New Search

If you are not happy with the results below please do another search

57 search results for: J Krishnamurti

21

How to Master Desire and Master Life

Desire is not to be killed, suppressed or destroyed, nor is it meant to be indulged in senselessly.  Desire is the heartbeat of life and the key to mastering life is the understanding of desire.  This understanding, which is born out of relentless observation of it’s structure and movement, is the road to freedom and Self-realization.

In the excerpt below on the mastery of life and desire, J. Krishnamurti goes into this most important topic and discusses the complexities of desire and how it relates to enlightenment and liberation.  Below the excerpt I highlight and discuss some of his key points and ideas.
how-to-do-zen-meditation

J. Krishnamurti on Mastering Life and Desire: 

Now desire, contrary to general belief, is the most precious possession of man. It is the eternal flame of life; it is life itself. When its nature and functions are not understood, however, it becomes cruel, tyrannical, bestial, stupid. Therefore your business is not to kill desire as most spiritual people in the world are trying to do, but to understand it. If you kill your desire, you are like the withered branch of a lovely tree. Desire must keep growing and find out its true meaning through conflict and friction. Only by the continuance of the conflict can understanding come. This is what most people do not see. As soon as the conflict comes, and the sorrow born of conflict, they at once seek comfort. Comfort, in its turn, breeds fear. Fear leads to imitation and the sheltering behind established tradition. From this come rigid systems of morality, laying down what is spiritual and what is not spiritual, what is the religious life and what is not the religious life. It is the fear of life which produces guides, teachers, gurus, churches, religions. Please, I know.

None of these things are going to satisfy a mind which is really enquiring, which is really in revolt. As soon as you fear, you have the desire to conform, to listen to everybody, to become a machine, a type. And all this is but contraction, and contraction is slow death. It is not in this way that desire can ever fulfil itself. Growth can only come by the liberation of desire, and liberation here means freeing it from all fear, and so from the cruelty and exploitation which results from the quest of comfort, which is the refuge of fear. And this, in its turn, can only come about through the wearing down of the egotism in desire by contact with life itself. Only in this way can the reality be reached which is the true consummation of desire. And so, truly to grow is to learn to love more and more, to think more and more impersonally, through experience.

Desire, freed from its limitations and from the illusion of fear, becomes joy, which is but the true poise of reason and love. From being at first personal, limited, anxious, clinging, it grows by suffering till it becomes all-inclusive, till it is as the sunset which gives and does not ask anything in return. In the same way, by continual experience, by choosing, by assimilating and rejecting, thought becomes more and more impersonal. When both thought and desire are purified, then we get the perfect balance and harmony between the two, which is the fulfilment of life and which we speak of as intuition. Such purified life is the highest reality, and I say that every man and woman must sooner or later attain to it. It is not reserved for the few, because life is not the possession of the few. It is that which is struggling for realization in every human being, and the path to realization is the same in all cases. It is by struggle, effort, choice and conflict.

Now this highest reality is something which I assert that I have attained. For me, it is not a theological concept. It is my own life-experience, definite, real, concrete. I can, therefore, speak of what is necessary for its achievement, and I say that the first thing is the recognizing exactly what desire must become in order to fulfil itself, and then to discipline oneself so that at every moment, one is watching one’s own desires, and guiding them towards that all-inclusiveness of impersonal love and thought which must be their true consummation. When you have established the discipline of this constant awareness, this constant watchfulness upon all that you think and feel and do, then life ceases to be the tyrannical, tedious, confusing thing that it is for most of us, and becomes but a series of opportunities for growing towards that perfect fulfillment.

The goal of life is, therefore, not something far off, to be attained only in the distant future, but it is to be realized moment by moment in that Now which is all eternity. In such realization every moment controls the future; by what you are now, you make yourself the master of tomorrow. To understand life and to live it with understanding you must make yourself free of all the illusions which desire throws up in its efforts to grow. And this means that you must be free of fear, for all such illusions are born of fear. Once you have attained to fearlessness, then you will understand clearly what desire is really seeking, and how it may attain its end. The man who is seeking happiness, and understands what he is seeking, must have no divorce between his desires and his actions. Knowing what desire really wants, he will translate this into daily action. In other words, all his actions will show forth that poise of reason and of love, which is desire’s true goal because it is the liberation of life.

 Mastering Life, Mastering Desire Analysis

 1. Selfishness to Love:

One of the key points Krishnamurti is making above is the movement of desire from egotistical and self-obsessive to loving and all inclusive. Essentially he is asserting that it is the diminishing of constant self-interest, which ordinary desire is saturated with, accomplished through the act of awareness and discernment, which leads to a life full of joy, love and clarity.  

So as much as possible refrain from falling prey and feeding desires that are exclusively self promoting and instead nurture a holistic view of humanity and be compassionate, loving and peaceful.

2. Constant Self Awareness:

To bring about this great change and master your life, you need to be constantly watching the movement of your mind and the ceaseless activity of desire from moment to moment.  This is the way forward.  Such observation diminishes the grasp which the egotistical mind has over you and frees you from the constant pattern of self-concern.  

This demand is indeed great, for the mind is not easily watched and understanding the motivation behind all you do, think and feel is not trivial.  But we are speaking of the highest goal of humanity here, so it ought not to be easy.  Rise to the challenge, you have what it takes to go all the way.

3. Be Fearless:

As Krishnamurti points out, the mastery of desire and subsequent mastery of life begins with being fearless.  Being afraid leads to constant escaping from the present and escaping is a self-isolating, ego strengthening activity.  In order for desire to move towards love, such endless self-concern has to wither away.  Fear promotes the endless search for self-security, while fearlessness allows you to move in a different direction altogether.    

Fearlessness allows you to stand apart and examine what is happening dispassionately and impersonally, without needing to seek comfort or security.  This examining, inquiring, watching is what leads to the understanding of desire and “what is”.  Not trying to change “what is” into what “should be”, as per the goals and ideals put forth by the fearful mind, is the key to finding your True Self.  This state of witnessing and observation, leads to intelligence and opens the door to the beyond.

22

Best Advice I Ever Got

Best Advice Survey Results

Thanks to all of you who have liked my fan page on Facebook.  Yesterday it crossed 1,000 likes, and I am very grateful to all of you for stopping by and supporting the page.  If you have not done so yet and would like to check out the page, you can do so here – Mastery of Meditation and Yoga Fan Page.

 

Yesterday, we ran an interesting survey on the page, where we asked everyone the question, “What is the Best Advice You Have Ever Got?”  We got some great responses which I thought would be beneficial to share with all of you as well.

best adviceThis is the first time I am sharing directly from the fan page so if you receive my articles directly in you email, please note that this article might not render correctly as it contains Facebook code.  If that is the case, please visit the website directly in order to read the article.  Here is the link to my blog page, where you will find all my newest articles, Mastery of Meditation and Yoga Blog Page.

For my part, the best advice I ever got was the teaching from J. Krishnamurti which instructed that one should not settle for anything but the Highest in life.  This simple piece of advice has been instrumental in inspiring me on my own journey and has always reminded me not to settle for anything less that the Ultimate Truth itself.

This advice is analogous to the following wonderful Buddha quote, “There are only 2 mistakes you can make in life.  First mistake is not to take the first step and the second is that having taken the first step to not go all the way.”  Here again the advice is to reach for the very highest in life.  Reach for enlightenment.

Below there are other great pieces of advice from various friends. Some that stand out to me are the following…

Miz Bell advises, “Live like you are dying.”

Diana Hernandez advises “Never stop being you.”

Terry Lee Lawrence advises, “The body is a vehicle, the mind is the motor but it is the soul that is the driver!”

Thomas Martin advises, “Do not delay your spiritual practice. Start today.”

Best advice you ever got responses:

PS: The buttons will not work directly from this page, in order to participate please visit my Fan page below.

Sorry guys, I had to delete the rest of the post as the code from Facebook was breaking my RSS feed.  You will though find this survey on my fan page so head on over there to read all the great advise people are sharing.

Best Advice You Ever Got Summary

The above thread is still very much alive and active, so if you would like to contribute, please head on over to the Mastery of Meditation and Yoga Fan Page and chime in.  Of course, the comments section of this blog is always to open to you as well, so if you have received some advice which has helped you in your life, do share that with us.  Such pearls of wisdom are often the catalysts for great transformations, and by sharing them you could be the source of that catalyst for another.

23

What is Mindfulness?

What is Mindfulness Meditation

Understanding Mindfulness

Mindfulness can simply be defined as the observation of “what is”. The awareness of what is taking place in the outer environment and the inner environment.  Thus, being aware of the trees, the breeze and the sounds of the birds is mindfulness and so is being aware of your thoughts, feelings and movements.  But, there is a deeper level of understanding with regard to what mindfulness is and in this article I want to explore this deeper meaning with you.

Being always mindful is the goal of a meditative life, where Self Realization is of the highest importance.  This is far easier said than done, as the mind, the way it is currently conditioned, is always lost in thoughts of one kind or another.  While thus lost in thoughts, there is no mindfulness as there is simply the reactions of the mind, and no attention to what is taking place. 

Mindfulness

Why the need to be mindful though?  What does happen is we are deeply mindful and how does that lead to transformation?  Unless we understand this, we wont realize the importance of mindfulness and we wont be able to truly answer the question, What is Mindfulness?

To help explain Mindfulness in it’s deeper sense, I have selected the following excerpt from the great meditation master J. Krishnamurti.  In it, although he does not use the term mindfulness specifically, it is mindfulness in it’s true sense that he is explaining. 

I know it is a bit long, but due to the importance of this topic, I did not want leave out parts that contribute to understanding it.  Below the excerpt, I discuss how this is related to the real meaning of Mindfulness.

In the following excerpt Krishnamurti is discussing how to be free of ambition (desire).  He is explaining what must be done in order to end ambition.  Seeing the urgent need to end ambition stems from understanding that ambition is an ego centric activity that inevitably leads to isolation and loneliness, and that as long as one’s relationships are simply to escape this loneliness, then those relationships are filled with dependency, attachment, fear, envy, hatred, etc and always lead to suffering. 

So to have loving relationships, it is essential to be free of loneliness and to be free of loneliness it is essential to be free of the ever isolating activity of ambition.  Here is how mindfulness is the key to accomplishing this…

Book: On Right Livelihood

Author: J. Krishnamurti

So am I ambitious?  Now I am going to learn.  I am going to observe, and find out if I am ambitious, not just in one direction, my whole life.  Not the ambition to have a bigger house, the ambition to be successful, the ambition to achieve a result, money, but also the ambition to transform “what is” into the perfect state.  I am ugly and I want to transform that into the most beautiful state.  All that and more is ambition.  And I watch it.  That’s my life, you understand?  I am going to watch it with passion, not just sit down and discuss it.  I am watching it night and day because I have realized the truth that loneliness is the most terrible think because it is most destructive in relationship.  And human being cannot live by themselves.  Life is relationship.  Life is action in that relationship.  It in that relationship there is isolation there is total inaction.  I realize that, not verbally, but as a burning reality.

Now I am watching.  Am I ambitious to transform “what is” into “what should be”, the ideal?  You understand?  That’s a form of ambition to change what I am into what I should be.

So I watch, and I say, yes, I want to change “what is” into “what should be”.  And I realize how absurd that is.  It is a part of ambition given to me education, culture, tradition.  In school “A” is better than “B”, copy “A” – you know all that business.  The religions have said, change from what you are to what you should be.  So I realize the falseness of it, and I totally discard it.  I will not touch it.  So I accept “what is”.  What a minute.  I see “what is”, and I see “what is” isn’t good enough.  So how am I going to transform it without the ambition of changing it into something?

Now I see what it is; I am greedy.  I don’t want to transform it into non-greed.  I am violent; I don’t want to transform it into non-violence.  But that violence must undergo a radical change.  Now what am I to do with it?   What is my mind to do, which has been trained, educated, disciplined to be ambitious, violent?  When I realize that to change that into something else is still violence, I won’t proceed along those lines.  And I am left with “what is”, which is violence.  So what takes place?  How am I to observe it, how is the mind to observe it without wanting to change it?

How is the mind to change this educated, sophisticated ambitions so completely that there is not a breath of ambition?  All day I am watching how my ambition is active.   Because I am very serious, because the loneliness is a terrible thing in relationship, and man can’t live without relationship.   He may pretend, he may say he loves, but still fight with another.  So how is the mind to transform the think called ambition?  Any form of exercise of will is still ambition.  All this is observation.  I see that any form of exercise of will to transform “what is” is another form of ambition.  I have discovered that.  The discovery of it has given me energy, so that I can discard will.  The mind says that is finished, I will never in any circumstances exercise will – because it is part of ambition.

(This next section goes into the deep meaning of mindfulness and how it is essentially the means with which to be free of ambition.  Understanding this part and living it, will give you the answer to the questions, what is mindfulness).

Those are all the activities of ambition that have produced this sense of desperate loneliness.  So all kinds of neurotic activities take place.  And as I have observed it, watched it, without doing a thing about it, then out of that observation the activity of ambition has come to an end because the mind has become extraordinarily sensitive to ambition.  It is as if it cannot tolerate ambition, therefore becoming very sensitive it has become extraordinarily intelligent.

What is Mindfulness Analysis:

In the above excerpt, you can substitute the word mindfulness for whenever Krishnamurti speaks of watching, seeing or observing “what is”, for that is what mindfulness really means (I have marked those sections in bold).  So we can see from the above the full power of mindfulness and how it holds the key to transforming the mind into something extraordinary.

By being acutely mindful of ambition as it moves within our mind, we develop great sensitivity to the actuality of ambition and this sensitivity is the state of a highly alert and intelligent brain, which is then able to reject ambition as it arises.  This complete rejection of ambition (desire) frees the mind from the inevitable suffering that an ambitious life brings.  The reason that ambition is rejected, is because one understands the danger of allow ambition to rule one’s heart and life.

As you can see from the above, Krishnamurti alludes to the requirement of constant, passionate vigilance (mindfulness) in order to develop the sensitivity required to catch and negate ambition as it arises.  So what is ultimately necessary for having a mind free of desire and having a mind capable of love, is having the passion to practice moment to moment mindfulness.

So what is mindfulness?  It is acute sensitivity to “what is” and it is the way to freedom and enlightenment.

Mindfulness Techniques and Further Reading:

Mindfulness Meditation for Beginners

Mindfulness Meditation Tips and Techniques

Is Mindfulness Mediation Right for You

Advanced Mindfulness Meditation (SM)

Zen Story on Mindfulness – True Meaning of Laziness

 

If you enjoyed this article please share it on Facebook or Tweet it to your friends.  Thanks for sharing.

24

A Simple Mind the Key to Meditation

Meditation and Simplicity

Meditation and Non-Attachment

If one looks at all the great meditation masters in the history of man, one sees some very interesting traits that they all had in common.  These traits can give us great insight in their spiritual success and point us in the direction we need to go in order to evolve spiritually as well.  In this article I will look at 2 of these aspects of the great masters.  These are simplicity and the power to stand apart from the world (aloneness).

Whether it is Ramana Maharishi, Jesus, Buddha or Krishnamurti, what they all had in common was being free of society and having a simple, innocent heart and mind.  The following quote from J. Krishnamurti really drives home the point of why simplicity and freedom are so essential for meditation to take place.

Key to Meditation

 

Krishnamurti Quote on Simplicity and Meditation:

Author:      J. Krishnamurti
Book:        Meditations

 

The words “you” and “I” separate things.  This division in this strange silence and stillness doesn’t exist.  And as you watched out of the window, space and time seemed to have come to an end, and the space that divides had no reality.  That leaf and that eucalyptus and the blue shinning water were not different from you.

Meditation is really very simple.  We complicate it.  We weave a web of ideas around it – what it is and what it is not.  But it is none of these things.  Because it is so very simple it escapes us, because our minds are so complicated, so time-worn and time-based.  And this mind dictates the activity of the heart, and then the trouble begins.  But meditation comes naturally, with extraordinary ease, when you walk on the sand or look out of your window or see those marvelous hills burnt by last summer’s sun.  Why are we such tortured human beings, with tears in our eyes and false laughter on our lips?  If you could walk alone among those hills or in the woods or along the long, white, bleached sands, in that solitude you would know what meditation is.

The ecstasy of solitude comes when you are not frightened to be alone – no longer belonging to the world or attached to anything.  Then, like that dawn that came up this morning, it comes silently, and makes a golden path in the very stillness, which was at the beginning, which is now, and which will be always there.

The Simple Mind and Meditation Analysis:

Below I will discuss this excerpt, especially the importance simplicity plays in meditation.

Simplicity and Meditation:

The key to meditation, is the statement which explains that it happens when you are essentially free of the world.  That is what Krishnamurti means by the “ecstasy of solitude”.  That you are no longer entangled in the world of man, that you are able to stand apart, stand alone.  What this means is that you have managed to free yourself from the monstrosity of society and have broken away from its clutches.  You have become your own person, original and first hand.  This is a very important thing to understand well, so let’s go into it a little further.

Essentially, the more you want, the more ensnared you will be in the world of man.  For example, wanting to be wealthy, might lead you to choose professions that pay well, but are not in line with your passions or interest.  You will then be in fear of losing that job, as with it you would lose the money you are attached to.  So you will conform and struggle to keep the job.  What this means is that you will not be able to remain untouched and unbothered by the world, but would instead be immersed and affected by it. 

In the same way our other endless desires and attachments, keep us more and more tightly bound to the world, and ensure that our life is nothing more that a movement from struggle to struggle.  So the first step is to inspect carefully the value of having so many desires.  The more one studies oneself, the more one realizes that there is no lasting happiness to be achieved by the pursuit of material desires.  That finally, such an approach leads to nothing but more pain and suffering.

So why not simplify your mind, simplify your life and follow your heart instead?  Just drop all your struggling right now, immediately and just trust life.  This is what is meant by going with the flow.  Don’t worry about the future and what will happen, instead just relax and do what needs to be done in any given moment.

This dropping of your ambitions is the act of simplification and purification.  It is ambitions and desires that keep you constantly in pursuit and prevent you from being simple and being with life in the moment.  Drop them and you drop the world along with it.  

Simplifying and freeing your mind in this way is what makes meditation possible.

25

Meditation Versus Time | Mortal Enemies Forever

Timelessness and Meditation

Meditation to Transcend Time

Thinking involves time and that prevents meditation, and meditation involves being and that destroys time.  This is the fundamental battle raging in our lives.  Either we absorb ourselves in time and thought, or we give ourselves to the eternal now and transcend it.  The direction to take is really obvious, for with meditation you get bliss and with time you get suffering.

Time means you are constantly involved in the battle of becoming, acquiring and achieving.  Always enslaved by desire, thus chasing and seeking, while meditation means you are a student of the present, always aware of what is, the here and now, and moving with it spontaneously.  Which will you do?  That separates a life spent superficially, versus a life spent deep in the heart of Reality.  It is up to you.

Meditation Versus Time Mortal

For further inspiration, here is a wonderful quote from J. Krishnamurti explaining how meditation and time cannot coexist.

Book:  Meditations

Author: J. Krishnamurti

Topic: Meditation and Time

To meditate is to transcend time.  Time is the distance that thought travels in its achievements.  The traveling is always along the old path covered over with a new coating, new sights, but always the same road, leading nowhere – expect to pain and sorrow.

It is only when the mind transcends time that truth ceases to be an abstraction.  Then bliss is not an idea derived from pleasure but an actuality that is not verbal.

The emptying of the mind of time is the silence of truth, and the seeing is the doing; so there there is no division between the seeing and doing.  In the interval between seeing and doing is born conflict, misery and confusion.

That which has no time is the everlasting.

Meditation and Time Summary:

So what needs to be done?  Be constantly aware.  That is all.  Be constantly aware of of your thoughts and feelings.  Awareness is the answer.  As Nisargadatta Maharaj, the great Advaita Master has pointed out…

A quiet mind is all you need. All else will happen rightly, once your mind is quiet. As the sun on rising makes the world active, so does self-awareness affect changes in the mind. In the light of calm and steady self-awareness, inner energies wake up and work miracles without any effort on your part.

Take this weekend and give yourself to this practice of constant self-awareness.  All else will take care of itself and your life will move gracefully towards Divinity and Timelessness.

26

Anmol’s Experience of Higher Consciousness and Divine Bliss

Altered State of Consciousness

Finding Bliss

In the article Interpreting Spiritual Dreams I discussed how nighttime is a rich opportunity to experience states of higher consciousness and the accompanying bliss these state invariably induce.  Below I share with you my recent experience with supreme consciousness and sheer bliss. 

Experience of Higher Consciousness

Higher Consciousness and Divine Bliss – Anmol’s Journal 

September 11, 2010

Lately, overnight, the blessings of divine consciousness have been briefly taking place, inspiring me to stay focused on the only true purpose of life, integration with Cosmic Consciousness or God.  So again when last night I felt the familiar blissful encounter with the divine state, I did not expect much more than just a gentle kiss before going to sleep.  A kiss like that of a mother tucking her child in for bed, or giving him a kiss while he sleeps.

Only this time, sleep remained quite disturbed and shortly later the experience of divine consciousness took place again, except this time it was much more intense.  When this encounter takes place, the feeling is so blissful, extraordinary and peaceful that what I call the Smile of Buddha, spontaneously and simultaneously takes place (read 7 Rapid Benefits of Kundalini Practice for more on that), and it did this time also.

Recalling the teachings of Advaita master Jean Klein, “To follow the scent of Reality,” I attended to the transcendent state with my whole heart and mind.  I am familiar with this particular state of consciousness and I know that attempts to modulate it or extend it usually never work and as expected, the state moved on and with it the unearthly bliss.  I returned my attention to getting some sleep.

J. Krishnamurti, who was also blessed to have such encounters with Infinity and higher states of consciousness (“otherness” as he called it) also confessed to trying to control these states, but not being able to affect them using the mind or other means.  So back to trying to get some sleep, I tossed and turned a bit, unaware that the fun was just beginning.

Not much time later, consciousness again slipped into a higher state of awareness.  Once again filled with bliss and joy.  I again gave my heart and soul to it and remained as watchful and aware as I could.  The state moved on, but this time it came back again quickly and surprisingly, this new pattern continued for some time.  Consciousness would slide into the enlightened state and then come out again, only to slip back in some time later.  Things only got even more interesting from there.

Soon I felt the familiar bliss which accompanies a buzzing energy in the body and inner ears.  This energy (kundalini), I know well and I also know that this state I can modulate and control.  Well at least to a point.  The bliss associated with this state in quite intense and increases when I allow myself to surrender more and more to the energy.  So as I did that the energy grew dramatically and, as expected, it started to dominate my entire consciousness.  I spent quite some time playing in this state, lost in pure bliss. 

From past experience I knew that if I allowed it, this energy will completely overcome my consciousness and “I” would be no longer be there to control it.  It is scary to the ego to be thus dispelled, and I reached over towards my wife.  If I held her, then disappear, she would be there to bring me back .  She knows of these experiences and I have prepped her about them.  Unfortunately, in my semi-sleep state I forgot my 2 little boys had cannibalized her and sleep with her in our bedroom now, while I sleep alone.  So there went my safety net, thus forcing me to play with the energy more conservatively.

This went on and at some point I drifted into asleep still connected to Higher Consciousness, still in bliss.  Here dreams mix with the enlightenment states and are colored by them.  I dreamt of looking at a wet road from a stopped car window and as I looked at this most ordinary of scenes, the real experience of profound beauty overwhelmed my mind.

The beauty was so extreme that the accompanying bliss was almost unbearable.  Teaching from the Mystic Master Osho floated into my consciousness.  “Even too much bliss, the body can’t bear,” he would say.  This was now true and the bliss becomes almost too much too handle.  Eventually this passed, but the higher states of consciousness continued on and influenced other dreams all night.

Summary of Higher Consciousness and Blissful States:

1. Bliss and Enlightenment Not Special:

Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki says something very interesting about enlightenment and higher states of consciousness.  He says that for the outsider it seems very special, but for those that have it, it is not so special.  Well… maybe it is slightly special , but really he is spot on here.  There is nothing you can do with your enlightenment, it’s there when it’s there, but yet without it life is meaningless.

The analogy he uses to explain this point is that of children and a mother.  Just as children might appear very extraordinary to the onlooker who does not have them, to the mother they are her children.  Special yes, but at the same time simply an integral and regular part of her life.

2. Bliss, Being and Consciousness:

Sat Chit Ananda (Being, Consciousness and Bliss) are the Ultimate Truth and the Ultimate Reality.  How are they encountered and realized?  They are the outcome of living a particular way.  Although I will go into my thoughts on what makes higher states of consciousness more available to us in another article, for now I want to say that for sure that meditation is helpful. 

So make sure you keep up your meditation practice.  If you are new to meditation please feel free to use the free online meditation programs I offer on the website.  If you want a more structured and supported program you can check the Learn Meditation Program I offer as well.  Links are below…

Free Online Learn How to Meditate Course

Learn Meditation Program with Anmol

27

Potent Serpent Meditation for Awakening Kundalini Shakti

Kundalini Meditation

Awakening Kundalini Shakti

I had shared this wonderful meditation to raise Kundalini Shakti earlier this year in my monthly meditation newsletter and as it has been appreciated by many practitioners, I would like to share it with the rest of you on the blog today as well.

If you are familiar with Kundalini, you will no doubt be familiar with the use of the serpent to describe this energy and power.  Kundalini is often equated to a coiled serpent lying asleep at the base of spine, which, then with the practice of Kundalini Yoga, is awakened and made to rise up to the crown of the head.

In addition to this analogy, increased encounters with serpents are also often reported by those in the midst of a Kundalini Awakening.  These encounters don’t necessarily have to be with the real live snakes.  These reports generally indicate that there is just a greater presence of snakes in their lives all of sudden, in the form of pictures, dreams, conversations, TV shows, books, etc.

Kundalini Shakti

There are also the more incredible stories regarding snakes, especially cobras, and those with awakened Kundalini.  An example of this is the cobra that would often visit U.G. Krishnamurti at night at his house.  This cobra would hiss and bang at the door and in general make a lot of ruckus and not stop until he was taken for a night walk by UG himself.

So it should not be surprising that there are many Kundalini Yoga Meditations that focus on using the serpent to help awaken Kundalini.  Below I would like to detail one such potent meditation, for which I have to thank Swami Satyananda Saraswati for sharing it with the world.  Here are the details for the source of this meditation.

Book: Kundalini Tantra

Author: Swami Satyananda Saraswati

 

Serpent Meditation To Awaken Kundalini

 

To practice this meditation follow the step by step instructions below. Please do not overdo any Kundalini Meditation.  Start off slowly and then build up your time systematically over time.

1. Sit comfortably with your legs crossed. If you cannot sit with your legs crossed, then you may sit on a chair.

2. Have your spine straight, relax your stomach and then close your eyes.

3. Bring your attention to your breath and allow it naturally slow down. This may take a few minutes to happen.

4. Now bring your awareness to the base of your spine and visualize yourself breathing from there. As you inhale and exhale, visualize the breath coming into and leaving this area. Continue for a few minutes to establish your awareness there.

5. Once you feel concentrated enough, visualize a small black cylinder (lingam with the top cut off) at the base of spine.  And visualize a small baby red snake (not a cobra) coiled around this lingam looking up with the mouth open.

6. Once this picture is clear, visualize the serpent struggling to rise up the spine and straining in it’s effort to do so. As it struggles to rise, it makes an intense hissing sound.

7. When the serpent rises, visualize its mouth to be as wide as your body and as it rises, it’s body stretches up, but tail remains at the base of the spine coiled around the lingam.

8. This serpent’s body will often rise and then fall back during the meditation, but the lingam coiled by the tail will stay fixed. Continue the meditation in this way.

9. Success with this meditation is indicated by the eruption or great feeling of bliss, with the rising of the serpent.  It can also happen that the lingam and serpent will move to various chakras along the spine, and if that was to happen continue the visualization using this new location as the base.

Kundalini Serpent Meditation Summary

The meditation above incorporates many important aspects of Kundalini Tantra and Kriya Yoga and it’s practice can help in developing many of the important skills needed to practice such meditations. The meditation helps you develop the power of concentration, the power of visualization, chakra awareness, channel (nadi) awareness and refines your awareness.

In addition, it helps you develop the ability to bring your breath and prana into various parts of the body, allowing you to cleanses your chakra and nadi system. And finally, it gives you a taste of the power of Kundalini Shakti.

If you are new to such meditations, give yourself some time in mastering it.

One final note. Often when you do such meditations, you may not feel the affects right away, but as the meditation clears blockages in your chakras and opens up your energy pathways, at quiet times you may suddenly feel the effects of this kind of practice as energy is suddenly released and your mind opens up to new levels of consciousness.

For more Kundalini Yoga Meditations and Techniques, you can check out the following 3 free online e-books…


 
28

Interpreting Spiritual Dreams and Enlightenment Experiences

Understanding Spiritual Dreams

Enlightenment Experiences in Dreams Explained

Dreams are dreams and Spiritual Enlightenment Experiences which often take place in the silence of the night, sometimes co-mingle with dreams, but are certainly real.  As the website has grown one of the great benefits for me personally is the fascinating stories and experiences I get to read from spiritual aspirants globally.  These personal tales of transcendent experiences validate much of what is found in the spiritual texts, but more than anything else they inspire me to further deepen and expand my own practice.  I often share these testimonials with you and will do so again in the next few days, but today I want to explore the phenomenon of spiritual experiences that take place deep in the night and which often intermingle with our dreams.

Enlightenment Experiences

To understand what I mean by enlightenment experiences you can read, Understanding Hinduism, Buddhism and Non-Duality.

I have pointed out previously that napping or the phase between wakefulness and sleep is a very conducive time for enlightenment experiences (3 Simple Tips to Invite Enlightenment), but it is also true that sleep in general is a time when many enlightenment experiences occur.  I would say that even for you now this is true, even if you don’t have such experiences during meditation or wakeful hours.  It’s just that you don’t recall or remember these experiences in the morning.  Add a bit of awareness and you will be quite amazed at all that is going on within you at night.

Many enlightened masters actually point to experiences that took place at night while they were asleep to be the major catalysts for their awakening, J. Krishnamurti included.  Other masters have pointed out that a lot of the spiritual work gets done during these nighttime hours, when the conscious mind sleeps.  I have myself found that the majority of enlightenment experiences take place either when one is very relaxed, during meditation or during sleep.  The skeptical will say, oh it was just a dream, but let me tell you, these are not dreams.  Far from it, they are the most real experiences one has and in this article I want to explain that sometimes these experiences mix with dreams and that can lead to mis-interpretations.

My Dream Encounter and My Spiritual Self:

As an example I will use a late night enlightenment experience which mixed with a dream experience I had a few days ago.  I am a big fan of Ayurveda and one of the Ayurvedic Doctor’s whose teachings I admire is Dr. Vasant Lad (The Ayurvedic Institute).  For some time I have wanted to visit his clinic but have not had a chance to do so.  In any case a few nights ago I had a dream where I met Dr. Lad.  

In the dream, he eschewed normal greeting protocols and instead looking me in the eye, placed his hands on my shoulders.  Soon I noticed that he was applying downward pressure to my shoulders and I figured he was checking the state of health by measuring my physical strength by this technique.  He had a bright, mischievous smile on and continued to press down and I started to feel my knees buckling.

I tried to stand but realized that the pressure was too great and it was impossible to control my body and stay standing.  The effort continued for a few minutes and finally I completely surrendered.  Here the experience actually is an “out of body” or experience of the spiritual self taking place.

Suddenly upon total release, when I let go of the physical body, I realized I was extremely light, light as a feather and a great divine presence was evident.  This was the spiritual aspect of oneself and now it was being experienced, as the body had been forsaken.  Mystic master Osho has often pointed to experiencing oneself as weightless and that is what was happening now.  This spiritual aspect was enormously blissful, free, weightless and expansive.  Utterly in awe I bowed in complete devotion to it and attempted to bow to Dr. Lad as well.  The experience and dream ended shortly afterwords.

I understand one of Dr. Lad’s Gurus, Vimalananda (Biography: Aghora – At The Left Hand of God), was reputed to have many psychic powers and abilities, including that of visiting others in their dream.  Now I am not sure if Dr. Lad has embraced these powers , but I would say the aspects of this experience involving Dr. Lad are indeed a dream, but the experience of bliss and the spiritual self, were indeed very real.

Of course, having experienced this dimension many times previously when awake (The Miracle of Self Awareness – I AM All, The Time My Body Disappeared – Osho Retreat) means I know it was not imagined, but I assure you if you were to have such an experience and remember it, you too will know that it is not a dream at all.

Interpreting Spiritual Experiences During Dreams:

So there are a few lessons to learn from such experiences, weather they take place in conjunction with dreams or during wakeful hours.

1. Sleep is an Opportunity:

Sleep time is a golden opportunity to develop your awareness and discover deeper and higher aspects of your being.  The key to this is maintaining awareness during sleep.  By doing so you will develop the wonderful skill of Lucid dreaming, but more importantly you will get a chance to experience hidden spiritual aspects of yourself, which are usually covered by the thinking mind during waking hours.

2. Night Time Enlightenment Experience and Dream Interpretation:

Often the enlightenment experiences you have at night will intermingle with your dreams and this can lead to wrong interpretations and misunderstandings.  Be aware that certain components of your experience might actually be a dream component, which has interlaced with a transcendent experience that is blossoming.  Of course, it is also well know that dreams can “mix” with real life experiences and this is just such a case where the dream is mixing with an enlightenment experience.

3. You are Not the Body, You are Blissful, Free and Divine:

You are not the body, you are spirit.  Such experiences allow you to first hand see the Truth of things for yourself.  So you do not have to simply believe spiritual texts or the teachings of Masters.  Such experiences then further inspire you to continue to work towards constant God Realization which is the same as Self Realization.  This is the highest purpose of human birth.  Do not waste this opportunity.

God Bless You All.

29

Parenting Help and Advise | 3 Most Important Parenting Goals

Parenting Goals and Tips

J. Krishnamurti on Parenting and Children

In the article, How to Raise Enlightened Children, I discussed many important aspects of how to be a good parent.  The advice I suggested included being ego free, attentive, calm and image-less as a parent when dealing with your children.  Today, I am going to provide some more parenting help, which is not of the ordinary kind.  The everyday advise of positive parenting, parenting styles, good parenting, etc, is all within the framework of “society” and seeing the mess the world is in, I think it is time to introduce the wiser, but certainly more controversial, approaches suggested by the enlightened masters.

Parenting Help and Advise

So today I will discuss the advise that the great spiritual teacher J. Krishnamurti gives to a youngster in response to the question, “Why do I hate myself when I don’t study?“.  I feel it is more important for parents to hear what he has to say, than for children.  So here is his response which I will then discuss below.

Author: J. Krishnamurti

Book:   Think on These Things

Page:   156

Questioner:  “Why do I hate myself when I don’t study?”

J. Krishnamurti:

(This is part of the response).

Listen to the question.  Why do I hate myself when I don’t study as I am supposed to?  Why do I hate myself when I am not nice, as I should be?  In other words, why don’t I live up to my ideals.

[…]

Let us keep it simple, don’t let us complicate it.  You are afraid to be what you are – which means that you have no confidence in yourself.  That is why you try to be what society, what your parents and your religion tell you that you should be.

Now, why are you afraid to be what you are?  Why don’t you start with what you are and not what you should be?  Without understanding what you are, merely to try to change it into what you think you should be has no meaning.  Therefore scrap all ideals.  I know the older people won’t like this, but it doesn’t mater.  Scrap all ideals, drown them in the river, throw them into the waste-paper basket, and start with what you are – which is what?

You are lazy, your don’t want to study, you want to play games, you want to have a good time, like all young people.  Start with that.  Use your mind to examine what you mean when you talk about having a good time – find out what is actually involved in it, don’t go by what your parents or your ideals say.  Use your mind to discover why don’t you want to study.  Use your mind to find what you want to do in life – what you want to do, not what society or some ideal tell you to do.  If you give your while being to this inquiry, then you are a revolutionary; then you have the confidence to create, to be what you are, and in that there is an ever-renewing vitality.  But the other way you are dissipating your energy in trying to be like somebody else.

Don’t you see, it is really an extraordinary thing that you are so afraid to be what you are; because beauty lies in being what you are.  If you see that you are lazy, that you are stupid, and if you understand laziness and come face to face with stupidity without trying to change it into something else, then in that state you will find there is enormous release, there is great beauty, great intelligence.

Analysis of Parenting Advise from J. Krishnamurti

Here are three important highlights from this excerpt which I think would be very helpful to discuss with regard to real parenting goals.

1. Helping the Child Discover their Passion:

In the past I have written about the importance of living a life doing what you love, and any interviews with highly successful people or research you see these days indicate that doing what you love is a prerequisite to living an extra ordinary life.  So as parents, this is a very important responsibility we have.  We have to help the child explore themselves and life to help them discover what they love to do.

Recently I wrote a popular article on the subject of doing what you love to do and you can read more about that here:

Top 5 Signs You are Living Your Passion

Another article on this topic is:

Stop the Madness of Self Discipline

2. Helping the Child Develop Confidence:

Discovering what you love to do though is half the battle, finding the courage and confidence to then actually do it is the other half.  So as parents it is important for us to support the child when they choose to follow their heart and live their passion.  This is not always easy to pull off, as quite often the question of security and money will become the driving factor is choosing a career, instead of love and passion.  As parents it is very key to raise children with the confidence to follow their calling.

For more discussion on the this topic, I suggest the following interesting article:

4 Vital Keys for Developing Mastery in Anything

3. Parent and Children All Need to Meditate:

This is really what Krishnamurti is saying in the final paragraph.  To develop the power of observation, or the Witnessing Consciousness so you can encounter the truth of what is.  Seeing the fact IS what brings about the transformation.  This is really what meditation is.  To look at oneself and one’s mind closely and without escaping understand what is taking place within via direct perception.  It is the art of moment to moment awareness and living in the here and now.

Parents need to learn how to do this, so they can evolve and then they will be able to teach their children the profound art of meditation as well.  For more on this highest meditation technique, you can watch the videos on the following page:

Silent Mind Meditation Technique and Videos

For those new to meditation, you can start here:

Beginner’s Meditation | Learn How to Meditate

Finally, if all three things are done above, you will have a accomplished being a great parent, for you would have found the way of helping your child be just who they are – True and Original, instead of a cheap imitation or carbon copy of some ideal.  You would have raised children without fear and with great love and joy in their heart.

30

Inviting God Consciousness In | Ong Namo Mantra MP3

God Consciousness

Ong Namo Guru Dev Namo Mantra

We cannot be reminded enough that everything is God Consciousness.  Everything is God.  Upon this substratum then, the game of life is played out.  The problem with forgetting the substratum, forgetting God, forgetting the One Consciousness, is that then everything leads to attachment and misery.  There are many ways in which the great Masters have tried to impart this wisdom to us, many ways in which they have tried to stress the importance of this upon us, but unfortunately we get caught up in the drama of our little lives, and forget God.

God Consciousness

J. Krishnamurti on God Consciousness:

In the article, J. Krishnamurti on the Flowering of Goodness, Krishnamurti puts the importance of God a little differently by saying, “In consciousness there is the good and the bad; the bad is increasing; it is increasing because the good has become static, the good is not flowering.”  And he goes on to explain that “bad”, is anything that gives importance to the ego, and that this flowering of Goodness is the practice of Awareness.  This practice of awareness is another way of saying remember God Consciousness, remember you are the Great Witnessing, you are the Great Silence, Infinite, Endless and Timeless, and when you loose this Witnessing Consciousness, you are lost in the world of the ego, mind and dualism.

Shunryu Suzuki on God Consciousness:

Another unlikely master to speak about the importance of God and God Consciousness is Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki.  Yes, a Zen master supposedly from a religion, Buddhism, which does not acknowledge God, explaining that remembering God at all times, is the key to freedom and non-attachment.  In the article, Zen Teachings on God and How to Get His Help, Master Suzuki explains that as soon as we start to take credit and emphasize our egos, forgetting that everything comes from God, we are lost.  The key, he points out, is to remember that you and everything else emerges from the great One Consciousness, the great Void, and that if you forget this and think you are creating/doing and not the great Consciousness, then you will find yourself attached and suffering.  So, always remember God first, always remember that everything is coming from there, then you will not get yourself caught in the trap of the ego.

Master Suzuki goes on to explain, that because we forget God, forget the Source Consciousness, the substratum from which everything springs, we don’t have It’s help in our life.  So in order to get God, Infinity to help, you need to remember it is as the Source of All.  Then you are protected, guided and inspired by It.  Then you are helped by It, as It is an integral part of your every action.

How to Invite God Consciousness In:

In Kundalini Yoga there is a mantra that is used to help with this remembering, and that is the Ong Namo Guru Dev Namo mantra, the Adi Mantra.  It is the mantra used for “Tuning In”, and in the following 2 articles, How to Teach a Yoga Class and AUM Mantra Video for Starting a Yoga Class, I pointed out that all yoga should begin with an acknowledgment of God.  In Kundalini Yoga practice, this is the mantra that is used for that purpose. 

Here is the translation and meaning of Ong Namo, Guru Dev Namo.

  • Ong– Ong is God manifested.  It is an invitation to the un-manifested God Consciousness (OM) to enter manifestation.  With OM (AUM) we ascend into infinity, with ONG we ask Infinity to descend onto us.
  • Namo– I bow to you humbly.
  • Guru Dev– Your divine consciousness, your inner wisdom or inner teacher.
  • Namo – I bow to you humbly.

Ong Namo, Guru Dev Namo, is typically recited 3 times before the start of class, and by chanting it we are remembering God as the Source of everything, and asking the help of God Consciousness in the form of protection, guidance and inspiration.  I have also pointed out the importance of Awareness, or maintaining God Consciousness when practicing yoga, and maintaining this awareness is the key to preventing the ego from taking over any activity and deriving importance from it.  You can read about this very important aspect of yoga in the following article, Essential Beginner’s Guide to Yoga Practice.

How to Chant Ong Namo Guru Dev Mantra:

  • Sit up with your eyes closed and back straight.
  • Have your hands in prayer pose, with the thumb tips pressing against the sternum.
  • Turn your eyes up so you are looking through the center of forehead, the Third Eye Center.
  • Inhale deeply and with great reverence chant the mantra three times as demonstrated below in the MP3, taking a long deep breath in between each chant.

Free MP3 Download of Ong Namo Guru Dev Namo Mantra:

Below you will find a free demo and MP3 of Ong Namo Guru Dev Namo.  To download the mantra, simply right click and save to your computer.

Ong Namo Guru Dev Namo Free MP3 Download

Remember the most important thing in life, is to live with moment to moment Awareness, then goodness will flower and God will grace your entire existence.