Drop till "You" Drop.

 Aug 25 2008

This technique is based on something that Nithyananda talks about:

Contemplate Beyond Perception.

As you go about your day.. and you realize you are caught up in thoughts.. drop the thought.. meaning stop thinking the thought. Like Nithyanada says don't give a logical end to the thought.. just  drop the thought.. then the next thought comes up.. drop, then next.. drop, and so on.. then your mind will fix on the dropping.. then drop the dropping. It's like the technique of "neti neti".. "not this not that".. It is really amazing.

The sutra is (I enjoyed both Nithyanada's way of explaing it in the video above and Osho's way [you can read it if you click on the sutra below]):

86. SUPPOSE YOU CONTEMPLATE SOMETHING, BEYOND PERCEPTION, BEYOND GRASPING, BEYOND NOT BEING - YOU.

Now this was hard for me to get at first. Like Osho says:

"It is impossible (to contemplate beyond perception), but that's why it is worth doing, because in the very effort something will happen to you. Not that you will become capable of perceiving - if you try to perceive something that cannot be perceived, all perceptions will be lost."

But my mind could not think of what to perceive.. what was beyond the perception... so I started off with Nithyananda's technique of dropping everyday thoughts. And some more.. and some more.. Always doubting if that was the right way to do it.

Yesterday tho.. I had the most awesome experience. During our AYP Long Distance group meditation.. and thanks to whoever participated... and also to all the people around the world who were praying, chanting, meditating yesterday.. because it was Lord Krishna's birthday.. there was love energy going into meditation itself.. but then when I started off.. I felt myself expand.. it grew and grew.. it engulfed people around me.. my family, friends.. then the world.. then the masters.. then Ma herself.. but it went beyond.. it grew far beyond.. the universe.. and more.. till I could not go any further.. but it kept expanding.

A few times I found myself back in thoughts.. "what's for lunch?", "when should I take the kids swimming?", "need to get the fertilizer in and add the weed block  and water the plants".. the min I realized I was in thoughts.. I dropped the thoughts and was again transported beyond thoughts. I experienced, "Thoughts are so limiting".. it keeps us bound to what we know. We find the need to think our solutions here in these thoughts.. but just a little beyond it is a world where we are not limited.. where the limiting thoughts have no power.. where all problems seem like the head of a pin.. and the grip the things have on you are lost.. how can something that seems so big when we are in it have any hold on us when we look at it from outside the universe.

The best part was samyama.. I took the names of the members of my family and let go... the names traveled far into the universe and beyond.. till I lost it... and yet it seemed to travel on. The mind dropped in to try and control the outcome.. as to make sure this and that are taken care of in the prayers toward my family.. but for the first time the mind was humbled by the beauty and vastness of letting go because it saw how small and limited it was.. and there was so much more beyond the mind... for the first  time it saw the pleasure in "not knowing but just trusting". It still attached a few clause to the samyama.. like.. "OK I give you a week to make this work" .. but for the most part. my mind for the first time experienced "resistance is futile"... and felt defeated.. but like Yogani had once told me.. feeling defeated is not bad.. because after defeat comes surrender. And tho the mind surrendered to this vastness.. there was no sense of loss.. it was more a feeling of "ahhhh... now I can relax and let the universe take care of Shweta".

Living in the present

Jun 13 2008

Living in the present

Living in the present does not have to be a mental struggle..

Just love what you are doing...

and you are here.

~Shweta

Experiencing The Gap.

Feb 21 2008

 
I have been following a technique for a few months that has really helped me a lot and maybe it will help others. This technique would not have worked for me a year back. Some amount of inner silence is required for this to work. Anyone reading this, if you don't get it, please don't try to get it.. let it go and come back to it after a little while. It works wonders.. and it will work. So if for any reason you are wondering "what the heck is she talking about".. just let it go for now.

Thoughts like anything else in life, come up as waves. There is the point when the thought is forming (Creation-Brahma), when you are thinking the thought (Preservation-Vishnu) and when the thought drops/fades away (Destruction-Shiva)... to come up with the next thought. To make it clearer.. lets say you are looking at the screen.. now you move your focus to a pencil on your desk.. so.. you are bringing the pencil into focus (creation), you focus on the pencil (preservation), then you look at the screen again.. so your focus on the pencil fades (destruction). The same things happens with thoughts.

Even a year back if someone told me this, I would not have seen it. To me thoughts were a continuous flow without breaks.. constant chatter.

The technique:

Close your eyes and think about something you are really passionate about. This is important in the beginning when you are first learning the technique. It must be something that makes you really happy (you could do it with something that makes you really angry or sad.. but it's more fun starting off with something that makes you very happy.) Now bring up the thought in your mind and just before the thought forms.. STOP.. and stay in that gap. You will feel a lot of bliss and ecstasy. Stay as long as you can in this gap.. it may be a few seconds or a few mins. Then bring the thought up in your mind... then drop the thought (let it fade away).. and just as it is fading away from your mind... Stop.. You should feel the same bliss.

As you continue with this practice the time you can stay in the gap increases. The prominence of ecstasy reduces (as with all practices) and you can actually live in pure awareness for a few mins.. no thoughts just pure bliss.

Any thoughts, emotions, feelings that bother you (the stronger the feeling the easier it is to observe how effective this technique is)... Consciously bring it up into your mind.. and just before the thought/emotion/feeling can manifest.. stop. You may have to try it a few times, but the entire thing just dissolves. You will feel yourself physically relaxing too. It comes very handy to unlearn the physical tensions that our body has not forgotten .

As you get better at this, you can use it in every moment of your life. The more you use it.. the more you will start living in your inner silence. This technique is like a key that unlocks the door which gives you access to your inner silence/bliss any time of the day. It has not caused any overloads in me and actually helps calm any overloads that may happen as a result of other practices. Whatever the symptoms.. bring it up in your mind and before it manifests stop and it dissolves in the bliss. Has worked for stiff neck and back (dues to stress), slight headaches etc. When you wake up from a nightmare that scares you and you find it hard to go back to sleep.. bring up the dream and let it dissolve in the bliss. When something irritates you.. again bring it up and let it dissolve in the bliss. When you are worried, tired, stressed, sad.. really just about at any moment.. you can let it go in this bliss. It is also a great way to center yourself in awareness. Anytime during the day you find yourself mindy.. just do this technique and you will be centered in your awareness.

******************************************************************************

The above technique is something that came form reading the commentaries of sutra 22 in the book Stanzas on Vibration Mark Dyczkowski...

"22. SPANDA IS STABLE IN THE
STATE ONE ENTERS WHEN EXTREMELY
ANGRY, INTENSELY EXCITED,
RUNNING OR WONDERING
WHAT TO DO."

Five Stages.

Dec 18 2007


I've gone through what seems like 5 stages so far in this lifetime.

The first stage was the phase where I had no concept of spirituality. There was God and religion. Yoga was a set of stretching exercises that kept your body fit and meditation was a technique used to calm the mind and relax, reduce stress. Spirituality was something that happened to the yogis and holy men dressed in saffron clothing and lived somewhere in the Himalayas.

Then I got introduced to spirituality and the wonders of visions and siddhis and bliss and finding God.... with that came trying to "get" and wanting to achieve and looking for signs that it works and aiming for a goal.. etc http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=851#3743 I realized yoga was more than just a bunch of stretching exercises and meditation was wayyyyy more powerful than just a stress reducing technique.

Then I came to a stage where I realized there was a mind, an ego and I tried to understand my mind with my mind. http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=968 . I also got tired of trying and looking and kinda realized I had to stop looking and do my practice without any expectations. I had to let go and let flow. These were still concepts and I was still trying to get it all with my mind.

Then came the stage where I started watching the mind doing its things and not be involved in it. This involved understanding beyond the mind. http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2794 , http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2794#25395 . I could let go and let flow. Everything I was trying to get with my mind, I got without my mind and realized I knew all of this all along.. all I had to do was drop my mind's non-stop commentary/translation/explanation of every second of my life and not be limited to the mind's understanding of everything. Be ready to accept what came my way.. without having to dissect it or explain it or understand it.. and when I stopped trying to "get it" with my mind.. I "got it" without my mind. (Have you ever tried listening to a person or reading something without your mind translating every word for you.. try it.. it really is possible to listen and understand without your mind translating the words for you. Till a while back I did not realize, I never did listen to anyone.. I listened to what my mind thought they were saying.)

And now I seem to be in the fifth stage.. where I realize there is no "me". For some time now, I have been saying.. whatever has to happen will happen, it's all Ma's/God's will and the more we allow and let go.. the less resistance we put up.. the easier it gets for life to flow. For some time now I have also been saying.. I do nothing.. Ma /God does it all. But all this time, I had a concept that life energy/Ma's blessings flowed through me.. I was Shweta, in this body, very much alive. Everything was being done to me, through me... I heard and read many many many times the words "there is no Me"... but just did not get it. Few days back the "me" dropped. There is not just no "I" doing anything.. there is no "I". The best way to explain the experience:

It felt like the invisible man. Just like the clothes and bandage and gloves made him real/visible.. its this form that makes me Shweta.. Just as he is not there when his bandage, hat, gloves, clothes, shoes come off and yet he can do everything... so too the "Me" dissolves when the form Shweta drops and yet I function like I always did. I have a headache.. I feel the pain but I don't live the pain.. I am tired and achy.. every muscle in my body hurts.. but a part of me has no association with it.. there is pain.. which feels like a dream.. I feel it.. but it does not stop me from anything because I am not living it. I feel stress, I get into ego.. then it dissolves and is forgotten. Every morning is a like the first day of my life. If you ask me.. so what did you do yesterday.. my mind kinda goes in a panic (and it's stories.. see you are losing your mind :-D.).. since there is no resident memory of it in my active mind.. and yet if I think I can tell you exactly what I did yesterday with perfect clarity. Living in the present has never been so natural. Once again, it is so hard to put this experience in words.. this is so beyond the mind and so beyond words.

None of these were stand alone phases.. they all kinda merge into each other.. but is a beautiful evolution. It reminds me of the butterfly and Yogani's reference of the butterfly emerging from a cocoon, in his book The Secrets Of Wilder, has a different depth/beauty to it. When I was 37 (loooong years) I looked at my life and thought, I have wasted all these years of my life, if I knew about spirituality earlier I could have lived so much better and had such a productive life and would have found Ma by now.. and today 3 years later.. I feel like the 40 years is such a short period in the life times I have gone through and the years/life times I still have to go through. And would not have wanted even one second of this lifetime to be different. I have never felt so much heartfelt love and gratitude for life.

Mind Filters: Dropping the "Love" Story.

Sep 09 2007

Note: This was an experience based on the "Mind Filters" post.

In my own experience, the term "Love" has always been attached to many emotions and sentiments (mind filters:)). I had no idea there was something like pure love.. a feeling that is not associated with any emotion.. It does not feel like romantic love for a partner, or caring, protective love for a child, or grateful, respectful love for a parent, etc. It is just pure feeling arising from the heart with absolutely no emotions/labels attached. We have all experienced this at some time or the other, however they may have been very fleeting feelings that we have not realized existed, and that we may not have recognized as Love.

Yesterday I was reading the Alchemist by Paul Coehlo.. and there was a part where he says "He tried to deal with the concept of love as distinct from possession, and couldn't separate them". Later during meditation a though arose "you can love without possession". This thought started expanding.. it was spreading and automatically being applied to people in my life.. a feeling of just pure love with no stories attached. I stayed with it for a bit.. then finished my meditation.

Later I was driving alone when the thought of someone who has been a very negative influence on my life came to me. I saw her in my mind.. and before last night , any time I thought of her, my emotions took over and I would get sad and depressed and drown in self pity. But this time was different. I could see very clearly.. I realized that she really did love me and all her possessive, controlling, trying to change me, was her own distorted way of showing me her love. That is the only way she knew how to show love. When that filter of all the mental and emotional abuse she put me through dropped, all I saw was the love behind it. I am not saying what she did was right or it was OK for her to treat another human the way she did. All I am saying is when I saw the story, I could drop it and become free from it. I realized that it was not how she treated me that kept me imprisoned, it was the story my mind made around the situation that kept me imprisoned.. and when I drop the story, all that is left is love.

I realized what the statement, "you can love without possession" meant. Possession does not have to mean physical possession.. just holding on to a mental story is also a kind of possession.. and dropping this mental story is really loving someone without possessing.

I went through the entire evening, enjoying this new opening, this new freedom.. it was such a tiny switch, but such a huge relief. All through the evening, my ego tried to create another story to show me how flawed my thinking was.. but it just could not stick. I could appy this to many other situations in my life.. and it was so easy to feel love.

As I sat with this all evening, I felt love emanating from my heart. Such pure emotionless, sentiment-less, story-less love. It expanded and took over me.. and then around everyone I knew.. I had no identity.. I was not Shanti, I was not a woman, nor was I a mother or wife or daughter or friend.. I was just love with no boundaries. I looked up to thank Ma, and my awareness was drawn within.. I realized, Ma was in me, Ma was me, I was Ma. I had tears of love and gratitude rolling down my cheeks.

And the best part of this whole thing.. None of it was mystical, no lights and bells and angels and aums.. No image of Ma.. No blessings from the skies.. Nothing.. just a pure feeling of love, a pure essence of Ma and a pure joy in my heart. Nothing changed in my life.. and yet everything has changed. I am lighter and see more clearly.. and yet every one of the situations that existed before last evening are still there. I just don't have an attachment to it. It is such a minuscule shift in perception.. and yet such a life changing shift.

I don't know if I manged to convey anything in this post. It is so hard to put these experiences into words. All I can say is, it comes your way when you least expect it.. and is as normal a feeling as looking at the palm of your hand. You may be looking at it everyday.. and suddenly one day you will see it

Mind Filters.

Jul 26 2007

I have realized something that I would like to share. Feelings arise in us.. good and bad.. and once you learn to observe your mind/ego (I will use the word mind in this post).. you will see that any time a feeling arises, the mind tries to make sense of it and runs it through a life filter. It will either pass it through a filter of something that is happening right now and associate the feeling with it, or if it cannot fit it into anything happening right now (like everything is going great.. and yet you feel sudden sadness in your heart).. it will go back and look through it's memory bank and find something from the past that will fit perfectly with that feeling.

The feeling is just there.. it was always just there.. till the mind decided to do its job and process it by passing it through a filter, put a label on it and tuck it away somewhere in memory for future reference. When you learn to watch your mind, you can see this clearly.

When the emotion arising is a weak one, you can actually ignore the label being attached to it by the mind.. and ride the feeling.. happy or sad or angry or silly.. till it dissolves.

When the emotion is too strong and the mind attaching a label to it seems hard to get past .. allow the mind to get its way.. but don't get attached to the label.. if I try and fight the mind at this point.. I kinda get frustrated.. well, I am still learning and maybe after awhile it gets to a point when you can ignore labels to the strong emotions the same way you do the weak ones.. not sure.. but for now... let the mind have its way.. but know, that is what it is.. the mind having its way .. don't get attached to the label.. don't act on the label.. this strong feeling too will dissolve.. and depending on how much you decided to attach yourself to the story your mind spun, based on the filter.. it will dissolve in a few hours.. or few days.. or a lifetime. (When a child is playing and has a make believe world, you go with it (the story) and enjoy her imagination and play along with her.. but don't get attached to it and believe it to be a true world.. she may, but you don't.. just like that.. the mind believes its a true story.. but you don't have to).

All the negative feelings we have been holding on to so dearly with our lives are nothing but stories our mind created to explain the feelings arising in us.. once we can let go of the stories.. we will feel the feelings for what they are.. just energy.. nothing negative about them really. Energy is energy.. it is how our body reacts to the energy that determines how we react to it... The same goes with thoughts.. they are all finally energy.. energy(thoughts/feelings/emotions) arising in us, no need to label them.. just experience them.. go with whatever way the body reacts to it.. brings up a smile, brings up tears.. and ride through it.. without associating a word to it. Oh I smiled.. so this is a happy energy.. Oh I am crying.. so this is a sad energy.. Really, no need to label them. They are just there.. let them flow and enjoy the feeling of lightness that follows it when you don't attach to it.

The Journey...

Mar 27 2006

Last night I was thinking about something... last year... I was focused on my destination... there was nothing I wanted more. This year... I still hope to reach my destination... but, nobody ever told me that the journey itself would be so beautiful. There is no book I have read that tells you about the journey.. just the destination... This beautiful journey has its downs, but each down just opens a new door.. it is no longer a search for me... I am no longer looking for an answer... somehow I am at peace... somehow I know I am at the right place... with the right people... I am home.