What is this Universe

Below is excerpts from Sayagyi U Ba Khin's lecture on Buddhism.
Before he starts with the life of Gotama the Buddha he has to explain the universe we live in so he starts with the definition of the Universe. As I paste it below I can't help but wonder how i have spent 40 years on this planet with no knowledge of what comprises the universe I live in.
The complete text from which I have copied the below extract can be found here - http://www.internationalmeditationcentre.org/publications/DhammaTexts.pdf

The Universe 

The Buddhist concept of the universe may be summed up as follows: there is the Okåsa-loka (the universe of space) which accommodates nåma and rupa (mind and matter). In this mundane world, it is nåma and rupa (mind and matter) which predominate under the influence of the law of cause and effect. Next is the Sankhåra-loka (the universe of mental forces), creative or created. This is a mental plane arising out of the creative energies of mind through the medium of bodily actions, words and thoughts. The third and last is the Sattaloka (the universe of sentient beings), visible or invisible, beings that are the products of these mental forces; we may rather call these three the “three-in-one” universe, because each is inseparable from the others. They are, so to speak, interwoven and interpenetrating. 

What will interest you most are the Cakkavålas or worldsystems, each with its thirty-one planes of existence. Each world-system corresponds to the human world with its solar system and other planes of existence. There are millions and millions of such world-systems; they are simply innumerable. The ten thousand world-systems closest to us are within the Jåti-khetta (or the field of origin) of a Buddha. In fact, when the renowned sutta (or discourse), the Mahå-Samaya (meaning the “Great Occasion”) was preached by the Buddha in the Mahåvana (forest) near the town of Kapilavatthu, not only the brahmås and devas of our world-system but of all the ten thousand world-systems were present to listen to the teachings of the Buddha.

The Lord Buddha can also send his thought-waves charged with boundless love and compassion to the sentient beings of a billion such world-systems within the Anå-khetta (the field of influence). The remainder of the world-systems are in the Visaya-khetta (infinite space), beyond the reach of the Buddha’s effective thought waves. You can very well imagine from these concepts of Buddhism the size of the universe as a whole. The material insignificance of our world in the Okåsa-loka (the universe of space) is simply terrifying. The human world, as a whole, must be just a speck in space. 

Now I will give you an idea of the thirty-one planes of existence in our world-system, which, of course, is the same as in any of the other world-systems. Broadly speaking, they are: 

1. Arupa-loka The immaterial worlds of the brahmås
2. Rupa-loka The fine-material worlds of the brahmås
3. Kåma-loka The sensuous worlds of devas, mankind, and lower beings

The Arupa-loka is composed of four brahmå worlds of immaterial state, i.e., without rupa or matter. 

The Rupa-loka is composed of sixteen brahmå worlds of fine-material state. 

The Kåma-loka is composed of: 

(a) Six Deva-lokas (or celestial worlds): 

1. Catumahåråjika (the world of the Four Guardian Kings)
2. Tåvatimsa (the world of the Thirty-three)
3. Yåma 
4. Tusita 
5. Nimmånarati (those who enjoy their own creations)
6. Paranimmita-vasavati (those who enjoy others’ creations)

(b) The Human World 

(c) The four Lower Worlds (apåya): 

1. Niraya (hell)
2. Tiracchåna (the animal world)
3. Peta (the ghost world)
4. Asura (the demon world)

These planes of existence are pure or impure, cool or hot, luminous or dark, light or heavy, pleasant or wretched— according to the character of the mental forces generated by the mind through the volition (cetanå) associated with a series of actions, words, and thoughts. For example, take the case of a religious man who suffuses the whole universe of beings with boundless love and compassion. He must be generating such mental forces as are pure, cooling, luminous, light and pleasant, forces which normally settle down in the brahmå worlds. Let us now take the reverse case of a man who is dissatisfied or angry. As the saying goes, “The face reflects the mind.” The impurity, heat, darkness, heaviness and wretchedness of his mind are immediately reflected in the person—visible even to the naked eye. This is due, I may say, to the generation of the evil mental forces of dosa (anger) which go down to the lower worlds of existence. This is also the case for the mental forces arising out of lobha (greed) or moha (delusion). In the case of meritorious deeds such as devotion, morality, and charity, which have at their base attachment to future well-being, the mental forces generated are such as will normally be located in the sensuous planes of devas (celestial beings) and of mankind. These, ladies and gentlemen, are some of the concepts in Buddhism relevant to the life story of Gotama Buddha.

Quickest meditation ever

This has to be the quickest meditation ever, one can do it in like 30 seconds, and I think it is highly effective if done exactly how he explains it, i.e. choosing an object towards which we have no judgement or attachment...just a chair not a ugly chair or a beautiful chair. That is the crux of this meditation technique. If anyone has only 30 seconds this is the best use they can make of that time.

Four kinds of meditators

In Buddhism it is said that a meditator will go deeper into practise based on one of the following four qualities in them...eventually all the four qualities will need to become stronger but initially it will be one of these which will keep the practitioner on the path -->

1. One track mind -> Some people will choose something in life and then that's it, they will not look or try anything else, they found one thing, they chose it to be their path and now they just stay there. They make progress because they don't let doubt (which is inevitable on any spiritual path and is considered to be one of the 5 primary enemies) change their mind.

2. Good work ethics -> Some people when they decide to try something or choose to pursue something they put all their effort whole-heartedly into it. They make progress because they have extremely good work ethics and are very hard working.

3. Strong Concentration -> Called samadhi in Pali, some people just have a very strong focus, when they are doing something they do it so intensely that they end up making quick progress, this is different from good work ethics, a person with good work ethics might have a weak focus but will keep putting effort to make progress while someone with very good focus might put less effort initially but make good progress non the less because they are just so concentrated towards their task while they are doing it.

4. Intellectuals (i.e. people like me who write stupid blogs on spirituality instead of meditating) -> These people are just too inclined to read and study everything they try and try to understand deeper aspects of things, these people will have a strong inclination to study the theology deeply. Since meditation is not something where the intellect helps these people make progress not because they go into deeper meditative states easily but because through initial experiences itself they have understood the theology and have hence recognised the value of the path. 

What is the purpose of meditation

The whole purpose of meditation is to go to the subconscious mind and observe that the concept of I that we are so attached to is actually non existent..deep in the mind things are just happening, everything is impersonal…and then through once own experience one comes to realise that one does not really exist…that experience is the most blissful experience, for the first time the veil of ignorance is removed and also it becomes obvious that, that very illusion of I ness was causing so much tension so much stress and so much negativity and misery…once one gets fully established in that reality it becomes impossible for such a person to suffer in life no matter what the situation.

A senior practitioner told me once, this is not a path of ‘MY liberation’ , this is the path of ‘liberation from ME and MY’.

Recommended prayer for followers of Lord Shiva

Shiva, when I am very hungry, if I get a morsel of food, before I put it in my mouth, let it slip and fall into the mud. And before I bend down and pick it up, let a dog come and take it away. And if I am climbing a mountain, let my feet slip and let me fall down and let my head break.
~From a book by Sadhguru, Jaggi Vasudev~

Can a sense of higher morality lead to egocentric behaviour?

This is a question I am asked often since I am personally at a stage where I appear to be egocentric while talking about morality and spirituality...and it is a fact that I am egocentric since my practise is not as deep as the theoretical understanding I have due to my intellect and long standing love with eastern mysticism. I hope with time my practise gets deeper and I become more humble but till then lots of people are going to find me aggressive and egocentric which is sad because I will not be doing what I want to be doing and that is inspiring people to walk the path of spirituality. I guess I just have to keep up the practise and wait for the results.

My typical answer to the question is -->

It most definitely can 😆😆 and it is a very common conversation we have among meditators...but that is an initial stage...in Sikkim I was volunteering with this old lady and only after 5 days I realised that the ashram was her property and she had built the entire place with her own retirement money but she was so humble just working like any other volunteer.

I felt so small because till then i was inflating my ego saying look at me I am being so selfless...so yes initially we carry the same patterns of indulgence into our spiritual path but with deepening of practise one becomes more and more humble...high level practitioners will always look at everyone with the same compassion and not judge someone who is totally busy in materialistic pursuits.

But the aversion towards mainstream indulgent lifestyle propagated by the society is important, this I  have also read being mentioned in Tibetian Buddhist literature...once the practise becomes extremely deep then you just see through things and nothing effects you, but that takes time...

That is the reason why morality is important, not indulging in loose talk and never using harsh words...initially one needs to consciously focus on these things...you slip criticise someone for living an ignorant life and then through meditation realise it was not correct to use harsh words and try to improve next time...

In yoga they say "Maya mahathagani hum jani", its a thin line, the battle is with your own mind but your mind knows everything about you and that is why you have to be constantly alert because the mind can easily fool you into believing you are doing the right thing when you are not.

It is a tough path...earning money and finding materialistic success is the easiest thing in the world all you need is a desire for money...I could be earning 200K sitting comfortably in a swanky corporate office but it's just too damn boring...I need some challenge which does justice to the intelligence I have and the human I am and the self I am trying to dissolve.

Short Introduction to meditation for a complete novice

When you can focus your mind on a certain object, something like your breath (your personal reality) but I guess it could also be something like a mantra (an imagined or conceived external phenomenon), the thoughts die away and you loose all sense of who you are and you become pure consciousness without any movement in the mind, no concept of I, your mind just observing...at such moments you can connect to cosmic intelligence...it is only that experience and that connection which is of value, it can completely transform a person's experience and understanding of life...don’t just sit in the house try to learn to master your mind and open up to a higher reality, pool of infinite compassion and joy...I can not say I live connected to that infinite ocean of love but having got glimpses of it I realise all the battle is in quietening the mind and living with bare minimum reality that has appeared and dissolving all the concepts...that journey is a spiritual journey which everyone has to walk on eventually....here the intellect has no role to play since the object of observation is from a completely different realm and not limited to logic which belongs to a very low level of intelligence...a completely new wholly different faculty needs to be sharpened for this ... and mind while being of utmost importance is also the biggest enemy unless it is grounded in reality...here I mean not a mental reality but the physical reality as asserted by quantum physics i.e. There is no matter...everything is pure energy and it is in a constant flux and a flow...unless you can sharpen the mind to clearly see this reality at all times your vision will always be distorted and you will be stuck protecting your imaginary ego for ever and ever...

The difference between Hindu and Buddhist practices regarding Morality

Following is a conversation i wanted to have with my close friend and x-colleague regarding someone named Ramu we both use to work with -->

That was interesting what you mentioned about Ramu, we can take that as a perfect example to demonstrate the basic problem with Hindu practices.

You mentioned Ramu recited Hanuman Chalisa almost all the time, morning when he woke up, later during the day anytime when he was tense or before he was going to an important meeting. Ramu said doing so made him very calm and equanimous and he was better able to deal with whatever situation it was that he was facing through the day.
But we know another aspect of his personality, he use to cheat a lot, lie a lot and never felt that it was wrong. He was very happy to try to muscle through to get the interview questions (or even pay money) that his friend would face during the interview, we all suspected that is how he got good marks in a prestigious educational institution he came from since he himself did not seem to have much academic capability. Also he was from Bihar and in that culture (like most ancient cultures around Asia) telling lies bribing officials and other such activities are almost considered a normal part of life, these practices are not considered wrong.

Another trait such people usually have which i am not sure he personally had is that they do not have a problem physically beating someone (as a favour to a friend or asking a friend to participate in a fight as a favour to himself) as a method of removing grudge, it could also be a grudge towards someone purely for being of a certain race and not a personal grudge. These qualities are often seen in people who chant lots of mantras and participate in rituals. They also seem to exploit weak people in their surroundings and doing anything for personal gain does not seem immoral to them.
Most of these qualities today seem to be deeply ingrained in the Indian psyche and is one of the reasons why white people (who themselves come from strict Christian values of honesty and hard work and American values of equality) look down at brown people. No one trust anything that an Indian or Pakistani restaurant owner says, but had it been a word of a Scandinavian one would automatically accept it to be true.

So you see there is a huge gap between spiritual practices and morality.

And what i want to point out is that for a person on the path of Buddhist meditation (I do not mean people who just go pray in monasteries or chant Pali scriptures, I mean people who actually sit in one place for hours in a day doing buddhist meditations) such immoral behaviour becomes unacceptable.

The reason being because in Buddhist meditation the purpose is to clean the mind of any defilements get rid of the egocentric world view become detached from the final results of the actions and accept everything with equanimity (incidentally all these qualities are also the goal of all other spiritual traditions but as we have seen they rarely manifest).

In contrast all practices in the Hindu tradition are designed to create layers of bliss and peace over the mind (hence not dealing with the defilements within the subconscious mind but leaving them their suppressed deep inside). Such practices while giving a practitioner great control over the elements of nature like walking on water, flying in air, being in more then one place at a time, living literally for hundreds and hundreds of years (we have saints in Kumbh mela who have without doubt lived for over 250 years and some claim even 700 years), be able to read peoples mind and plant thoughts, teleport, manifest objects from the other side of the globe, live without eating, create whatever smell from nothing, create fire simply by uttering few words and on and on, do not bring morality in one's own way of thinking and acting and neither are they able to get rid of their attachments.
Such people might not have attachment to their physical body since they identify more with the spirit, they are usually aware of their previous incarnations and consider the body itself as nothing other then a piece of cloth one wears, such people still do have lot of self interest and attachment to their family or deity or method they follow and they consider nothing wrong in doing something immoral to protect what is of value to them. They will go to any extend to help someone like their son or father and do nothing to help someone they do not personally know, in contrast a buddhist practitioner would not make any difference between a family member and a complete stranger.

For a buddhist practitioner performing any of such immoral activities is not conducive because the very practise of meditation they follow is trying to remove all the defilements of the subconscious mind and allow the natural flow of their karmas to manifest hence becoming lighter and lighter as they move towards complete dissolution.

All traditions have very high level practitioners who seem to have gotten rid of all their cravings and aversions and are fully realised themselves and all traditions have very high level practitioners who are still stuck in their cravings and aversions but on the whole what I am suggesting here is that Buddhist practitioners especially the ones who are at the start of their journey like me seem to be pushed into getting their morality sorted from the very beginning. Among very advance Buddhist practitioners the only school which seems to be faltering is the Vajrayana tradition because they are probably more Tantric than Buddhist.