How To Meditate after Dharma Megha

Freshwater Stream
        

Dharma megha, as described in Patanjali's final six sutras, is an experience that feels like rain, a raining cloud, a thundercloud, a river, flowing water, or a fountain within one’s body, or even like a fire. Some translators of the Yoga Sutras say that once you have realized this advanced state, you then gradually fade away from living, and you die.

However, Patanjali likely means dharma megha to be the start of a new way of life on earth, rather than an end. Throughout his book, he always assumes that each major level or experience a meditator has will then require that person to become accustomed to it–to more deeply impress and imbed it in themselves for days, months, and years–reminding themselves time and again to return to this state of grace in the midst of their daily thoughts, feelings, and lives. Dharma megha, like other signal experiences, takes years–or many months, at least–to fully absorb throughout one's soul and body. In addition, it is quite possible that Patanjali believed many meditators, having gained this ultimate experience, might stay around on earth to help others. 

First is the fact that dharma megha, after you begin to experience it, will take months or years to be fully active. No matter how dramatic any  new experience is in meditation, rarely are you completely transformed permanently. Even the great mystics appeared to live normal human lives at many times–eating, drinking, walking, and talking with others in daily life while they gradually let their newest experiences fully enter their minds and physical frames. Even when a change that might happen to you in meditation, breaking upon you in a glorious sunburst of discovery, you then will need a slow, step-by-step process of absorbing that discovery, imbedding it into yourself fully, and gradually making it a regular part of your life.

Many meditators who discover dharma megha experience it just briefly, like the preview of a great film, sometimes even in the earlier stages of meditation. By the time you reach the advanced or final steps in meditation, it becomes a regular experience in some way.

But even then, it doesn’t come all at once as a total experience, nor is it a permanent constant for most people, not at first. While it is a very significant experience, still there are steps in increasing its cloud of rain or fire within your body and your life. It is likely that this is what Patanjali intended in his final instructions. But what, exactly, can you do once you’ve begun to experience it?

Buddhist scriptures offer suggestions. They provide stages, parts, or differing elements to learn in the experience of dharma megha. Scholar Karen O’Brien-Kop provides a number of helpful references in her “Dharmamegha in yoga and yogacara” in the Journal of Indian Philosophy. She says, first, that the enlightened meditator 

enters into deeper meditation, acquiring endless samadhis [enlightenments] and limitless powers, and overcomes even the subtlest trace of the klesas (mental afflictions). The cloud has a beneficial function in that it produces growth, proliferation and propagation of virtue [showing] progress and...“pervasion.”

In circa 100 BCE-200 CE, the Buddhist scripture Milinda Panha mentions dhammamegha (dharma megha) as having five qualities for the cloud. O’Brien-Kop says, “The cloud is...understood to be a raincloud, and the five qualities of rain–settling, cooling, nurturing, protective, and abundant–are mapped.... [D]harmamegha is a fruit of...yoga discipline, and its function is to provide sustenance and nourishment to the world.” These five qualities of the “rain-cloud” are as follows as translated by Horner in O’Brien-Kop (with additional translations by Klostermeier in O’Brien-Kop in parentheses):

[1] ...the earnest student of yoga must allay the dust and dirt of the defilements (settle the dust of afflictions) that are arising....

[2] ...the earnest student of yoga must cool the world...by the meditation of loving-kindness (through his practice of friendliness)....

[3] ...the earnest student of yoga...should sow the seed of faith (make faith...arise and grow)....

[4] ...the earnest student of yoga...must, by means of...careful attention (mindfulness), preserve the Dhamma of recluses (protect the samanadhamma [i.e., “monks” or “ones who wander in aloneness”]), so that all skilled states are rooted in careful attention (mindfulness)....

[5] ...the earnest student of yoga (the yogin) having rained down the rain-cloud of Dhamma for the mastery of the tradition, should perfect the mind (of others) for the spiritual realisations they are longing for (open the...dharmamegha...and make it pour down fulfillment to the minds of those who are desirous of learning)....

In other words, these five qualities provide five ways for improving the experience of the “rain within.” They are an instruction list for going beyond the first experiences of dharma megha, both for working on/within oneself and working in the world. Here is a rewording and description of these five qualities:

1. “[A]llay the dust and dirt of the defilements (afflictions) that are arising” means continuing inner work in one’s meditations to continue opening oneself to the inner rain to cleanse the “dust and dirt” of klesas (afflictions) and vritti (psychic whirlings) that come from within oneself and from without.

2. “[C]ool the world...by...loving-kindness,” also called “friendliness,” means spreading the calm, rest, love, kindness, and peace from and of the inner rain by experiencing it while interacting with and for others.

3. “[S]ow the seed of faith,” making it “arise and grow,” means, while experiencing the inner rain, finding the acts and words that help others become interested more deeply in meditation.

4. “[P]reserve the Dhamma [Dharma] of recluses, so that all skilled states are rooted in careful attention” may mean, while you experiencing the inner rain, helping those working on the “skilled states” of meditation to find their way to higher and deeper meditation experiences. The phrase “one who wanders in aloneness” can be translated as monk or yogi. However, it also has a special meaning in Buddhism: a yogi who wanders in a state of aloneness means, in Buddhism, a meditator who has experienced the unique, sharp, ever-present existential reality of how, within each of us, we are essentially alone, or we at least feel that way–until we connect with some form of God.

5. “[P]erfect the mind (of others) for the spiritual realisations they are longing for”–or “open the...dharmamegha...to the minds of those who are desirous” –means that, by act, example, and osmosis, you give your experience of the dharma megha experience, and of the steps leading to it, to others.

A final step is described in the Mahayana Buddhist Lankavatara Sutra, ca. 400 CE, according to O’Brien-Kop. In it, “the last subtle remnants...–cognitive hindrance...and afflictive hindrance...–are completely eradicated by the diamond-like samadhi” or diamond body. Samadhi in Patanjali’s sutras, of course, comes in several forms and stages. O’Brien-Kop’s final stage, here, would be Patanjali’s highest samadhi. In Hindu and Buddhist thought, as in some Western systems such as Old-World religions and mystical alchemy, the diamond body is a highly advanced level of awareness that is pure and hard with an impossible-to-pierce, protective surface.

One of the best instruction manuals for learning how to extend the dharma megha water experience in meditation also is one of humankind’s earliest written set of hymns. They are the poetic chants to the mystic fire Agni in the Hindu Rig Veda.

The Rig Veda is one of the earliest written texts in the world.  It appeared in written form ca 1700-1000 BCE, but it was memorized through chanting for many hundreds–and possibly thousands–of years before. Part of the Rig Veda is a book-length set of chants or hymns to Agni, the “Mystic Fire.” This mystic fire also is the dharma megha experience; however, a person must read the Rig Veda as meditation experience, not as abstract poetry, philosophy, or mere ritualistic chanting.

In conclusion, dharma megha is a rich, blissful gift of the spirit that begins a transformation of one’s body and mind. Some translations of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras say it is the end of your life, that you drift into death of the physical body after it. Perhaps some ascetics, already withdrawn from the world in many ways, do this. However, a greater number continue to live–and not just to be alive, but joyously so–healing their own physical hurts and limitations and bringing greater knowledge of meditation to those around them. Patanjali hints in his final sutras that dharma megha is not an end. Rather, he implies, it is a joyous new beginning.

               
Most recent content revision: 27 Dec. 2021