[Uma]

Observations of Sri Vasudeva's Day 25, 2015 40 Days talk continued…

First things first, some basics - what these things mean to me:
Meditation is the ultimate goal of meditation.
The state of meditation (beingness non-attached to form, that silent space) is the ultimate goal of a sitting (or moving) meditation practice.
Meditation practice is a spiritual tool.
"Spiritual" is essence.
That essence is pure being.
So spiritual practice is that which unfolds my spiritual or essential being.

This is to introduce what Sri Vasudeva spoke about, using the poetry of Hinduism (because he was speaking to a mostly Hindu audience). Hinduism has many gods and goddesses. What I have learned about Hinduism comes through Sri Vasudeva's enlightened perspective, not from pundits and others who study and/or preach about scripture. Sri Vasudeva cannot be held by any religious dogma. He understands all scripture because he is living the experience that scripture speaks about in code. Scripture is usually written by men who may have glimpsed enlightenment but the ones who come to teach by example do not write scripture. Thus religion is created by others, by the researchers, usually long after the prophet has left. Hinduism is the world's oldest religion. It is not based on or focused on a prophet. It was created by 7 rishis (a panel of experts one might say). At its core it is more of a science than a religion. That's how I approach it. (I am not a Hindu.)

The important chakras for spiritual development are the 7 chakras situated in the sushumna nadi (the central pranic channel in the spine): root, sacral, navel, heart, throat, brow, crown. Of these six are important for spiritual practice: root, sacral, navel, heart, throat, brow. Of these three are important for managing the others: navel, heart, brow. The Chinese call these the three dantiens (or t'an t'ien).

Dantian, dan t'ian, dan tien or tan t'ien is loosely translated as "elixir field", "sea of qi", or simply "energy center". Dantian are the Qi Focus Flow Centers, important focal points for meditative and exercise techniques such as qigong, martial arts such as t'ai chi ch'uan, and in traditional Chinese medicine. [Wikipedia]

These three are related to three psychic knots (in Sanskrit, "granthis") that get "untied" over lifetimes (soul/ego psychic disentanglement) - they are really like major stages in one's spiritual development. I think the 7 chakras are experienced differently depending on what dantien/granthis stage you are at. There is a physical stage focused on mastery of physical things, a heart centered stage focused on sharing love so it's very social and relationship-oriented, and a brow centered stage that is inward focused with an emphasis on disentangling the soul/ego from its attachments to all that is changeless (time based) and attached to form (space based). (Sri Vasudeva taught about these things many years ago, so I'm basing this on my recollection.)

The ancient Hindus have called these three areas or stages: Brahma - the creative quality of God; Vishnu - the sustaining quality of God, and Siva - the destroying quality of God. And they must have recognized that in ancient society while men give the orders it is women who do most of the work because they assigned the corresponding power (or shakti) of these qualities to the goddess-consorts of these three: Saraswati to Brahma, Lakshmi to Vishnu, and Kali/Durga to Siva.*

So for me, all the mythology associated with these gods and goddesses are illustrations of how the prana works inside of me. All of it comes down to the quantum truth that whole universe lives inside of me. And of course that's true for you too (we live in a holographic universe or what I call "YOU-niverse").

Saraswati-the power behind speech
Did you know that when you speak the speech begins at the root chakra?! Source/God enters through the root, desire is associated to it at the sacral, vitality giving speech power is given at the navel, emotional qualities at the heart, and finally the physical speech enters the space as a sound wave through the throat. Sri Vasudeva gave an entire series of workshops just about this! In this talk he emphasized that real devotion to the goddess Saraswati is not about putting flowers in front of a statue and then speaking in an ugly way to everybody else… well I'll put his own words here:

…because Mother Saraswati is at the heart of the lower area, the Brahmic region, and she’s the power behind the voice so every time you’re using the voice you’re using the Saraswati power – every time. Whether you are conscious of it or not, you’re using that Saraswati nadi, you’re using that Saraswati energy and it comes out. So what do you do with the Sarawati energy? What do you do with it? How is your speech? How do you really honour Saraswati? Putting a flower by the statue? Praying Hey Saraswati, hey ma? Or do you look at her power within you, internalize that, begin to own that. Look at your voice every time you speak and see if you’re really honouring the Saraswati devi. Hindus…honour all the goddesses, all the energies, all the powers – but they forget to honour the powers of the deities inside. The voice continues to be harsh, angry, hateful, spiteful, jealous… Saraswati energy is totally captivated in the lower area. Saraswati doesn’t want to be so caught up in the darkness. She is inside of you. So wake her up. When you chant with such power, it’s her energy. This is the way you wake her up; and after this you want to keep that energy flowing. You don’t want it to go back into the darkness.
~ Sri Vasudeva

Sincere devotion means honouring that which the goddess really means - that which is inside of me, not anything outside of me. This is at the heart of any sincere spiritual practice. Religion gives me maps and tools I can use, poetic stories and allegoric metaphors to help me understand - but ultimately I need to experience these things for myself during meditation and once I have experienced it to learn how to manage it, and allow Kundalini to purify me to uncover my essence so that it becomes not "I" but Kundalini ("She"/"He" is all the goddesses) who speaks through me in every moment.

All of this (above) is a kind of background to the talk he gave on Day 25. It was a talk oriented to the majority of his devotees who understand what Hinduism is about, and more importantly who understand that ancient Hinduism is based on actual experience of enlightenment. To be continued...

Today I focus on my speech.
May the Inner Guru speak through me always.
May my speech always be full of Light.
May it come from the depths of Silence
that it may uplift me and all who
listen
hear
and understand.

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* There are many forms of Hinduism and I don't attempt to claim an indepth understanding of any of them, only the mysticism behind them as was explained to me by my teacher - so this comes from a Siddha Yoga or Maha Yoga point of view.