--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, billy jim <emptyb...@...> wrote: <snip> > The facts remain the same. The crux of a sutra is > its meaning because the sutra is an idea. It is > that idea which is entertained in awareness through > the mode of a briefly focused attention.
FWIW, the term I heard over and over during my TM-Sidhis instruction was that the sutra is an *intention*, which is more than just an "idea," I think. > It is entertained through recollection or smriti. > Thus mindfulness is summarily present. > > Maharishi described meditative attention as "active > but undirected", meaning alert but resting. Returning > to the mantra occurs when recollection occurs. Thus > mindfulness is also summarily present. That sounds to me as though you're using a very broad definition of "mindfulness." In my experience, one is not mindful of recollecting the mantra; recollection simply occurs when a train of spontaneous thought has played itself out. (And again in my experience, the recollection and the return to the mantra are virtually simultaneous, almost as if the recollection *is* the mantra.)
