Sadhguru - Suffering and compassion

What is the significance of Jeeva Samadhi - Sadhguru

Upa Yoga

When you give something, you should regard the matter as closed.

Bhagavan expected devotees to be (…) unconcerned with the ashram’s finances. Though he permitted devotees to donate to the ashram if they felt like it, he did not want the donors to become involved in the ashram’s financial affairs.

Once, for instance, when Bhagavan was very sick,
Maurice Frydman gave Rs 1,000 to Chinnanswami and asked him to use it to buy fruit for Bhagavan. Chinnaswami, knowing that Bhagavan would not eat fruit unless everyone else was given an equal share, decided that it would be a waste of money to buy fruit every day for everyone in the ashram. A few months later Frydman came and asked Chinnaswami if the money had been spent as he requested. Chinnaswami got angry with him and told him that the ashram expenditures were none of his business. On this occasion Bhagavan supported Chinnaswami.

When Frydman came to the hall to complain (something Bhagavan generally disliked), Bhagavan said rather angrily: ‘When you give something, you should regard the matter as closed. How dare you use this gift to further your ego?’

For Bhagavan, actions themselves were neither good nor bad; he was always more concerned with the motives and the mental states that prompted them.

-Annamalai Swami in 'Living by the Words of Bhagavan'

Fear of losing yourself ? A quote from Papaji

The fear of vanishing which may arise with inquiry,
is the old sensation: "I am the body."
This is not a fear of the new, but of leaving the old.
Have no fear and plunge into your own Being.
When "you" disappear, all fear will also.
Stay Quiet, be Still, Here you are.
Stay as presence in your Heart.
Do not fear meeting the Self,
it is what you always been.
Nothing can be lost, have no fear.

There can also be fear of "losing it."
Only when you possess something does the fear of losing arise.
Only Self cannot be held, so only Self cannot be lost.
The only way to avoid fear is to return to the inner beauty,
the Self, the Heart on the right.
~ Papaji

Sadhguru on Yoga of Devotion - Verse from Bhagavad Gita.

Sadhguru: “Yoga of Devotion. Arjuna asked, ‘Who is considered more perfect – those devotees who worship you and are thus always united with you in love, or those who worship the eternal and indestructible and unmanifest?’ The Lord of Sri said, ‘Those who surrender themselves to me and fix their total devotion on me and worship me eternally with their minds absorbed in me, I consider them to be the most devoted to me. However, those who are devoted to the unmanifest, that which is beyond all senses, all pervading, they also attain me. But those who are absorbed in the unmanifest face excessive tribulation, as for the embodied being the path of that course is difficult to tread. But, O Arjuna, those whose minds are absorbed in me in total faith and who are engaged in devotional service unto me, for them I give deliverance from the cycle of birth and death.’”

You cannot experience that which is unmanifest – you can only believe in it. Even if you believe in the unmanifest, it is going to be very difficult for you to develop and keep up intense love and devotion towards that which is not. It is so much easier for you to hold your focus of devotion towards that which is. At the same time, he says, “If someone is capable of holding their devotion to the unmanifest, they will also attain me.” When he says “me,” he is not talking about himself as an individual, he is talking about that dimension which includes both the manifest and the unmanifest. “If someone takes that route, they will also come to me, but it involves much tribulation,” because directing your emotions towards something that is not here is difficult for you. You need a form, a shape, a name – something that you can relate to in order to steadily keep up your devotion.

“As for the embodied being, the path of that course is difficult to tread.” This means, if you, as a being who has a body and an intellectual discretion, dedicate yourself to an unmanifest dimension of existence, every day, your intellect will question whether you are really going somewhere or wasting your time. For beings who are not embodied, it is more of a possibility, because they do not have to struggle with their intellect – they go by their tendencies. If they are spiritually oriented, they generally orient themselves towards the unmanifest – not out of conscious choice but out of their tendencies. Therefore, for a disembodied being, a being who is beyond the limitations of the five elements, who is beyond the limitations and the discretion of the intellect, that is a more suitable path. But for an embodied being, it is better to direct your emotions towards something that you can relate to. That is why he says, being focused on him as a live person, it is much easier to attain. Looking for the unmanifest can become a philosophical drama within yourself, without you making an inch of progress.

“But, O Arjuna, those whose minds are absorbed in me in total faith and who are engaged in devotional service unto me, for them I give deliverance from the cycle of birth and death.” This not only Krishna said – any being who is fully realized always says this in one way or another. When people ask me questions like, “Will I get mukti in this janma [birth]?” I tell them, “Just get onto my bus. You don’t have to drive – you just sit in the bus.” But your ego is such that you want to do the driving too. There are many people who sit in the backseat and keep driving – usually, they only apply brakes.

If you are in a certain presence, your attainment at the last moment is not an issue. The question is how beautifully you live the remaining part of your life. Even if you have lived a stupid life, still ultimate release will not be an issue once you are in a certain presence, unless you really screw it up in the final moments of your life. If even at the last moment, you do not have the necessary sense and you get into a huge sense of anger, hatred, or desire, life may perpetuate itself. Otherwise, once you made the mistake of sitting with me, when you die, you will be dead for good. That is what he says here too. These translations into English are not quite accurate. What he actually says is, “If at least for one moment, you are truly absorbed in me, you will attain.”

He tells Arjuna, “Don’t bother about the result of the war. You are here. You have to fight. Whether you win or not is a question of capabilities and other factors. Just fight, and do it well. If you win, enjoy the kingdom. If you die, anyway I ensure your ultimate wellbeing.” Again he is making clear that when it comes to external situations, he cannot ensure everything. With the internal, there is absolute guarantee. But he says, “I will make sure there will be no more birth for you.” This is true with me too. I can ensure that you will not have another birth, but I cannot ensure that you will have a breakfast tomorrow. That may look ridiculous to a logical mind, “If you can ensure such a big thing, why can’t you ensure the breakfast?” That is the reality of life. I cannot ensure tomorrow’s breakfast for you, but I can ensure your ultimate wellbeing. When it comes to inner dimensions, I can completely take charge. When it comes to outside situations, there is no guarantee – everyone has to strive.

Source Link : http://blog.ishafoundation.org/yoga-meditation/demystifying-yoga/bhagavad-gita-krishna/

Sadhguru on Kashi and their rituals

Sadhguru : Mysticism means exploring dimensions that are not
yet in your understanding or perception. To explore
those dimensions together, there are various types
of rituals, which are beautiful, but if not conducted
with absolute integrity, they can easily become
exploitative. Ritual means not just doing pooja. This
used to be a land with complex and phenomenal
rituals, but due to lack of integrity and misuse, these
rituals largely got wiped out.


For example, Kashi is the oldest living city on the
planet. Mark Twain said, “Benares is older than
history, older than tradition, older even than legend,
and looks twice as old as all of them put together.”
Even Shiva, the Adiyogi, got so enamored with this
city that he did not want to leave it anymore. Earlier,
he used to live at Kailash and the surrounding region,
but then he married a princess. She needed better
accommodation. So he came down to Badrinath,
and built a small home there. But after some time,
he was dispossessed of his home.


Shiva and Parvati had settled in Badrinath because
of its hot spring. Their small dwelling was at about
10,800 feet above mean sea level, so the climate was
cold. One day, they went to have bath in the hot
spring. When they came back, there was a beautiful
looking infant outside their doorstep. Parvati always
had a problem with the fact that she could not have
children because Shiva did not have human seeds,
and she being human could not contain his seed. Out
of her desperation, she created Ganapati, and from
what was left of six children, she made Karthikeya.
When she saw this wonderful baby at their doorstep,
her maternal instincts took over and she went to
pick up the child. Shiva said, ‘”Wait. Don’t touch
this baby. An infant that lands up at nearly 11,000
feet MSL all by himself is not a good infant. There is
nobody around; no footprints of the parents in the
snow. Why does this fellow land up at our doorstep
by himself? Just throw him away.” Parvati said,
“How can you say this? This is the most beautiful
baby I have ever seen!” And she took the baby into
the house. The next day, after coming back from
their bath, the baby had bolted the door from inside
and did not let these two people in. Parvati said,
“How can the baby bolt the door?” If a baby can land
up at 11,000 feet, the damn baby can do anything.
Shiva said, “Well, we will have to vacate the place.
Let’s move on.” Parvati said, “But this is our house.”
“It may have been our house, but since we let the
wrong people in, it is not ours anymore. Let’s go.”
They moved to Kantisarovar, which is at 12,700 feet.
This baby who locked himself inside and
dispossessed Shiva of his home was Vishnu, who
thought, “What does it matter for an ascetic yogi if
he is here or there? It is all the same for Shiva, but
for me it matters. I want to be here.” Shiva knew
that, and that is why they moved to Kantisarovar,
close to Kedar. Later on, one winter got bad, even at
Kantisarovar. From Kailash, he had come down to
Manasarovar, then moved to Badrinath, and later on
to Kedarnath – still the princess complained of the
cold and the desolation of the place.


Shiva decided that in winter, they would move to
Kashi. Who would have thought someone could
plan such a fabulous city 12,000–15,000 years ago.
It was a most fantastic plan – layers and layers of
urban development. The highest level of talent
in spirituality, science, mathematics, music, and
astronomy all gathered in one place. It became
the city of learning and of dispensing knowledge.
Shiva enjoyed the intellectual vigor, the music,
the company of people, and the way the city was
designed. He fell in love with Kashi and did not
want to leave anymore.


There is a story of how, when Shiva was about to
come to Kashi, king Diyo Dutta did not want him to
enter the city because he knew if Shiva was there,
he would not be the single point of focus anymore.
He said, “A king can rule the city only if everyone
looks up to him only. If you want me to rule the city,
Shiva should not come. If he comes, I will leave.”
Shiva sent two ganasto the city to see how to get
rid of this king. However, they fell so much in love
with Kashi that they established themselves just
outside the city and never went back. They did
not have the guts to go to Shiva and say, “We love
the city too much.” Shiva sent two more – they
never came back either. Today, at the four corners
of Kashi, there are four gana sthanas, where these
four guys settled. Then he sent Ganapati – he never
came back either. Afterwards, he sent Kubera – he
never came back. Finally, he decided to go himself,
and he did not want to go back either. All this is
being said to tell you how beautiful this city was.
When Agastya Muni was asked to leave Kashi and
go south, he cried and wrote a heartrending poem,
running into hundreds of stanzas, about the beauty
of the city and the pain of leaving.


There is a whole lot of science behind how they
established certain aspects of the city. But Kashi is
not what it used to be anymore. It has become quite
a decadent place – filthy as can be. And above all,
the superstructure of the city has been broken. The
center of Kashi was a powerful energy form, which
created a tower of light. So many sages and saints
have talked about the tower of light, and about the
actual Kashi being an energy form above the city.
Even today, that part is intact, but the base and the
main temple have been broken.


Even if you don’t go to Kashi yourself, just take
a look at its old plan. It was such a complex and
geometrically perfect design. Today all that is
broken. There are no words to describe what a
bad state the temple is in and how it is managed.
One thing is, there is a lot of armed police around
who are screening and searching everyone because
half or three-fourth of the temple have become a
mosque, and there is constant tension. Once you
have gone through that and you enter the temple,
the priests will get you. Whether you sit or stand
there, they will be shouting for money like in the
old stock markets. Everything that can be wrong
about a temple is wrong there. But one aspect, you
must witness if you have the opportunity – in the
evening around 7:30, there is one particular ritual,
which is called Sapta Rishi Aarti.

After Shiva had transmitted yoga to the Sapta Rishis
and they all had become fully enlightened, he sent
them to different parts of the world to spread this
knowledge. Before they left, they expressed their
anguish, “Now if we go away, probably we will
never get to set our eyes upon you again, physically.
How can we have you with us when we want you?”
Shiva taught them a simple process, which lives on
to this day as Sapta Rishi Aarti, conducted by these
priests who may not know the science behind it, but
they stick to the process. I witnessed how they built
stacks and stacks of energy, just like that.


We could do this here, but this takes a different
kind of skill. These priests neither have the skill
nor the energy, but they have a method – that is
what a ritual is. Even if it is conducted by someone
who is absolutely ignorant, if it is done right, it will
work, because it is a technology. For priests who
have no sadhana and no such energies of their own,
what they build up in this temple in this one hour is
phenomenal. There are yogis who do such things –
that is a different matter – but I have never seen
anything like that anywhere conducted by priests.
After this visit to Kashi, I have some respect for
priests – at least they maintained the process. They
did not keep themselves well, but they kept well
what is of some sanctity to them, and it still works
fantastically. And at night, there is the Shayan Aarti,
which is cute. If you get to witness it, you will know
how loudly you have to put Shiva to sleep.


This is the power of the ritual – you can conduct
it for any number of people, even if they are
ignorant of it. In contrast, doing anything spiritual,
meditative, is in a way safer and cleaner, but you
have to prepare the person. A ritual does not need
preparation – you can do it for the whole town.
It may be a million ignorant people – still, if they
just sit there, we can make them benefit. But unless
the person who performs the ritual has a certain
integrity, rituals become a tool for exploitation.


The best way to approach dimensions of the beyond
is through internal methods and processes, but it
needs a lot of preparation. If you want a quicker
dissemination, there are external technologies and
processes – I would rather call them processes than
rituals. We can make this happen to large groups
of people. But it needs absolute integrity. Only in
the last three years, we brought in rituals at the Isha
Yoga Center, because we have created people of
such integrity that no matter what is given to them,
the focus of their lives will not change.


Whatever external activity you do in your life, it
is meaningful only if it touches people’s lives. If
you can maintain integrity no matter what, we can
offer you wonderful tools through which you can
touch people’s lives in a way that you have never
imagined possible. Once you have such access to
another human being, your hands must be super
clean. If you are sweeping outside, no one will ask
you, “Did you wash your hands?” It is okay if your
hands are not so clean. Suppose you are serving
food, people would like to know if you washed your
hands. Suppose you are inside the temple, we would
like to know if you had a shower. Suppose you have
to conduct a surgery, we definitely want to know if
your hands are cleaned and disinfected.


The more access you have to another human being,
the cleaner you have to be. If “What about me?” is
the biggest question in your mind, you should not
have access to anyone. If this one question does
not arise in your mind, you are free to touch any
being, and you should. Millions of people need this,
because nothing has truly touched them. Without
being touched, the being will not be a being – the
being will just be a body.

Sadhguru.

Sadhguru on Osho

Sadhguru : When a person is influenced by somebody and is in deep appreciation of someone he can see the same qualities in other people who he appreciates in a similar way. Many people come up to me and tell me I speak like Vivekananda, some say I speak like Krishnamurti, others think I speak like Rajneesh. I neither speak nor dress nor live like Rajneesh or anyone else. It’s the people’s love that makes them see things that way and that is fine. Its not that I have not spoken about Rajneesh-I have. It’s just that his approach was different than what we have taken so it is not necessary for me to speak about Rajneesh. I don’t speak of JK also because his approach is very different as well.

With all due respect to Rajneesh and all the phenomenal work he has done in his own way, some of the things they did was in reaction to the social situation in the world then. The society was at a certain stage at that time and he wanted to provoke people to change in a certain way. It is not my way because I don’t think it would produce the kind of result I want. You know my mission is to plant undercover yogis-there is a need to plant people who are at the peak of inner well being to work in society and change the society from within rather than provoking and creating a reaction.

Remember, whatever creates ’I’ is still out of ignorance – no matter what beautiful names you go on giving it. - Osho.

These seers of the Upanishads are very strange people. They do not say that when you have seen God, know this as the ultimate knowing.

They have maintained that even the seeing of God is not the limit of knowing; that when all your chakras have opened up, the kundalini has awakened and the thousand-petalled lotus has bloomed, know this as the limit of knowing. No, they don’t say that.

Nor do they say that when you have crossed all the seven heavens – and only goodness knows how many kinds of such calculations are prevalent – or when you have completed the journey of all the fourteen realms and entered the sach khand, the realm of truth....

No, the Upanishads say: these things have nothing to do with the matter, the only criterion is that I-ness does not arise.

Even kundalini creates arousal of the ego. The seeker feels that now he is not an ordinary person, his kundalini has arisen.

Someone feels that his third eye center has awakened, he is able to see
the light; now he is no ordinary person.

Someone feels that his heart center is awakened, the blue diamond has appeared in the heart, the blue flame has been seen; now he is liberated, now there is no world for him.

Remember, whatever creates ’I’ is still out of ignorance – no matter what beautiful names you go on giving it.

The Upanishad says, as long as the ’I’ is created – no matter what the cause – as long as one feels ”I have become something,” till then knowing has not ripened. No flowers have yet blossomed, no explosion has yet taken place.

The only criterion given is that no ’I’ is created.

So it is also possible that a person sitting in his shop whose kundalini has not awakened, who has not seen the blue light, who has not traveled to the realms of truth – who has done nothing, who is simply working in his shop but whose ego does not arise – has reached to the ultimate limit of knowing.

Even a great yogi standing on a high crest of the Himalayas, if his ego is also high like a peak of the Himalayas, if he thinks that only he has arrived and no one else, if he thinks that only he has achieved and no one else, then understand that knowing has not yet happened to him.

There is only one touchstone – that a state is attained inside where nothing whatsoever creates any ego. Then anything may go on happening – even if God himself comes the feeling will not arise: ”How lucky I am, I have achieved even God! See, there is God standing before me and I am seeing him.”

When the very disposition of ’I’ does not arise inside, then know it as the ultimate limit of knowing.

Keep watching within you, otherwise everything creates conceit – everything.

Mind is very clever, it derives ego from anything. It is so clever that it can derive ego even from humility, and a person starts saying, ”No one is more humble than I am. There is no one more humble than I.” But that ”No
one more than I” still remains.

It may be anything – it may be wealth, it may be prestige, it may be
power, it may be knowledge, it may be liberation, it may be humility, but that ”No one more than I”... that ’I’ goes on surviving.

OSHO.
Finger Pointing to the Moon 184 ,
CHAPTER 12. DIE TO THE FUTURE.

Golden quote of Mooji

The one who is seeking to stabilise in the unchanging Self is itself a thought watched from the unchanging Self.

~ Mooji

Paying attention to gaps - Eckhart Tolle

Pay attention to the gap - the gap between two thoughts, the brief, silent space between words in a conversation, between the notes of a piano or flute, or the gap between the in-breath and the out-breath. When you pay attention to those gaps, awareness of 'something' becomes - just awareness. The formless dimension of pure conciousness arises from within you and replaces identification with form.

-- Eckhart Tolle --

That Which Sees

HUMPHREYS'S TEACHINGS: That Which Sees

Do not fix your attention on all these changing things of life, death, and phenomena. Do not think of even the actual act of seeing them or perceiving them but only of that which SEES all these things. That which is responsible for it all. 

This will seem nearly impossible at first, but by degrees the result will be felt. It takes years of steady, daily practice, but that is how a Master is made. Give yourself a quarter of an hour a day. Keep your eyes open, and try to keep the mind unshakenly fixed on That Which Sees.

It is inside yourself. Do not expect to find that “That’’ is something definite on which the mind can be fixed easily; it will not be so. Though it takes years to find that “That’’, the results of this concentration will soon show themselves in four or five month’s time-in all sorts of unconscious clairvoyance, in peace of mind, in power to deal with troubles, in power all round-always unconscious power.

I have given you this teaching in the same words as the Masters give it to their intimate chelas. From now onwards let your whole thought in meditation be not on the act of seeing nor on what you see, but immovably on That Which Sees.

By Frank H. Humphreys, the first Western disciple of Bhagavan in 'Self-Realisation'

" MAY ONE WHO GIVES BE HAPPY AND MAY ONE DOES NOT GIVE BE MORE HAPPY...!

You may have heard Mohammedan fakirs on the road saying, ”May one who gives be happy, may one who does not give be happy.”
The ordinary beggars also repeat this, but this statement is from
Sufis.

The ordinary beggar repeats it deceitfully. When he says, ”May one who gives be happy,” the sparkle in his eyes is remarkable, and when he says, ”May one who does not give be happy,” there
is no sparkle at all. You will come to know the difference by giving to him and watching, and by not giving to him and watching.

There was a Sufi fakir named Bayajid. He had made a little change in this statement. He used to say, ”May one who gives be happy and may one who does not give be even more happy.” Somebody
asked Bayajid, ”We had so far only heard ’May one who gives be happy and may one who does not give be happy,’ but what does this addition mean?”

Bayajid replied, ”When somebody gives I am pleased, but when somebody does not give I am even more pleased. My sense of gratitude becomes more intense. When somebody gives, it is alright, I
am pleased; but when somebody does not give, then also the inner pleasure still remains. I feel like bowing down to him. I feel that if he had given, I would have been deprived of this opportunity of
remaining happy when not receiving.

This is why I say, ’May one who does not give be even more happy.’ He is kind that he gave me one more opportunity to see my stream of happiness remaining uninterrupted when not receiving.”

Detachment means to remove one’s mind from all sorts of desires. As the mind is removed from desires, the energy that was being destroyed in running after these desires is saved and it becomes
a flame.

Finger Pointing to the Moon 121 Osho
CHAPTER 8. REALIZE THE FRUITS.

The beauty of Darkness - Sadhguru.

Sadhguru : What is everywhere? The only thing that is everywhere in existence is pure darkness. Light is a temporary happening, a burning up of something. Whether it is an oil lamp, an electric bulb or the biggest source of light that we know, the sun, all of these things are just burning up. An oil lamp may last 10 hours, an electric bulb may last over 1,000 hours, the sun may last 10 billion years, but they will all burn up. When everything burns up, what is there? Only darkness. Before the burning, it was all darkness. After the burning, it is all darkness. For light to happen, something has to be done. Darkness simply is.

Light is limited. Just with the palm of your hand, you can stop it and leave a shadow of darkness behind. The sun is the very source of life on this planet. It is of tremendous size and intensity, but regardless of this, you can still stop the flow of sunlight with your mere hands. Or for that matter, just your eyelids.

If you look up into the night sky, you will notice a lot of stars, but stars are just small specks. The vast expanse of the sky is pure darkness -- one can easily miss this. So in this boundless expanse of darkness, a little bit of light is happening here and there in the form of stars; one notices these little happenings, but not the boundless darkness. Why? Because as human beings, we are also little happenings; we are forms of existence, so we identify with other forms of existence. But the non-existence of darkness is the largest part of existence and it is the very lap of creation.

It is from the lap of darkness that all creation blossoms, or as they say, it "bangs out" from infinite nothingness or darkness. It is the time frame of your perception which differentiates a bang and a blossom. If you were to see a nuclear explosion in slow motion, you would see it as a blossoming. But in real time, in your experience, it is a bang.

Every religion, every culture on this planet, has always talked about the omnipresent, all-pervading nature of the divine. If you look at it, the only thing that can be truly all-pervading -- the only thing that can be everywhere -- is darkness or emptiness or nothingness.

So why have we always referred to the divine as "divine light" and not "divine darkness"? We celebrate light simply because our visual senses are oriented towards light. If you were to live in a forest, you would see that when the sun sets and darkness falls, a much larger activity of life commences. There is a roar through the night of insects, birds and animals. If your eyes were made like theirs, if your visual sense were made like the nocturnal animals of the forest, you wouldn't be thinking of divine light. You would be thinking of divine darkness. So your prejudice towards light is simply because of the way your survival mechanism has been crafted.

There is a railway track in India between the cities of Hassan and Mangalore. It is a very special track. In a distance of 36 kilometers, there are over 300 bridges and 100 tunnels -- many tunnels stretch over two kilometers. When we walk through the tunnel, it is pitch dark, but we will walk on the railway track without using our flashlights. "Dark" means it is absolutely dark, to the point where you cannot even see your own hand, and after some time, you don't know whether your eyes are open or closed. Bats will be flying by, but they never hit you because they don't rely upon light (they rely upon sound), but they move so close you can feel their wings. And after some time, if you just keep walking in darkness, something very wonderful will happen to you. Once you get used to it, you don't know whether your eyes are open or closed. It is just the same; it is just absolutely the same. And suddenly, you become so aware, so beautifully aware, simply because you have lost the perception of light.

If there is not even an iota of light, the outside world completely evaporates from your perception. This makes you very much aware of what you are. The individual life becomes so dominant because the outside has completely disappeared. But people will not sit quietly in darkness because they want some perception that they are still there. So whenever there is darkness, people try to whistle, talk or sing. But in darkness, if you sit for long enough, then you will start wondering whether existence is really there or not.

One of the biggest distractions in life is light. For your survival, light is extremely important, but to look beyond survival, it is a distraction. When the sun is out, you miss all the stars in the sky. Many of these stars are a thousand times bigger than the sun, but the stars get completely lost to your vision simply because the sun is flooding you with light. In the evening, when the sun goes down, you can see the stars in the sky, but in the morning, what is in the sky? It is just clear. Do you see the deception? One has always believed that light means seeing, but one sees more in darkness than in light. This is a distortion of perception.

The whole system of yoga is dedicated to enhancing one's perception, as only what you perceive is real for you. The rest is just imagination or hallucination. The very nature of light is such that it will limit your perception to the physicality of existence. It is only when you are not blinded by light that one can perceive and experience the unity of existence beyond the separateness of the physicality. Hence, human beings have a natural attraction to those aspects of life which obliterate the physical boundaries and cause a sense of union, during twilight or darkness -- essentially, in the absence of blinding light. 

If someone says "I love you" at high noon, you probably wouldn't buy it. But if they say it either at twilight, moonlight or starlight, when darkness is advancing upon the day, you could easily fall for it. Naturally, the absence of light or reduced light becomes a conducive atmosphere for anything that seeks to unite life beyond the boundaries of the physical. And hence, whether it is in love, contemplation, prayer or meditation, there is a natural tendency to close one's eyes. Closing your eyes is a simple privilege that you have to shut out blinding light when it seems like an intrusion.

In the womb, you were incubated in darkness; the tomb is of course darkness. Or in other words, the beginning was darkness and the ultimate is darkness. Light is only an in-between happening. It is in the lap of darkness that all creation blossomed. 

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Bhuta Shuddhi - The Ultimate Cleansing | Isha Hata Yoga