Sri Vasudeva on Meditation

[Uma]

Originally Posted by Miss Hepburn

I come here every morning to read, btw.
Very nice of you to do this.

That means a lot to me Miss Hepburn. It takes me 4 hours to listen to each day's talk, meditate, contemplate the teaching, then write and edit a post - so I'm glad to know it's appreciated.

I'm also really grateful to the administrators and moderators of Spiritual Forums who empower me to share more by creating a safe welcoming space for everyone.

[moonincancer]

Uma
Just came across this thread. Thank you very much for posting these.

[Uma]

Day 23 of 40: April 17, 2016 (link)

ooooo...I knew he would get around to this eventually - the dreaded "self-discipline" talk! It followed a tirade of complaints from devotees yesterday during conversation who were (like me) complaining how tough it is to stick with the discipline (tapasya) on the spiritual journey. Sri Vasudeva, ever my divine personal trainer, exploded into a rant when he said:

"When you take the discipline of a mantra in the mind and really hold the mantra in the mind, understanding the meaning of the mantra, understanding the purpose of the mantra (to protect the mind, to discipline the mind), and you really keep the mantra there continuously what happens to the mind? You want to control the mind but why don't you use a tool to transform the mind?! How many of you are guilty of this?! 'Oh Lord protect me, help me! Open my mind for me!' wanting a free lunch. So what about the mantra that's given to you? How do you use that to effect change? Do you want the Divine to do everything for you and you just sit there waiting? Is that how it's going to happen? Isn't there a saying that God helps those who help themselves?"

Yikes!
So now it's got me accepting the fact that my self-discipline is not perfect and I have to do something about it! I know where I'm strong and where I'm weak, and what needs tweaking…so stop procrastinating, whining, complaining and blaming and just get back to work!!!

In my own discipline I use the chakras as a checklist because wherever the blocks are, that's where discipline is required...so let's have a look:

• discipline of the root - grounding in the body
• discipline of the sacral - lust management or transmutation
• discipline of the navel - proper diet and exercise
• discipline of the heart - emotional intelligence, social intelligence, cognitive behaviour therapy
• discipline of the throat - uplifting speech, perfect listening
• discipline of the brow - observation, management and transformation of thoughts
• discipline of the crown - taking at least 20 minutes every morning and evening in meditation and prayer to reinforce my connection with God

Discipline is really self-protection
Sri Vasudeva said that discipline "protects us from the old patterns when we are truly committed to it. It protects us from the dark part of ourselves that we may not see."
I really love this teaching! I notice that it is saying I need protection from myself, not anything or anyone outside of me. Behind this teaching is another, that everything on the outside of me is really a mirror of the inside of me. I want to be as bright and beautiful as possible on the inside to attract grace towards myself, not more distractions, temptations and gross realities that will disturb my peace. Self-discipline protects me from bad karma too because when it comes, as it invariably does, I can face it with the strength of my inner power, my resilience, and be a more perfect instrument of the Divine.

Discipline as a joy
Sri Vasudeva tells us that once self-discipline becomes a habit, it becomes automatic and when it becomes automatic, it becomes a joy - because we naturally want to do it. This has always made sense to me and I have found this to be true in my own practice. There is a profound teaching in this that I hope he will talk about later...about the magical power and consciousness that comes when the practice reaches its zenith or tipping point.

Sri Vasudeva walks the talk
Sri Vasudeva is a spiritual leader who does not sit on his laurels but really role models his teachings in his life each and every day. For example he works out every day in addition to continuing the meditation practice and sattvic diet so that he can promote wellness in body, mind and spirit for himself and as an example to his disciples. He is always pushing himself to the limit. He is now in his sixties but has the energy and body of someone decades younger. I'm so inspired by his example! And he always says the older he gets, the more exercises he does, reminding me of the queen's words to Alice,

“My dear, here we must run as fast as we can, just to stay in place. And if you wish to go anywhere you must run twice as fast as that.” ~ Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

In all of that hard hard work, persistence, patience and never giving up - when life has punched me black and blue, getting myself back up, dusting off the dirt, blood and sweat - always remembering I am not alone, always remembering there are forces in place to help me... in the words of my master:

Oh Supreme One, teach me the way to be self-disciplined.
Guide me and protect me from restlessness, from the darkness of my inner space, from the temptations that are within me that lead me astray.
Protect me, help me to enjoy being disciplined as a way of transforming myself and experiencing You fully within me.
Grant me the wisdom, the understanding, to see the dangers of indiscipline and the beauty of discipline.
Give me the understanding: the discrimination.
I center myself in You
that I may be nourished by You,
that I may be guided by You.
It is a dark and lonely path.
You are my only hope.
You are my Guide,
You are my Teacher,
You are my Self.
In You I place my trust.
In You I place my ego self.
Transform me.
I bow to You
Oh
Supreme
One.

[Uma]

Day 24 of 40: April 18, 2016 link

I can make all these posts and share my knowledge and get nowhere if I am not putting everything I have learned into practice WISELY. The educated person is a mouthpiece only, a parrot repeating words it doesn't understand, if they do not put what they have learned into action because action modifies everything. Sri Vasudeva said it's like the fat caterpillar eating all this knowledge then getting caught up in the knowledge, in the pride of knowing, in the competition with others of having knowledge, rather than moving on to cocoon themselves in a transformative process that results in the beautiful butterfly :)

Swadhyaya - contemplation of my Self - in ACTION
Following his previous talk about the importance of maintaining self-discipline (tapasya), Sri Vasudeva spoke today very briefly about putting the teachings into practice by the way of wise action: "swadhyaya: that use of knowledge that will help to liberate us." What he was talking about is WISE action, not just taking the teachings literally and using them indiscriminately in any old context. It's not about fanaticism, it's about becoming the teachings - being the message - in a way that is harmonized with God's will.

When I act with wisdom I am in oneness with everything and everyone around me. It's when synergy happens, when I feel supported and carried and motivated by God. I am not following a cookie-cutter recipee from this dogma or that dogma.

My understanding of swadhyaya ("self study"), is that it is a multi-step process of taking all the knowledge I have learned, allowing it to percolate deep in my subconscious mind like a fat caterpillar in a cocoon so that it goes through a transformation process that changes it from intellectual knowledge into intuition, and then it goes through my inner Guru (the awakened Kundalini) who further refines and purifies it (through awakening superconsciousness) so that it emerges as divine inspiration to act in a way of Light not ignorance, and to take me another step into enlightened consciousness. I think of it as a refining process, sort of like a processing plant extracting sugar from beets:

"Centering" not "focusing" in meditation
Sri Vasudeva explained this far more eloquently at the beginning of the meditation:

"Observe that inner space. Clear the mind of thoughts and open up the space to the fullness of being. Do not be limited. Open up your space intuitively to wisdom, to intuitive insight, to the Guru Principle (to the guiding principle inside of you). It's not about focusing to a point. It is about centering in another space. The focusing is different: [it's] centering (opening up) as though you're listening to a universe within you."

This crucial step requires that I know what centering feels like and when centering happens. And then I need to know how to access intuitive information, not blindly, but with an awareness of my awakened Self prompting me to act in the best way.

Many years ago he told us, "Intuition is really a process of picking up more information than that which is available to us through the senses," and he also said somewhere that wisdom is the kind of intuition that takes one to enlightenment.* And today he spoke about putting that wisdom into practice. So he really only touched on the subject today.

Am I making any sense???

Wisdom as a lifestyle practice
Wisdom is not an easy concept to grasp intellectually or to explain intellectually. It has been the subject of scholarly debate and poetic flights of fancy since humanity began to record about self-inquiry. But it is understood by mystics and by those of us who have a communicative relationship with our divine self and that's why wisdom can come through a child. A child is unencumbered by book knowledge and too much ego.

Intuition development for me is a by-product of meditation although I work on developing it consciously and carefully. Carefully - because I want it to be reliable. I want it to prompt my higher nature and not my lower nature to fulfill God's will in my every action. Wisdom comes when I have learned enough (mostly through bitter life experiences) and have followed my intuition enough that I automatically know what to do in situations and it always works as win-win situations and then I feel uplifted by it, re-energized, joyful in feeling that God presence. And when I feel that divine presence, I know myself for who I am in oneness with all of life, even if for only a brief precious moment. And that's the Self-study idea of swadhyaya as I understand it so far! (((!)))

Bottom line: spiritual knowledge is useless unless it makes me wiser about who I am and what I need to do or not do.

*p.s. I just got this:

*"Wisdom is when intellect shines with spiritual consciousness or when intellect is operating fully in the light of Higher Self" ~ Sri Vasudeva

[Uma]

Day 25 of 40: April 19, 2016 (link)

I am little peeved about today's talk
Hmmm… God is the Doer, yet I am the one who takes responsibility for my actions and pays for the consequence of my actions. I'm the one who has to act wisely in the play. I have to do all these niyamas and work so hard and so selflessly, and then who gets the reward for my actions? Someone else. Someone more deserving. Doesn't sound fair does it? And on top of it all I'm not allowed to complain either! My ego is peeved about this. Not fair! I did all the work! I deserve the recognition! The rant goes round and round in my head like some kind of anti-matter mantra monster threatening to blow up my universe.

Today I must confront the nothingness of my "I", my "ego":

"The 'I' has no eternal existence. The mind gives it existence, the form. In truth the only thing that exists is consciousness in its infinite nature." ~ Sri Vasudeva

This is part of the profound realization of the enlightened ones, the point of view of the awake ones, the wise ones. It doesn't mean just doing selfless acts and saying "I am not the Doer. I am so humble." It means really, really really and truly feeling it to the depths of my soul. But my ego resists. My ego is screaming, hopping mad!

In meditation practice
Observing my thoughts… it can lead to the silence, but only when I realize who is doing the thinking, where that thinking is coming from…and when grace happens. What will I see when I look into the machinery of the mind, into the software of the mind? What will I see when I look at this ego that is producing all these thoughts? Will I see a transparent nothing that exists only as a thought of God?

Karma yoga
The practice of selfless service is a heart-centered path to enlightenment. It's not only about doing good things, it's about doing everything with an honest and sincere attitude of "I am not the Doer" and with a devotional attitude of "I am offering this to God" - offering my mind, heart and body to God; offering my every breath to God; offering my "I" to God, my little point of view that adds to the collective point of view.

In truth I am a hologram thinking I have sentience.
I am a hallucination someone else is having.
Just as I am I dreaming about this treasure chest and as I begin to wake from the dream I want to keep just one teeny weeny gold ring, but I can't because it all dissolves into nothing…so too in my ordinary reality, even though it all feels so solid and so real (but it did in my dream too) it is not. It is not. And I am not also.
These are depressing thoughts, oh God…

Other people are excited,
as though they were at a parade.
I alone don't care,
I alone am expressionless,
like an infant before it can smile.

Other people have what they need;
I alone possess nothing.
I alone drift about,
like someone without a home.
I am like an idiot, my mind is so empty.

Other people are bright;
I alone am dark.
Other people are sharp;
I alone am dull.
Other people have a purpose;
I alone don't know.
I drift like a wave on the ocean,
I blow as aimless as the wind.

~ Lao Tsu in Tao Te Ching, translated by Stephen Mitchell

Here Lao Tsu is not speaking of depression but of great joy - the joy of not having to carry burdens - burdens that come with ownership - the responsibilities that come with recognition - the difficult karmic lessons that come with name, fame and fortune. He is speaking of the freedom that comes when we let go and let God.

The joy of owing nothing and being nothing
There is something wonderful that happens when I surrender the outcomes of all these actions my "I" thinks it is doing… when my surrender is done in fullness and I am fully aware of my surrendering… I let go, I let somebody else, and then suddenly I am in this flow. How can I describe this to you if you have never felt flow?
It's sort of kind of like:

• falling into an ocean of love
• the best orgasm you ever had but it doesn't end
• feeling like a thousand angels are fluttering around in your heart
• and it gets hot in there
• being in the zone
• flying
• floating
• peace
• a whole new world!

Breathing prana into my heart chakra I sing:

"In You I exist. In Your infinite love I exist. I open my heart to let go of Doership. You carry my heart, You carry me (carry me emotionally)." ~ Sri Vasudeva

[Sharita]

Enjoying all of this Uma Thank You.

I know a lot of what is being talked about instinctively, it's nice to see it being said by others.

Won Love Peace

[Uma]

Originally Posted by Sharita

Enjoying all of this Uma Thank You.

I know a lot of what is being talked about instinctively, it's nice to see it being said by others.

Won Love Peace

Thank you so much Sharita and you're absolutely right - we already know all this instinctively...it's really just a reminder...in his words:

"Everything that you are looking for and that you need is right within your being. I can’t bring anything to you that you don’t already have. I bring a fresh dose of inspiration and I try to wake you up to your reality." ~ Sri Vasudeva 2009

[Sharita]

Originally Posted by Uma

Thank you so much Sharita and you're absolutely right - we already know all this instinctively...it's really just a reminder...in his words:

Yes, unfortunately we all forget and back around the cycle we go.

It's nice to be reminded, it's amazing how quickly we can forget.

Thank you again for Sharing these, it's good to be reminded once more

Love Won Peace

[Uma]

Day 26 of 40: April 20, 2016 link

Sri Vasudeva outlined what the typical spiritual journey looks like. I've summarized this into five basic steps that I've experienced:
1. I desire to have a greater experience than the merely human one.
2. I realize that God exists or that the Universe is intelligent and I realize there is something more to me than meets the eye.
3. I begin to detach from the world now that all the worldly things and relationships that used to give me joy no longer do - and they disturb my peace. I want something that enhances my spiritual experience.
4. I experience a spiritual awakening (whether from the past resurfacing, from a physical master, or from a master in a dream) through grace. I now begin to experience my multidimensional self-hood and the presence of an Inner Guide, so now my experience of God is no longer only something outside of me but more and more so as something within me. The inner me seems to get more real, and the outer more like a dream. (I am not hallucinating by the way - I am grounded in both worlds.)
5. The more I give attention to that relationship with the Divine and to making it more powerful (to attracting more grace), the more my ego transforms…so today's practice is about step five - giving attention to that ego transformation.

Step Five
Following yesterday, today's topic was:

"How can we move from that doer-ship and the burden of doer-ship into the joy of being carried? What are the steps involved as you become more and more spiritually awakened? I think it's important to observe this." ~ Sri Vasudeva

If I feel the presence of God within me moving through the chakras (and giving me hints on the outside), and if I observe carefully which chakra is most blocked, then I can work on helping my divine self open up that chakra by allowing more of my divine nature to express through it in every situation. This is sounds simple enough. It means giving my best in every moment in every area of life. I need to free my inner butterfly. I need to be the light in all my actions.

Because the Divine supports me from inside and outside, it's like the child's game of hot and cold - find the Divine Light that hides in everything. If I act in the way of selfish ego, there is no Kundalini movement or no synergy happening on the outside but if I act in the way of divine self, I feel a surge of power and beautiful feelings or sometimes intuitive insights, and everything just falls into place magically.

Why do I resist this?!
So why am I NOT doing this in every moment?! How come the laboratory mouse in one of those reward/punishment experiments does a better job of doing what it's supposed to than I do! Why do I sometimes forget to do this?! The "God" I worship is not an unknowable great mystery to me because the more I know my divine self, the more I feel at home, the more I feel closer to my true being. The real mystery to me is my own ego and its bizarre forgetfulness. Hence the importance of vigilant observation - staying the course of whatever practice I am following, and constantly looking to see where exactly my ego is blocking my chakras - and when, and how, and under what circumstances.

Opening chakras
In the guided meditation practice Sri Vasudeva took us through three kinds of ego consciousness as a way of expressing the right posture or attitude our "I" needs to keep in meditation and in daily life. These are heart, mind and body. You can access this by clicking on the link (top of page). Of course there are seven spiritual chakras to deal with - but these three are commonly the most troublesome.

I'm absolutely amazed by the deviousness of my ego - all the sneaky ways I sabotage my own progress.

"Oh Supreme One. . . . Guide me, protect me, hold me in this awareness of oneness with You. I do not want to lose that. Protect me. I offer all that I am to You that You may cleanse me completely." ~ Sri Vasudeva

[Uma]

Day 27 of 40: April 21, 2016 link

Continuing on the topic of doer-ship, Sri Vasudeva today introduced the concept of the ego as a co-creative partner in life, using the co-creative power tools of the soul in the human body and in the human experience - namely the six chakras from root to brow. Knowing about and learning to master these chakras and also how to center in that space of all possibilities is, he said, the heart of maha yoga.

Metaphysical anatomy

"The way the physical body works and the way it's driven by the subtle body inside is through six centers of power - so we have centers of co-creative power. How aware are you of them? How aware are you of their purpose? How aware are you of the influence that these co-creative centers within you have on this physical body that you have?" ~ Sri Vasudeva

If you have seen movies like The Secret, you'll understand the concept of how the ego manifests form in the physical dimension by first constructing and maintaining it in the subtle dimensions. I know there is more to the secret than explained in the film. Today, Sri Vasudeva emphasized the physical body - reminding me of how I can co-create a more powerful, more energized body that serves as a better vehicle for my soul purpose.

Pranatization workout meditation
In meditation practice using prana-in-the-breath, muscles and the power of intention and attention he guided us in exploring the power of each chakra singly and in different combinations. He showed us how to fire up the whole subtle energy system and simultaneously the oxygen of the physical body - releasing endorphins (the morphine-like chemicals that naturally stream from the nervous system during exercise). It was a very energizing experience on all levels - body-mind-spirit. The idea of this exploratory meditation was to see the extent to which we have mastered our chakra powers. This kind of practice can be seen in Taoist practices and other forms of martial arts and healing arts that tap into life force energy.

What tends to happen for me is that when I put all this effort into what I call "priming the pump" of each chakra, the prana (chi, qi) starts to flow like crazy and I can direct it all over my body and into each chakra. So it's a real inner workout and inner cleanser-supercharger kind of exercise. The idea is to maximize the soul's capacity to use the physical body and who doesn't want to have a radiant super-healthy physical body?

Added grace
Because my Kundalini is awakened in the sushumna, I can tap into universal life force energy using intention, concentration, muscles and breath and this empowers Kundalini to work in a greater way to clear my chakra blockages on a spiritual level too. (Remember, God helps those who help themselves - self effort is rewarded) So all kinds of psychic things are happening too and sometimes kryias (spiritual experiences) that are linked to these chakras manifest as well. In the meditation he said to...

"...observe when grace appears that the action becomes a little more effortless and non-doing comes into the space - doing in the experience of non-doing." ~ Sri Vasudeva

This is when the effort becomes effortless - when I feel carried in the practice, in the doer-ship.

The secret fountain of youth
The secret of staying young and healthy in a physical body begins with this kind of meditation practice...

...and leaving the body in the most beautiful way...

"If you place the life force at the heart and on the top of the head you're going to leave gloriously in the light. So when you learn to find those centers of heart and head and you begin to live there in every moment, then you have already transitioned. Leaving the body will be a cup of tea - [you will just] slip out in the light." ~ Sri Vasudeva

I'm just amazed and excited in the possibility of mastering my own bodies - my physical body and light body - and living in a space of radiance right through to death and beyond...even moreso to live in the peace that death brings while I'm still alive in the physical body! I love the way Sri Vasudeva combines techniques from different traditions and incorporates them into these marvellous experiential workshops! Experiment and learn in meditation - I will be doing more of that!