31 Mar 2025
Jhana State by Psychic Adele
The Jhana state is not something which gets added onto ordinary, unchanged selves. Rather, the Jhana state is an experience of ourselves as we reorganise, sublimate, and refine the various factors of our mundane (as opposed to Transcendental) consciousness. The Jhana states are our experience of ourselves as we potentially exist on higher and higher planes of being. As human beings we have the possibility of living at different levels. We may well be familiar with those times when we live at a less than human level: when we are in the grip of craving or hatred, when we sink into an animal torpor or when we wander aimlessly about, living on but the most superficial level. We can also think of those times when we are more completely and truly human, when we are self-aware, acting responsibly, non-neurotic and directed. Between us and the Jhanas are a few enemies to be conquered: the five gross hindrances.
The Five Hindrances
Desire for Sense Experience & Hatred
The first is Desire for Sense Experience. In meditation the senses are not in operation. But we find it difficult letting them go: The second hindrance, Hatred, is basically the same thing. The mind is hooked onto an object that it is unwilling to leave alone; but this time the object is one that causes us pain. These two hindrances make up a pair, being both concerned with craving.
Restlessness & Anxiety
The next two make up another pair which is concerned with very different modes of energy. Restlessness and Anxiety, Restlessness, the first, is the inability to settle down. The mind is rushing fitfully. We have no particular track, no purpose: there is just energy more or less out of control. Anxiety, the second is irrational anxiety; it isn’t as though there is anything concrete to worry about – but we feel anxious, tense, worried, on edge, so this too prevents us from finding, or even from looking for, the peace and calm of meditation.
We are far too much on the surface of things, in a scatty, speedy, and anxious state of mind. Again, the antidote, the way out of this hindrance, is first to recognise that it is a hindrance; and then, in whatever way we can, to try to become calmer and more concentrated. Paradoxically, the most effective way of dealing with this hindrance is meditation itself, so we should redouble our efforts, and our resolve, to concentrate on what we are meant to be doing. The opposite mode of energy is the hindrance of sloth and torpor: dullness, heaviness, stagnation, blockage of both bodily and mental energy. Sloth is mental dullness; torpor is physical heaviness: the sort of feeling we get after a very substantial meal. Naturally, this gives us a rather unpromising stat for any sort of meditation. To get rid of it we first have to recognise it as a hindrance, which will not be easy. Recognising it as a hindrance has implications! It implies that we have to do something about it, and sloth-and-torpor will resist this.
Doubt & Indecision
Doubt and Indecision, the fifth hindrance, stands on its own. Perhaps it underlies all the others, since it is basically through lack of confidence in our meditation- and in ourselves- that the other hindrances arise. Indecision is the other component of this basic hindrance- we don’t make the decision to get on with the meditation, because any decision, once made, requires acting upon, requires action. We shrink from action because we have no confidence in ourselves; we remain stuck fast in Indecision.
So, we must do something about Doubt and Indecision. Recognising it for what it is: a hindrance. Then we ask ourselves, Do I want to develop or not? Is it possible for me to develop or not? We must then answer, Yes, I do want to develop. Yes, it is possible for me to develop! In this way we’ll become more confident; and on that basis we’ll decide to get on with it; and we will have got beyond the hindrance of doubt.
Jhana – A State of Mind
What happens with all the hindrances is that we tend to identify ourselves with that state of mind- so we have to always remind ourselves that there are higher states just beyond our sight. We think we are only limited, little humans. We doubt that enlightenment is a real possibility for us and as soon as we limit our expectations in this way, further progress is not possible.
Now that we have been through all five, we will have seen that the most effective means of conquering the hindrances is recognition: seeing that the hindrance is a hindrance, and deciding to move out of it and because we tend to identify with the mental states we happen to be in at a particular time, this will require imagination and confidence.
To move out of the hindrances requires that we find a method which works in our own case. Each person’s mind is unique and only very general guidelines can be given for finding a method.
Four Traditional Antidotes
The following sequence of four traditional antidotes might give us some ideas. Firstly, there is cultivation of the opposite tendency, for example, loving kindness to counter hatred; secondly, we can consider the consequences of allowing the hindrance to take us over completely (which might have a sobering effect); thirdly, passive resistance – allowing the hindrance to come and go as it will, but giving it no particular attention (which would keep it going); fourthly, the last resort is suppression, forcing it out of the mind.
In meditation we should be looking all the time to see whether we are really meditating or not. There must be an element of purposiveness, of knowing why we are doing what we are doing, knowing what we want and whether we are achieving it: we must check up on ourselves continually. This should be our strategy. Without some form of strategy, we will never be able to conquer the hindrances.
The Jhana State was written by Psychic Reader – Adele – PIN: 3622
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