“The legend of Adam and Eve is allegorical. It describes how the first human beings dissipated their spiritual energy centred in the spine. The spine is the channel through which flows the river of baptism and of spiritual life. The Bhagavad-Gita tells us, the wise speak of an eternal Ashwatha tree with its roots above and its branches below. The tree of life spoken of also in genesis is the spine. The roots are above in the brain’s energy. Its branches are the outward spreading nervous system. When the sap, which is to say the energy flows downward, the consciousness is drawn into delusion. On the other hand, when the energy is drawn upward in deep meditation, the consciousness is drawn towards its eternal source, God and is at last united with him.
“Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita therefore urges his chief disciple Arjuna to embrace the yoga science- the path of meditation. The yogi, he says is greater than the ascetic, greater even than the followers of the path of wisdom-Gyan Yoga or the Path of Action-Karma Yoga. Be Thou O Arjuna, a Yogi.” – Excerpt from week 22 of the book “Rays of the One Light”
The brain, the hair and the cosmic energy which comes in through the medulla are the roots. Then they condense in through the brain stem into the spine which is the tree. Through the stem the chakras come, in the stem are the cervical, the thoracic, the lumbar, sacral, coccygeal, nerve plexuses, the nadis, the chakras. They move out and the nervous system is where the prana enters from the Medulla. Light goes into the brain, it goes all over the body to keep the body healthy as an instrument, through which we glimpse God’s consciousness.
Colours, smell, taste, friends, smiles, are beautiful things which can uplift us. However, if we keep our energy centered outside the spine in the senses, then our understanding is more of delusion, illusory matter.
What is delusion? Delusion is half of the picture, not even half, it’s the surface reality, it’s a peripheral reality. It’s like saying, I am only the body, I am just the mind, I am just the ego or the feelings. You are operating through those things. You, above all are a child of God.
That understanding comes most directly through meditation by focusing our hearts energy, our spinal, our body’s energy to the point between the two eyebrows, through Hong Sau, which we are taught by Yogananda ji, that we are peace and calmness. I am He, Hong Sau. When the body, when the person meditates on Hong Sau, he quickly realizes, he is spirit.
Om technique teaches you; you are the inner sounds of the chakras. Above all, you are an expression of OM itself, of the sound of OM, no need to say it out loud, you hear it, you become one with it, you live in that consciousness. So your consciousness expands. And you say: Ah! I’m operating through the body, I’m not just the body.
Naturally the fears go away, egoic attachments fall away. True understanding in the proper perspective comes. Truthfulness, Who am I? Well, I’m a child of God expressing myself through the body. How wonderful it would be, if people could live by those experiences.
Kriya Yoga teaches us, I am joy. If God is Joy, if he is Satchitananda, ever existing, ever conscious, ever new joy, how can the child be then different from the Father and Mother? I too must be joy and that joy is felt through Kriya. It gives us the proof, the truth of who we really are.
Energization exercises, devotion, Satsang, reading the scriptures, these things are required almost all the time, they’re like you might say, they’re life-saving drugs. They are required on a daily basis so that we can stay firm in the truth, see things in the proper perspective and abide in the inner kingdom.
Yes, the outer kingdom you might say or the universe is fine too. It’s beautiful, actually a yogi who is joyful and happy inside will naturally produce beauty outside. It cannot be otherwise. But if we do not have an inner experience, we naturally fall prey to the outer realities and we say this is real, I don’t want to leave this world.
Well, you will have to and it will be a very sad ending if you leave without understanding, because there’ll be a lot of clinging back. However, if we develop the understanding of the fact, that this world, this body is a part of an infinite reality, but without my participation and experience I cannot become one with that reality, then it’s a very happy ending.
Death could come at a very young age. Loss could come. People may leave you and you will say – Oh! It’s okay. They did what they thought was right, they had an egoic understanding, perhaps they operated from that level and not affected. I understand their fears, I understand they ran away with your money, you say okay, I understand they were attached to that.
You may still fight calmly for it because it is a righteous thing to do, that feels right but you are not, you understand, you have wisdom, you are at rest. You may understand that it is karmic, that in a past life you ran away with somebody’s money.
I remember, I once fell from a bike very badly and I was hit on my head by a car and my helmet came out and everybody thought it was their mistake, because one car had braked in front of the other and I skid and the other car hit me.
Inwardly I was reflecting on a few things, especially the price one may have to pay to firmly come on the spiritual path, to be chosen to live in an ashram like Ananda and things like that and I said, my goodness is it so easy, is there no price to pay? Two seconds later, I was on the road, I was being hit with a car and people said I’m sorry, I’m sorry, sorry this happened so quickly. I said it’s not your fault. It’s okay.
I knew – and karma was lifted off me. I was cleansed and purified and fortunately I had the wisdom to see, that my own bad karma was taken away through that accident very quickly and generously. Imagine being hit on the head by a car, helmet flies off but you are fine. Nothing happened to my neck, not so much as an ache.
So friends, you need to study Meditation and the scientific techniques of kriya yoga and raja yoga. How to put them into daily application – because whether you like it or not, that’s simply how your body is made. There is a brain, there is a spine, prana is coming in, and it’s going out.
Perhaps you can conserve a lot of it, but if we don’t understand the functioning of our own body, who else can we blame later if things don’t go well physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. So, let’s get to know this inner kingdom day by day through our study and we will discover it is fascinating and very thrilling.
God bless you!