Swami Satyananda Saraswati
I have read many books from time to time, written by eminent authors on prana shakti and kundalini yoga which is a most transcendental yet, immediately useful topic. I don't necessarily agree with everything they write, but beyond a certain stage in the spiritual life, everyone has the same experiences. In the beginning of the practices which lead to fulfillment and enlightenment in yoga, there, may be differences of experience, but after a while all of us join on a common track and we have the same experience. Therefore my experience is not strictly just personal experience.
Awareness in action
I have been an aspirant and a practitioner of yoga all throughout my life. Even to this day, I do not miss even one moment in indolence. I do not wish to miss even one breath in carelessness. When I am given to the expansion of awareness, when I have pledged myself to grow out of this animal in man and, when I have set myself to express the greatest, the noblest, the purest, the brightest and most illumined aspects of spiritual life, then I must dedicate myself to this awareness all throughout my life.
There has hardly been a moment in my life when I have not been living in a different world. Please do not misunderstand me and think that I meditate for twenty four hours a day- I do and I do not. I have my own commitments. I have my own responsibilities. I have hundreds of centers all over the world. I have hundreds of sannyasins and sannyasinis, most of whom are not in their sixties but in their twenties. You can imagine that I must have some difficulty in my conscious mind and also in my unconscious mind.
On the administrative side, I have to sign not less than two hundred balance sheets every year. From three o'clock in the morning right up till nine o'clock at night I have to sign letters with my right hand and with the left hand I am reading various publications. At the same time, I have to dictate to my secretary from Melbourne. In my bathroom I have a telecom, and from there I dictate letters. I have three telecoms for the three secretaries, so I can dictate letters from my room to theirs, such is the rush of work.
There are so many publications to print that I need to have the most modern printing press and an automatic, computerized composing machine, managed by one of your Australian swamis. Apart from this, I have to take care of enormous financial responsibilities, which run not to thousands but to lakhs of rupees. All my institutions run on a total budget of millions of dollars.
Still, yoga can be maintained, higher awareness can be stabilized and one can live above matter while having to deal with matter. That is what is taught by the Gita and other spiritual literature. We have been making a mistake. We want to live either the so called spiritual life or the so called sensual life. May I tell you that both of these lives can be lived together and there is a secret to doing this. The secret is kundalini.
Kundalini and spiritual awareness
There is no other way you can transcend the barriers, no matter what practice you follow, Oh, I can tell you the names of many great men, but none of their practices can make you transcend the boundary wall.
There is a boundary wall, an impenetrable wall of consciousness, a barrier of awareness, and beyond that there is no right of entry without kundalini yoga. You go and come back, go and come back. You see the flame of a candle, the blue lotus, the cross; you see Jesus, Rama, Krishna, Guru, and you come back. You cannot transcend that way.
What you have experienced is the deepest state of relaxation, and beyond that the spiritual experience begins. When the symbol, when the form of the subject of your meditation becomes vividly clear in your mind, when you are not aware of time and space, that is the final stage of relaxation and yoga nidra. It is only after that, that the spiritual journey really begins.
It is in this context that I have always been telling people not to fear kundalini. She is the mother aspect, the Mary of Christians, the Durga of Hindus, the aspect of energy, the aspect of shakti. Just as a scientist explodes the energy out of matter, likewise a yogi withdraws the energy out of matter. This kundalini is at once physiological, mental and transcendental. People have different opinions about this primal power which man has preserved within himself right from the dawn of creation.
For centuries and centuries, for millions of years, man has been travelling in darkness. He has made tools, he has built houses and palaces, he has created armies, he has developed languages, but still he has been living through the dark ages. Unless the alpha rhythm becomes universal and common, natural, spontaneous and ever present in the human being, he is human in form only, but not in reality.
Much of us still lives in the animal kingdom. We move by instinct, we think by instinct, we understand by instinct and that is how we pass our whole life, through a tunnel which is totally dark. We are moving but we don't see ourselves; we don't know which way we are going. We are going ahead but we don't know we are going ahead. That is the dark tunnel of human evolution through which all of us have been passing until now.
The moment that the energy is exploded and the awareness comes forth, you know that you are, and that is when you begin your spiritual journey, that is when you begin to feel like a human being. I know that I am. The animals procreate and we do too, but they don't know that they are procreating and we know that we are. They indulge in sex and we do too, but they don't know and we do. This awareness is a special privilege of human existence. It is gyanam, not gyana yoga, but gyanam.
Gyanam is spiritual awareness that has developed in man, making him aware of time, space and objects and their relationships. Maybe there is a dog who is listening to me but he does not know that he is listening. You know that I am speaking, you know that you are listening, you are aware, and that is the beginning of spiritual awareness. With that you become man, and this particular awareness by which you know that you are, has to be expanded.
Purging the mind
Often the outward signs of this process of becoming aware are mistaken for symptoms of schizophrenia by our medical professors, teachers and scientists. If it is schizophrenia, then every man will become schizophrenic before he evolves into another plane of higher existence. Matter has to be split, only then can the energy explode, not in any other way. Matter cannot remain the same if energy is to come out. The mind has to be blown, broken and disintegrated. The samskaras must be broken. The emotions and the various aspects of the mind have to be separated.
You have to see all these things in your practice of antar mouna, and if you don't want to see them, then the natural course of evolution will make you see them. That is why I have always and everywhere been telling people that in the field of concentration of the mind, the more the vacillation, the better it is for your spiritual evolvement. The more the karmas and the thoughts come to the surface, the better it is for your spiritual illumination. Let them come. If they don't, if concentration begins at once, there is something wrong.
The soul has to pass out all the karmas. The mind has to purge out its previous knowledge, its previous experience. Even if you don't believe in the previous birth, at least believe in this birth. During the years of your life, how many experiences have you had? How many things have you perceived? Where are they now, and where do they come from? Those karmas, those samskaras, those seeds, those latent impressions of this life or the past lives, have to be experienced, have to be thrown out, have to be purged.
Those who follow the path of yoga should remember that kundalini yoga is one of the most powerful methods of purging these impressions. It works like dynamite, like a powerful explosive. You put it underneath and pow! It is not easy to achieve enlightenment, and it is not good for me to claim that I can give you enlightenment. Enlightenment is the last job that a man has to perform, not the first job. After that, you are fulfilled, you are complete, nothing to gain and nothing to lose- one state of being.
Therefore, in kundalini yoga the very practices which are taught in this context start exploding the personality right from the beginning. You may have read about this in books, but let me repeat again. When the kundalini awakens in mooladhara chakra, the sacral plexus, heat is generated, the emotions and passions are generated, and everything seems to be exploding and going around in circles. But the truth is that there are disturbances when consciousness awakens in any field of life.
To give an example, when a beloved husband has just left his wife, how does she feel? Just one incident in life has triggered a whole emotional explosion. In the same manner, with the awakening of mooladhara chakra, all the lower karmas are triggered, pow, pow, pow, pow! Everything comes out and you must only have patience. You must remember these words which I am speaking now. Just be patient and quietly watch what is happening- the lights, the explosions, the emotions and the passions, everything is coming up.
Living on a higher plane
This shakti is the awakening of spiritual man. This generation, the one that is coming up now, has a duty to fulfill. I know that not just hundreds but thousands of boys and girls, men and women, all over the world, are engrossed in their efforts, right or wrong, to awaken the kundalini. Some use drugs, some use mantra, others use the raja yoga methods, yet others use penance and austerities, and a few use the help of a guru.
You are not the only travellers on this spiritual path. There are millions and millions. People all over the world have been thinking of just one thing, how to awaken that power by which man can live in a different realm, but still keep operating on this earth plane. You can live on this earth with lower consciousness, and you can live here with the highest consciousness. Which would you prefer? Tell me!
When you live here with the lower consciousness, you eat chocolates and all sorts of things. And when you live on a higher plane, are you still going to eat chocolates? Of course you will! But on the lower plane everything you experience carries a reaction and it leaves impressions on your mind. That is karma, the continuity of the existence of karma. When you live on a higher plane of consciousness, you live life and you get the maximum from it because life does not react. It does not leave a chain of vicious actions and reactions, which cause the continuation of this horrible existence.
`My wife died! Oh, my wife died!' What's wrong? She died three years ago! That's all finished, but you are still stuck in a state of horrible grief because of karma, because you live on a lower plane of consciousness. You should live on a higher plane, then the enjoyment is greater and the gratification is infinite. What little you get from life is too much for you. When you live on the lower plane, however much you get from life is too little because you think, God! Maybe tomorrow I will not have anything at all! You have insecurity, fear of being looted, fear of losing the grant of nature.
Therefore, when man lives on the higher plane of existence he is not going to shun this creation. People say, “When everyone becomes a swami, what is going to happen to the world? It will collapse?” I say it will be a world with freedom. After all, what do you mean by a swami? A man who has mastery over his mind is a swami, and he who has not mastery over his mind is not a swami.
When you live on the higher plane of existence you will operate in the beautiful world, and I say beautiful because I believe it to be so, with the beautiful ideals of purity, compassion, and so on, which you now talk about. Before you talk about these things, you must first go up to the higher plane, and then you will see that these idealistic phrases become the reality of experience.
This evening one swami asked me if I loved him. I asked him, `Do you understand what love is?' If you come to me and ask, `Swamiji, do you like or dislike me?' I will say yes or no. But if you ask me whether I love you, I first want to know if you know what love is. When we live on a lower plane our understanding of love is limited. We understand love in relation to our existence and our experience. As we grow more and come to live on a higher plane, love takes on a different meaning. We begin to experience love in the absolute sense, without personal limitations.
Please do not mind if I tell you that you don't know what love is. You like people, you like your wife and children, you like your husband and friends, or you may dislike them. You live in a world of love and hatred, raga (attachment, liking) and dwesha (hatred, jealousy). You live in a world of these two opposites. There may be one person here and there out of millions and millions, who has experienced love, who is able to give love, the divine experience.
Prana is fact
The practices of kundalini yoga come to us at a time when they are very much needed for our humanity. This great potential energy in man can be aroused by the methods of yoga, and then the prana shakti can be expressed. Thought can be converted into idea, idea can be converted into will, and will can be converted into creativity. Dissipated energy is thought, concentrated energy is idea, dynamized energy is will, and creative energy is our objective. These objects around us are materialized, creative energy. The dissipated energy which we have can be dynamized and materialized just by awakening prana shakti. If you don't awaken prana shakti, it cannot be done.
The proof of prana shakti can be seen through Kirlian photography, which records the movement of prana in each and every organism, just as your camera records your face and body. This system reveals that plants have prana, the fingers have prana, the nose has prana, this microphone has prana, you have prana, the whole life seems to be an interplay of prana shakti. When travelling by car, by train or by plane, I always think about prana moving this way and that.
You see, this whole business of prana is fact. Up to now, we have been materialistic. We have seen matter and we have accepted matter. Beyond this, however, we have only postulated; we have never really believed. We would say, `Supposing there is...' But now let us say, `Definitely there is prana.' The fun of it is that people say the body contains prana, and I say the opposite, that prana contains the body. People say that God is in us; I say no, we are in him. Are we his containers or is he our container? Oh yes, I remember a story about this.
The picnic
There were four friends who went for a picnic on a weekend. One was a philosopher, one a botanist, one an astrologer, and the last a musician. Each wanted to contribute something to the picnic, so they decided that the musician would take charge of the cooking, while the others went to bring the different food items.
The astrologer climbed a coconut tree to pick some coconuts and while he was doing so, a donkey brayed. He took out his book and read that a donkey's bray at a certain time of day is very inauspicious, so he threw away his coconuts.
The botanist went to a greengrocer. He looked at the cucumbers and decided they were too flatulent. He went to the potatoes, but they had too much starch and carbohydrate. The spinach had too much oxalic acid, and the cabbages were all reserved for this convention. The shopkeeper suggested onions, but the botanist said, `No. If it is union it is alright, but if it is onion it is all wrong, and we don't want it.'
The philosopher went to fetch some oil for frying. He was bringing it back in a little bottle when suddenly there came to his mind the question of whether God is the basis for creation, or creation is the basis for God; whether Brahman, the supreme being, is the basis for the universe, or the universe is the basis for Brahman. Who contains whom? Then he began to question whether the bottle contained the oil, or the oil contained the bottle. He remembered that in logic they say that if there is any difference of opinion on a subject, it should be settled by practical experience. So, he decided to drop the bottle on the ground and see. It broke into many pieces and all the oil was spilt.
Meanwhile, our musical brother was cooking the rice. When the rice started boiling, the bubbling sound of the water made a nice rhythm, so he started beating on the pot in time to it. However, the rice pot didn't keep to his timing, so he took a hammer to it, as drummers do when they are adjusting their drums. Of course, he knocked the pot over and all the rice was lost.
Now, when the others came back, they all sat down feeling tired and hungry. These four intellectuals didn't have much to show for their picnic. And so it is in sadhana, that due to our limited ideas and intellectual concepts, we totally miss the point of the practices and consequently, we have little of any practical benefit to show for our effort.
Prana shakti is the basis of yoga, the basis of kundalini, the basis of creation, the basis of all human activity, the basis of all animate and inanimate existence. Just because the scientists of our time are late in discovering prana shakti, why should you be late also? This prana shakti is going to give you extra energy in your daily life so that you can overcome depression and sorrow. When you are lacking prana shakti, you are depressed, you are tired, you can't remember, you feel shy, you are schizophrenic, and so forth.
Increase your potentiality
We should now start to practise yoga continually and systematically- hatha yoga, raja yoga, asanas, pranayama, mudras, bandhas and kriyas. Gradually, not in one year but in a few years, you will increase the scope of manifestation of this wonderful, incredible power.
What I have been speaking about is not a philosophical utopia, it is a scientific matter. The people who are involved in yoga and meditation, in Zen Buddhism, or in any system, no matter where they are, must now take up this topic and go ahead with their own experiments in their own lives.
Prana Vidya Course:
An advanced sadhana course of Prana Vidya will be conducted at Rikhiapeeth in English medium from the 12th -18th October 2009. This course gives sadhaks the unique opportunity to experience yogic techniques for the subtle control of energy by utilizing breathing practices and visualizations. This comprehensive course is designed for those wanting to deepen their yogic practices and to experience the subtle influences of prana and the chakras. These ancient techniques are particularly powerful when practiced in the spiritually charged atmosphere of Rikhiapeeth.
For more information and registration details contact
Bihar School of Yoga,
P.O. - Rikhia,
Dist- Deoghar,
Jharkhand, 814 113, India.
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Tel: Rikhia 06432-290870/ 09304-488889/ 09304-799449.