Unlike computers, we humans do not arrive in this world with a User’s Manual. So complex are our lives and so out of touch are we with our own nature that even the art of simple living must now be learned from a book. Discovering the truth about life and oneself isn’t easy, nor is it always pleasant! By the time most people wake up to what’s important in life, one’s health may be in ruins or there may be left in our wake a graveyard of broken dreams or friendships. Our wakeup call may be precipitated by AIDS, cancer, or other health crisis, loss of job or career, end of a relationship, or it may well up from within us. For others who have achieved every success they have pursued outwardly in life, the wakeup call may come in the form of a divine discontent, a gnawing sense of dissatisfaction or uneasiness. Nor do we start life with a clean slate: from birth the influences of family, race, religion and nationality wash over us like a tide with unexamined habits and biases from which we must extricate ourselves if we are to know the truth.
Unlike worldly knowledge which is achieved by acquiring more information and experience, finding ourselves is a process of unlearning. Indeed it is a lot like peeling an onion. When we are done, however, what we discover surprises, and sometimes shocks us: for at first we seem to discover emptiness. At first our faith and self-confidence may be challenged; we may be frightened by the seeming loss of our previously familiar (if unsatisfactory) self-identity. This apparent emptiness is the discovery that we are "no-thing:" we are not our body or our personality or even dependent upon material or sensory realities. Stated positively, we discover that our nature is spiritual. Gone are the false self-identities: "I am a man." "I am awoman." "I am an American" "I am artistic." "I am a great cook." "I am white," or "black" and so on! Gone are the labels in judgment of ourselves and others. By degrees there comes into this void the bursting sea of the joy of our true nature. We become a conscious and creative mirror reflective of a higher reality in every situation we interact with. It may come only in glimpses at first; it may come in the beginning simply as a gradual release from a lifetime habit of anxiety, fear, or loneliness; we may feel a sense of inner peace or self-confidence; we may discover faith in the rightness of all things; or, perhaps there comes to us intuitive and creative responses to life’s many challenges.
Can this be done? Is it worth it? "Yes," and "yes!" In an unbroken tradition from ancient to modern times, courageous scientists of human consciousness have labored to explore and to share the art and science by which one can "Know thy Self." The masters of the science of yoga have demonstrated power even over life and death as did Jesus Christ and other great sages. For does not the Christian Bible also state that we are made in the image of God? When Jesus was accused of blasphemy after he proclaimed his Oneness with God, did he not reply by saying, "Do not your scriptures say, ‘Ye are gods?’" Did he not, moreover, exhort his disciples to "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect"? When asked where heaven was, Jesus replied "The kingdom of heaven is within you."
The contribution of the yoga science to mankind is to offer specific, effective, and universal techniques and practices through which we can rediscover our true nature as Spirit. It is a science based on our very nature: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. The science of raja yoga directs the tributary branches of the yoga practices (such as the yoga postures, or hatha yoga) towards the central practice of meditation. Meditation is the direct, inner experience and communion with spiritual consciousness and its various manifestations, such as joy, love, peace, or light. It is achieved only in perfect stillness of body and mind. This stillness is the metaphysical version of superconductivity. Superconductivity occurs when certain materials are cooled to near absolute zero. At this temperature they acquire an immense capacity to conduct electricity. So too in complete stillness we experience not sleep or unconsciousness but a tremendous expansion of awareness that is intensely blissful and which is known as superconsciousness.
A simple technique that helps us to experience meditation more deeply is to practice the art of listening. Here’s an example that illustrates how we do this instinctively. Imagine that you are lying in bed late at night and you suddenly hear your sick child in the next room cough. You lie very still listening intently to see if she coughs again, awakens, or will need you. Notice your breathing: you probably have either suspended your breathing or are breathing very quietly. The same is true anytime we need to concentrate deeply. Notice what happens with your breath, for example, when you thread a needle! The art of listening requires concentration, alertness, and calmness of body, mind, and breath. If your concentration is applied with strain or tension, you end up with a kind of mental static. Instead, you will discover that a sensitive combination of relaxation and concentration allows you to listen with rapt attention. This state of positive, intent, alert expectancy when interiorized during meditation towards self-awareness brings deep calmness and peace of mind and body.
Here’s a visualization for meditation you may find helpful. I’ve adapted it from Swami Kriyananda’s course in Raja Yoga (entitled Lessons in Yoga: 14 Steps to Higher Awareness): Picture a large lake. Feel that this lake is your own mind. At first, the ripples of thought may seem very important to you. That is because your awareness is centered in such a small section of your mental lake that even little ripples create a tumult. Gaze mentally outward in all directions: see how vast the lake really is. See now how insignificant are the little thoughts that bob up and down here at the center. Now, tell these thoughts to be still, to allow you to listen to the waves lapping on the distant shores of your mind. Listen intently. When the waves are finally stilled, feel the soothing breath of Spirit on the surface of your mind. Allow the breezes of inspiration and joy to gently caress you. Commune with the peace which is your own true nature.
Superconscious is a greatly refined state of awareness that requires a calm, laser-like concentration to perceive and enter into because it is, itself, pure consciousness. In our ordinary conscious and subconscious states, we are unaware of this higher reality because our energy is literally locked in our body in the form of tension, emotions, and movement, and in our minds as restless thoughts. The bridge from body consciousness to pure Spirit consciousness is the subtle energy of Life Force, which expresses itself as breath, feeling, imagination, and will. This subtle energy can be redirected along pathways, withdrawing from the muscles, cells, and tissues, upwards to the brain which is the reservoir of Life Force and the seat of pure consciousness in the body. The path of our unfoldment, regardless of our religion or beliefs, is literally through our own body and nervous system. It is through the subtle energy doorways known as the "chakras" that life force animates the physical body. And it is by retracing our steps through the body and the subtle energy system that we discover the river of life and experience true baptism, or rebirth in the consciousness of Spirit. Meditation techniques such as kriya yoga work directly upon this subtle energy to magnetically draw it inward, away from the senses, through the chakras and into the astral spine, the river of life.
Physical health is helpful to prepare the body for the flood-like force of Cosmic Consciousness that awaits us. In physical health, diet, exercise, posture, and deep breathing are vital. Mental and emotional cleansing is even more important, purifying the heart from the encrustrations of matter-attachment and ego motivated desires and actions. Spiritual qualities such as openness, faith, love for God, compassion, and servicefulness are essential to align our own subtle vibrations of consciousness to the consciousness of Spirit. Last but not least are the emanations of spiritual consciousness that come from God through great saints and masters. These blessings have the power to transform us, for as the apostle St. John said of his master, Jesus, "As many as received him, gave he the power to become the sons of God."
One of the most well-known and internationally respected masters of yoga to come to the West was Paramhansa Yogananda, author of Autobiography of a Yogi [available on-line at www.CrystalClarity.com/yogananda]. He spoke often of learning the art of living: a life of balanced, natural living centered in Spirit through meditation, devotion, and servicefulness. He encouraged understanding and appreciation of all races, religions, and cultures by seeing the underlying Spirit-consciousness in all and by emulating the best qualities of each. He praised the economic and organizational efficiency of the West and the efficacy of the spiritual sciences of the East. By combining the best of both, he said, we can discover the true art of living.
