THE JOURNEY

You might have had days or moments the place you felt God was talking to you with particular insights. I wish to share one of many days when the Lord spoke to me by nature relating to meditation.

I took a day journey with the monks of Ananda Village to Desk Mountain in Northern California within the late spring of 2023. The hike is usually over flat terrain, highlighted with lovely canyons, creeks and waterfalls.

We trekked for just a few hours, having fun with the panorama and the small flowers, and stopped by one of many valleys to eat a lightweight lunch and watch some birds. The spotlight of highlights was a trek down a slim and pretty steep canyon, to relaxation on the backside of a waterfall.

We took turns standing beneath the waterfall. It was heat and nice, and its sounds had been very soothing. It was mid-afternoon, so the solar was vibrant within the sky. The earlier winter introduced heavy snowfall, so the waterfall was flowing strongly, fed by the faraway snowmelt. It moved periodically from left to proper over a distance of about 15 ft, making it onerous to catch. Doesn’t it typically really feel that God performs hide-and-seek with us?

Standing on the foot of the autumn, bathing within the heat of the water, listening to its nice, rhythmic melody, and searching up by the water into the sunshine of the afternoon solar, it felt as if Divine Mom had led me to a nature scene that mirrored the interior expertise of yoga meditation.

THE INNER JOURNEY

Desk Mountain

First, a bit of interior anatomy. The Kriya Yogi works with the energetic channels within the backbone. The ida and pingala are, respectively, the rising and descending currents of vitality within the backbone that correlate with the inhalation and exhalation of the bodily breath. It’s attainable to nonetheless or “neutralize” these currents by pranayama strategies, corresponding to Kriya. The stilling of the ida and pingala correlates with deepening interiorization; the gradual slowing of the bodily breath, the cessation of psychological restlessness, and the onset of interior calmness. This results in the mystic key of yoga follow, the awakening of kundalini vitality, which is locked on the base of the astral backbone, or sushumna. As soon as kundalini is woke up, it rises up the sushumna, giving the yogi a concomitant expertise of bliss within the deep spinal channel. For this reason the backbone has been referred to as a river of vitality, and why Jesus spoke of providing residing water because the true supply of interior rejuvenation.

This offers a mannequin of yoga anatomy as a information for meditation follow, however it’s nonetheless solely a mannequin. The mannequin of an atom is conceptually helpful, but it surely fails to mirror the vitality and exercise of a single drop of water, which consists of an unfathomable variety of atoms. Likewise, with Kriya, we profit from understanding our interior anatomy, however the fact of yoga (union with God) should be explored, found, and realized by the yogi’s devoted and devoted follow.

Sculpture of Lahiri Mahasaya

AS WITHIN, SO WITHOUT

Let’s return to Desk Mountain. Standing on the base of the waterfall, I imagined myself as a yogi poised to take a seat in meditation. The waterfall was just a few hundred ft excessive, impressing me with a way of dimension. Bathing in its regular (albeit swaying) column of water felt like being centered within the energetic river of the interior backbone. Trying as much as the solar and attempting to glimpse its rays by the distortion of the falling water mirrored the hassle of focusing on the non secular eye in meditation, of attempting to understand the Divine Gentle by the restlessness of the thoughts.

A puzzle has many items. As soon as they’re all put collectively, it’s best to get pleasure from your complete image and disrespect the separating strains. As soon as we turn out to be acquainted with all of the totally different elements of meditation, it’s best to let go of their separateness and enter into the expertise as a single, intuitive circulate.

I’m ever with those that follow Kriya. I’ll information you to the Cosmic Dwelling…

There are occasions once I really feel a particular blessing from one of many gurus. On today, I felt that Lahiri Mahayasa’s blessings had been with us. He was a Yogavatar with a particular mission of bringing Kriya Yoga to truth-seekers on this age, and he additionally gave shut, intimate steering to disciples of their Kriya follow. Lahiri supplied this comfort to these disciples who couldn’t journey to be with him, “I’m ever with those that follow Kriya. I’ll information you to the Cosmic Dwelling by your enlarging perceptions.” This was an everlasting promise, as true in the present day as when he uttered it.

We spent period of time in that little cove however that interval of meditation was temporary in comparison with the time it took for us to trek there. So too in our lives, the time we’ve got to spend in meditation is brief in comparison with the hours we spend in exercise and sleep. Nonetheless, it’s time nicely spent. We should always do our greatest to weave collectively our meditation and actions. If we carry God into every part, we’ll discover that our actions feed into our meditation follow, and the fruit of our meditation follow will naturally feed into our actions.

Life itself is a pilgrimage, and every day we will make the interior trek into divine bliss. We are going to uncover what Yoganandaji referred to as a transportable paradise, a divine pleasure that accompanies us in every single place and will be shared with all.

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