet you keep getting hit with the images of people, things, events, and so on. They severely impede your ability to meditate correctly.
Images: The Flowing Wind
In any place, even if empty of all existence, there always exists air. Further, there is always movement in the air, however inert that may be. So, in a way, wind is omnipresent. Only a vacuum maybe devoid of such phenomenon. A vacuum is an artificial construct though, it is not a natural state. Similarly, even when a mind is empty of all thoughts, restlessness and sluggishness, there still exists memory. In fact, it is the basis of your analytical skills and your intelligence. You may be a Nobel laureate in physics, or a genius in calculus, in an unconscious state, in the absence of memory, however, you are unable to count even up to three.
What Causes Images During Meditation?
Your memory is the source of all imagery. Anything you see or hear even once, always stays in your memory. Whether it is a giant ship or a needle sinking in the sea, it retains both, always and forever. It is not possible to erase your memory. It is, however, possible to cleanse it to the degree that the image flashing in front of you fails to trigger any subsequent thought or emotion. Over time, as you become indifferent to thoughts and images of the past, their impact on your emotional state wears off. And, anything that does not evoke an emotion in you of any nature is not detrimental to your state of peace and calm.
The Remedy
What do you do when you are in a windy area? You cannot battle or win against the wind. All you can do is cover yourself, to not face the wind, and accept it. In much the same manner, there is no need to react to the images. You simply cover yourself with a balance of alertness and relaxation, exertion and pacification. Soon, images start disappearing. As you continue to meditate, intentionally recalling only the object of visualization each time, other images start to fade away automatically. Further, leading a righteous life in line with the virtues spelled out earlier, you find yourself increasingly calm and strong. You recall less and less of disturbing, enticing or exciting images. Their impact becomes negligible and their recollection, faint.
Other Hurdles
A new disciple, after listening to his master’s sermon, approached him and asked, “Is it fair to say that God is one and that same God lives in all?”
“If I say ‘Yes’, you will think you have understood without understanding,” the guru replied. “And if I say ‘No’ you will misunderstand.”
Meditation insists on discovery of your truth based on experiential understanding and not conditioned beliefs. While growing up, we are told this is right and that is wrong, God is an idol or God is a holy book and so on. The path of discovering your true nature with meditation requires that we put aside all our beliefs, clean our slate and let our mind rest in its most natural state. The wisdom, insight and clarity we gain at that time leads us to the real nature of our truth.
Until then, often we keep craving for experiences of a certain type. Shiva Samhita eloquently expounds on other hindrances that are neither physical nor mental, neither psychical nor emotional as such. No doubt all non-physical hurdles are mental obstacles in one way or the other but I specifically wish to list other hurdles separately so you get an idea of how a good meditator’s focus is on un-conditioning of the self. With each step you take in cleansing yourself of your tendencies, desires and bookish knowledge, you get closer to the dawning of realization.
Hurdles of Gratification
When you meditate, especially if your meditation is part of a solitary retreat, everything you have enjoyed in your past comes back to you. It is distracting. You feel tempted to go back in the world and start living a life of material enjoyment again, you feel restless during your meditation. You miss your pleasures, interactions and lifestyle. Solitude and meditation can become depressing at that time. They start to gnaw you like mouse at a rope. The easiest way of clearing hindrances posed by past memories or desires of enjoyment is to simply stay focused. Allow them to pass. Ultimately, they all are thoughts. If you don’t hanker after them, they will leave you so you can stay firmly established in your meditation and your meditative state.
Shiva Samhita, an ancient yogic text, lists the following hurdles of gratification.
Women, beds, seats, dresses, and riches are obstacles to Yoga. Betels, dainty dishes, carriages, kingdoms, lordliness and powers; gold, silver, as well as copper, gems, aloe wood, and kine; the Vedas and Sastras; dancing, singing and ornaments; harp, flute and drum; riding on elephants and horses; wives and children, worldly enjoyments; all these are so many impediments. These are the obstacles which arise from bhoga (enjoyment).54