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Meditation
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In Divine Friendship: Meditation Wisdom from Swami Kriyananda
Excerpted from In Divine Friendship: Letters of Counsel and Reflection by Swami Kriyananda, letters from the chapter on "Yogic Techniques."
Meditation, in the purest sense, is not thinking of anything. It is a state of consciousness. Instead of thinking, therefore, we concentrate on a simple practice, like the Hong Sau technique. In this way our minds become calmer. After practicing a technique for a while, just enjoy the fruits of your efforts for at least a quarter of an hour (the longer, the better), trying not to let stray thoughts intrude. This state itself is meditation.
Sometimes, when you sit to meditate, this state may not come. With some people, it may seldom come. These results of meditation are not nearly so important as your efforts to grow closer to God. To an extent, your efforts will determine the result. God’s grace, however, is a factor also. If you do your part in showing Him your devotion and sincerity, He will do His by blessing you in some way.
One thought does come to me: Have you done much chanting? One of the challenges of being in so mentally involving a profession as yours is that, when it comes time to meditate, it’s hard to shut off the flow of words, which continue to flood the brain. I’ve found chanting to be very helpful in quieting and interiorizing the mind.
Music, among all the arts, affects us in a particularly powerful way, as it is a direct manifestation of the AUM vibration. (A painting, by contrast, communicates only via reflected light to the viewer.) Music is effective not only in quieting the mind, but also in filling one with a devotional hunger to go deep in meditation, setting all other thoughts resolutely aside. Without that heartfelt yearning, deep meditation just isn’t possible.
When the hands are upward, the lungs receive more air. Try it; you’ll see it’s true. This may also be why Master had us turn the hands upward at the junction of the thighs and the abdomen during meditation.
There is on the spiritual path a whole world to be gone through before reaching superconsciousness: I mean, the world of the subconscious. It is possible to go straight through it to the superconscious level, but many people see “visions” and experience a great variety of phenomena that are imaginary rather than real, and much spiritual literature is devoted to helping people to learn how to tell the difference.
For example, a person will see Jesus Christ in meditation: How is he to know whether Jesus has actually come to him, or whether he only imagined the visit? The imagination can be very keen. In my book, The Path, you may recall (if you have read it) the story of the man who told Master that he experienced cosmic consciousness, but Master proved to him that it was only his highly developed powers of visualization that had led him to think so.
How can one tell the difference? I won’t go into this subject in depth here—it’s long and involved—but the most important point of all is the effect it has. One who has really seen Jesus Christ in meditation will be changed by the experience, and changed much more dramatically than he would be by the slight changes that can be effected by the imagination alone.
This is not to say that imagined experiences are wrong or harmful. Master was not in favor of hypnosis, but I am sure he would not have objected to getting someone to visualize the spiritual eye, etc. Such visualization can help to awaken the soul’s memory of the deeper reality.
When one receives visions and voices, such as you have experienced, it becomes very difficult to distinguish how real they are. I cannot tell just how real your own experiences have been, but I do have certain doubts concerning them. My strong advice to you is that you not give them too much attention.
There are many subtle forces seeking to influence people. Some of those forces are evil. Some of them may be disembodied souls who are just confused, selfish, or petty. And sometimes a part of our own mind tries to fool us, by telling us what our ego would like to hear. Voices and visions do come on the spiritual path, but we shouldn’t think of them as goals in themselves. Nor should we pursue them too seriously. In any case, try to be absolutely sure of their divine origin.
It is a lot more helpful simply to develop our devotion and love for God, and our attunement with Him and with those who serve Him sincerely. When we seek devotion and humility, we are not tempted by the powers and spiritual attainments that are more fascinating to the ego than to the soul.
We can lose our spiritual powers very easily, if they mislead us into spiritual pride. A much more lasting and useful spiritual goal is to develop love and devotion for God, and the ability to manifest love every day in our lives. This is the way of the masters.
Excerpt from a letter to a woman who asked why her body shook during meditation:
As much as possible, don’t talk to others about this experience. Keep it very private. And try not to let others observe it.
Be completely relaxed, physically, to lessen the expression of this experience through your body. Try to expand your awareness and to feel that the experience is taking place beyond the confines of your body.
Don’t take it too seriously, either. These things happen on the path. Keep your concentration at the point between the eyebrows, more than in the heart. Live more in your aura, less in the body. Accept that soul-consciousness is different from body-consciousness, and don’t be afraid.
Yes, the danger from yoga practice is as you say—namely, that it can make one self-centered, if he thinks only of developing himself. It can also be harmful if one practices violent breathing exercises, which can awaken energies before the body is ready to receive them.
There is another aspect to yoga, however, that makes it a much safer path than the better-known path of mystical love and prayer. In the West, many saints have suffered in their bodies from the inflow of divine grace. No, they weren’t destroyed by grace, and their suffering gradually became transmuted into perfect attunement with the Divine Flow. They might have been spared much physical suffering, however. What happened to them, especially as grace first began to operate in their bodies, was like turning water on at the faucet before straightening out the hose. A strong flow of water can straighten out the hose, true, but how much better if we take the time to straighten it ourselves. The lashing back and forth which ensues as the water straightens the hose can create a degree of havoc.
So it is that the practice of yoga involves not only awakening energies, but also, even more specifically, opening up the channel of the spine so that the flow of grace can enter the body unimpeded. Not knowing what was happening, Western mystics and saints have often suffered physically, at least until finally the purification process ended. We don’t find that sort of thing happening nearly so much among yogis.
In fact, then, yoga is very much the safer path. It is important, however, not to do the more violent exercises one finds available in books, and from certain organizations.
Yoga makes us more aware of ourselves as bodies of energy, not merely of material substance. The more aware one becomes that one is energy, the greater control one has in one’s own life.
By increasing the flow of energy to the body, one can maintain good health, and overcome illness and other physical setbacks in record time.
By increasing the flow of energy in one’s work, one can be more successful in everything one attempts, and can greatly shorten the time for achieving it. With great energy, indeed, one can do in a few minutes what others may require weeks or months to accomplish.
By increasing the flow of energy to other people, one can vastly increase and deepen the love and friendship between oneself and them, and also affect them for the good in their own lives.
By increasing the flow of energy in one’s life, one finds abundant happiness, insight, and wisdom in guiding one’s affairs.
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