Konalani Yoga Ashram, Hawaii.

Beyond the Void and Union with Shiva:

Swami Muktananda's teaching distinguishes our tradition by revealing that beyond the void is Shiva.

Dharana emphasizes mindful separation from infinite manifestations, leading to union with true nature, Bhairava, synonymous with Shiva.

Surrendering the Senses: Seeing them as 'Nothing':

Mind and senses depicted as a five-fold mandala: smell, touch, taste, sight, and sound working together.

Analogy of senses as peacock's feathers, creating a dizzying experience.

Swami Lakshmanjoo's method: Concentrate on the void while seeing senses as 'nothing'.

Reflection on the yogic tradition's viewpoint of 'the void' and the difference between rejecting senses and concentrating on the void.

The Source of the Senses Mapped by the Tattvas:

Teaching aligns with Tattvas, where Shiva and Shakti's dance creates all manifestation.

Outward expansion involves the development of the power of physical senses (Jnana Indriyas), leading to sensations, subtle elements, and gross elements.

Three capacities arise simultaneously, with objects often overshadowing the deeper mechanism within us.

A Closer Look at The Moment of Sensation:

The indriyas (senses) have no meaning without the objects they are correlated with.

Importance of accessing a deeper space during sense perception, in line with the yogic concept of surrender.

Surrendering to the Source:

The void described in Dharana is devoid of object but not content.

Interacting with objects is interacting with Shiva in a limited way; turning attention within enriches the experience.

Letting go of the sense object is a gain to the heart, allowing the experience of Shiva beyond the void.

Translation and Practice of Dharana 9:

Swami Lakshmanjoo sees the senses as nothing; Paul Reps adds the approach of melting into the beauty of the senses.

Achieving the goal of the heart, the real wish behind the senses, through different approaches.

Jai Deva Singh's teaching on the Absolute void as Bhairava and Shiva being most full from the point of view of Reality.

Imagery and Practice:

Paul Reps' imagery of the peacock tail and melting its beauty within for finding the source in the heart.

Traditional approach of perceiving a point in space until it becomes nothing.

Both approaches lead to achieving the goal of the heart and fulfilling the real wish behind the senses.

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Full Essay with Quotes:

Babaji often tells the story of his meeting with Swami Muktananda in which Muktananda told him that many meditation traditions teach that one meditates to experience the void, but that beyond the void is Shiva. In the current Dharana, we see the same teaching— when we use our practice to detach from the infinite manifestations of the mind and senses, we are able to attain mindful separation, which is like a void, and that sustaining that state brings us into union with our true nature, here named Bhairava, which is the same way of saying Shiva. Shiva exists beyond the void.

In this Dharana our mind and senses are described as a type of five-fold mandala, smell, touch, taste, sight and sound working as one to inform us of our physical reality. These senses are likened to a peacocks feathers, which when fanned behind them create a dizzying experience much like the mind and senses can become. Our task as yogis is to witness the mind and senses, but not to multiply them with our energy. One method for this, given by Swami Lakshmanjoo, is to see the senses themselves as voids.

“You must concentrate simultaneously on [the void while experiencing each of] these five, that it is nothing, it is only a void and nothing else. Then, you have to forcibly concentrate that these are nothing, [that] these objects are nothing–“What I see is nothing, what appears to me is nothing, what I hear is nothing, what I touch and what I get [as] the sensation of smell, it is nothing, it is only śūnya.” It is only seeing as energy–just seeing only, hearing only, not to analyze that…There it ends. And when I feel smelling, there ends that. At the time of that sensation of smelling, you must end it there. You must not go further, You must not go beyond that so that you will [avoid being] entangled in the world of the senses.”

This is one of the many underlying teachings of the Tattvas, the yogic map of manifestation. In the tattvas we see that Shiva and Shakti’s dance creates all of manifestation. As we expand further from Shiva we are covered by maya, illusion, meaning as our awareness moves further from our own center we identify less and less with our true nature.

This outward expansion from center takes a particular path that is helpful in understanding this Dharana. We see in tattvas 17-21, the power of the physical senses are developed— there are called the Jnana Idriyas, which is referred to in the text by Swami Lakshmanjoo as well. This is considered the source of the senses, described as the ‘power of seeing’ the ‘power of smelling’ and so on. This source gives rise to the sensations themselves, tattvas 27-31, called the subtle elements. This would be the capacity for sense itself, but not of any particular scent. The capacity for sight, but not necessarily a particular sight, etc. And eventually the power and capacity for the senses gives rise to the actual gross elements themselves, tattvas 32-36, the final and most externalized of manifestation. Interesting enough, all three of these capacity’s arise simultaneously, we see the object, but often miss the deeper mechanism happening within us.

Intro to Kashmir Shaivism: “The moment the senses of perception are produced, the five tanmatras or subtle elements of perception also come into manifestation from the same Ahamkara, because the indriyas can have no meaning or existence whatsoever without the objects with which they are inseparably correlated. For instance, the indriya of hearing has no meaning without something to hear, that is, without sound. Similarly, the indriyas of feeling-by-touch, tasting, and smelling have no meaning without a simultaneous reference to something to feel, taste, and smell. Therefore, the moment Manas arises as desire, Ahamkara takes a triple form: I - (1) desire - (2) to see - (3) some color.” (Note: the ahamkara is the self that is doing or the personality associated with this individual body. It refers to the sense of being an individual separate from everything else.)

This means that behind every color is a deeper understanding if we are willing to surrender it. This experience of surrender is something we have been given by Swami Rudrananda, but keep in mind that this word does not come up very often in the text as we have read it. Therefore the act of surrender is a way of describing a very paradoxical yet essential reality we must learn to participate within— if we can let go of the sense object in front of us, which appears to mean we are left with nothing, we are actually brought to a much vaster experience. Beyond the void is Shiva, this is an essentially another way of teaching us the nature of surrender. When we let go we begin to receive. Let go of the color, receive the source of the color. To the mind we have lost something, but to the heart we have gained.

As Jai Deva Singh teaches at the end of his commentary on this Dharana: The Absolute void is Bhairava who is beyond the senses and the mind, beyond al the categories of these instruments. From the point of view of the human mind, Shiva is most void.From the point of view of Reality, Shiva is most full, for Shiva is the source of al manifestation.

Which brings us to the translation and practice of Dharana 9. Paul Reps wording is very much on the positive side, instead of letting go or getting less, he focuses on melting within and receiving more. Instead of rejecting outer form, we see that our goal is to absorb it. We find the source by letting ourselves really open up to it. In sight we see that once we surrender the object of our focus, we receive the object of our wishes.

“Or, imagine the five-colored circles of the peacock tail to be your five senses in illimitable space. Now let their beauty melt within. Similarly, at any point in space or on a wall—until the point dissolves. Then your wish for another comes true.”

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Immerse yourself in the transformative spirit of Ganesha as our Ashram resonates with the joyous celebrations that extend from personal realms to the universal. Delve into the symbolic journey through the story of Mushaka, Ganesha's mouse, illustrating the release of karmic obstacles and the surrender to Shakti's play, guiding us toward union with Shiva. Join us in expanding awareness beyond the five coverings, inspired by the wisdom of Ganesha and the transformative power of surrender. Om Gam Ganapataye Namah!The Mouse of the Mind: Embracing Ganesh through the Story of MushakaIt is that time of year - Ganesha pervades our Ashrams and pujas, our lives and is everywhere! The celebrations spread in a widening circle to envelop ourselves and our families, then our friends & relatives, next the people in our public lives, then the arts & artistes enriching our lives and finally, encompassing all beings in all Lokas.It feels like a wholesome practice expanding my awareness past five aspects of my karma - from the physical and personal to the subtle and Universal. These aspects are reminiscent of the five kanchukas in Kashmir Shaivism (or even the five koshas of Advaita) that limit the experience of Universal consciousness. The five heads of Ganesha seem to symbolize His help for the progress of my awareness through these five coverings.In our practices, we surrender to the play of Shakti (i.e., Parvati) which moves our ordinary awareness into union with Shiva (Universal consciousness). Ganesha’s energy helps the surrender by removing obstacles manifested in these karmic covers. The story of Ganesha’s vehicle, the mouse, illustrates the nature of these blocks.The story begins in Indra Loka where Krauncha was an accomplished celestial musician. His artistry however inflated his ego leading to pride and jealousy. He became miserly in praise of others, often absent when others performed or, preferred to sulk in the back or linger behind pillars in the hall.One day, Indra called on him to perform for the assembly of sages and Devas. As he sashayed to the dais, he thought he heard rapturous applause from sage Vamadeva on the way. In reality, however, he had stepped on the sage’s feet and the furious sage had cursed him “Enough of your false pretenses! May your outer form reflect your inner nature!” Krauncha was immediately transformed to a huge mountain-sized rodent to match the size of his pride!Why a rodent? It loves dark places and prefers corners and edges to open spaces which are seen as threatening or negative. Our pride is invisible to us and operates in the dark recesses of our mind, delighting in gossip and thriving on the failures of others. This negativity bias is a survival instinct that causes us to blame others when they reflect our limitations back to us.Back in the story, as the mouse-mountain moved, it trampled and destroyed the dwellings and all beings in its path. A desperate Indra ejected Krauncha from the heavens to the earth. Scurrying on earth, it destroyed forests, mountains, lakes, farms and families eventually reaching the Ashram of sage Parashara. Ganesha who was visiting the Ashram decided to end the rampage and collared the mouse with his lasso. This yanked the mouse off his feet and landed him, stunned, at Ganesha’s feet. The shock of the event flashed Krauncha’s behavior past his mind’s eye. He felt remorseful and begged Ganesha for forgiveness.Ganesha saw that Krauncha’s negative nature had dissolved. So he decided to employ Krauncha’s skills and talents and made him his vehicle. And, this is how Ganesha snagged a mouse for his ride.And like tiny mice, all kinds of thoughts scurry about the mind and pull it away from our practice. Unless we surrender them, we function from our mind and ego, much like Krauncha, the musician. This is the nature of the blocks manifest in our karmic coverings. As Babaji had said at a recent Satsang,”… The Shakti will take you through every insecurity, every illusion, and every obstacle that exists in you, on the way to that state of perfection. You have to be willing to face it and move beyond all of it …”As we practice to expand our awareness past the five coverings, the Shakti will present our karma to us. Our heartfelt wish to grow draws Ganesha’s energy to all parts of our mind - through the smallest openings and darkest areas like riding a mouse! To help us surrender past the karmic blocks to union with Shiva.Om Gam Ganapataye Namah!

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Embarking on the path to spiritual growth is often framed as a solemn endeavor, demanding ceaseless, mindful effort. But it doesn't have to be a burdensome task—instead, it can be a playful and invigorating journey that engages us fully in every minute of our existence. In a recent exchange with Sri Shambhavananda, the anecdotes about Paul Reps, the contemporary Zen master and compiler of Zen Flesh Zen Bones, were illuminating. Reps illustrates that continuous mindfulness can be pursued not just through disciplined practice, but also with a touch of lightheartedness and curiosity. As we delve Dharana 6, we'll explore how the wisdom of "every minute Zen" aligns with the ancient teachings of Shiva Sutra 2.3, which states that "pauseless effort brings attainment." Our spiritual journey, as it turns out, can be a seamless blend of focus, surrender, and even a bit of playfulness—enabling us to embody mindfulness in every moment. Eventually this work paves the way for our work with Dharana 5 & 6 from the Vijnana Bhairava, which focuses on entering the natural and uplifting flow of Shakti that permeates our Heart, our Shushumna, and even our daily lives.

The tale of “Every Minute Zen” from Zen Flesh Zen Bones highlights the importance of unbroken mindfulness….

”Zen Students are with their masters at least ten years before they presume to teach others. Nan-in was visited by Tenno, who, having passed his apprenticeship, had become a teacher. The day happened to be rainy, so Tenno wore wooden clogs and carried an umbrella. After greeting him Nan-in remarked: “I suppose you left your wooden clogs in the vestibule. I want to know if your umbrella is on the right or left side of the clogs. Tenno, confused, had no instant answer. He realized that he was unable to carry his Zen every minute. He became Nan-in’s pupil, and he studied six more years to accomplish his every-minute Zen.”

The story of every minute zen reminds us that we should be fully aware and present at all times. Paul Reps himself was known for his playful techniques to maintain mindfulness. For instance, a simple action like switching a bracelet you wear everyday from one wrist to the other could serve as a practice to be more present. The teaching here is, perhaps, that being fully present is equal parts discipline and creativity. It requires us to be committed but also to maintain a sense of playfulness. As Reps once described it, “serious play”— our everyday play of being present.

I recently had the chance to ask Babaji about pauseless presence in Monday Night Satsang. His guidance was that one can't force themselves to be continuously present; one needs to be relaxed and in tune with the flow of the moment in order to really experience the present. This mirrors the commonly used motto in high-stakes professions: "Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast”— that is, we have to relax and slow down if we are ever going to rise up to the real heights of any discipline. Paul Reps emphasized the same idea in his poem, "Smooth Motion Cures Commotion," suggesting that when we move smooth we not only heal ourselves but even those around us, “If the world ship sinks will you save it,” Reps writes, “Yes you will, move smooth.” Shiva Sutra 2.3 also reflects this, teaching that “Pauseless effort brings attainment”, meaning that practicing with continuity is one of our greatest assets in our practice. How do we achieve continuity, and thus the rewards of it? Slow down and smooth out our effort, and let the rest come naturally. A metaphor that Babaji often uses is that of digging a well— if you are steady and stick with it, eventually the rewards will rush up to meet you in a natural and sustainable manner.

About a year and a half ago, Babaji advised the sangha to ‘slow down’ in their daily practice. One example of this is that of ‘over-breathing' when meditating on the breath, leading to hyperventilation and nervous system imbalances. Babaji recommended gentler breathing patterns and a focus on heart-centered meditation. For much of the sangha this was a rejuvenating experience, much our current Dharana is describing—

Slowing down and smoothing out their practice allowed them to feel the natural energy and power that is radiating from within them all the time.

Which brings us to the heart of our current Dharana. Dharana 6 of the Vijnana Bhairava guides us to focus on the lightning-like upsurge of shakti in the spine. Reaching directly for this level of experience could be like trying to move fast without first moving slow and smooth— either it is ineffective, or could cause imbalance. For this reason, the commentary on the Dharana urges us to take our time to ground our awareness, and allow the upsurge to come slowly and naturally. The take away here is that our work isn’t to push or pull energy, but to calm our mind and body deeply, bring our attention low into our base and allow the exhale to be a natural expression of this upward flowing energy. If done consciously, this experience should help us feel more grounded and present, as opposed to our energy flowing up into our heads and thoughts.

It should be noted that the upsurge of Kundalini energy discussed in this chapter is also described as an expansion of the heart center. This means that we can also practice this lightning like expansion in our hearts as we exhale, which may be more in line with your daily practice. I found this parallel to be extremely beneficial in unlocking the teachings that Babaji has been describing over the past couple of years— the effortless expansion of our hearts during the exhale. This level of experience can only be truly felt when the mind is calm and the body is relaxed.

So, let's take a moment to engage with Dharana 6. As Babaji has been guiding us, try applying this focus to your heart first, and then taking your time to bring the awareness down to your base before feeling the lightning like energy of the spine.

Dharana 5 & 6 from the Vijnana Bhairava, Paul Reps Translation

“Consider your essence as light rays rising from center to center up the vertebrae, and so rises livingness in you. // Or in the spaces between, feel this as lightning.”

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This class will deepen your connection to deity Vishnu through stories and new perspectives, kirtan, and meditation.

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This class reflects further on Vijnana Bhairava Dharana 5 through discussion, free writing, and meditation.

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This pressure or density is not only natural, but good for us. When diving underwater in the physical world, our body recognizes the pressure and slows down our heart rate, shifting our nervous system down towards a more restful and rejuvenating state. The pressure is also good for our lungs. In our subtle bodies when meditating there is a very similar experience, when we go inside our heart rate slows down and our nervous system down shifts. And similar to the water, there is a natural tendency to bob like a buoy in our heads all day long, staying at the surface, and it takes a certain kind of work to actually go deep within ourselves. And like water, we do this in small sessions— we don’t need to live underwater, we just need to practice going there over and over again. In fact, it is teh repetition that is the source of our depth, “Inserting the spark of awareness and letting it fade” as Shiva Sutra —- teaches. It is Effort over time, as Rudi teaches, that yields real growth.

The pressure of this dive within ourselves is unique, subtle. I hope that by discussing this pressure it does not lead to any expectations of pressure and thus doership. Instead I hope that by discussion this subtle pressure that we feel when we go inside it helps us actually feel our experience more clearly, and interact with it more personally. Because, as Babaji has been teaching steadfastly for quite a while, we so often get attached to the technique and artificial goals in our practice, such as “how deep we are diving”, or “how long we can hold our breath” to keep with the analogy, and we not only miss the point of our practice, but we miss the experience, and thus also miss the growth. Technique is here to guide us to the present, to our direct experience, to our state of being— that is what I hope this discussion does for you. Because it doesn’t matter how deep you dive within yourself— its the pressure itself that is beneficial, the actual experience of going inside and working with that experience— and when you can shift your awareness from the ‘depth’ to the ‘experience’, every depth becomes more beneficial, sustainable and interactive.

We are diving into the heart to interact with the experience, not to be done with the experience. As teh Sutras say, it is a subjective experience, not objective— meaning it is meant to be happening to you in the state you are in today, within the context of your life right now. We are each meant to really experience the process of going inside every time we do it, not to simply go through the motions like watching a TV show while you walk 3 miles on a treadmill. This is why it is beneficial to pay attention to the experience rather than focus on the destination— the experience is where the growth is. The subtle pressure that exists within us, that we slowly but surely breathe through, is the source of the healing— it doesn’t matter the depth or the time spent underwater/inside, it matters how much you are absorbing and participating in the experience. It

Which brings us to the second half of the Dharana, the rising up. Diving down is the work, rising up is the serenity. In the water, diving down is effort, you not only have to actively swim against the natural buoyancy of the ocean, you have to stop every few kicks to actively clear your ears, and this process continues every few feet. At a certain point you stop and allow yourself to rise up slowly. There is no need to kick here, or even clear your ears, you simply rise up and expand to the surface. In our practice it is the same. The work of going inside takes time and effort, we work with the experience directly and gradually, and let it work on us. And eventually there comes a time to allow ourselves to rise up and expand naturally. In the big picture one could say this is the moment of our Kundalini rising up the spine to the crown chakra. If we zoom out even further, this could be said to be the description of enlightenment itself, a gradual rising up that takes place over liftetimes of Sadhana. From a more zoomed in perspective, this could also be referring to the latter half of the circular breath, wherein our attention rises up the spine. Or in an even more localized way, and the way we have been instructed to work more and more these days by our teacher, this is referring to the subtle expansion that takes place in the heart on each exhale.

For the past year or so, Babaji has been emphasizing the practice of bringing our attention to the heart with our inhale, and then allowing the heart to expand with the exhale. The expansion that takes place in the heart is subtle, and happens gradually. When letting one’s self rise up from a decent depth underwater, it can often feel slow, or even impreceptible, compared to the effort one expels to dive down. But again, if we pay attention to the experience itself as we did when we dove down into the heart, there will be plenty to feel. For me, I was expelling too much effort in the expansion of the heart and missing the experience altogether— but when I thought of it like rising up from under water, I let go and actually felt what was happening. So this analogy was a bit of a breakthrough for my personal practice, helping me use a natural physical experience to better understand a natural subtle experience.

From where you’re sitting, let your eyes close and turn your attention within. This initial turn already initiates the healing process, and you can feel the subtle shift. This is almost like the shift of being in water versus being on land, there’s a buoyancy in side, an ebb and flow like rising and falling currents. Breathe in through the third eye, and towards the base of the throat. Feel this slight shift in internal pressure, there’s a density being approached, like the density of water just a few feet under the surface. Instead of trying to go past the density you encounter, feel it. Absorb that healing pressure, let it do its work. Swallow to relieve the pressure in the throat, almost like cleaning your ears, and feel the path to the heart open up.

This is the practice we have been working on with Babaji for a while now. The path to the heart. Notice the experience of getting to the heart with your breath— feel the subtle density that you encounter and work with it. That density is why we are meditating, it is literally what we are breathing through. With each inhale we can bring our awareness towards the heart, embracing the subtle hug of pressure that may exist there, and as we exhale we expand our experience in the heart in a different way.

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This class will help you deepen your connection to goddess Parvati, followed by kirtan and meditation.

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In this Teaching Moments episode, Sangha member Arati and Satyam discuss their experiences of finding refuge in the heart, our meditation practice, and the sangha.

Arati: Talking about my practice is not something I’m very familiar with…I feel like I am still trying to learn, understand, and feel for what it means to have a spiritual practice. The talks that the sangha members gave at the intensive really resonated and inspired me to try and open up as I could relate to a lot of what they talked about and how they used their practice during rough times.

The last couple of years have been very turbulent for me and I can’t say I’m totally on the other side so a lot of my experience is still current. A 10 year marriage ended and with it took a lot of people I considered family, I lost my house and most of my belongings, I left a job that I worked really hard to get to where I was and with all that change…so much else was shaken up and lost. It felt like my entire world and what I relied on for stability, security, safety, and comfort was all pulled out from underneath me in a blink of an eye. It felt so quick that I didn’t know who I was anymore. When people would ask me how I felt..it felt like I was jello, in the in-between…it was so scary and uncomfortable.

Early on when these changes started happening, I went to Shoshoni for a weekend training with Satyam and Abhaya and when I returned to the east coast, I signed up for an online yoga teacher training with them. During that training, everything was falling apart and it was so hard for me to show up for those classes let alone meditate on my own each day. But ever since I connected to this practice, it’s been there for me when I didn't know what else to do.

I had always dreamed of going to India and what better of a time than when you’ve lost everything? And because I have this practice and have been warned over and over throughout the years…I knew I wasn’t going to find anything out there to solve my problems or the key to my happiness but staying or going was equally tough. So I left my job and went on a big adventure with my new partner. I was traveling the world and in a newish relationship and although I’m so grateful for both of these experiences, after having my life dismantled, it definitely wasn’t a vacation.

I won’t go too much into my traveling and it did strengthen my gratitude for these teachings and for Babaji but I also went through a lot more discomfort on so many different levels. Because of the state I was in internally, the chaos, uncertainty, and unfamiliarity all around me was so challenging physically, emotionally, and mentally. I kept making a (small) effort to do my practice but I have been exhausted by life and my mind felt like it was torturing me when I would sit to meditate. Still feeling pretty lost, I reluctantly reached out to Abhaya and asked about spending some time at Konalani.

On the Big Island there is a place called the city of refuge where, in ancient Hawaiian times, if you committed a crime and you made it to this point, you would be absolved of your punishment, which was typically death. That sounds pretty extreme and I wasn’t running from a crime but even though I knew it wasn’t going to be easy, getting myself to the ashram felt like making it to my own place of refuge.

I was right, it hasn’t been easy. Being at the ashram is not an escape from any of your problems and most days, they are highlighted for me. But I’ve been able to get some clarity and reconnect to my practice in a big way. I have a reason to wake up each morning and am committed to doing my practice each day no matter what. I’ve got a place to sleep, food to eat, work to do each day and the support of the sangha. When I have to face my stuff - feeling lost, confused, disoriented, sad, overwhelmed - I can be in the flow of the ashram and I can remember that I am here to do this work.

My idea of a refuge has really deepened during my time here. I asked Babaji how I should work while I am here and he said to stay centered and when I feel myself getting drawn out to come back. He’s also pulled me aside during seva and told me to stop worrying and that I need to relax.

I’ve always liked Babaji’s surfing references because I surf a little bit and I found this quote where he said: “It is a lot like surfing: there is a wave of energy causing the transformation in your life. Your job is to keep centered and to keep your balance. That means you don’t go to extremes mentally and emotionally. You don’t get overly excited or overly conservative. Try to stay centered and balanced.”

It’s been hard for me to find this state of being centered and balanced because my mind really wants to analyze all the loss and feel all the emotions over and over. It hit me during a movie yoga night when there was a really intense scene happening and I could feel myself getting pulled into the drama, feeling the anxiety and anticipating what was coming. Babaji told us all to take a breath and in that moment, I released the grip on the scene and felt a sense of relief and peace inside.

It was so easy to realize that the movie was separate from me and the emotions I was feeling weren’t me. It made me wonder what if surrendering my own stuff was that easy? I truly want to experience my inner self as a place of refuge that’s always with me and can’t be taken away. So, I’ve really been trying to connect to this place inside and cultivate my inner refuge while I am meditating, while I am doing seva, and everywhere in between by recognizing that I am feeling heavy, tight, anxious or having negative thoughts and drawing my attention inside, relaxing, and allowing there to be calm.

In Spiritual Practice, Babaji says: “What we are looking for when we meditate is peace of mind. Peace is the most incredibly valuable thing in the whole universe. Our minds are always active. They try to define us through our experiences.Though that may be useful to a degree, it is not the truth. The truth of who we are and what we are lies beyond the chatter and the noise of our minds. When we move beyond the chatter we will find clarity and a real sense of being present. We will begin to have a deeper understanding of our existence.”

I am so grateful to have an actual place of refuge to go to and for the support I’ve received over the years and especially recently. It’s helped me prioritize my practice and start to feel my feet on the ground again. Mostly, it has helped me feel a glimpse of my inner self that is beyond the chatter, beyond anything external, so that I can feel safe, secure, and at peace no matter what.

Satyam:

A line that really stuck with me from Arati’s presentation was “I truly want to experience my Inner Self as a place of refuge that’s always with me and can’t be taken away”… I do too, and I’m sure you do as well. As she taught, We have a place of refuge in our hearts, a place we can go to at any time to dissolve the obscurations of daily life. But like the place of refuge here in Hawaii, It takes effort to get there, and effort to remain there, but no matter how much effort it takes what’s most important is that it really is there.

And as Arati taught, we can find refuge in our practice if we are willing to seek it out throughout our daily practices, tasks and activities. We have to find refuge in each repetition of the mantra, each weed we pull, each breath we take, each dish we wash, each posture we practice... In classic non-dual understanding, the place of refuge is only revealed to those willing to walk with refuge. As the Shiva Sutras put it, ‘the path is only revealed to the revealer’— the path to the place of refuge is only revealed to those who are seeking refuge in their path.

This unique effort is of course nothing new, but a foundational topic in every practice. How do perform mantra in a way that leads us to its place of refuge? We can’t yell the mantra, or do them faster, to accelerate the process— we start from where we’re at, and work our way from the vibration in the mouth, to the throat to the heart. The same goes for the breath— you can’t just jump into breath awareness, the mind pushes and pulls it immediately. You have to lengthen and smooth out the breath, and then slowly but surely release that effort and arrive at the experience of refuge in breath awareness. Swami Rudrananda always taught that the WIsh to Grow practice begins at a superficial level, none of us mean it at first, but we simply repeat each repetition with a little more sincerity, and eventually we arrive.

The topic of refuge inspires a deeper appreciation for how we practice, not just what we practice, which has been at the forefront of Babaji’s teaching over the past year and a half. When he says we need to learn to relax as we practice, in my opinion this doesn’t mean we relax and then practice, as if they are two separate things, but that we learn how to use our practice to help us relax, that we use our practice not to blow up our karma, but release ourselves from it. Babaji recently used the analogy of dropping something out of your hand as a way of understanding surrender— when you use each mantra as a way to release, each breath as a way to release, then you become released. This is what the topic of refuge means to me, and how it has opened up my practice.

So let’s take time to walk through our practice with refuge and see if the path to the place of refuge in our hearts naturally unfolds for us step by step.

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Join us as we explore our practice through the art of writing from within. We will review Dharana 4 and spend time meditating, writing, and discussing, in addition to some light movement. You are welcome to bring previous writing to continue working on or use the prompts provided.

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Dharana 4 concludes the breath and pause specific teachings in this portion of the Vijnana Bhairava, and is our focal point for tonight. In this Dharana we begin to lean into the pause skillfully, feeling for the moment when we are ‘all out’ or ‘all in’, and allowing ourselves to be absorbed in a space where our ‘small self vanishes’. Before we unpack it, we can sit for a minute with the dharana itself and let it speak to you directly:

“When breath is all out (up) and stopped of itself, or all in (down) and stopped—in such universal pause, one’s small self vanishes. This is difficult only for the impure.”

The breath itself is a ‘ceaseless pulsation’ of life force, a throb of Shakti described as Spanda. When the breath pauses, as we saw in the last Dharana, there is a moment of where the ceaseless pulsation of life fuses into stillness— this stillness is not separate from reality, but a unique experience within it— a moment when the surface of the water becomes absolutely still before the wave pool of the breath begins again. This moment comes and goes in a flash for most of us most of the time— yet it seems to be a Holy Grail of meditative experience. Holding the pause with the will misses the point— we only end up feeling our will, not the peace of the pause— so what other options are there? As Muktananda teaches in his text “I Am That”, if we want to expand the pause, we have to expand our experience of the breath itself:

“The state of stillness

which occurs when the syllables merge inside and outside

is natural kumbhaka.

You don't have to make a deliberate effort to hold your breath,

because as you practice hamsa,

the time of the suspension of breath begins to expand.

The duration of the kumbhaka increases naturally.”

To expand our experience of the breath overall, we can slow down our breath, this guarantees that we will stay connected to the flow, while also taking ourselves towards the subtle destination of the pause. Of course this must be within reason and not create tension, but once the breath is slower, your mind slows down too and you can begin to work through the impurities that the Dharana alludes to.

Because who are the impure that have trouble feeling the pause and slowing down? All of us, most of the time. As study after study concludes, our overstimulated nervous systems are stuck in a subtle state of fight and flight. And as we know about the sympathetic nervous system, when we are ‘fighting and flighting’— which is to say thinking, planning and scheming— the maintenance aspects of our biology go on hold. Our digestion slows down, our cellular repair and maintenance slows down, everything goes on pause so we can get through this or that struggle. Its like being in a hurry all morning and leaving the toothbrush open on the counter, throwing a towel on an unmade bed and leaving breakfast dishes in the sink.

It helps us get to work on time this time, but studies are showing us that these biological dishes are just piling up inside, as a 2018 article from the University of Colorado health and medical center describes it— “When you check your phone or hear an alert, you activate your sympathetic nervous system, the part of your body that’s always scanning the environment. It gives you a little shot of adrenaline for every interaction. That adrenaline, which is meant to trigger your body to pay attention, sets off a cascade of chemicals that increases heart rate, pulse and muscle tension, and shunts energy from the brain to the muscles. It will take five to 30 minutes for your body to get back to baseline after every one of these alarms…Which is a problem in a world where cell phones rarely stop. Essentially, people don’t ever come back down to baseline…We have one stress after another after another. All that stress wreaks havoc on the body and mind, causing or contributing to a range of diseases, from heart disease and depression, to sleep deprivation and chronic fatigue” (https://www.uchealth.org/today/the-hidden-stress-of-cell-phones/)

These are the impurities to which the Dharana alludes— when we are in this neurological state, it is hard to meditate. The solution… s-l-o-w…d-o-w-n… Slow it all down, and start to feel again. When we can start to feel again, then we can start to relax and release, we can start cleaning up the debris, and eventually we can even begin to experience something beyond it.

A Student once asked Babaji, “I have been very bothered lately by tightness in my heart. Can you suggest a way for me to release that tension?” To which he responded, “Try to breathe slowly and feel your navel. As you exhale relax deeply. Don’t focus on an area where the congestion is. Focus below it, or beyond it. You have to draw the energy down. Your type of experience usually has to do with the energy coming back up the chakras. You have to breathe very slowly and deeply below the tightness and into the navel, and then relax and release. It is helpful to inhale slowly to a count of one, two, three. Then exhale to the same count. Sometimes students inhale and then exhale too quickly.” (SP, 29)

As Babaji says here, when we slow down we can begin to feel, relax and release. Slowing down opens the door to feeling, and feeling allows us to feel what needs to be released. When we are stuck in an over-stimulated loop, this can be hard to do— which is why the Yogic tradition teaches us to work our way there layer by layer, through the Koshas. One of the reasons we have incorporated yoga into our Thursday night class schedule is because Babaji wants people to start slowing down and consciously figuring out how to relax and release— and the body is the most tactile place to start this process. As Anju talked about a few months ago, her asana practice, and slowing down in her asana practice, was the key to breaking through seemingly insurmountable obstacles in her meditation practice. Many people have resistance to Asana because it doesn’t seem to work with the mind and heart as directly as meditation. But what’s better— running really fast in circles or taking slower conscious steps towards relief? I know we all feel that we can just drop our tensions with a breath, and maybe we can occasionally, but slowing down on the physical level helps us slow down on the pranic level, which helps us slow down on the subtler levels of the heart and mind. And the act of slowing down really just means open up. Every aspect of our tradition tells us this, so I thought we could work with it more directly in tonights guided practice.

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In this class, we explore stories and new ways of relating to the Deities of our lineage, followed by kirtan and meditation. A deeper connection to our Deities - these powerful, loving spiritual forces - is always available, and our relationship to them is ever-changing. Today’s episode will open your heart to a greater and more expansive understanding of Shiva.

Tonights Chants:

Shiva Shiva Mahadeva Namah Shivaya Sada Shiva

Refrain: Om Namah Shivaya Namah Shivaya

Shiva Shiva Shankara Om Namah Shivaya

Jaya Hara Hara Maha-dev

Shiva Shiva Shankara Om Namah Shivaya

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Let your creative juices flow as we recap and are inspired by previous class topics, especially the Shambhavi Mudra - the ability to keep your attention within as your senses are turned outward and you navigate the external world..

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“Whenever inbreath and out breath fuse, at this instant touch the energyless energy-filled center.”

When considering the pause between the breath, it is almost automatic to approach it from the outside in— meaning, to watch your breath and feel for the pause to occur. This, we are told, was the practice given in Dharana 2, which taught us to watch the breath ‘turn, turn turn’. As Swami Lakshmanjoo begins his translation of Dharana 3, though, “now, [we are entering] a more subtle process”.

The subtle teaching at the heart of this Dharana is that we can experience the pause between our breaths more fully through the internal gaze of the Shambhavi Mudra, described in the commentary as Bhairavi Mudra. The Shambhavi Mudra is the practice of keeping the senses open but bringing your awareness inside to the heart, as you continue to experience your life. This is an advanced practice because it asks you to hold your awareness inside with no external object per se, such as a mantra or pranayama. It is simply, and not so simply, the practice of keeping your attention “inside” while you live your life “outside”. This practice, we are taught in this Dharana, will naturally draw the pause between the breaths to us. In fact, the deeper inside we go inside, the bigger the experience of the pause between the breaths will become for us.

The experience of this pause gives rise to spiritual energy described in the Dharana as “Nirvikalpakataya”, which refers specifically to the energy of the central vein, the Shushumna. The Dharana continues that when this practice is truly accomplished, “the energy of breath neither goes out nor enters in (na vrajet na viśet)”, meaning that the inbreath and out breath pause momentarily of their own accord. And here, in this space between the breaths, “one becomes one with Bhairava,” as Lakshmanjoo translates, “Bhairavarüpatà”.

When the inbreath and out breath “fuse”, as Paul Reps teaches it, we have fused inner and outer realities, the essence of the Shambhavi Mudra. Which is perhaps why Reps describes the experience as an “energyless, energy-filled, center”— when inside and outside merge, empty and full become interchangeable terms— all that’s left is energy. Which brings us back to the illumination of the central channel at the heart of this Dharana, Nirvikalpakataya, which as Swami Lakshmanjoo comments, “is already illuminated”. So we aren’t filling ourselves with light, we are unveiling the light that’s already there.

As we sit with this Dharana, we don’t start at the top, we work our way there. We can begin by focusing on establishing a natural breath flow, smoothing out the breath and using our mantra, like we did in Dharana 2. Once this is established, we can open the eyes softly, and start to use less and less effort to guide our breath, approaching Dharana 3. This opens the door to a deeper dive into the Shambhavi Mudra, as we start to witness our senses, and exert less and less effort towards them with each breath. We can explore the depths of this Dharana as we explore our capacity for the Shambhavi Mudra. As our attention truly does sink inside, while our awareness on the breath and senses remain open, what happens to the space between the breaths? Does it come to you? Does it expand? Is it easier to feel— how would you describe that ease?

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In this exciting new class rotation, we explore stories and new ways of relating to the Deities of our lineage, followed by kirtan and meditation. A deeper connection to our Deities - these powerful, loving spiritual forces - is always available, and our relationship to them is ever-changing. (Text continues below video). Today’s class is all about the jolly, elephant-headed remover of obstacles Deity, Ganesh. Sangha member Chaitanya offers insights into approaching Ganesh simultaneously as a sweet, innocent child as well as an unimaginably powerful force of the universe. Ganesh being the child of Shiva and Parvati/Shakti, Chaitanya explains how befriending a child and gaining their trust is a guaranteed way to win over the affections of the mother. In this way, reaching out to Ganesh sincerely and directly (as a child would reach out to their mother) is one way to connect to Shiva/Shakti, our Inner Self, Universal Consciousness. We can also think of Ganesh as representing the wish to grow, what lineage teacher Rudi called “the most powerful force in the universe.” Like Ganesh, the wish to grow sits right in our hearts, and is a pure, innocent and unwavering longing of the heart. When we reach out to Ganesh before starting any puja or practice, we can do so with our sincere desire to grow, asking for his guidance and support. Building this connection with Ganesh will strengthen us on our journey of spiritual growth, and ultimately has the power to take us directly to union with our Inner Self.

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The pause between the breath gives us an anchor of stillness amidst the constant fluctuations of mind and karma. Because the breath is as ceaseless as manifestation is infinite— and flowing with our breath, like flowing with our karma, takes practice and surrender. This is why the pause between the breath is such a resource helping us find and unite with this flow.

The pause between the breath isn’t separate from the breath, but it is what unites the inhale and exhale into a fluid experience. The Shiva Sutras describe this as a type of “Triple Awareness”, awareness that goes beyond just the inhale and exhale, beyond duality, and encompasses the in-between space. “When you fix your awareness not only in two, but in three, you are carried to God consciousness and you become one with Svacchanda.32 (Svacchanda Tantra) What is the meaning of “triple awareness”? The verse tells us there must be triple awareness, not just awareness of two. Awareness of two is the awareness of two actions, such as inhaling and exhaling. Triple awareness includes the junction, the gap, between any two actions, between inhaling and exhaling and between exhaling and inhaling. It is the junction between one step and another step, between one thought and another thought, between one sensation and another sensation, etc. When you are aware of the three centers, then you are carried to Svacchanda, to God-consciousness.”

Feeling the space between the breath is actually a means of feeling the breath itself— because triple awareness doens’t mean awareness of three, it means awareness of one.

Duality is awareness of two, of inhale and exhale as separate, of like and dislike, accepting and rejecting. Non-duality posits a third option, that of surrender— this is what allows us to feel the breath as a flow, instead of just separate parts. The reason it is called ‘triple awareness’ is because this experience of surrender always exists within the realm of duality—duality is what we are surrendering in order to feel unity. So the pause between our breaths isn’t a separate practice, but a deeper practice, of breath awareness.

The pause, though, is elusive. If you think of our breath as a swinging pendulum, inhaling as it swings one way, exhaling as it swings the other way— the still point is almost mathematically impossible to calculate. This is because as the pendulum swings to one side, its distance towards that end point keeps getting exponentially smaller— Like slicing a cake in half, then fourths, then eighths, then sixteenths, then thirty-seconds, and so on— when will the cake slices become so small they disappear? When does the inhale become the exhale? Math and the mind can’t tell us exactly, but of course with a little practice we can all experience it for ourself. Meditation lets us directly experience a reality that our mind simply can’t comprehend.

To support our path to the pause between the breath, this triple awareness that yields an experience of one-ness and unity, we are taught to watch the breath turn, to watch it taper down and taper up around this infinitely small yet existent pause. In this way we allow the pause to arrive within us, which is the only way to fully experience it. On our meditation cushion this would look like watching the exhale dissolve into stillness, and then watching the inhale spring up from that same stillness. Then watching the inhale almost levitate into a pause, and then the exhale rains down like a fine mist. When we pay attention to the tapering edges of our breath, the pause comes to us vibrantly.

In our daily life this is possible too, as each experience of our day has a creation, maintenance and dissolution phase. In Sanskrit the dissolving phase is called a Nimesha, and the arising phase is called an Unmesha. When we watch the tapering edges of a situation beginning or ending, we naturally become more present during the activity, and the space between the activities. We do this for kids all the time, telling them that we’ll be leaving the playground in 10 minutes, then five minutes, then another five minutes, then ‘this is the last thing’, then another ‘last thing’, then the playground is dissolved fully as we drive home.

It’s not easy for kids and its not easy for us, but its not only possible, but essential for our health, consciousness and bliss. We unconsciously relate to the space between breaths and events in our life as a void, which makes it sound empty, but when that void is described by lineage texts and teachings it is anything but, which is why the Vijnana bhairava teaches that “This [liminal] state, which is absolutely pure and filled with universal consciousness, fills the whole universe with bliss. (Vijñānabhairava Tantra 15)”

Further, when we can maintain our awareness on the two ‘voids’, there is an ‘upsurge’ of energy in our Shushumna, which then causes ’the formation of Bhairava [to be] revealed’, meaning that awareness of this liminal space causes a rise in spiritual energy and an awareness of our true nature. Paul Reps once wrote that when we pause we overflow like a well from within— which is a vivid description of this ancient process. So we see that the space between our breaths and our activities is not empty, it is actually the potential energy into which the entire universe both dissolves and from which it rises.

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This class revisits the Vijnana Bhairava's progressive training of awareness, particularly focusing on Dharana 2, which introduces the turns and curves of the breath. By following the turns and curves of the breath closely, we naturally arrive at the Shakti filled experience of the pause without doership. The is not only essential on our cushion, as well as in our lives by paying attention to the "turns" of our day and arriving more consciously in each experience. We will use this material as inspiration for a longer free write session on the topic, and then share it with each other, in our pursuit of cultivating our creative consciousness.

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The Vijnana Bhairava is a ceaseless pulsation, and the first practices of the Vijnana Bhairava take us through a progressive training of awareness in order to use that pulsation to reveal our true nature. Dharana one teaches us to focus on the pulsation itself in the form of Ham and Sah, Dharana two introduces the turning point of our breath, a moment of pauseless presence. Dharana three dives deeper into that pause, and Dharana four leans into it.

It should always be noted that the pause between the breath should feel as natural as breathing itself— anything less and we’re missing the point. Pranayama is no more about controlling our breath than Hatha yoga is about controlling our body. It is a means by which we enter the flow of the breath, just like Hatha yoga is how we start to move more harmoniously with our body. This means that our work with the pauses should always feel natural, and if it doesn’t, each of us has to be open to taking a step back in order to find a sustainable path forward.

Dharana 2: Reps: “As breath turns from down to up, and again as breath curves from up to down—through both these turns, realize.”

So as we see here, we begin to explore the pause not by seeking a pause, but by watching it turn. You can imagine a pendulum swinging in one direction, and if you watch it closely enough, it slows and turns and begins to swing in the other direction, did it stop? When did it stop? The math of this moment proves to be quite complex— as it approaches the end of the swing the speed gets slower and slower, the movement smaller and smaller, and the pause that takes place before it turns around is almost imperceptible, and mathematically almost impossible to predict. It would be like slicing a cake in Half, then quarter, then eighths, then sixteenths, then thirty-seconds, and sixty fourths, and so on, the slices of movement getting smaller and smaller as the pendulum approaches the end, almost infinitely. Which is why watching this turn can give us a glimpse of the infinite.

Jai Deva Singh comments on the Sutra that at this point the inhale and exhale cease, and what occurs is an upsurge of energy in the Shushumna: “By the anusandhāna or one-pointed awareness of these two pauses, the mind becomes introverted, and the activity of both prâna and apâna ceases, and there is the upsurge of madhya dasa i.e. the path of the madhya nadi or shushumna becomes open.”

But this is not a state we can grasp with our minds, or our bodies— as the math showed us. This is a state that arrives as we watch the turn with pauseless effort, or “Uninterrupted awareness”, as Swami Lakshmanjoo described it— meaning that we must be pauselessly present in order to actually feel this turn take place, and in that pauseless presence we perceive our True nature, “When you maintain uninterrupted awareness of these two voids, by this way of treading on this process the formation of Bhairava is revealed.”

This is why the Dharana teaches us to focus on the turning, the slowing, the changing, as a way of cultivating pauseless presence. It can be very productive to approach this concept progressively, first in body, then in breath. To help us really notice the ‘turn’ we can incorporate Robin’s breath, and work physically to make the end of each movement come to an almost invisible end before turning in the opposite direction. After a few repetitions with the arms, we can continue with the same pranayama, using a little effort to keep our breath long and smooth, like it was with robins breath, allowing us to hone in on the imperceptible ‘turn’ of the breath.

Homework: Taking this Dharana into your life means noticing the ‘turns’ of your day— all the in between moments when you are going in one direction with one activity, and then as that comes to an end, are going in a new direction with another activity. The spaces between the breaths are like the spaces between the activities of our life. In Sanskrit, these turns are described as Unmesha and Nimesha. It can be easiest to understand these by looking at the seasons. Summer and Winter represent the inhale and exhale, the two phases that we oscillate between. In between these two polar opposites are transitional turns we call fall and spring. Fall is the turn that takes summer into winter, and Spring is the turn that takes us from winter into summer. Paying attention to these turns can help us arrive more consciously in the experience that is either coming our way, or fading away.

On a practical level, this means paying more attention to the turns of your day, between your activities. Such as the space after this class, and before whatever is next for you. The turn that is your morning commute, for example, how do you engage your awareness there so that you truly arrive when you arrive? Or the turn on your way back from work, so that when you get home you can be totally present? Waking up is a turn from sleeping to waking life, and going to bed is also another turn in our schedule. What we bring to these turns usually indicates what our next activity will be like for us. What are your turns throughout the day? How do you use your practice to engage your awareness in them naturally and effectively? We will revisit this as a writing prompt next week for our Creative Consciousness Class, but it will only make your work next week more fruitful if you take time to bring this practice into your life, as well as your cushion, leading up to that class.

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“Think of the breath as a vehicle rather than a jackhammer. Often students use the breath too strongly... You will not be using the breath to cut the rock open. Instead, the breath is a vehicle that you are riding on, and you are consciously feeling it move through the chakras, or at least to experience where they are. For example, when you take a breath in, you can feel the heart chakra. You do not try to tear and rip it open with willfulness. The breath is like a massage, and as you exhale you surrender all the negativity that gets kicked up. When students are able to be open and simple with their breath, they realize that watching the breath is not the same as trying to control it. The pranayama within the breath is simply flowing with the breath.”

We see at the beginning of the quote that there is a tendency in all of us to use the breath too strongly, like a jackhammer attempting to simply cut our resistance in half with a deep breath. Instead, we are taught to put our conscious energy and will into relaxing enough to feel the breath flowing within us— and when we do that our tension falls away, revealing a lighter state that is already within us.

The practice of pranayama, or a breath based meditation, can sometimes be challenging to access when we are experiencing a strong tension, as Anju referred to last week in her presentation. Trying to go right from a tough day into your meditation practice can sometimes not feel productive—like trying to climb a ten foot wall— but should remember that the yogic tradition has given us a stair case to walk up whenever we need it. From the general arc of the Uppays themselves, to the Koshas, to Patanjali’s 8 limbs of yoga, and so on— everywhere we look we see a step by step approach to getting our mechanism moving from the physical to the subtle and beyond. Learning to surrender at the physical level through hatha yoga and Seva guide us to work with more surrender at the level of the breath, which also guides us to profound stillness of the mind and opening of the heart. Step by step is how we arrive at our destination in the yogic tradition, and the first step is learning how to work with surrender at the level of the physical body.

Similar to the practice of pranayama, which begins by shaping the breath, Hatha yoga begins by shaping the body. But like pranayama, the shapes are not the goal— the shapes exist to generate inner sensation and awareness. As Shiva says in the introduction to the Vijnana bhairava, the flame is there to put the kettle on it, the techniques are there to heat and grow our inner awareness. This is crucial both for using our asana practice to grow, but also avoiding injury. Because without inner awareness, the postures are just exercise, or worse injurious— as injuries such as hamstring tendonitis and hip labral impingements in the overly physical yoga community have shown us. As the Shiva Sutras teach, the body, mind and senses can be the source of our growth— or they can be the very things that bind and limit us, depending on the fullness of our awareness.

Hatha yoga helps us surrender tightness in our body in the same way a mantra helps us surrender tightness in our mind. Each posture is like a mantra, in that you put your awareness into it, feeling it effect you, and you keep coming back to it as the mind wanders. The tightness we feel in our bodies are what we work with— we don’t push the tightness away, or become obsessed with changing it, we simply apply our awareness to the posture and our breath and allow the contracted states to fall away. Just like Babaji said about the breath— controlling it is not the same as watching it and flowing with it. We aren’t here to control our body with hatha yoga, we are here to get in the flow of our body, to move more naturally, and this is accomplished with the tools of the asanas and the elixir of inner awareness.

The experience of surrender we seek in our postures, as Patanjali taught it, is a feeling of effortless effort, of perseverance without tension. In this way, he wrote, the practitioner transcends the duality of physical existence, and experiences the infinite. This is how yoga guides us towards a more surrendered experience of our breath, mind and heart— one step at a time.

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“When that flash of awareness arises, when I can say “aha” this is just a feeling and not who I am, then I can move into a place of gentle action…I can’t just jump form a force field of resistance to my cushion and find meditation. I have to take baby steps putting one foot in front of the other and walk myself to my inner seat, to my Self. I have to practice Pratyahara, and for me the most successful way I have been able to find this is to lean into my hatha yoga practice.”

One of my favorite moments in Anju’s presentation was how she described moving through resistance with “gentle action”— this seems like a great way to understand surrender, both at the level of the body, but also the breath and beyond. Gentle action means taking action while remaining gently receptive.

“Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves. Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless, like water.”

We tend to think of gentle as weak, but gentle means receptive, sensitive. If you were trying to massage soreness out of a muscle, you would need to do it gently in order to find the source of the soreness and move through it consciously. And as we know with muscles, sometimes you have to apply more force, but even that must be gentle and gradual as too much too soon has the opposite effect— causing the muscle to recoil and double down on its contracted state. This is perhaps why Babaji has been so adamant the last couple years about the contradictory effects of doership in our meditation practice— and has placed so much emphasis instead on natural calm breaths.

We see at the beginning of the quote that there is a tendency in all of us to use the breath too strongly, like a jackhammer attempting to simply cut our resistance in half. In our meditation practice this would look like taking deep strong breaths with the intention of opening our heart and getting past this tension. In everyday life this is when we might grit our teeth and work faster, only to burn out and drop the whole thing when we run out os steam.

Babaji teaches here that its actually more effective to not treat the breath as an external tool that cuts through our resistance, but rather we should try to merge with it internally and let the flow of the breath itself dissolve our tensions. When we are experieinceing resistance and tension this can be one of the hardest things to do, because it requires us to begin to loosen up, soften our clenched jaw for example, relax our tense fore head, release the grip we have on ourselves trying to hold it all together— when we do that we might feel like we start to fall apart, but when done consciously, we actually fall into place. THis is the purpose of a Hatha yoga class, to guide students down teh path of surrender at th level of the physical body, so they can access deeper layers of surrender in the breath, mind, and heart.

Patanjali’s eight limbs of yoga establish a clear trajectory for the practice of surrender— surrender at the level of the body in the form of asana practice is a stepping stone to surrender at the level of the breath in the form of pranayama, which guides us naturally to surrender at the level of the mind and heart in meditation. Effortless effort is a teaching for the body, breath, mind and heart. This means that when we are really experienceing a strong tension or resistance, we must be willing to step back and apply our practice to the physical Kosha in order to really get our practice moving in the right direction.

As we know about surrender in our practice, it does not mean becoming a doormat— just lying down, waving a white flag and saying ‘i give up’. If it were that easy I don’t think we would have to practice it so much. Instead, we know that surrender is the process of consciously releasing a tension from the inside out. Surrender in the physical body is taught on the yoga mat through asana practice, and Patanjali’s maxim to describe the work is “effortless effort, perseverance without tension”, which calls back to Anju’s adept description of ‘gentle action’.

So working with surrender in the physical body doesn’t mean lying down in shavasana, although eventually we do apply it there, but rather physical surrender in the form of asana practice is learning to move the body in a way that helps you flow with it, not against it. Surrender isn’t cutting anything into pieces, it’s harmonizing and getting in the flow. As Babaji says, surrendering with the breath is different than controlling the breath, and the same goes with the body. Surrender in the body doesn’t mean controlling the body by putting it into this or that shape and expecting some external result, but rather surrender on our mats means we are guiding our body towards a certain shape in order to get into the flow with it.

And when done well, this gives us a very tactile experience of how to breathe with the flow, we literally can move with our breath like we move with our body. The breath becomes a bridge from the physical to the subtle experience of surrender.

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Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra 1.17: Through self-enquiry the practitioner gains insight, but eventually all mental logic must come to an end in bliss. Following that is the comprehension that all is the Self (yoga).

In our previous two classes, we have taken time to invest in the ‘inquiry’ portion of the creative process, generating insight through Satsang teachings from Sri ShambhavAnanda and Swami Rudrananda, as well as the Shiva Sutras and Vijnana Bhairava. But, as Patanjali teaches, we will take more time to let that logic come to an end in Bliss as we write and reflect a little more, as well as one more key element to the creative process— Sharing! Sharing our writing with felling sangha members will allow us to both be supported and inspired by our fellow creative yogis, as well as bring us one more step closer to real comprehension of this process as a whole— the yogic experience of creativity. Thanks for being a part of the creative process with us! Namaste!

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When we make a work of art, we hope that it speaks of an experience beyond the page it is read upon, or canvas painted upon, or ears it falls upon. Art strives to describe a universal experience, yet it is always of an individual thing— a landscape, a deity, a song, a character. The creative process is a dance of working with an individual manifestation of Shakti to describe an undivided experience of Shiva. It is no coincidence that our reality, and our meditation practice, is described as a dance— creativity takes us back and forth between shiva and Shakti endlessly. We see this dance of awareness in the Vijnana Bhairava as Shiva and Shakti discuss the path we must tread in our practice.

“This is the journey we have to do, the journey we have to do in the field of Shakti, not in the field of Shiva [where] there is no journey (17)…For instance, [fire has many different manifesations]–lightening, giving light, burning, heating–but these energies [aka manifestations of fire] are undifferentiated with fire. [The important thing to remember is that these different manifestations are used] just to enter in that state of fire, to put a kettle on it. (19)… So the path is Shakti, the path is not Shiva. (20)… Shiva is understood by Shakti (21).”

When we work with intention we are working to describe our true nature, Shiva, through a specific manifestation of it, Shakti. We are trying to describe the infinite with the finite, and this is the journey the Vijnana Bhairava describes. In the quote we see the example of Fire. Fire has a fundamental energy, something that is in the background of all manifestations of fire. In terms of writing or creating with a prompt or intention, this might look like writing about ‘surrender’. To write about it you have to point to certain small maniestations of surrender in your life, small ways that you have uncovered the bigger concept— because no matter what you do, you can’t quite write about surrender in a way that doesn’t somehow diminish it. Does this mean the act of creating is always limited? Absolutely not, in fact, it is sometimes the only way we ever experience boundless freedom in the horizontal reality— art is a time when people really open up, and let something higher flow through. So we may not be able to capture surrender in our writing or art, yet we can feel surrender while we write about it and let it come through. In this way, our artwork may only be about one small example of surrender, but the actual piece itself will be imbued with surrender. We used the act of writing about surrender to do the real act of surrender, and in that way we grew and our creation gained life. As the Sutra says, we use the cooking flame to heat the kettle— we use the prompt or intention to explore the greater concept, and we use the act of exploring to grow spiritually. This is one way of understanding how we use the path of Shakti to find Shiva.

“I went to see the Mona Lisa at the llouve. It was jammed with a lot of people, everybody trying to jam past everybody. And I just took a breath, everything in my mind got quiet and around me, and I could feel the incredible flow that created this wonderful piece of art. But we don’t tend to look at art that way, we analyze it too much, saying ‘well that’s imperfect, and that line or color is not right.’ We’re missing what its all about— the creative Spirit, always comes from beyond. Just like on Monday nights (laughs).”

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Jai Deva Sing notes at the end of Dharana 1 that there is an important interpretation of the Dharana still to be considered- that this is the essential teaching of the breath meditation practice “Ham Sah”. The recitation of Ham Sah is an exploration of the ceaseless pulsation of the Goddess Shakti in our lives, a way of observing the pulsation of reality. The meaning of the mantra can only be discovered by listening, by letting the breath move naturally as Shambhavananda and Muktananda teach, which we are taught is the path itself of this practice.

Jai Deva Singh (commentary on Dharana 1):

“There is another important interpretation of this dhärana.

In inhalation, the sound of ha is produced; in exhalation, the

sound sah is produced; at the junction point in the centre the

sound of m is added. So the whole formula becomes 'Hamsah'.

The paradevi goes on sounding this formula or mantra ceaselessly

in every living being.”

Swami Lakshmanjoo commentary on Dharana 1:

When you take your breath inside, the recitation of ‘ha’ will end in ‘ṁ’. When you take it out, [the recitation of ‘sa’] will end in visarga–‘saḥ’. And, in these two starting points, if you concentrate, you will become one with Bhairava because of its fullness.”

Swami Muktananda from his book “I am That

“This is what we also need to understand. Hamsa is not a mantra that you merely repeat. What you have to do is become established in the awareness of the mantra going on inside you, in the goal of the mantra, in the pulsation which exists in the space where the syllables arise and subside…”

Sri ShambhavAnanda on the practice of breath awareness:

“Instead of forcibly trying to control your breath, develop the ability to experience and witness it. Follow your natural breath flow and attach it to the mantra “Ham Sah”. A person breathes approximately 26,000 times a day. If you can be aware of your inhalation and exhalation, you will make progress in meditation. When you can control your breath, you can control your mind. But first you have to become aware of the breath.

Don’t use any forceful practices. Make friends with your breath and be aware of what it is doing in different situations. When you have a certain experience such as fear, anger, or bliss, you will find that your breath will concentrate in a certain area. If you start to pay attention, you will gain some wisdom.”

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In our previous class we took time to introduce the concept of Dharana as a method of concentration, as well as to reiterate that this focal point is meant to merge us with a state of being that is beyond the focus of our eyes or mind. Each dharana is a stepping stone to our state of being.

We took time to sit with Paul Reps’ translation of the first Dharana, which is always so succinct and useful for meditation. His translation seemed to emphasize the practice of keeping our focus in the heart as we noticed the inhale come down and in, and then the exhale go up and out.

Radiant one, this experience may dawn between two breaths. After breath comes in (down) and just before turning up (out)—the beneficence.”

Let’s practice that now for a moment…

We will continue to work with each of Paul Reps’ translations of the Dharanas, but there is also rich soil to uncover in the less abridged translations of Jai Deva Singh, as well as the commentary’s of Swami Lakshmanjoo. These translations showed opened the door to a few subtle details to the text— for example, that the visarga, the “:” notation in Sanskrit that indicates the addition of breath after a vowel sound, actually represents the two focal points of our breath, the heart and the dvadashanta.

The point the exhale ends is specifically called the dvadashanta, an invisible point in space meant to represent the distance your breath travels outside of you. You can find this point, the text tells us, by measuring 12 finger widths from the tip of the nose. Be sure to measure with the angle of your nose, slightly downward, and you’ll find that this point is 8 or so inches in front of our physical heart. When you breathe out with a little bit of force, you can easily feel this as the end point of your exhale.

As the breath moves back and forth between these points, life is projected and created, which is why the word Visarga means projection or creation. As Shakti is literally the projected or created universe, this verse describes the nature of Shakti as the same as Visarga, as an ceaseless oscillation between these two points, specifically in the form of the inhale and exhale.

“Para devi or Highest Sakti who is of the nature of visarga goes on (ceaselessly) expressing herself upward (ürdhve), from the centre of the body to dvdasanta (or a distance of twelve fingers), in the form of exhalation (präna)

and downward (adhah), from dvadasanta to the centre of the body, in the form of inhalation (jiva or apâna).

By steady fixation of the mind (bharanat) at the two places of their origin (the center of the body in the case of prāna, and dvadasänta in the case of apâna) there is the situation of plenitude (bharitästhitih which is the state of parasakti or nature of Bhairava).”

Let’s try that practice now for a moment…

We will continue to explore this practice today, and describe its relationship to our breath meditation practice, Ham Sah.

It should be noted that Swami Lakshmanjoo and Paul Reps were contemporaries, and that Jai Deva Singh was Swami Lakshmanjoo’s student. As the Zen saying goes, each one is best. Paul Reps, of course, was a dear friend of Sri Shambahvananda, our living teacher. Sri Shambhavananda also met with Swami Lakshmanjoo in India, and speaks highly of him as well. I mention this because it is so special to be able to study these texts and know that they are tied to the fabric of our lineage in a way— and that they are approved by Sri Shambhavananda for study. Today, this is a commonly overlooked aspect of spiritual practice, but for Shambhavananda Yogis, it is important to know the yogi behind the words you are reading. We open our hearts in this class, and trust these individuals in a very deep and subtle way— being able to trust the text is of paramount importance for my own work.

“The outgoing breath is called prana,and the incoming breath is called apana. Apana is also called jiva, the individual soul, because only when the apana enters the body can it be said that the soul is in the body. If the prana goes out and the apana doesn't come back in, then the body is nothing but a corpse.” (I Am That)

The Dharana continues: By steady fixation of the mind at the two places of their origin (viz., centre of the body in the case of prāna and dvadasänta in the case of apâna) there is the situation of plenitude.

It can be misleading to think of these as two separate points, though, as if one were the beginning and the other the end. For the Yogi, inside and outside, Shiva and Shakti, are simultaneous, as light and a flame are simultaneous. We may begin our practice by moving back and forth between these two points, but the teachings of this lineage point to a another stage in the practice where the two points merge into one— an experience of the pulsation of our very being. As Swami Muktananda describes it:

As you watch the breath

coming in and going out,

you will become aware that when it comes in,

it comes in to a distance of twelve fingers

and merges.

The place where it merges

is called hridaya, the heart.

The breath merges here,

and then it arises again

and goes out to a distance of twelve fingers

and merges in the space outside.

That outer space

is called dvadashanta, the external heart.

Here, the heart does not mean the physical organ. The heart is the place where the breath merges, inside and outside.

In reality, these two places are one.

But as we have seen in the preface, this experience takes practice— only when the inside and outside dissolve can “a sense of non-dualism” dawn in us. So we watch the inhale, then we watch the exhale, back and forth, trying to keep our awareness surrendered in order to feel these “two places as one”, to experience the greater pulsation that is occurring between them. This is the practice of breath awareness, and specifically the practice of Ham Sah. In the Dharana, Lakshmanjoo translates Shiva’s instructions:

“You have to take the breath [out] from the heart to dvādaśānta, and take it in from dvādaśānta to the heart again, and recite prāṇa and jīva. “Recite prāṇa” means, recite ‘sa’, the letter ‘sa’, and “recite jīva” means, recite the letter ‘ha’.

And, in these two starting points, you have to recite visarga and ‘ṁ’-kāra. The visarga of ‘sa’ will be recited in the outward dvādaśānta, and the ‘ṁ’kāra of ‘ha’ will be recited in the heart.

We see here a straight forward description of the practice as we know it— silently recite Ham as you inhale and Sah as you exhale. One interesting Spiritual Grammar note, though, was that the actual words themselves are Ha and Sa, and that the visarga is actually responsible for the HamSah mantra as we know it. When you repeat the words Ha and Sa with your breath, you find a natural “M” sound at the end of Ha and natural “H” sound at the end of Sa.

The mantra itself means “I Am That”, Ham means “I Am” and Sah means “that”. But as Sri ShambhavAnanda recently taught in Satsang, the meaning of the “that” that we are can’t be understood by the mind, but only through practice.

Swami Muktananda also describes the meaning of the mantra itself:

“The syllable ham,

which comes in with the apana, is the seed mantra of the Self...

This aham, this I, has two forms.

One is the ordinary I-consciousness,

the ego sense,

which identifies itself with the body and senses,

which considers itself to be man or woman, American or Spanish or Indian,

black or white.

The other I is the true aham,

the pure I-consciousness,

and this I is God.

The ordinary I

is consciousness in bondage. The pure I

is consciousness in the state of liberation. As you repeat hamsa

with the understanding of the perfect aham, this realization dawns.”

Repeating the mantra with our breath allows our mind to focus on the breath without controlling the breath. In this way we are able to tune in to the experience of breathing as an expression of Shakti, as a pulsation of the universe in the form of Spanda, instead of as an individual inhale and exhale. This is the ‘ceaseless expression’ of Shakti we saw at the beginning of the Dharana— our true nature is ceaselessly expressing itself through our breath in the form of our inhale and exhale. Through the practice of Ham Sah we can witness this expression for ourselves. As Sri Shambhavananda teaches:

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“It is an ancient teaching, copied and recopied countless times, and from it Lakshmanjoo has made the beginnings of an English version. I transcribe it eleven more times to get it into the form given here.”

Shiva first chanted it to his consort Devi in a language of love we have yet to learn. It is about the immanent experience. It presents 112 ways to open the invisible door of consciousness. I see Lakshmanjoo gives his life to its practicing.

Some of the ways may appear redundant, yet each differs from any other. Some may seem simple, yet any one requires constant dedication even to test it.

Machines, ledgers, dancers, athletes balance. Just as centering or balance augments various skills, so it may awareness. As an experiment, try standing equally on both feet; then imagine you are shifting your balance slightly from foot to foot: just as balance centers, do you.”

A Dharana is a focal point, a method of practice. We use a dharana to find our center, but our center is not in the dharana, our center is in our own state of being. That’s why the preface to the Vijnana Bhairava took so much time explain that techniques are just the doorway, not the destination.

It may be helpful to look at Patanjali’s explanation of the word Dharana as well, to see the transition we make from focal point to experience:

3.1-3.4

Dharana, or concentration, is the act of fixing the mind on one thing. Here there is a perceived separation between the object and the practitioner.

Dhyana, or meditation, is when the focus of dharana becomes a steady, uninterrupted flow of attention. Here the separation between the practitioner and the object dissolves.

Samadhi is when, in the practice of dhyana, both the practitioner and the object of focus dissolve into the Self. Then there is no such thing as practitioner or object, only absorption in the Self.

These three limbs are grouped together because the difference between them is very slight, they may not all happen in a clear sequence, and they may intermingle. Together they comprise a practice called sanyama (integration).

So once again we see the path we must tread, from an outer object of focus, to an uninterrupted flow of awareness, to our state of being. This recalls the original question from Shakti/Devi at the start of the preface, what is the path we must tread to our enlightenment? And after 8 classes together, Shiva answers quite simply— Energy is the path we must tread. These techniques are ways of helping us work with energy— they may begin on the horizontal level, but ultimately they exist to guide us on a vertical plane.

With this we can begin the Dharanas themselves, via Paul Reps translation:

“DEVI SAYS:

O Shiva, what is your reality?

What is this wonder-filled universe?

What constitutes seed?

Who centers the universal wheel?

What is this life beyond form pervading forms?

How may we enter it fully, above space and time, names and descriptions?

Let my doubts be cleared!

SHIVA REPLIES:

(Devi, though already enlightened, has asked the foregoing questions so others through the universe might receive Shiva’s instructions. Now follow Shiva’s reply, giving the 112 ways.)

Radiant one, this experience may dawn between two breaths. After breath comes in (down) and just before turning up (out)—the beneficence.”

Para devi or Highest Sakti who is of the nature of visarga

goes on (ceaselessly) expressing herself upward (ürdhve) (from the centre of the body to dvdasanta, or a distance of twelve fingers, in the form of exhalation (präna) and downward (adhah) (from dvadasanta to the centre of the body) in the form of inhalation (jiva or apâna). By steady fixation of the mind (bharanat) at the two places of their origin (viz., centre of the body in the case of prāna and dvadasänta in the case of apâna, there is the situation of plenitude (bharitästhitih which is the state of parasakti or nature of Bhairava).

This Dharana has points that we will unpack together:

Shakti is the nature of Visarga and expresses herself in two points, the center of the body and the dvadashanta

By steady fixation on these two points there is an experience of plentitude

This practice is known as Ham Sah

Para devi or Highest Sakti who is of the nature of visarga goes on (ceaselessly) expressing herself upward (ürdhve) (from the centre of the body to dvdasanta, or a distance of twelve fingers, in the form of exhalation (präna) and downward (adhah) (from dvadasanta to the centre of the body) in the form of inhalation (jiva or apâna).

We begin by seeing a term that may be new to you, ‘visarga’ which is used in the Dharana to describe the nature of Shakti, of manifestation, as well as the movement of our inhale and exhale. Visarga is a Sanskrit sounds, a breath that is inserted after certain vowels and before certain consonants. For example, when we repeat the mantra Om Namah Shivaya, you’ve probably been taught or have noticed that there is a breath after the Namah, which I sometimes pronounced Nam-aha. That breath is an example of a Visarga sound.

In Devanagari, this is represented by two dots, like a colon. These two dots are more than just a method of writing, but actually refer to the energetic destination points of the inhale and the exhale in our physical and subtle bodies. Yet another reason Sanskrit is such a profound language— it is born from the practice. The bottom dot represents the inhale, known as Apana, because it ends in the heart. The upper dot represents the exhale, known as Prana, because it ends outside the body, slightly above the heart.

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Shakti is the face of Shiva, ie. we can only recognize Shiva by using our practice in the face of manifestation. When we feel a non-difference between these two, we acquire a state of Shiva, we enter the door of our true nature.

“When in one who enters the state of Shakti, there ensues the feeling of non-distinction (bet-ween Shakti and Shiva), then that yogi acquires the state of Shiva, for inthe agamas, she (Sakti) is declared as the door of entrance (into Shiva) (Lit., Shakti is like Shiva's face)’”

We work on our cushions, with our techniques, as preparation for our work in the face of manifestation, Shakti. We spend time looking inside so that we can look inside while we live outside. And vice versa, we go out into our lives in order to grow inside. Technique alone, meditation in a cave setting, or samsara alone, just going through the motions of life, are both missing the union of shiva and shakti, and it is in this union where growth happens. It is like a cooking flame and a kettle, they need each other to achieve their purpose. Together, they cook down our karma and extract the nourishment and growth. And it is this Union that is at the heart of this text, it is its title and its purpose.

Shiva concludes the preface with an additional take on the metaphor given earlier, teaching that there is no shiva or shakti apart from one another, they are one in the same—

“Just as by means of the light of a lamp, and the rays of the Sun, portions of space, etc, are known even so, Oh dear one, by means of Shakti is Shiva (one's own essential Self) cognized (i.e. re-cognized).”

Jai Deva Singh helps us interpret this last line by looking at it from a few different perspectives:

“There are three points suggested by this simile (1) Just as the flame of the lamp is not different from its light; just as the rays of the sun are not different from the sun, even so Shakti is not different from Siva…”

This seems like an easy point to agree with and understand, but I feel there is a lot of work required for true recognition. When we are describing inert things like light, it is easy to agree that ‘this too is shiva’, but when you have a misunderstanding with someone at work, and there is a lot of emotion, then it becomes much harder to find Shiva, a state of perfection, within what would otherwise feel very imperfect. This is because the ability to recognize Shiva within manifestation takes surrender, takes practice. When we apply our practice to all the various circumstances of our lives, only then, it seems, do we start to see all these circumstances as Shiva.

As Swami Rudrananda teaches: “We must come to understand that everything is part of perfection and must be taken in in a state of surrender; it must be digested and transcended. Life must be consumed whole— with all its tensions, pain and joy. Only by surmounting a situation can we achieve the understanding, the nourishment, that that situation offers…My spirit grew by eating that which encompassed me.”

(2) Just as through the lamp or the sun, objects of the world are perceived, even so through Shakti the universe is known.

Point Two : This reiterates the earlier point that we recognize Shiva through SHaktik that Shakti is Shiva’s face. The cooking flame needs the kettle, the kettle needs the cooking flame, they are two sides of one coin— the coin of digesting our karma and growing from it.

(3) Just as to perceive the light of the lamp, another lamp is not required; just as to perceive the sun, another sun is not required; they are known by their own light. Even so, shiva is known by his Shakti who is not different from him.”

The path of our practice, the path to the heart, is already within us. As Babaji said at the end of one of his satsang answers, “I am not giving you anything you do not already have. I am just making you aware of what is already there.” This path is more than personal, its our true nature. And it is the light of our own awareness that eventually illuminates this inner landscape— when the light of our awareness, which usually shines out, also shines back in. The Sutras and the lineage can point the way, can provide examples and direction, but the lights of this path are motion activated— only the footsteps of our practice can turn them on. We will eventually become enlightened not by someone else’s work, but by our own work.

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Though there are many forms of fire, from a cooking flame to a heating element, from lightening to the light of your room, all of these forms of fire belong to the same energy of fire— in the same way all the different forms of Shakti that we see around us are all forms of Shiva, they are non-different from Shiva. The analogy becomes even more profound, though, when Shiva teaches that the purpose of all these different forms is to ‘enter into that state of fire’, or to enter into the state of Shiva. We use a cooking flame to heat a kettle, or a light to illuminate a room— we don’t just sit there and look at the flame or light on its own— in this same way, Shiva suggests, we use meditation techniques to enter into the state of our true nature, not to just look at it or think about it.

We took time at the end of class to consider times in our life when we simply don’t believe that ‘this too is Shiva’— when a crazy driver cuts you off, for instance, or when you are so tired in the morning and don’t have the energy to practice. Hopefully the study of this verse gave you the inspiration you needed to grow through that challenge— and perhaps you had an experience of discovering that ‘indeed, this too is Shiva.’

[Time for sharing and discussion]

The teachings of “this too is Shiva” continue with us into Verse 20 where we see a new analogy helping us to understand the non-dualistic possibility of “all this indeed being Shiva”…

Verse 20: “When in one who enters the state of Shakti (i.e. who is identi-

fied with Shakti), there ensues the feeling of non-distinction (bet-

ween Shakti and Shiva), then that yogi acquires the state of Shiva, (for) in

the agamas (iha), she (Sakti) is declared as the door of entrance

(into Shiva) (Lit., Shakti is like Shiva's face)’”

When we sit with a murti, we are practicing uniting Shakti and shiva. The murti is an external object, yet as practitioners we know it is also a doorway to an inner experience. So we look softly externally while feeling softly internally. It’s not automatic, it takes practice to see both, but as the text says, when you can feel shiva while perceiving Shakti, you acquire the state of your true nature.

To help visualize this we can consider the principles of Prakasha and vimarhsa, which are fundamental aspects of Kashmir Shaivism. As the intro do Kashmir Shaivism teaches, “Kashmir Shaivism constructs a pure monism which assumes a single Reality with two aspects, Prakasha (lit. light, the principle of self-revelation) and Vimarsha (lit. experience, the self-consciousness which brings about the world process).” p. 3

Prakasha is the light of awareness that emanates from us, like the light that emanates from the sun. Vimarsha is the reflection of that light off of an external object back to us— the power of self reflection. In physics we know that when we shine light on an object, it is the light that reflects back to us that we see. For example, when driving on a rainy night it can be hard to see the road in front of you because the light bounces forward on the shiney wet surface, instead of reflecting back to you— sometimes you even wonder if your headlights are even on at all. Shiva without Shakti is like that— light shining out without anything to reflect it back within. Shakti, Manifestation, is what makes it possible to recognize Shiva, our true nature. But only if you apply your practice, the practice of seeing shakti while feeling shiva.

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The maxim, “Don’t miss the forest for the trees” reminds us not to forget the big picture while we move through life’s details, and has been a prevailing message in the preface to the Vijnana Bhairava— don’t get too caught up in the technique, the path, and forget the goal. And the opposite also holds true— don’t miss the trees for the forest— meaning, don’t get so caught up in your study of the forest that you stop taking hikes and enjoying the forest. Don’t get so star struck by the goal of meditation that you stop participating and growing through your life’s karmic equation.

Shiva and Shakti are these two inseparable sides of the same coin, Shiva is the ‘forest’ you could say, a static concept that pervades our life fully, yet is not itself a physical aspect. And Shakti is the ‘trees’, the infinite ways that the forest manifests all around us. Our goal, as yogis, is not to miss the forest or the trees, to participate in our lives fully while maintaining awareness of the goal in our hearts. Yoga means union, and this experience of union is the work of our practice. The Rudramalaya Tantra, the text in which the Vijnana Bhairava is situated, can be literally translated as ‘the union between shiva and Shakti’, and this union is at the heart of the teachings in this preface. This union we seek is a dynamic experience, beyond the realm of thought yet directly experienceable in the form of our practice.

For example, the breath is moving in and out of all the time. This is an example of Shakti, the movement of our life force. If we walk this path of Shakti skillfully, we will simultaneously experience the path and the destination— we will feel the breath (the path), and the present (the destination), together in unity. So even in the simplest practice of watching our breath do we have a direct experience of the unity of non-difference “dawning upon us” as JDS described it in the last section.

As we move into quotes and the text, try to feel this union within you. You are listening and learning, yet simultaneously you are feeling your heart and the breath in the present. You are whole, and yet you are studying the parts and learning how to be ‘more whole’, at the same time. You are on the path and destination simultaneously.

Verse 17: “this state of Bhairava, which is sung in the Tantras, is really the supreme state of the Goddess, Pārvatī. But is there any difference of supremacy? Is there a difference of supreme-ness between Lord Śiva and Pārvatī?”

Intro to KS: “[Shiva and Shakti] are consciousness and the power of consciousness. They appear simultaneously and are eternally related…The subject and object must be considered separately for the purpose of explanation, but it should always be remembered that both are present simultaneously. One is always predominant in the same way that a coin has two sides which can be seen, but only one at a time. These two factors are the first two tattvas in the process of cosmic evolution and are technically called the Shiva Tattva and the Shakti Tattva.”

Verse 18: Since there is always non-difference between Sakti and possessor of sakti (Saktimän) therefore being endowed with His attributes Sakti becomes the bearer of the same attributes. Therefore being non-different from para (the highest i.e. Bhairava) she is known as para (the highest i.e. Bhairavi).

“Because, for instance, when there is fire, its energy can be for burning, cooking, or lighting a room. All these energies are owned by fire, but those energies– lightening, giving light, burning, heating— but these energies are undifferentiated with fire. These energies are not different from fire…It is just to enter in that state of fire, i.e., to put a kettle on it…So, [in the same way], [the path of shakti] is to enter in the state of Lord Śiva.”

Guru Gita Verse 97: Idam Eva Shivam, Tvidam Eva Shivam,
Tvidam Eva Shivam, Tvidam Eva Shivam.
Mama Shasanato, Mama Shasanato,
Mama Shasanato, Mama Shasanata

Indeed, this is Shiva. Indeed, this too, is Shiva. Indeed, this too, is Shiva.
Indeed, this too, is Shiva.
This is my teaching. This is my teaching.
This is my teaching. This is my teaching.

Journal Prompt: When do you need help remembering that “This too is Shiva in your day and practice?”

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Episode Note: When we bring our attention inside, do we miss out on what’s happening around us? When we draw our awareness within, do we become reclusive or do we become inclusive?

Take a moment to pull your awareness within, picture a single point in the center of your chest. Let your awareness be guided there with each breath in, and let that space gently expand with each breath out. The inhale pulls your awareness inside to that single point in the heart, and as you exhale you keep your attention there and allow that single point to expand.

Now try to keep your awareness there as you read/listen to this story:

No Loving-Kindness

THERE WAS an old woman in China who had supported a monk for over twenty years. She had built a little hut for him and fed him while he was meditating. Finally she wondered just what progress he had made in all this time.

To find out, she obtained the help of a girl rich in desire. “Go and embrace him,” she told her, “and then ask him suddenly: ‘What now?’”

The girl called upon the monk and without much ado caressed him, asking him what he was going to do about it.

“An old tree grows on a cold rock in winter,” replied the monk somewhat poetically. “Nowhere is there any warmth.”

The girl returned and related what he had said.

“To think I fed that fellow for twenty years!” exclaimed the old woman in anger. “He showed no consideration for your need, no disposition to explain your condition. He need not have responded to passion, but at least he should have evidenced some compassion.”

She at once went to the hut of the monk and burned it down.

In the story we saw that meditation should not make you reclusive or exclusive, but deeply inclusive. It should not make you dispassionate, but compassionate. And if your meditation practice is not making you more open, warmer, and inclusive, then watch out! Because the universe might have to wake you up like this old woman in China did for her meditating friend.

And we can check in with ourselves— how’s it going with having your attention inside while listening to the story, or to this portion of the talk? Are you missing anything, or are you gaining so much more? For me, having my attention inside in these classes is how we turn water into wine, so to speak. Sure, there is amazing benefits from the philosophy on paper, but when you use the philosophy to open up inside, what you taste is real nectar.

So the inside not only doesn’t cut you off from the outside, it makes the outside blissful, as we will see in the following sections from the VB. We know this as the Shambhavi Mudra, the ability to have our attention inside while navigate our external lives. But its not enough to say that we simply navigate our lives better through meditation, that meditation helps us survive— although it does— but really its what enables us to thrive, and to find joy on our journey as we live it. It makes life both fun and functional. As Sri Shambhavananda teaches, “A truly spiritual person is loving and compassionate and can function very well in just about any situation. People who have those qualities don’t need anything special to find happiness. They have found it in themselves, and they share it freely and gladly with anyone who comes around.”

Verse 15: “That state of Bhairava which is full of the bliss of non-difference from the entire universe (bharitākära) is alone Bhairava or Sakti of Bhairava.”

Verse 16: “That should, in verity, be known as Bhairava’s essential nature,

immaculate (vimalam) and inclusive of the entire universe (visvapuranam).”

Verse 16 commentary, JDS: Ksemaraja says in his commentary that Bhairava's essential nature has been characterized as vimala (immaculate) because though it manifests the universe on its own screen, ti is not veiled by it

Verse 16 cont.: “Such being the state of Reality, who can be the object of worship, who is to be satisfied with worship.”

Verse 16 commentary, JDS: “When the essential nature of Bhairava is recognized as our own inmost self, the distinction between the worshipper and the worshipped disappears and there dawns a sense of non-dualism.”

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A recent holiday movie began with the question, “Do people really change? Like real lasting positive change? I hope so, because we are in the business of change.” In classic holiday theme, an angelic character seeks to change a Scrooge for good. But the twist occurs when we see that the only way for the angel to change scrooge is if the angel also changes themself. And as the story progresses we see that this internal change on the Angel’s behalf is ultimately the only thing that touches the heart of our Scrooge. Inner change, we see, is the only path to lasting change.

As New Years approaches, we are all in the midst of making a resolution or two, hoping to change this or that aspect of ourselves or our lives. Studies show, though, that only 9-12% of people keep their New Years Resolutions. At first this might seem depressing, but I actually find it amazing— 1 out of every 10 people change an aspect of themselves for good? Wow, that’s amazing! Because Yogi’s are in the business of change, it’s at the very root of all we do in our practice— growth is change. Essentially we Practice in order to change our small self into our Highest Self, the Inner Self. And for anyone who has put time into their daily practice, they know that change takes a lot of work. It’s sort of like in baseball where if someone strikes out 6 out of every 10 at bats, they are actually considered an MVP, hitting 400 percent of the time. Change is difficult, change is powerful, and change is what we are here to do.

Even the simplest step of spiritual growth changes our lives dramatically— sitting 1-2 times per day isn’t a matter of adding another item to your calendar, it’s about changing your entire calendar— ie. to get up earlier you have to go to bed earlier, to have a productive evening sit you have to adjust your evening activities, and so on. And when you finally do arrive on the cushion, we see that even the simplest level of change— that of redirecting our awareness from a pesky thought to a sacred mantra—requires a deep internal and sustained effort. Every aspect of our practice requires that we interact directly with change. And for that reason, yogis tend to view change with reverence and awe.

The Guru Gita gives us a glimpse of the yogic perspective of change— change is nothing short of a transformation, like that of a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly, or a larva into a bee. The Guru Gita writes, “Just as a larva transforms into a bee, similarly, through meditation, one is transformed into that state in which one may abide anywhere.” (118) Change takes place at an atomic level, when we grow everything grows, it’s an experience that goes beyond the mind and senses. This is why the Vijnana Bhairava takes so much time to teach us that change can’t come from the mind, because what we are changing into is “beyond the limitation of space, time, and formation. It has no space, It has no time, It has no form–It is beyond that, beyond these three…this state is, in fact, indescribable, It can’t be described.”

The mind can describe and anticipate change, but the mind itself cannot comprehend the growth and transformation associated with change. The Vijnana Bhairava teaches “That state [Our True Nature] is not the object of vikalpas, It can’t be perceived by vikalpas (thoughts). You can’t perceive It through the mind…[Bhairavī] has gone above [becoming] the object of thoughts.” Thoughts, vikalpas, are inherently limited— they know reality by breaking up reality into parts, but all these parts are not equal to the whole, ie. We can’t know the experience of the whole from its disparate parts. Try driving a car by putting all the parts in a room, or eating a pie separated into its ingredients on a counter— the parts do not equal the whole, there is a chemical change that must take place. As Jai Deva Singh comments in his exposition notes, “It is when we cling to the part that we miss the whole, that is [the moment] when we stumble” (Note 3). Or as Patanjali teaches in his Yoga Sutras, “Through self-enquiry the practitioner gains insight, but eventually all mental logic must come to an end in bliss. Following that is the comprehension that all is the Self (yoga).” (1.17) The mind can point us towards change, but change and growth themself are something beyond the mind.

So the question is then asked of Shiva, how can we change if it’s impossible to know what and how to change? How does a larva know how to change into a bee or butterfly? Shiva responds that if we calm our mind, then our true nature, Bhairava, will rise effortlessly to the surface. Just like when the surface of the ocean becomes calm, and you suddenly see the fish and coral beneath the surface. Or, Shiva continues, you can focus on releasing the attachments of your ego, the likes and dislikes we cling to with every waking breath from dawn to dusk. This will also lead us to lasting transformation. The more the caterpillar gets out of the way, the easier its natural transformation becomes.

And then Shiva concludes that the experience of transformation, the experience of change, is specifically a direct experience, a ‘state of being’. As the text writes it, “That state of Bhairava, [the state of being] which is full of the bliss of non-difference from the entire universe, [that state] is alone Bhairavi, of Shakti of Bhairava.” (JDS translation, emphasis added in brackets). Swami Lakshmanjoo takes extra time in his commentary to emphasize the value of this teaching. “In other words…you can’t find out [what is the real state of Bhairava] because the real state of Bhairava is, in fact, the real state of the knower. It can’t be found [because] It is the [finder]. The real state of Bhairava is the perceiver, It is not perceived. You can’t perceive that state…when there is a desire in you to perceive It. You can perceive It [only] when It comes down in the state of Bhairavī.” We will never be able to change from the outside in, we have to ‘become the change we wish to see in the world’ as Gandhi put it. This is the state of being we seek in meditation— a state that goes beyond technique and into direct experience. As JDS comments, “This is Shambhava Yoga: Though the highest state of Bhairava cannot be described, it can be experienced.” (P.16, exposition, note 2)

So this New Years let yourself consider this slightly more subtle approach to change and transformation. Instead of getting too wrapped up in a list of external items you wish to change, let yourself use that same time and energy to feel inwardly and participate directly with the spirit of transformation itself. When you breath reaches your heart your halfway there, the other half is beginning to make room for the metamorphosis to unfurl.

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It’s easy to feel stress around the holidays, to get caught up in all the particulars of getting the right presents for everyone, cooking the best meal, and even spending enough time with loved ones. It’s true, we have to do a little extra during the holidays, or a lot extra, but we shouldn’t limit the ‘extra’ to our ‘to do lists’, instead we should remind ourselves that the real ‘extra’ of the holidays is the extra awareness it takes to feel the ‘spirit’ of the season. Tonight’s teachings remind us that we have to quiet the mind if we want to open the heart and feel the spirit of the season, and that the real spirit we seek to experience is the Bliss of our own hearts.

For tonight’s discussion, we can consider Shiva/Bhairvava to be the spirit of the holiday season.

Verse 14: “This state of Bhairava is beyond the limitation of space, time, and formation. It has no space, It has no time, It has no form–It is beyond that, beyond these three…this state is, in fact, indescribable, It can’t be described. Akathyā paramārthataḥ, in reality, It can’t be told. Antaḥ, internally It happens; It is filled with your own ecstasy, your own ānanda. It is beyond the apprehension of vikalpa (vikalpa unmukta gocara), beyond thought…That state is not the object of vikalpas, It can’t be perceived by vikalpas (thoughts). You can’t perceive It through the mind…[Bhairavī] has gone above [becoming] the object of thoughts.”

We see here that the experience of Bhairva cannot be found with a map, at a particular time, or in a particular form. The spirit of the season can’t be described exactly, or even precisely told to you. It is a personal experience of your own heart opening. This holiday spirit is beyond all thought, above all thoughts, and can’t be comprehended by the mind.

JDS: “Vikalpa is a thought-construct. Vikalpas are various mental

counters through which people carry on the business of life.

Vikalpas may refer to various things of the external world like tree, flower, river, ect. or various images, fancies, ect. of the mind. In vikalpa, mind sets a limit to one particular thing or idea, and differentiates it from the rest; mind constructs a 'particular' by means of thought which it marks of from the rest of the world or from other ideas.

Each vikalpa has two aspects; the positive aspect consists of the idea that is selected, and the negative consists of the rest that are set aside or rejected. [Which is why we say that] Vikalpas are concerned with particulars. Secondly, vikalpas are relational i.e. there is always a subject-object relationship in vikalpas. Reality is non-relational, there is no object outside Reality. Therefore vikalpas are unable to grasp Reality. There is, however, one suddha or pure vikalpa, viz., the thought that I am Siva’.”

Shiva tells us that it is the nature of the mind to dissect— to differentiate, and that this is essential for daily life, as it allows us to tell one street from the next, one plant from the next, etc. But this method can never truly describe the experience of unity at the heart of the yogic tradition. It can say “unity”, but the mind itself can’t experience it. So how do we ever know the experience of Unity, of Shiva, of our true nature, Parvati asks for the benefit of all…

Verse 15: One can be aware of that only when one is completely free of

al thought-constructs (vikalponmukta-gocarä). One can have an experience of that bliss in his own inmost self (when one is completely rid of the ego, and is established in pürnahanta i.e. in the plenitude of the divine I-consciousness).

That state of Bhairava which is full of the bliss of non-difference from the entire universe (bharitākära) is alone Bhairava or Sakti of Bhairava.

Here we see three descriptions of the path to our true nature. First we are told that when we calm our mind, our awareness of our true nature naturally rises up. This is also the first 3 sutras of Patanjali’s text, like the surface of the water calming and instantly revealing the life within it. Second we are told that we can rid ourselves of the ego in order to experience it— this is the active processes of yoga that we are familiar with, the practice of surrender, of tapasya, our daily sadhana. Of course these are both sides of the same coin— the practice of surrender is how we calm our mind. And last in this verse we are told of a very unique aspect of this experience— something that Babaji teaches us often. THat the experience we seek is not of the mind, but is a ‘state of being’, a ‘state of Bhairava’ as its written in the text. The taste of honey can be described to you, but the experience of honey can only be alluded to— the experience of Shiva is different than the description of Shiva, and as practitioners we must remember that it is the experience we seek, not the description. This means that at the heart of our journey is the necessity of going beyond the limitations of the mind.

As Patanjali put it so eloquently: Through self-enquiry the practitioner gains insight, but eventually all mental logic must come to an end in bliss. Following that is the comprehension that all is the Self (yoga).

And this is the leap we all must take— we open a door and then we walk through it. Ask for help and it is given. Knock on the door of your heart and let it open. As Faith teaches, we repeat Tara’s mantra, and then we receive the energy— we don’t just keep knocking and knocking. The holidays are a time that we say to each other, ‘magic does indeed exist’. It might not exist in the way the movies portray it, but for a yogi we have the tools to make the most of such a season— and even more importantly, we have a practice that keeps this door open all year long. No matter what tradition we might have grown up in, or how we have merged them in our lives, the path is the same— as can be seen in the old zen story that shows the similarities between followers of Jesus with the teachings of Buddha. The story begins with a university student visiting his mediation teacher, Gasan. THe student asked him: “Have you ever read the Christian Bible?”

“No, read it to me,” said Gasan.

The student opened the Bible and read from St. Matthew: “And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They toil not, neither do they spin, and yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these....Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.”

Gasan said: “Whoever uttered those words I consider an enlightened man.”

The student continued reading: “Ask and it shall be given you, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened.” Gasan remarked: “That is excellent. Whoever said that is not far from Buddha-hood.”

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The Vijnana Bhairava begins with a timeless question as Parvati asks Shiva, ‘which is the path we must tread to our enlightenment? There are so many techniques, please clarify this process for our listeners.’

Shiva replies that this is indeed the question of questions, the ultimate question. (I personally wonder why this is the the question of questions— is this the fundamental challenge we all face when trying to meditate? Is this the same question as ‘am I doing this right?’ That haunts so many of us?)

Shiva first says that what he is about to say should be kept secret. (Why should it be a secret? In my experience, telling this to people who are not ready makes them angry, upset, or depressed. Unless you have put in the time to actually practice, you cannot comprehend anything beyond technique. This is giving a nickel when a nickel is asked for.) Shiva then states “pithily”, as Jai Deva Singh writes, that all techniques whether they divide or unites, (meaning no matter their method), are all bogus, without essence, delusion, even deceptive. They are expansion of Maya, illusion, and are like cities in the sky. This is the shocking answer of Shiva.

But why then do we have so many techniques, Parvati asks for the benefit of us all. Technique does serve a purpose, Shiva tells us. Technique focuses a scattered mind. Technique is good for people who can only think in terms of a to-do list, who are always ‘getting things done’. Also, rules and techniques help keep us out of trouble when we are young, when we are not capable of understanding a bigger picture. (My mind goes to the 10 commandments here).

And perhaps an even more important level of this discussion is that technique is not the problem, its the misuse of technique— when technique over shadows the goal itself. When technique becomes the goal it leads to imbalance. For example, the Guru Gita says that when our pranayama becomes “long and windy” it “brings disease” instead of heals disease. In this particular verse, the Gita recommends allowing the breath to be stilled by its own accord, naturally, which is to say, to use technique but also let it be natural. In Shiva Sutra 2.2 we see a similar point, Akrita, sincere effort, is defined as intense desire, but is also defined as completely natural and emanating from the center of the heart. Effort and technique are always kept in balance by our ability to let them go and dive into our natural experience.

The story of Banzo’s sword spoke to this point. In this story we saw that a young man wanted to become a swordsman, but was rebuked for having many of the previously stated qualities— he was a ‘doozer’, meaning that he expected that if he wanted to become a swordsman he simply should be able to do so when he chose to become it. He was picky about his growth, meaning that he wanted only to be a swordsman and thought there were no other paths that might support him in that regard. He was also in a hurry, saying that he thought it should be able to determine how long it would take if he worked hard enough. The more he insisted, the longer the teacher, Banzo, said it would take him. Eventually the student relented and said that he would learn in whatever method the teacher chose, and would take as long as the teacher told him.

So the student was put on dish duty, and worked in the garden. He greeted guests, set up the temple and closed it. Cleaned the chicken coop, watered the cacao. Helped with online marketing for teacher trainings, and weeded the bamboo. In short, he moved in to the ashram. After three years he started to worry that he would never learn how to wield a sword, and the next day, while doing the dishes, his teacher Banzo jumped out at him with a wooden sword and struck a hard blow. The student was caught off guard for sure. The next day, while taking out the trash, Banzo jumped out from a bush and smacked him again with the wooden sword. And from that day forward the student had to learn how to find his center in any and every activity so that he would not have to taste Banzo’s sword.

This student showed us that technique is not the problem, its the attachment to technique that is the problem, as Shiva told us. His teacher took all swordsman ‘techniques’ away from him, but in reality replaced it with many other techniques that the student would not get lost in— such as dish washing technique, and gardening techniques, etc. The student used these other techniques as they were meant to be used, to clean a dish and grow a garden, and so these techniques served him in many ways, as they serve us in the ashram. This class is one of those many techniques— philosophy can be a technique that serves you or a technique that binds you, as Shiva Sutra 1.2 states, Jnanam Bhanda. In this story, as in the ashram, the techniques of living a simple and positive lifestyle served him— they focused his busy mind, they relinquished his attachment to ‘doership’, and they kept him out of trouble long enough to grow.

So it seems that Shiva’s teachings are two fold, as so much of non-dualistic philosophy is— use technique, but don’t become bound by it. Ultimately, we are taught, Bhairava (our true nature), the path to self-realization, is not just a path of technique. That path is something else, something more. Technique is like the sugar coating on a medicine— it helps you take the medicine, but if taken alone is simply sugar, like junk food. We need technique to take the medicine of our growth, but technique itself is not the path.

So the question is asked here— how do you experience the difference between the sugar coating and the medicine in your practice? When you recite a mantra, gaze upon a murti, visualize your heart opening, balance your breathing with pranayama, or center your body through asana— how do you tell the difference between the sugar coating and the medicine?

And perhaps more importantly, how does knowing this difference serve your practice? Because to know the difference is to become the difference— ie. to know the sugar is to know the medicine. So how does this process, of differentiating technique from its goal, serve your practice?

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The Vijnana Bhairava begins with a shock from Shiva: “Whatever form of meditation technique you find in the tantras, whatever mantra or form, are all Bogus!…They are deception, they are delusion, they are cities in the sky.” Whoa, let’s take a moment to let that settle! Parvati then responds with a question we would all want to ask— Ho could this be when the Vijnana Bhairava itself, as well as so many of the ancient texts of the yogic tradition, are literally filled with countless meditation techniques? And how can we meditate without a technique? To this Shiva responds that technique is helpful as we begin our practice— it points us in the right direction when we are young, it keep us on the path when we are lost, focuses the mind when we are stressed. They also give us goals to strive towards, and help sweeten our practice in order to digest the challenges of our life. We need technique to begin our meditation, but it can’t end there. Because technique alone eventually leads to doership. As the Guru Gita teaches, “long, windy pranayamas are difficult and brings disease…[one should instead] attain that spontaneous natural state, where the powerful breath rises and is stilled immediately, of its own accord.” (Verse 53). This isn’t to say that pranayama leads to disease, just the opposite of course, but when we work too strongly with the technique and forget the natural state of being we are seeking, then yes, it does lead to imbalance. We need technique to find our center, but it is just as important to be able to also loosen our grip on technique when we arrive at center. As usual in yoga, it’s a dynamism, a dance of effortless effort. As Lineage teacher Bhagavan Nityananda so concisely taught, “The heart is the hub of all holy places, go there and Roam In It.” Ie. Use your practice to find the heart, and then do something different, roam in it.And it is precisely this ‘roaming’ in the heart that Shiva’s Shocking Answer seeks to teach us, so that we use the 112 ‘techniques’ of the Vijnana Bhairava to truly Roam, and not just wander.

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Thanks everyone for this lively and insightful discussion to conclude our four year study of the Shiva Sutras. We are so grateful to have such a dedicated sangha to make these discussions real. I’d also like to extend immense gratitude to Sri Shambhavananda for making these teachings accessible to us.

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The practices of yoga help us ‘recall’ or ‘recognize’ our true nature, meaning we are constantly forgetting who we are, and then using our practice to remember who we are. And this is no coincidence, as the power of Maya, illusion, is Shiva’s very real ability to cloak or conceal themself. When this occurs we must first realize we have forgotten our true nature, and then use our practice to remember it. And it is precisely this process of perceiving our true nature, forgetting it, and then recalling it that generates our spiritual growth— the text describes it like a spiritual flame that burns from the wood of worldly difference. When the flame goes out it doesn’t go back into the wood, just because we forget our true nature doesn’t mean we sink back down— our growth was real, but we have to keep growing. For me, this was the message of our final sutra, the teachings that spiritual growth is inherently a patient and persistent process, and that opening up to this perspective of it is critical for our growth. Shiva Sutra 3.45: Bhūyaḥ Syāt-prati-mīlanam: “This yogī simultaneously and repeatedly experiences the revealing state and the concealing state of the objective world.” As anyone knows, when you can’t remember something it can often feel like you don’t even know how to recall it, which is often how it feels when we are lost in a tension. And that’s why we practice everyday, we are actually practicing the ability to remember our true nature, so that we won’t forget it so quickly. I found it interesting how scientific studies on improving long term memory actually correspond to how we practice remembering our true nature. For example, it is recommended to practice recalling a memory repeatedly in order to store it in your long term memory— instead of flash cards a yogi uses a Mala and mantra— repeating and recalling their true nature over and over again. Studies also recommended spacing out your recall sessions, just like we space our our morning and evening sits. The science of memory also notes that quizzing one’s self is critical to improving long term memory as it is the only way to expose our weak spots— I don’t know about you, but I find that my karmic arena is ‘pop quizzing’ me on an hourly or less basis! And it’s probably no surprise to learn that studies also show that the more you pay attention during the activity you want to remember, the better you will be able to recall it later— for a yogi this means the more you are present when you practice the more you will recall your true nature once your get up from your cushion. I was also excited to learn that studies show that exercising while you are learning actually improves one’s ability to recall a memory— for a yogi this could be using one’s practice ‘on the run’ so to speak during your day, or using one’s yoga practice on the mat to remember their true nature. And finally, sleep itself clears the slate and improves our ability to recall a memory, which has always been a reason the yogi lives a simple life— early to bed and early to rise opens opens a yogi’s heart skies.

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“In all the channels left (ida), right (pingala) and middle (susumna) - there is prana sakti. By the constant practice of bringing one’s awareness to this inner state of prana sakti, there abides the awareness of that central Reality under all circumstances, and in all conditions.” Our center is unseen, yet when we rock back and forth in our seat we can find our center of balance without any instruction. It may seem like the center has a central location, but when you lean left and right, you are leaning left and right ‘of center’, and from this perspective our center is always with us. In this Sutra we see that our energetic center, the shushumna, is a central force that energizes the 72,000+ veins of our psychic nervous system, and even though it may seem that some of these veins are ‘far from center’ they are all a part of our center because they are fueled and emanate from our center. What’s more, the Sutra teaches that it is our center that gives life and removes stiffness from our body and actions— ie. when we move or act from our center, our actions are graceful and smooth, this is because the life force is present in these actions. From this Sutra we see that center isn’t a place or location, its the space from which we move and connect, or as the sutra says, its the very difference between yogis and ordinary people.

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The breath you’re taking right now may not be your own. According to the yogic tradition your inhale and exhale are quite literally the dance of Shiva and Shakti manifesting your reality 22,000 times a day. That’s right— the natural pulsation of breathing in and breathing out is the literal pulsation of your true nature itself— the first physical expression of divine consciousness in your life, and one that with practice you can learn absorb more deeply.

3.43: Nai-sar-gikaḥ Prāṇa-sam-bandhaḥ
“This connection with breathing in and breathing out is their nature”

Visit https://konalaniyoga.org/yoga/podcast for a Print-At-Home, Pocket-Journal, of this class! With Quotes, Prompts, and space for reflection!

Class Timeline:

0:00 “Seeing Stars” Sutra 3.42 Discussion and Reflection

22:15 “Shiva is Breathing” Sutra 3.43 Presentation

42:10 Meditation on Sutra 3.43

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When we look up into the night sky, scientific analysis has shown us that we can see about 2,000 stars with the naked eye. Funny, I don’t ever remember seeing 2,000 stars— I just remember seeing this star or that constellation, or maybe saying, “that’s a lot of stars”, but not 2,000. How many stars do you see? Well, that depends on how detached you are when looking at them.

3.42: Bhūta-kañcukī tadā vimukto bhūyaḥ pati-samaḥ paraḥ //

For the yogi, the five elements are only coverings. At the very moment, [of this realization] they are absolutely liberated, supreme and just like Śiva.”

The world around us is just as sparkly as the world above us, but in both cases its hard to see the vastness of it all at once. In fact, to really experience the vastness of our reality, we have to detach from it, or as we teach we have to ‘surrender’ it— then we get a glimpse at the spaciousness that surrounds and fills us.

Try it now for a moment, instead of just seeing these words, see these words and the screen around the words, the room around the screen, and the you breathing around all of it. If you can feel this dichotomy for even just a moment, you can realize your true nature.

As you can see and feel, Detachment doesn’t mean we push away, it means we encompass. When we detach from something, we see it clearer, we interact with it more deeply. In this way, this Sutra shows us that when we detach from the body, we actually experience it more fully.

For example, if you were on a hike and all you could see was the obstacle in front of you, you would get discouraged. Or at work, if you can’t feel the big picture of your efforts they can seem menial. But if you detach and zoom out a bit, you see you are almost home, or almost done with your project. We see this all the time on our yoga mat, where we train to detach and surrender while we work directly with our bodies.

If you are attached to feeling a stretch in your hamstrings during a forward fold, for example, studies show you are bound for a tight low back and hamstring tendonitis— but if you detach from that desire for a hamstring stretch, not only do you avoid the injury and postural imbalance, but you re-pattern the neurological and physiological pathways through your entire back line, creating a team of musculature that will serve you every time you bend over to pick up a sock, battery, or toddler.

So Detachment brings us closer to the thing we wish to know. Detaching from the body is a way that we can get to know Shiva better— Shiva is the body, and so much more. So as you interact with your body, focus on your body and focus on Shiva. See and hear the information on the screen, and feel your heart and your breath.

Don’t worry, its not meant to be an overwhelming task, which is why the Sutra concludes by telling us that if we can have this experience for even a blink of an eye, we’ve got it, forever— so don’t think of it as a chore, think of it as an opportunity. You only need to feel it for a moment, and then you’ve got it.

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Einstein’s theory of relativity showed us that the sheer mass of a black hole bends space time so dramatically, that if you were to sit and meditate on the edge of one for a year, you would have missed the entire dawn of mankind since the neanderthal, 255,000 years would have passed on earth in that year next to a black hole. That’s alot of mass! Well, what would happen if you meditated next to Brahma, the God of Creation in the Hindu tradition, for that same amount of time? According to the yogic tradition, a lot more than mankind would have passed by on earth while you sat there— all of earth would have come and gone, and the universe as we know it, 23 times over! 311 trillion years would have passed while you meditated next to Brahma for a year.

So what’s the point of all this mind-bending science? To show you how truly massive time is, and that if you want to really discover something eternal you can’t approach it horizontally. According to this Sutra, we can escape the inescapable density of time, which is at least 1.2 billion times the size of a black hole by the way, though the present! The present is an escape hatch from time, the most massive mass of them all, the truly infinite. When we are present, we don’t just escape time, we discover eternity, we rise up out of our limitations. So consider taking some time now to join us as attempt to jail break time through the key hole of the present.

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It’s time for a thought experiment— ready? Imagine for a moment that you are in a dream, and that this is that rare occasion in a dream setting where you actually realize it. We all know how rare that is, and how valuable that moment is within a dream. And we all know how slippery that realization is within a dream, how an emotion, or person, or sensation can completely distract you from that awakening at any and every moment. So you have to hold onto it, you have to keep coming back to it— this thought experiment— this is a dream, you are in a dream right now.

Usually when we realize we are in a dream we assume one of two things will occur next. Either, A, we accept that we are in a dream and try to fly, or something else that would be fantastic in such a setting. Or, B, we reject the dream and try to wake up, especially if the dream is scary. In this thought experiment, which we are currently doing right at this very moment, we are going to try to entertain a third option— you are in a dream, and you’re not going to try to accept or reject it, your simply going to maintain the awareness that you are in a dream and that’s all. So wherever you are right now, and however you are experiencing these words, that is what is happening in this current dream you are in.

Normally when we look around ourselves we see a world of objects, but since we are in a dream, when you look around yourself you can consider that everything around you is you— its all your dream. This is all a manifestation of yourself, and isn’t that how it feels when you look around right now? Don’t you feel a subtle connection to everything, but without the ego grip you are accustomed to? That’s the witness state, that’s surrender, and that where this Sutra is taking us when it teaches “If you, with continuous awareness, imagine this universe is nothing but your own self, your own nature, then by continuing to meditate in this way, a time will come when you will become one with God consciousness.”

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There’s a little gap, a space inside of all of us that makes us feel incomplete. Take a moment to look away from the screen, and you’ll feel it right away. The Sutras describe this gap as “insatiable and insistent”, a space that no taste, face, or place can fill. Swami Rudrananda once said that we tend to despise this space of incompleteness, and that we would throw it out with the trash if we could, but this ‘incompleteness’, he teaches, is actually our greatest ally in spiritual growth. Because it is precisely in this space that we determine the direction of our energetic flow— will we flow out to illusion, or will we re-direct that flow within to see a higher reality?

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It is the source that sustains us, not the object that entertains us. In this Sutra we are urged to take time to cultivate our Bliss from within, to fill ourselves with Bliss as a means of sustainably sourcing our Bliss so that it will last a lifetime. We do this regularly through gratitude practice and Bodhichitta, but this is also the work behind the Shambhavi Mudra, and the essence of surrender, a means of bringing our energy closer to the source so that our happiness can be sustained from within. Taking a look back at the Tattvic map of manifestation, we see that our work is always to rise towards our source, from the object, to the power of perception, to the perceiver themself, and beyond. In this way, yogis have always sustainably sourced their bliss from within, instead of using up the raw materials of this or that manifestation of happiness. When we can take a step back and see the source of our thoughts, words and actions, we begin to “see what's possible” as Sri Shambhavananda is fond of saying, to see how happiness is possible in any circumstance of our life.

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Class Timeline:

0:00 Shoutouts to Contributing Writers

2:01 Discussion of Previous Sutra, 3.38

24:19 Presentation of New Sutra, 3.39

42:30 Meditation on Sutra 3.39

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Class Time line

0:00 Class Discussion of Sutra 3.37

22:31 Presentation of Sutra 3.38

41:07 Meditation on Sutra 3.38

Class Overview:

This Sutra teaches that there is a shining sun of Bliss radiating from our hearts constantly called Turya, and many times throughout our day the light of this radiant source of joy breaks through the clouds of samskaras that surround it and illuminates our life with its joy. In these moments of joy, we have the incredible opportunity to retrace that ray of light to its source in the heart in order to turn that joy into Bliss, but more often than not we choose to focus on the external object that appears to have given us this joy instead. Eventually the song fades, the drink ends, the sun sets, and we realize we have traded in a rare opportunity for bliss for a token t-shirt, a snapshot, that merely says “I was here”. We gazed upon the external reflection of bliss till it faded away, rather than gaze in to the source of that bliss in our hearts. That’s alright, though, that’s where we all start. But through this Sutra we are given another possibility, to trade up a small taste of joy for an immersion in Bliss. The Sutra gives us numerous ways to do so, all that’s left is our own effort, and a little bit of preparation.

So take a moment, wherever you are, and consider the bigger message here-- joy is inevitable— its gonna strike. Our work, according to the Sutra, isn't to spend our energy trying to produce joy, but rather, trying to receive and sustain it. So what happens when prepare to receive joy? Try this thought experiment and see for yourself-- imagine joy is being delivered to you right now, its on its way to your door, guaranteed or your energy back.... Just sit back and feel this possibility. Be with it, and ask yourself— ‘how do this make me feel?’ I bet you feel a tinge of contentment— I know I do. The hidden miracle in this Sutra is that only can we sustain our joy by turning inwards when it flashes through us, but we can actually cultivate this joy by simply preparing to receive it. The realization that joy is inevitable, and the feeling of waiting for it to arrive, is itself a joyous experience.

So rest assured, joy is on the way-- the real question is, will you be ready to catch that lightning bolt of Bliss when it arrives at your door?

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3.37. karaṇa śaktiḥ svato’nubhavāt //

“The power of creation is the experience of every individual.”

(Time Lines of Podcast below)

0:00 Pocket Sutra Potential!

1:36 Discussion of Previous Sutra, 3.36

18:17 New Material: Shiva Sutra 3.37

39:31 Guided Mediation on Sutra 3.37Raise your hand if you consider yourself creative, if you dream at night, if you see animals in the clouds. Raise your hand if you’ve ever added a spice that wasn’t in the recipe, told a story about your day, or chose a new color for your wall. The Yogic Tradition says that your hand has to be in the air, because whether we realize it or not, Creativity is a Universal quality shared by all sentient beings. All day, everyday, we are constantly creating our own reality through the ways we move, the thoughts we choose, and the state of being in which we reside.

Unfortunately though, our participation in this creative process is far too limited, rearranging what’s on the surface instead of working deeper within ourselves to truly allow our lives to express themselves. That’s why we practice asana and pranayama, to create a reality that moves with, not against, the harmony. That’s why we do mantra, to create a reality permeated by Shiva. That’s why we expand our hearts as we exhale, to create a state an expansive state of being. And as we become more proficient at these levels of creation, our happiness begins to flow from the inside out, no matter what the situation— and in this way, as the Sutra concludes, we literally become our own ‘wish fulfilling tree’.

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Sb 3.36 Part Two Time Line

0:00 Intro to Pocket Sutra Concept

4:19 Discussion of 3.36 Part 1

18:40 Presentation of New Material & Discussion

41:58 Guided Meditation on the space between the breaths

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For full text, be sure to download the Pocket Version of the Sutra on Konalani’s Website:

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3.34. tadvi-muktastu kevalī //

“Separated from pleasure and pain, the yogi is established in real seclusion.”

Over the past couple of years, we have all had different doses and experiences of this aspect of reality. When you think of a yogi, you might think of them in a cave, secluded from the world in order to find their true nature. But as we know in our tradition, that kind of external seclusion must eventually come to an end when they test their attainment by returning back to reality. Can the yogi maintain that inner connection amidst a world that draws them always out? What is your perception of seclusion?

Seclusion in this sutra doesn’t necessarily mean being apart from people, although it could take that form— more importantly it means being apart from your attachments and aversions. What’s more, this type of ‘real seclusion’ as the Sutra calls it, is not a feeling of isolation but rather a feeling of wholeness, oneness. In fact, the very word ‘oneness’ expresses the paradox at the heart of this Sutra, and the experience of meditation in general— Oneness meaning the individual and the whole wrapped up in one singular experience.

As Patanjali teaches in his Yoga Sutras, “The seed of attachment is pleasure. The seed of aversion is pain,” meaning that our pleasures and pains are the seeds of illusion that can all too quickly grow into a weed patch that overtakes our reality. According to this Sutra, though, these seeds of pleasure and pain are all an illusion— albeit an incredibly real one, but nonetheless, they are all a part of the grand illusion of duality. It’s as if we are trapped in a VR headset, pushing and pulling against a reality that doesn’t even exist in our dimension— and when we take off the headset, all of our energy naturally begins to grow the fruit of our practice.

“In Kālikākrama, it is said: All those states, like the perception of pleasure and pain and the thoughts associated with them, have arisen by imagination. That differentiation is actually the great illusion of duality. Herein one distinguishes between two opposites, such as the differentiation between pleasure and pain, thinking pleasure is welcome and pain is to be avoided. The yogī who has destroyed this kind of illusion actually attains the real fruit of yoga. (Kālikākrama Stotra)”

This is why being busy doesn’t necessarily help you feel fulfilled— your life is ‘full’,too full in fact, but you may feel empty. The pushing and pulling of a busy-body lifestyle all takes place in the mind, according to the yogic tradition, sucking up all of one’s energy and leaving the fruits of our practice dry. As we remove the illusion of our attachments and aversions, our energy naturally begins to funnel itself into our heart, which yields the fruit of our practice, as the Sutra teaches.

Yogic Seclusion is nothing to fear, its not a lonely state. Its the thoughts of our mind that create a sense of isolation, according to the Sutra. Because when we follow our thoughts, they lead us down a spiraling path away from the present and our vital life force. Have you ever tried to speak to someone who is lost in a thought? They don’t hear you, they aren’t even there. As I have been meditating these past weeks, and considering this Sutra’s teachings, I have felt this in myself— when my mind drifts into a thought, I lose the vitality of the present. Eventually, these thoughts lead us away from our center, towards an uneasy state as the Sutra goes on to teach. Even Deities, it seems, can fall prey to this illusion.

“It is rightly said in Upaniṣads: In the beginning, there was only one Lord, and because he was only one, there being no other, he became afraid.” The Upaniṣads is telling us that this is the reason why those who are alone become afraid. They become frightened because in that state of being alone, this-ness is excluded. This is the state of divtīya brahma. When this-ness is not excluded, then you are only one and there is nothing to fear. That is what is delineated by the word “seclusion” (kevalī). This is the state of seclusion (kevalī bhāva)….In the present sūtra the word tu is not meant to indicate separation, but to indicate supremacy, to indicate that the yogi is above the state of individuality.”

As we can see from the Sutra, it’s not being alone that leads to fear, it’s being without your practice. I know that Swami Lakshmanjoo’s concept of “this consciousness” is not something that comes up in our lineage, but based on the previous sutras, and my interpretations of this sutra, ‘this-consciousness’ refers to our ability to maintain separation from our pleasures and pains. As we recall from the last sutra, the ability to ‘name your emotion’ was likened to the ability to say ‘this is a pot, this is a lamp, this is anger, this is sadness’. The concept of ‘this-consciousness’ refers to our ability to apply our practice to our pleasures and pains in order to remain surrendered and separate from them— not pushing or pulling, but surrendering, which as we know is a concept that is beyond the 1’s and 0’s of the mind to comprehend, it’s the middle path, a state of being in the flow. And, as this Sutra teaches, a ‘real state of seclusion’ which yields an infinitely inclusive state of being.

So reflect for a moment on your experience of ‘seclusion’— how have you experience unity in seclusion? How does this relate to the concept of maintaining ‘this-consciousness’, ie. Maintaining a state of objectivity with your internal and external circumstances?

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In this heartfelt and inspiration talk, Acharya Abhaya Goldstein takes us on her path to achieving her teacher's teaching to "Do your best, Be happy, and forget about the rest". Simple on the surface, but deeply transformative in practice.

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“sukhaduḥkhayorbahirmananam //

“The Yogi experiences their joy and their sadness just like an object, with “this-consciousness” separate from their being.”

There was an experiment done at the University of California at Los Angeles that asked four groups of people who are afraid of spiders to see how close they could let themselves get to a tarantula.

The study postulated that normally the goal is to make people think differently about the spider so that it appears less threatening, so one group was instructed to say to itself, “The spider is in a cage and can’t hurt me, so I don’t need to be afraid.” Another group was instructed to say something that was irrelevant to the spider, the third group was simply exposed, not instructed to say anything at all, and the last group was told to say how they were feeling out loud to themselves as they approached the spider, such as “I’m scared of that huge, hairy tarantula.”

The study concluded that the group that labeled their fear of the spider performed far better than the other groups. They got closer, were less emotionally aroused, and their hands were sweating significantly less, concluding that recognizing and naming of emotions seemed to defang the fearful emotions.

I found the practice of this Sutra to be similar to the practice of naming emotions in this experiment, at least in the beginning stages. In this Sutra we see the teaching that instead of identifying directly with our pains and pleasures, such as feeling “I am Joyful” or “I am Sad”, we can learn to recognize our experience as “I am experiencing Joy or sadness”.

“Such a yogī experiences the state of pleasure (sukha) and pain (duḥkha) with “this-consciousness,” not “I-consciousness.” For example, he does not experience joy thinking “I am joyous” and sadness thinking “I am sad.” Rather, he“experiences “this is sadness” and “this is joy,” just as an ordinary person experiences external objects in his daily life. He experiences “this-consciousness” not “I-consciousness,” thinking “this is a pot” or “this is a bottle.” So, this yogī experiences his joy and sadness just like an object, separate from his being.”

Emotions are powerful because they arise from samskaras. This practice can help us release our attachment or aversion to the pleasure or pain in order that we are not lead around by them in the circle of samsara. As Patanjali says in his Yoga Sutras, “The seed of attachment is pleasure. The seed of aversion is pain…The enlightened practitioner realizes that the endless cycle of avoiding pain and seeking pleasure is a self-propagating result of our past impressions, and so both pain and pleasure must be subjected to the process of introspection and detachment.” (2.7,2.8,2.15).

When we are hooked by pain or pleasure, our energy keeps leading us back to those pains and pleasures. Later in that article about the tarantula study, the author noted that research has shown that “When we are afraid or stressed, our brain can only respond based off of previously stored patterns of behavior. But that is rarely the best possible reaction, unless you really are reacting in a life or death situation.” Meaning that it’s good to react on previously stored patterns when an emergency strikes, you hear a tree limb breaking and you run away from the sound without interpreting the situation.

Reacting to Samskaras only strengthens them. The problem arises, though, when we respond to our daily life in such a patterned way. This is the nature of samsara, when actions are not based on awareness, but are merely based on previous actions, creating a loop of eventual suffering. One simple example is when you hear your favorite song on your playlist, and you really enjoy it, but imagine if that song played a second time, and then a third time, and then a fourth time— it would eventually make you feel aggravated. Or, on the other hand, if there’s something you’re worried about, and you just keep running the worry through your mind endlessly, it wears you out deeply.

So as yogis we can learn to observe our pains and pleasures with detachment and surrender in order to choose them, or not choose them, based on our growth. This is not a matter of stoicism, as this actual practice leads to immense joy. How can that be? I thought we were surrendering our joy? We are surrendering the temporary manifestations of joy as a means of accessing a deeper ‘supreme bliss’ which resides within us. As the Sutra reads, the yogi who uses their practice during the experience of pleasure and pain actually experiences Bliss.

“although in their daily lives they experience pleasure and pain, these experiences do not affect them at all. There is no apprehension that pain and pleasure will rise in them because the cause of the rise of pain and pleasure is individuality and they have destroyed individuality. They are apart from that and so, in the experience of pleasure and pain, they experience the real state of supreme beatitude, supreme bliss (ānanda), which is actually more than bliss. (Pratyabhijñā)”

Just as Babaji often recalls of his teacher Swami Rudrananda, when he bit into an ice cream cone, he used that experience to open his heart, and would enjoy his ice cream more than anyone. He literally tasted Bliss in that mildly joyful experience. Babaji also recently taught the practice froth Vijnana Bhairava which tells us ‘when encountering a long lost friend, and your heart bursts open, breathe into the source of that joy’, meaning, enjoy the embrace of a friend, but don’t stop there, keep going to its source in your heart. It’s good to do this in the moment of joy, because, as Babaji said later, that joy might eventually fade when you realize why the two of you parted ways so long ago.

I have found that the practice of naming emotions is a great way to get this practice started, but you can’t end there. By all means, name your emotion, that takes surrender and awareness in itself. I have been doing it and it helps you detach and feel the present. But as a yogi, you can breathe into that space you have created and keep that door open to the heart without much more interaction with your mind. Name the emotion again, see it objectively, and then breathe into that space. Use all of your tools to stay present, and to keep the wheels of your practice turning.

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Every hurricane has a center, a point of absolute calm at its heart. So too do we have a ‘center’ amidst the storm of thoughts and sensations that swirl around us and within us everyday. In this Sutra we will learn how to naturally reside in this ‘third eye’ of the hurricane by using our practice, and releasing doership, within the multitude of weather patterns we call our lives.

The Previous Sutra states that we can find Shiva in all of the different phases of reality— the creation phase, the maintenance phase and the dissolution phase, as well as the space between the phases. This motivates us to always use our practice— to keep reaching inside as we start a task, maintain it, as it is ending, and even during the space between. On our cushion, we watch the breath, for example, with equal attention on the inhale, the feeling of fullness, the exhale, and the space after the exhale.

The yogic tradition is at its heart a scientific tradition, meaning that its ok to ask questions, and to use your practice in the laboratory of your life to prove its efficacy. At the end of the last Sutra the teacher, Ksemaraja, 1,000 years ago, asks his listeners— If we are saying that Shiva is to be found in all of these different stages of reality, then aren’t we also saying that Shiva is changeable? I thought Shiva was eternal, unchanging? How can this be?

“If this yogī feels that the universe, in creation, in protection, and in destruction, is the expansion of his own nature, then would not his nature be changeable? It would definitely change. In creation it would be one way, in protection another way, and in destruction another way. Therefore, as his original state of being would occasionally change, the essential nature of the self would not remain unchangeable. The next sūtra answers this question.”

The Answer to this is presented to us in the next Sutra, our work tonight, Shiva Sutra 3.32: Tatpra vṛitā vapya nirāsaḥ Saṁvet tṛibhāvāt : “Although the yogi is determined in creating, protecting, and destroying their universe, even then they are not separated from the real state of their subjectivity.”

The word determined here shows us that our work as yogis is in this realm of the world— we have to learn how to operate within fluctuating circumstances of creation/maintanence/dissolution. But within this swirling hurricane of thought and sensation, we are never truly separated from the eternal stillness of Shiva which is our true nature. This true nature of Shiva is described here as “subjective” because it is not something that can be known from outside of itself, like an object can be. Our true nature is inherently subjective, when you discover it it will a revelation only for you. Only the path can be revealed, not the destination. For this reason it is inherently a subjective experience.

The Sutra begins by telling us what we have already gone over together— that although it appears that the world is full of infinitely changing experiences, the experience of our true nature is never covered up, never separated from us. And that even when we forget our true nature, we are still Shiva.

In a very scientific way, we then are taught that if we weren’t this eternal aspect, then the swirl of creation/maintanence/dissolution wouldn’t exist— we are the fulcrum around which it spins, we are not the spinning— we are the eye of the hurricane. This is taught in the following way: The Self can neither be created nor destroyed. The world of the mind and senses is constantly created and destroyed. So if the Self can never be created or destroyed, than it must be beyond the nature of the mind and senses.

Another way we are taught this is through the analogy of “The Doer” and “the Done.” The doer is us, and the done is that which we are doing throughout our day. The Doer can never be created or destroyed, but the things we do are constantly being created and destroyed. When we over-associate with that which we do, instead of that which we are, we feel that we too are being destroyed, even though this is not the case.

“This is written in Spanda: In the two states which are termed “doer” and “done,” the aspect known as done is destroyed while the aspect known as doer always remains and can never be destroyed. Only that force, which is the effort to create that which is to be done, is destroyed. But when that force is destroyed, ignorant people cry, saying, “we too are also destroyed.” (Spanda Kārikā 1.14–15)”

When we over-associate with the mind and senses, we feel as though our world is ending when that world is ending. Our hearts beat fast for the protagonist of a movie when they are on the tipping point of their quest— we become what we see and do. In the movie of our lives this also happens, and when it does we honestly don’t know if there is a world beyond our senses. But as the text teaches, just because you aren’t aware of that reality doesn’t mean its not there. You might think your world is destroyed, but that doesn’t mean it really is, you might just be looking in the wrong place.

“In the absence of the other agency, you can’t say the introverted state is destroyed. If in the state of ignorance you are not aware of your reality of self, you cannot say that the self is destroyed. It is not destroyed but, because you are not aware of it, you remain away from it. (Spanda Kārikā 1.16)”

There is no doubt that the world is like a hurricane inside and out. Everyone’s life if full of infinite distraction. But through our practice we can be transported to the eye of that hurricane, a space of calm that allows us to function in a clear and effective way. To find this eye, though, we can’t look through our physical eyes, but our third eye— the eye of awareness. This can literally be a focal point of awareness for you as you move through your day, allowing you to ‘observe’ your reality from a place of surrender. On the cushion, we bring that awareness down to the heart, as an even deeper, and more stable space of observation.

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In our final installment of Shiva Sutra 3.31 we are asked to pay attention to not only the breath, but the endless space after each breath. The perfectly gradual slide into stillness that we all experience at the end of each exhale. This space between our breaths is the same as the space between our thoughts, our days, the events of our lives. This ‘middle space’ is actually where the continuity of consciousness resides— known by many names: Turya, Shiva, Witness, God. This seemingly small space after each breath is a doorway to an infinitely large space, a crack in the boards if you will, light shining in to show us the way. But to fit our awareness through this crack we don’t get small, we get large, very large. We harmonize with the expansiveness that resides within us, the sky of the heart, and by doing so, we become that infinite space beyond the mind, the senses and even beyond the breath.

Quotes used in this Sutra:

“3.31. sthitilayau //This universe is the expansion of his energy in objective impressions and in the dissolution of those impressions."

“If God consciousness were not existing throughout, then how would you be able to travel from one state to the next, from the dreaming state to the state of deep sleep, and from the state of deep sleep to the waking state? Between each of these states, there is a gap, a point where one state has ceased to exist and the next state has yet to begin. When you direct your consciousness from waking state to the dreaming state and from the dreaming state to the dreamless state, there is a point, a gap, when your consciousness, having left one world, has not yet entered the next world. How could you travel through that gap if God consciousness did not exist in that gap? So God consciousness must exist throughout. It is why the commentator Kṣemarāja says “there would be disconnection of your consciousness.”

“It is said in the Śri Kālikākrama: That which exists, that which does not exist; this differentiation of existence and nonexistence and their connection [is only maintained by God consciousness]. This whole universe is absolutely pure, without any support, and one with the knowledge of the consciousness of self. If that consciousness of self is revealed and perceived, then at that very moment, he is without a doubt liberated in this very life. (Kālikākrama Śāstra)”

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Shiva Sutra 3.31 part 2 “3.31. sthitilayau //This universe is the expansion of his energy in objective impressions and in the dissolution of those impressions.

Our goal in this Sutra is to discover our shiva nature in the more subtle layers of our practice and lives, specifically the layers that are beyond the physical.

Layers of Surrender 1-In this sutra we see that our first understanding is defined by “action”, the Srishti phase. This is the physical level of understanding. From there, those actions accumulate into a knowledge that goes beyond the physical, the Sthiti stage. And then finally, the physical and even subtle dissolve into a third level of understanding that is based on the void, layah.

“Initially, this universe is revealed to you by the energy of action. And after this universe shines before you, the knowledge of the universe remains for some time as an impression in your objective consciousness. That is what is meant by the word sthiti. Then the impression of this universe in your objective consciousness also melts away and all that is left is the void state where there is nothing. That is what is meant by the word layaḥ. And this state where there is nothing is also held in consciousness. For such an elevated soul, these two states are only the expansion of His energies and nothing else. For him, this objective world may be created in his sensual world, or it may be stored in his impressions, or it may be taken away from his impressions; but this threefold world is nothing more than the expansion of his God consciousness everywhere.”

When learning any trade we see that first you learn the physical, then that experience accumulates into knowledge which gives you a subtler understanding, and eventually that knowledge accumulates into your very being which transcends both physical objects and knowledge itself, when you ‘become the profession’.

Example: Cook 100 recipes you’re working with the physical ingredients. After a 1,000 recipes you are cooking with the recipe and your own accumulated knowledge. After 10,000 recipes you have become a chef, with or without a kitchen.

We see this same progression within our meditation practice. Do a hundred Malas and you’re working with the physical. Do a 1,000 Malas (100,000 mantras) and your practice starts to be informed by more than the just the words themselves. Do 10,000 Malas (1,000,000 mantras) and your mantra begin to do you, the mantra has become you. This is described as the three levels of mantra: Vaikhari, Madhyama and Pashyanti.

As Muktananda teaches: “Everyone is aware of the speech of the tongue. It is called Vaikhari and corresponds to the gross body. With the subtle intellect, one can also know the second level of speech, which is in the throat. There, words have taken form but have not yet emerged. This level is called Madhyama and corresponds to the subtle body. At a deeper level, words exist in the heart. This is the third level of speech, Paśyanti, which corresponds to the causal body. Here, words are hidden, and what arises at this level is Matrika… The moment one understands the Matrika Shakti and its work, one is no longer a human being. When the Matrika Shakti expands within, in this very body one becomes Shiva.” (Nothing Exists Not Shiva, p. 7-9)

SO…knowing that this is the progression of understanding both and off the cushion means you can accelerate your growth. Can you connect to these deeper layers while you do your work and practice?

Free Write: How do you reach for these deeper aspects of your practice on and off the cushion.

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This Sutra teaches us how to recognize the many phases our ‘surrender muscles’ undergo during its inner work, just like a real muscle in our body. We can better tone this muscle of surrender by not just working with it at the onset of our practice, or when a tension arises, but also during the middle of our practice time, and even at the end of our practice, as we return to our regularly scheduled life. As you are able to recognize the 3 different phases of surrender, you can begin to work with more awareness during all of them. The result is a strong inner muscle that is capable of carrying you to new heights in your practice.

[Full Text Below] 3.31: “śvaśaktipracayo’sya viśvam // For him, this universe is the embodiment of his collective energies”

This whole universe is seen as Shiva, and you are Shiva, so this whole universe is an embodiment of your ‘collective’, meaning the totality of, your energies. So we are Shiva and the Universe is Shiva, but how can we realize that through our practice and experience?

Sutra 3.30 teaches that we must learn to use our practice as we encounter the objects of our daily life. We can’t reject the objects of our life in order to find God, and we can’t quite directly pursue God without the objects of our life— even an enlightened practitioner has a personality, as Babaji has said of our own lineage teachers. So the path to realizing our own Shiva nature, and the Shiva nature of our universe, is to engage our practice as we engage with our life. This is how we walk from object awareness to God awareness.

As we see in this quote:

“If you think that in practicing yoga, God consciousness is to be possessed and that which is other than God consciousness is to be discarded, that is not the proper understanding. The correct understanding is that you must unite these two together. God consciousness must be united with objective consciousness and objective consciousness must be united with God consciousness…When you simultaneously possess this kind of knowledge, then knowledge and the known will be not separated.”

When we stop accepting and rejecting our reality, and ourselves, and start engaging our practice as we engage in our life, we slowly but surely walk our awareness from object to Shiva. This isn’t a metaphor, but a very real part of our practice that any of us can do anytime we are willing to apply ourselves. This is the path we walk from mantra at the level of the mouth, to mantra at the level of the throat, to mantra at the level of the heart. Or the path we walk from pranayama to a natural breath meditation. And of course, this is the same work we do off our cushion as we engage our practice within the context of our lives.

I received a question via email from a student after last week’s class that said “I can feel and connect with Shakti/awareness in meditation and often as I walk and look at things such as nature like the trees, sky, birds. However, the other day someone with a really loud souped up engine in a pickup truck drove by and they revved up their engine as they passed me and blew alot of exhaust into the air around me. I was wondering how one should ideally deal with staying connected with God consciousness and awareness when things are not so ideal and peaceful - and often in day to day life they are not as we well know (or have to deal with rudeness or disrespect) . Mostly I seem easily pulled back into judgement and reaction from the unpleasantness by people who are immersed into ego identity.”

The practice is no different in this situation than it is on our cushion, we will walk the same path, but because of the variables in this situation we must walk the path of our practice slower and with more awareness. For example, magine this like walking on a nice clear path in the woods, and then suddenly, the path becomes overgrown and you can’t quite tell which way to go. You would naturally walk a little slower in this situation, or stop altogether, and you would pay more attention to your surroundings. In this case, we would react slower, breathe smoother, and try to make sure that each step we took was still towards a higher state of awareness, instead of just ‘downhill’ into our all too comfortable patterns of behavior.

None of us are free from these challenges, although they look different in all of our lives. The path through them, though, is the same for all of us, and is the heart of this Sutra. How can we hold our practice and our life simultaneously? Maybe we have to slow down, or take very small steps— all of that should be expected. We might not reach the destination in one breath or ten, but we know afterwards, and sometime during, if we were pointing ourselves in the right direction.

3.31: sthitilayau // This universe is the expansion of his energy in objective impressions and in the dissolution of those impressions.

This sutra can seem a little confusing at first, but when compiled with the previous sutra we see that it is merely an extension of the same teachings.

Srishti, Sthiti and Laya are words denoting the phases of awareness we call Creation, Maintanence and Dissolution. This Sutra teaches us that there are different modes of our practice, different ways the psychic muscles engage within us, and that all 3 ways are important for the aspirant to not only recognize but engage with on and off the cushion.

“When this objective world is shining vividly in your sphere of organs, that is the state of creation (sṛiṣṭi daśā). But it is not only in the state of creation that this universe is one with his real energies of God consciousness. This universe is also one with his energies when only impressions of this objective world remain (sthitidaśā) or when these impressions melt in voidness (layadaśā) at the time of death or deep sleep, or when one is rendered unconscious. ”

Swami Rudrananda often spoke of our meditation practice as developing “psychic muscles”. This was not a metaphor for him, but a very real aspect of our practice— we really do get energetically stronger as we practice. We strengthen our ability to discern between that which supports our growth and that which distracts, and we get gain strength in our ability to choose to grow in the face of our strongest patterns.  This Sutra teaches us how to recognize the many phases our ‘surrender muscles’ undergo during its inner work, just like a real muscle in our body. We can better tone this muscle of surrender by not just working with it at the onset of our practice, or when a tension arises, but also during the middle of our practice time, and even at the end of our practice, as we return to our regularly scheduled life. As you are able to recognize the 3 different phases of surrender, you can begin to work with more awareness during all of them. The result is a strong inner muscle that is capable of carrying you to new heights in your practice.

In the world of Anatomy we see that our muscles themselves have three modes of operation: Concentric contraction, when the muscle shortens while it contracts. Isometric contraction, when the muscles stays the same length while it contracts. And eccentric contraction, when the muscle lengthens while it contracts. All three phases are essential for building real strength as all three are essential parts of any natural movement or action. For example, you might have to reach down and pick up a child in your arms with concentric contraction (Srishti, the creation phase of the work), and you would hold the baby there with isometric contraction (Sthiti, the maintenance phases of the work), and then you sit the baby back down with eccentric contraction (Laya, the dissolution phase of the work). So any real movement in life requires all three-- just like any real work of surrender in our practice takes us through all three phases as well.

We all have a certain phase of this process that we are better at, and other spots that we are unaware of. As you begin to notice these different phases you can bring your awareness to them on your yoga mat at the physical level, and then to the cushion for a more subtle experience. As this awareness broadens within you, you will naturally cultivate a more capable capacity to surrender in your life.

We can practice with this right now by simply observing our breath. The initial moment of our inhale is the moment of creation, Srishti, and of course the breath eventually dissolves after the exhale in a moment of stillness, Laya. The space in between these two moments is the grey area of Sthiti, the maintenance phase of the breath. This phase is harder to feel, but very real— after the initial moment of inhaling, you will easily notice a ‘plateauing’ of the effort all the way till you are finishing your exhale and enter the Laya phase.

So play with this in your body, your breath, and in your practice throughout your week and we’ll check back in during class to see how it evolves for you.

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Even though Shiva is all around us, and in us, there is still a path we must walk to that realization, and that is the reason we practice. This Path to God Awareness is the path we walk when we do mantra, pranayama, selfless service, hatha yoga— these are the ways that we can walk from our object based awareness to God awareness. As we will see in tonight’s Sutra, it is precisely from our limited object-awareness that we can '“walk” towards an expanded God Awareness, meaning that we can’t reject or accept the objects of our life to find God, but we in fact must learn to surrender them— to use our practice simultaneously with those objects of our awareness in order to illuminate the path to the higher Consciousness we seek.

Full Text: Shiva Sutra 3.30 śvaśaktipracayo’sya viśvam //

“For the yogi, this universe is the embodiment of their collective energies”

To review in this Sutra we are taught that the practicing yogi sees this universe as the embodiment of their own energy.

Just like our own body, there are infinite parts to it— you can zoom into to it infinitely, never ending. Muscles, bones, cells, atoms, etc. So the whole world is like your own body, there are infinite topics to learn about. But without inner awareness, that learning will never teach you about your self, who you are, and what this universe is really about. Its like trying to fit an ocean in a cup, instead throw your cup in the ocean. How do you do that? Cultivate a meditative state while you learn, work, play, and even relax, and then everything you do will teach you about your own true nature.

As we will see in today’s teachings, cultivating this inner awareness is absolutely possible for anyone willing to try it, because everything you think, see and do is happening within this Universal Body of Shiva, which is also your body, as the Sutra tells us. There is nothing you can perceive that is not Shiva, as Swami Mutktananda’s own book tells us, and therefore this Shiva awareness is always available to us.

But even though Shiva is all around us, and in us, there is still a path we must walk to that realization, and that is the reason we practice. This Path to God Awareness is the path we walk when we do mantra, pranayama, selfless service, hatha yoga— these are the ways that we can walk from our object based awareness to God awareness. As we will see in tonight’s text, it is precisely from our limited awareness of the object that we walk towards an expanded awareness of God Consciousness, meaning that we don’t need to reject the objects of our life to find God, but we in fact must learn to use our practice alongside those objects in order to illuminate the path to a higher level of awareness.

We saw in the text last week that the word Knowledge can be confusing. Thanks to Usha, we saw the possibility to replace the word knowledge with awareness in order to simplify the work of the Sutra.

Why are knowledge and awareness interchangeable? Because wherever awareness flows, knowledge naturally grows. My neighbor Billy is the best mango farmer on the island, when I asked him his secret he just said “I look at them everyday.” And the same could be said about our own hearts, our own true nature— if you take time to simply look inside everyday, you will grow! Just like a mango!

Let’s take a look at a paragraph now and read it with that substitution. “This knowledge is found everywhere, inside and outside, because without knowledge, an object cannot exist. This entire universe is, therefore, filled with that knowledge. And that knowledge, which may be objective knowledge, is, in fact, knowledge of God consciousness. No one has ever perceived an object without that knowledge. That knowledge, which is the real knowledge of God consciousness, has taken the form of the object. Objective knowledge is not separate from that knowledge of God consciousness. It is by that knowledge of God consciousness that this knowledge of objects takes place.”

Free Write: Where do you see this relationship of awareness and knowledge at play in your own life?

We can take this investigation of knowledge and awareness further as we see the Sutra describing the relationship of Object awarensss, or knowledge, and God awareness, or knowledge. We are told that they are not opposite of each other, but are intimately related. As yogis, we use our practice to walk from Object to Awareness to God Awareness— We use the object to discover Shiva. This is a part of every practice we do-- every single thing we do. Mantra walks you from the mouth to the heart, pujas walk you from the Aarti try to devotion, seva walks you from chopping a carrot to a disciplined mind. Its endless— this path from object to God in Yoga.  Let’s see how the Sutra teaches it:

“If you think that in practicing yoga, God consciousness is to be possessed and that which is other than God consciousness is to be discarded, that is not the proper understanding. The correct understanding is that you must unite these two together. God consciousness must be united with objective consciousness and objective consciousness must be united with God consciousness. And so, you will not find any difference between God consciousness and objective consciousness.”

“When you simultaneously possess this kind of knowledge, then knowledge and the known will be not separated. Known will become knowledge and knowledge will become known. (Krama Strotra)”

Free Write: How do you walk from object to God in your practice?

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"Great acts are made up of small deeds," Lao Tzu. If you want to understand cooking, you have to learn many small recipes. If you want to understand anatomy, you have to learn many small bones and muscles. If you want to understand the Universe, you have to learn how to use your practice during the many "small" moments of your life...

Shiva Sutra 3.30 śvaśaktipracayo’sya viśvam //

“For the yogi, this universe is the embodiment of their collective energies”

In common terminology you could say, “For the yogi, everything is Shiva.” But as we remember from LMJ’s commentary on Sutra 3.14, “Some yogīs permeate their thinking with thoughts such as “I am independent” or “I am Śiva.” To possess unartificial independence, they must actually be independent, they must be Śiva, not just imagine they are.”

So just saying, ‘everything is Shiva’ isn’t what we’re after in this Sutra. We are seeking the real understanding that everything is Shiva, which takes effort over time. So how do we get to that level of real understanding? The same way we get to real understanding in any topic, practice.

If you want to really understand cooking, you have to learn recipes. If you want to really understand anatomy, you have to learn about how the body moves and the muscles, bones and tissue that encompass it. And by learning these individual parts we gradually learn about the whole. The same can be said of learning about our own true nature by learning how to meditate. When you apply your practice to your life, on and off the cushion, you learn about yourself and your Universe.

In our everyday life we might learn about a topic through a podcast or masterclass, other times we might learn valuable skills ‘on the job’, by being a problem solver. My brother Ben was never fond of school, but boy is he a great problem solver at his job. Learning in any shape or form is a valuable and healthy pursuit, and completely natural,— By Saying “everything is Shiva,” this Sutra is not saying we don’t have to learn about our jobs, to become better at what we do. Rather, it is saying that we shouldn’t limit our experience of learning to the individual topic or subject we are learning about.

Instead, we should use our practice while learning in order to use that experience to inspire our spiritual growth. And as always, this practice does not make you a slower learner, but rather, a more natural learner.

And what’s more, when we are able to extract the spiritual growth from the learning process, we are able to learn and grow spiritually from anything and everything. This means you can learn from a podcast or masterclass while your driving to work, or you could just simply drive to work consciously and learn about the Universe and your place in it.

“This Lord Śiva is filled with knowledge and that knowledge is the innumerable knowledge found in the universe. Real knowledge is universal knowledge. The knowledge that frees you from the limited knowledge of the universe is called netra. By holding and possessing only one class of this limitless universe of knowledge, and by not possessing universal knowledge, you are bound with limitation. When your master reveals the universal truth to you, then you emerge from limitation and the whole universe becomes your possession. To possess the whole universe as your own self is real knowledge and that is netra and that is liberation. (Netra Tantra 9.12) (1.5 minutes)

innumerable knowledge versus universal knowledge, knowledge of the parts versus knowledge of the whole. Knowledge of a recipe versus knowledge of cooking You can hold onto one recipe and only learn that, or you can keep cooking and keep growing as a cook and eventually learn about the whole. Learning to cook is harder than learning a recipe, but when you really learn to cook the whole world of cooking opens up for you. Universal knowledge must be revealed to you by a teacher, its hard to do this alone.

“This knowledge is found everywhere, inside and outside, because without knowledge, an object cannot exist. This entire universe is, therefore, filled with that knowledge. And that knowledge, which may be objective knowledge, is, in fact, knowledge of God consciousness. (20 seconds) God knowledge is found everywhere, inside and out. Because without God Knowledge, object knowledge cannot exist. The entire universe is, therefore, filled with God Knowledge. And that God knowledge, which may be perceived as object knowledge, is in fact still knowledge of God.

No one has ever perceived an object without that knowledge. That knowledge, which is the real knowledge of God consciousness, has taken the form of the object. Objective knowledge is not separate from that knowledge of God consciousness. It is by that knowledge of God consciousness that this knowledge of objects takes place.” (20 seconds) Learning to cook a recipe makes you a better cook. You can’t cook a recipe without becoming a better cook. The art of cooking has taken the shape of this particular recipe. Becoming a better cook is not different from cooking this recipe. It is precisely the art of cooking that you are learning by cooking this particular recipe.

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What if the answer to the challenges of our life wasn’t actually an answer, but a question? Take a moment to ask yourself, “Is the wheel of my inner practice turning right now? Can I feel my heart, my breath, my seat?” According to the teachings of our current Sutra, you may find that your inner wheels of awareness are not the ones moving you through your life, but rather, your mental and physical patterns, your samskaras, are the actually the wheels turning you— in circles. And as we will see in the Sutra, mastering our “wheels of energy” isn’t a feat of strength or will, but rather, is accomplished through a light touch— a simple reflective turn that helps you engage this inner wheel over and over again, until it truly becomes that which your life revolves around. And in the end, we see this inner wheel as that which defines a teacher, as that which allows the ‘energy of knowledge’ to flow.

Shiva Sutra 3.29: Yo’vipastho Jñāhe-tuśca: “The one who rules the wheel of energies becomes the cause of inserting knowledge in others.”

Taking a moment for the Sutra itself, before getting into the commentary, we see two clear ideas. First, there are ‘wheels of energy’ that we use to navigate our life. These wheels can either work for us, or against us, depending on the ‘fullness of our awareness’, as previous sutras have taught. Second, the one who learns to rule these wheels of energy becomes ‘the cause of inserting knowledge in others,” which is another way of saying a teacher, a guide. So according to this sutra, a teacher is defined as someone who has learned to rule their inner energy. Now let’s dive into Ksemaraja’s explanation of the Sutra to explore deeper layers to the Sutra.

We begin with the following quote: “The master who has established sovereignty over the wheel of energies (śakticakra) is not played by these energies but is instead the player. The wheel of energies is classified in two segments: the energies pertaining to cognition (jñānendriyas), and the energies pertaining to action (karmendriyas).” In this quote we see right away that the wheels of energy can be wheels that we use to move through our life, or wheels that run us in circles. These wheels of energy are known as Shakti (Energy) Chakras (Wheels). We are shown that there are two primary energy wheels, that of cognition and that of action. To help understand this, we can actually look at how our minds and body’s function— it’s actually a lot like a wheel!

Our mind and body work to find efficient patterns and then run from those patterns on loop, just like a wheel. For example, when you find a path to work that gets you there fastest, you always take it. When you find an app you like, you click on it. Did you know that we operate according to these pattern like behaviors so much that certain social media apps can detect if your Login has been stolen simply based on the way the thief clicks around your screen— they aren’t you because they don’t click in the same patterned order you always do. Wild, right? Well, yogis have been talking about this for millennia.

Our mind and body are built to work from patterns, and like a wheel they just keeps rolling with those patterns endlessly, like a computer program. We saw this described in the “Intro to Kashmir Shaivism”, when the text told us that the manas (the lower mind) is like a sensor that takes in information, but the Ahamkara (The Ego, the middle tier of the mind) is like a pattern recognizer that relates to that information as it stores it, like Google. And as we know of the ego, these ego patterns can become quite crystallized, which eventually leads to a more and more limited experience of reality. The Sutra calls these individuals “ignorant souls” because they have forgotten their true nature and are living in a cyclical world of patterns.

As the Sutra teaches: “These śakti cakras protect these ignorant souls by providing them with taste, with form, with touch, with smell, and with whatever else they need. This so-called protection is not really protection because it provides them with these sensual pleasures.”

So instead of being the player, and using our senses to grow, we become the played, and are led around by our mind and senses. We all know the feeling of a nagging thought that just keeps running on loop, devouring tremendous amounts of energy, leaving us frazzled. Or a physical pattern, like our posture at our desk, that keeps our neck permanently soar. So the Sutra goes on to say that a teacher should be someone who is no longer ruled by their patterns, someone who has risen above them, and until then keep working on yourself. As the Sutra teaches, “The person who is influenced by the wheel of energies, which means who is dependent on their senses, is not able to protect themself, so how could they possibly protect others? They are constrained to follow the demand of their senses, so how could they possibly elevate others? They can not. It is impossible.” This might feel like a hard point to swallow, because we all want to change the world, and all know how it could be improved, but according to the Sutras, and our lineage, we have to change ourselves first. And that begins by seeing which wheels are turning you, ie, who’s driving the bus? Your Practice, or your samskaras?

This internal self-check became the fulcrum around which this Sutra revolved in my life and practice, and it soon became clear just how much more practice I could be doing, and how little I really needed to be saying to others. A strong teaching from Swami Rudrananda came to mind for me, wherein he tells us that in most situations we unconsciously tend to think of ourselves as the savior, as the protector, as the teacher— but in reality we are probably the ones in need of saving, protecting and teaching. As Swami Rudrananda teaches: “Many people wish to see themselves as pink angels, with blue wings, walking among the unfortunate, spreading light and love. It is a revelation to find you are one of the unfortunates. Great effort is needed to produce this insight, making it possible to feel gratitude within…This revelation during the surrender is what shocks a man into acceptance of his true situation.”

As Rudi says, great effort is needed to actually see our own condition, and that this revelation is the starting point of our work, the opening for real gratitude. If you are always trying to change your world on the outside, you miss this opportunity and keep living in your patterns. For example, the effort you might spend telling someone else how to do something ‘right’ or ‘better’ could have been energy you spent within yourself surrendering the thing they are doing to annoy you. Because of this Sutra I found the courage to keep my mouth shut when I was really upset, and do my practice, and I felt myself growing beyond the tension— I felt myself persevere through something that I thought I couldn’t. And what’s more, I saw on multiple occasions the situation resolve itself without my input in a much more nourishing way than I ever could have.

So I began asking myself this simple question throughout my day: “Is My Wheel Turning?”, ie. Am I Practicing? And as the Sutra foretold, more times than not, when caught in an emotion or thought pattern, my wheel was not turning, they were caught on the physical or mental tension. Other times, I might have been experiencing joy in the form of a sip of coffee or tea, but also noticed, my inner wheels weren’t turning, I wasn’t tracing this joy to its source in my heart. In so many situations this simple question put me face to face with my true condition and kept me practicing— which in the end is teaching of the Sutra.

Because as the Sutra tells us, a ‘master' is not defined by what they say or do externally, but by the work they are doing internally while they perform the actions of their life. As the Sutra teaches, “To say that a master has sovereignty over these energies is to say they are not played by them. On the contrary, they are the player and they become the cause of inserting knowledge into others.” So a teacher is not defined by their external abilities, but by their internal ones. A teacher, a guide, a protector, is someone who can get out of the way and let the energy come through. Because, as the Sutra continues, a teacher’s ‘knowledge’ is not a physical thing, but an energetic one.

“In the present sūtra, the Sanskrit word jñā means the energy of knowledge (jñānaśakti). For those who are their disciple, this master becomes the source of knowledge and by the energy of that knowledge, they become successful in inserting knowledge into their disciples.” It is the energy that teaches, the energy that comes through the teacher is the real teaching. This is why Babaji has always taught that Satsang (questions and answers with a teacher) is not a mental activity, but a heart to heart transmission. He has always taught that his goal as a teacher is to get out of the way and let the energy flow. Babaji often tells us that he is surprised by what comes out of his mouth during Satsang, because it doesn’t feel like he is the one speaking— the teachings are coming through him. This is a concept that is shared by artists in all fields, from painters to musicians and beyond— and through meditation we can learn to bring this priceless skill to all aspects of our life.

So take a moment to ask yourself now, and ten minutes from now, and ten hours from now— “Is my inner wheel turning?”, and in that moment you’ll feel where your work is. Because if you’re not driving the bus, you can be sure your samskaras are! And the fascinating thing is that this question might just be the answer you’re looking for, because as the Sutras teach, a master is solely defined as one who keeps their inner wheels turning— nothing more, nothing less. So ask yourself again, “are my inner wheels turning?”, and allow this simple question to become your cosmic teacher.

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A yogi’s reason for living is giving, and as we learn in this Sutra, the true best gift one can give is an open heart and calm mind. So for the yogi, living is giving, and giving is growing!

Shiva Sutra 3.28: dānamātmajñānam

“The Yogi’s only purpose for remaining in his body is to impart their knowledge to others.”

A yogi’s reason for living is giving knowledge of the Self. But how can you give this kind of knowledge— As we know from previous sutras, and the holiday season with family, talking about your practice is a slippery slope off center.

Shiva Sutra 3.26: “Due to the impressions the yogi has of what others think of them or expect from them and of their wanting to help others, to satisfy them with boons, the yogi may lose their temper and become careless and uneven-minded, blocking their flow of God consciousness.”

And what’s more, the lasting path inside can only be walked by the individual, and can’t ultimately be revealed by another.

“Actually, this state of the Śaivaite yogī is the real state of Śiva. This state is not revealed to others; it is revealed only to the revealers. (Netra Tantra 8.41–45)”

So what is the yogic approach to giving? We’ve got to look the other direction to find the answer. Giving is an internal act, an internal experience. We first have to feel inside ourselves, and then we can be effective in our service to others. Seva, for example, isn’t about how fast you are at weeding, but how well you use the weeding to calm your mind and open your heart. Of course, if you are doing this well, you will weed at a natural pace that will be extremely helpful, but the pace isn’t the focus, the inner experience is. For example, a very small but enjoyable part of my Seva is writing these presentations. When writing this presentation I could feel myself getting off center, and had to stop and re-center. I try to feel my heart as I type, my breath. I know that this is the essential first step, and perhaps only step, in the process of giving a presentation that would be helpful to my sangha.

As the Sutra tells us, the word dana, to give, isn’t so much about what one gives, but how one gives. Giving is primarily about using an action to surrender inside, open and grow. The Sutra gives us a few ways to understand this yogic approach to giving:

“Whatever this yogī, who has become one with God consciousness, experiences, which means whatever he sees in his own self, that is dāna for him…The word dāna can also mean that which gives the yogi fullness of consciousness… that which destroys the differentiated perception of the universe…that which remains when illusion ends”

So when you take the time inside to get present, and ‘gain fullness of consciousness’, you are making a charitable donation to the world around you. When you use your practice to surrender the feeling of ‘difference’ you might feel with someone who isn’t wearing their mask correctly, you are making a donation to world’s heart opening organization. When you are shopping on amazon and stop to take a moment to feel gratitude for all you already have, ‘dissolving the illusion’ of external happiness, you have made yet another charitable donation.

This isn’t to say that we shouldn’t continue to lend a physical helping hand, or donate actual dollars, it is simply showing us how to make those donations even more valuable. It also allows us to make donations everyday, in countless ways, as our actual state of being becomes our currency of charity.

And Eventually, yes, the realized yogi can actually give someone an experience of their true nature, as the Sutra tells us. But of course, as Babaji and our lineage remind us, this requires that the student is also doing their own inner work, and the work to maintain that awakening.

“Those yogic heroes who are established in the Kula system reveal the reality of God consciousness to others by merely looking (darśana) or touching. By this revelation, all of their disciples cross over to the other side of the bondage (saṁsāra) of repeated births and deaths and are liberated.”

What is your favorite way to give as a yogi? When does giving open your heart and calm your mind?

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When, through conscious preparation you are able to enter the arena of a conversation with a little more awareness than usual, you begin to see the energetic play that occurs during it. You can feel how the duration of a conversation, or perhaps the intensity of it, requires skillful inner work to navigate— and you can sense when you need to take a break— Stop talking and start breathing— in order to stay centered energetically. And this occurs many times during a conversation as you ride the wave of talking and listening. As Swami Muktananda always described it, it is a Play of Consciousness, a dance, and keeping your balance is all based on your own inner awareness of your inner state of being.

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How do you turn a log into light? With Practice.

The Shiva Sutras describe our daily practice as a sacred fire— the logs are the tasks of our daily life and the fire is the extra inner awareness we bring to those tasks. Using the task to stay present creates a fire that transmutes the log into light, merging you with Shiva, the sky above. All while performing an otherwise ordinary task.

The Secret teaching of this practice is that you don’t need a secret teaching— you just need to practice. In fact, it is often our need for “special circumstances” that keeps us from ever realizing our innate inner potential. As the Sutras teach: “What is virtuous behavior? For ordinary beings, virtuous behavior may involve special ways of acting and being… like fasting and performing special ceremonies during the eclipse of the moon.… But for such a yogī, behaving virtuously is just to remain in their body as it is… intent only on performing the supreme worship of Lord Śiva in each and every action of their life—while eating, while drinking, while talking, while taking tea, while eating lunch, and so forth. Although everyone around them experiences that they are acting just like an ordinary human being, they are not, they are somewhere else.”

So on the one hand the yogi appears to be cleaning their room, which they are, but they are not only with the log, they are also above the log— using that task to keep themselves present, repeating mantra and feeling their body as they spiral down to pick up a pair of socks. Sounds so simple, but if you try it you’ll see how much your mind wants to wander, to day dream, and how much inner awareness it takes to keep pulling your awareness back again and again to the present. And each time you do, you create a spark, a bit of friction, that turns that log into light.

So how do you turn a log into light? You pick a daily task today and apply yourself to the practice of staying present while doing it. You imagine every small part of the task as a little bit of kindling, and you allow this inner heat to naturally accumulate until it illuminates your life itself.

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Shoshoni has an incredible Torii outside of its main temple, a huge threshold you walk through marking a transition from the mundane to the celestial. We walk through many thresholds in our daily life, and even though they might not have a temple on the other side, we can still use these transition points to make the room we enter more sacred within ourselves.

When we walk through a doorway, we are usually caught up in the anticipation of the joy we expect to find on the other side of it, finding little bits of fleeting satisfaction in the many rooms of our life, but rarely enough to fulfill us. Meditation is the practice of opening the door to our heart without losing ourself in any particular object. This practice allows us to expand our heart’s threshold in a very natural yet profound way, until the joy that we’re used to chasing after seems to comes to us.

This is because the greatest joy in life is that of an open heart. As Sri Shambhavananda teaches, “Happiness is something that shouldn’t be dependent on external things. It should be an experience of your true nature…Having that realization you become free. Free to enjoy the world fully, free to be a part of many things, but never to lose yourself in any of them.” It is the search for inner joy that frees us from our outer suffering, which is why Shiva Sutra 3.25 also teaches that “Karma can only be overcome if it is enjoyed, it cannot be cast aside or abandoned,” meaning the real work of overcoming our karma isn’t in accepting or rejecting the objects of our life, but in keeping our hearts open as we encounter those objects.

So the next time you are passing through a threshold towards your object of joy, be it a refrigerator door or an office door— try slowing down your gait, exhale to surrender the object your approaching and inhale to drink a little bit of the present you are walking within. Because this door of the present, which opens in your heart, is the only threshold we must pass through to find our joy. And if you’re lucky enough, you might look back and see someone you can hold that door of the present open for, allowing them the opportunity to open their heart as well.

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To live you gotta eat, and to eat you gotta dirty a dish— so it’s only logical that living requires that we do some dishes. Dish Karma, as with all karma, is unavoidable. The very fact that you’re eating means there are dishes to do, just like the very fact that you are living means there is karma to clean up. This goes for all yogis, from the newcomer to the enlightened practitioner, as the Shiva Sutras teach: “For an embodied being, prārabdha karma is unavoidable. The yogi may be just like Śiva or they may be an ordinary person; prarabdha karma … cannot be cast aside or abandoned.”

Sitting to meditate can sometimes feel daunting, like staring at a sink full of dishes. When faced with this reality we tend to just ‘look the other way’, and dirty another dish with some kind of distraction. But as we just saw in the Sutras, our karma, our ‘dishes’, cannot be cast aside or abandoned. As Sri Shambhavananda also teaches: “If you find yourself in a particular arena of life, in this or that situation, that is where your karma has taken you, and you have to work it out. If you just run away from it all the time and don’t deal with it, then you have to come back again. So you might as well confront your issues now. Then you can avoid wasting about twenty years to get focused enough to begin to meditate again.”

That’s why the ashram is here— to not only provide you with the soap, the sponge, and the running water to help you do your dishes, but also the support and guidance to make the entire process ENJOYABLE! Yes, you read that right, MEDITATION and DISHES CAN BE ENJOYABLE! In fact, they must be enjoyed in order to be done at all, according to the remaining part of the earlier Shiva Sutra: “Prārabdha karma cannot be overcome unless it is enjoyed. For an embodied being, prārabdha karma is unavoidable. The Yogi may be just like Śiva or they may be an ordinary person; prarabdha karma must be overcome by being enjoyed. It cannot be cast aside or abandoned.”

Two Minute Meditation: Sitting in your chair, keep your body still in a relaxed way— just like holding a dish still to clean it. Visualize your breath as the gentle running water of the faucet, let it run over you for a moment. As you feel the breath pouring over you, begin to scrub your dish clean with the sponge of mantra. The lineage mantra of Shambhavananda Yoga is “Om Namah Shivaya”, I bow with respect to the Inner Self. And when all of those elements are in play— we add the magic ingredient, JOY! Yes, joy. (Which literally happens to be a real type of dish soap, lol!) Now try to work for two minutes in this way and watch as your load starts to lighten, one breath, one mantra, one joyful moment at a time.

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An open heart is not only a more enjoyable way to live, it’s the only way to burn your karma, to become free. Shiva Sutra 3.25 teaches that “karma cannot be overcome unless it is enjoyed”— but does that mean if you’re not having fun you’re not burning karma? Yes and no. In the beginning, learning to enjoy our karma is a practice of simply staying present, not rejecting or attaching to the situation in front of you. And this kind of work is actually what eventually burns your karma, and when that loads starts to lighten, you actually begin to find more joy in the everyday tasks of your daily life. As Sri Shambhavananda teaches, “you know you are progressing in your practice when you are getting happier for no [external] reason.” We can open the door to this kind of joy with a slight smile, but the real opening we are seeking is inside our heart. This is a unique work that only you can do— all the Sutras and lineage teachers can merely point the way, but actually walking your awareness inside, actually breathing into your heart in a natural and sustainable way, is the journey. And it begins with this simple teaching— “karma cannot be overcome unless it is enjoyed”. The rest is up to us.

Start now— what does it feel like to enjoy the moment you are in? Repeat the Om sound internally, like a humming, and hold onto the vibration of the present. Keep internally repeating your om sound as you begin to move into your next activity, and see if that slight shift doesn’t bring a little more joy to whatever you do next.

“Through the intensity of meditating on turya…The Yogi becomes like Lord Śiva. Why is it said that the yogi becomes like Lord Śiva? Why not say that he becomes one with Śiva? It cannot be said they become one with Śiva because they have a body, a physical frame. As long as the physical frame is existing, the yogi is just like Śiva, they are not one with Śiva. Their having a physical frame will divert them toward inferior states…When he casts off this physical frame composed of the five elements, then he becomes one with Śiva.”

This physical frame is more than just our body, it is the circumstances of our entire life— the arena, or physical frame, of our life. This arena or frame of our life is no coincidence, it is our karma. Specifically our Prarabdha Karma. Praradbhda Karma is like an arrow shot up in to the sky, it has to land somewhere sometime, but where and when it lands us unknown to us.

As Babaji teaches, “If you find yourself in a particular arena of life, in this or that situation, that is where your karma has taken you, and you have to work it out. If you just run away from it all the time and don’t deal with it, then you have to come back again. So you might as well confront your issues now. Then you can avoid wasting about twenty years to get focused enough to begin to meditate again.) 42, SP.

Our work in yoga is the practice of burning up our Karma. This can be done directly, by applying our practice while we encounter our karma, or indirectly, through a steady daily meditation practice on our cushion, and mantra practice in our daily life.

In this Sutra, and in our lineage, we are given a very specific pathway through our karma— “Prārabdha karma cannot be overcome unless it is enjoyed. For an embodied being, prārabdha karma is unavoidable. He may be just like Śiva or he may be an ordinary person; prarabdha karma must be overcome by being enjoyed. It cannot be cast aside or abandoned.”

What does ‘enjoyed’ mean? This is a powerful question— don’t answer it from your head, answer from your practice. How can you enjoy this moment of your karma? And how does that help you overcome or dissolve the karma of this moment. The simplicity of this approach is profound, and offers you the opportunity to actually feel our work in a real way right now, and whenever you are open to applying your practice.

Paul Reps once taught, “Until it fun better left undone”— is this a real approach to our lives and our karma? The Sutra continues to unpack this ‘enjoyment of our karma’ in the following way: “So, for the remainder of their life, the yogi must continue to exist with this physical frame. They must welcome whatever comes to them, whether it be good or bad. Whatever they get to eat, they must eat. It is not worthwhile to cast their body aside. For such a yogī, this body is to be maintained until the time of death.”

I would like to take a moment to reflect on the significance of leaving our body in this Sutra, as I recently had an opportunity to support yogi in their transition.

In the beginning of the Sutra we are taught that the arena’s or ‘body’ of our life provides endless distractions which divert our awareness to inferior states. We work at dissolving these distractions through our spiritual practice, but it is mentioned at multiple times in this Sutra that only when we leave our body can we truly be free. In the weeks leading up to our sangha member RK’s passing, I felt this to be true. It is similar to the way one feels when they are really sick— you are so supremely present just staying above your sickness, you don’t care if the phone rings, or if you’re late on an email, those things just don’t matter, they don’t have a hook in you. This is what it felt like to be in the room with RK— there were very few hooks, very few of anything in that space except a bed, a blanket, and practice.

As I sat in that room a little each day, I got a new understanding of the images we see of Nityananda in his ashram. Nityananda was as detached to life as we are when approaching death. Almost every picture of him is sparse and simple— His only possession was a blanket, and there he sits or lays in a pretty empty room.

But the emptiness of that room represented the fullness of his being. Just like with RK, the emptiness of the room represented the dissolving of his karma. As this Sutra teaches, for most of us this room can only be emptied by leaving our body— but we can work to empty this room, this body, this arena of our life a little each day. This doesn’t mean throwing everything away in the literal room you are in, it means surrendering, one by one, the thoughts that arise when we meditate, as those are the items that truly fill the space of our being, preventing us from experiencing our true nature. Remember, it is said that we must ‘enjoy’ our karma in order to overcome it, this is the real work of our practice. You have to find your joy inside, and hold that joy, as the tests arise outside of you. By holding your inner joy, you allow the outer distractions to dissolve.

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Shakespeare said the world is a stage, and the yogic tradition might add that it’s also a masquerade. Everything you see, feel, or even think about, is considered the mask of Shiva, called “Maya” or Illusion, a veil that conceals our True Nature. This mask is ornate, intricate, and perfect in every way, meaning we are perfectly fooled by it. Not only that, it has a power, a gravity, that pulls our energy out into it. The only way to get above it is to dissolve it, or as the yogic tradition teaches, to ‘burn it up’. To surrender our attachment to the outer mask of our reality, and allow the flame of consciousness in our heart to dissolve all illusion.

And this mask of illusion is strong— as the Svacchanda Tantra writes, “Due to God’s energy of māyā, the minds of yogīs are diverted by force towards worldly pleasures and away from God consciousness.”(4.311–12). The distractions of our life are powerful, and have a real magnetism. They pull us away from center actively, so we have to pull ourselves back to center in order to regain it. Otherwise we are played by the drama of our life, as the Minivijaya Tantra teaches, “The Yogi played by this universe, played by hunger, played by thirst, played by every aspect of daily life. Therefore, the one who desires to achieve the highest being should not be attached to these outer impressions.”

And no matter how strong the drama, we can lift ourselves out of this illusion with a simple redirection of awareness. We practice directing our awareness to the wearer of the mask, instead of the mask itself. This is a natural process, but takes incredible effort. You’re tired, I know. Its easier just to go to bed with your mask on so to speak— but take a moment to redirect your awareness and feel your true self behind the mask. Holding your focus there starts a fire in your heart that does the rest of the work for you.

For guidance on this process, check out our recent “RESET” Class titled “Unmasking the Masquerade”, and learn how to use stillness, your breath, and mantra to reveal the Real You.

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Shiva’s Masquerade

3.24. mātrāsvapratyayasaṁdhāne naṣṭasya punarūtthānam // When a yogī, in coming out from samādhi, also attempts to maintain awareness of God consciousness in the objective world, then, even though his real nature of self is destroyed by the inferior generation of self-consciousness, he again rises in that supreme nature of the self.”

Maya is the mask of shiva, and is literally everywhere you look, or even think. This cloak is so thorough that we will never discover Shiva through it, no matter how hard we try. The only way to unmask Shiva is through our practice. What we find is that it’s our own attachments that keep Shiva veiled, and that these attachments are always within our power to dissolve. In this way, though everything appears to cloak Shiva from us, nothing can truly mask our true nature.

“Due to the impressions he has of what others think of him or expect from him and of his wanting to help others, to satisfy them with boons, he may lose his temper and become careless and uneven-minded, blocking his flow of God consciousness from the center of the three states of waking, dreaming and deep sleep. So, although he is aware of God consciousness in the beginning and in the end, he is played by this universe in the center, played by hunger, played by thirst, played by every aspect of daily life. Therefore, the one who desires to achieve the highest being should not be attached to these outer impressions. (Mālinīvijaya Tantra)”

Commentary: We get pulled into Maya’s masquerade in a variety of ways— by what others think of us, what we think of ourselves, or simply the demands of thirst or hunger. When we get pulled into the masquerade, we get lost in the drama and lose our center. It might seem fun at first, but eventually its draining.

“Supreme God consciousness should be sought with great effort in whatever is seen by the eyes, whatever is felt by speech, whatever is thought by the mind, whatever is perceived by the intellect, whatever is owned by limited ego, whatever is existing in the objective world, and whatever is not existing in the objective world. (Svacchanda Tantra 12.163–64)”

Commentary>> Finding your center is how you find Shiva under the mask. You can do it right now with a breath, as you find the present. Holding the present, as we know is another story. Nonetheless, we are taught to seek this experience of the present with great effort whenever we are encountering the mind, senses and external world.

“Whenever the mind flows out, he centers his consciousness on that one God consciousness. Because he feels the oneness of Śiva existing everywhere, if his mind moves here and there, even then it does not move at all because it moves in his own nature. Wherever he feels and experiences the existence of the objective world, he feels and experiences that the objective world is actually nothing but Śiva. (Svacchanda Tantra 4.313–14)”

Commentary: How do you get back to center? How do you find Shiva again? The Sutras say that we should practice thinking “This whole universe is one with myself,” in order to regain our center— but of course, such a valuable asset is not gained from external commands, but only through internal work over time.

This is perhaps the most liberating moment of the Sutras, as it shows us that nothing can really keep us from our realization. And what’s more, it teaches that it is our own attachments that are the mask— not Shiva. Our true nature is Being, Consciousness and Bliss— not the drama of our mundane life. It is we who holds up the mask, and when we learn to let it go, we realize what lies beneath it. Of course, this takes practice, and its not easy— but it is possible. This is the Shambhava uppaya, to live in the world while still being immersed in your heart, that is our practice, our tradition.

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Every activity of our day undergoes three stages— it begins, or is created, it sustains or maintains for a while, and then it ends, or dissolves. These are known as the Acts of Shiva in the Yogic Tradition. According to the Sutras, its easy to have focus at the beginning and end of a task, but its hard to maintain that focus during the middle of a task.

You are usually present for the first minute of a meditation practice, and when the teacher says, ‘for these last few minutes’ you perk back up, but its those long pauses between cues, the middle of our practice, where our attention drifts the most. You’re not alone— this is the work at the heart of our practice, as Swami Lakshmanjoo teaches, “Losing awareness happens to all yogīs, it is the great crisis in the yogīc world. All yogīs generally experience this state of losing awareness.”

But this maintenance phases is the longest of the three phases— a sunrise and sunset might only last an hour, but the day and night between them is much longer. You built a house in a year, can tear it down in a month, but maintain it for decades.

Which is why the Sutras tell us to “Hold” that awareness— hold it at the beginning and end, when your attention is rich and full. Don’t take those spaces for granted, feel the energy that is available to you in those moments and invest it inside. Anticipate this middle space, see it coming, don’t be wary of it— work with it, work with it.

To work with this middle space you have to surrender the need to make your meditation happen. You’ve got to relax while maintaining awareness, to ‘persevere without tension’ as Patanajli puts it in the Yoga Sutras.

And this maintenance work pays off.

The Yogi who is capable of maintaining their awareness through the center of their practice and life becomes filled with the nectar of awareness. This experience is called Sphurana, “the fragrance of the supreme glittering of God consciousness,” that’s what is directly deposited to your energetic bank account.

Quote for Free Write: “Filled with the fragrance of the supreme glittering (sphuraṇa) of God consciousness, that yogī, slowly coming out from samādhi, feels their breath is filled with a supreme fragrance. And although their breath is moving out, they feel their breath is not moving out. They feel their breath is established in their Supreme Being. Then after exhaling very slowly, they experience that the three states of waking, dreaming and deep sleep are filled with the dense nectar of God consciousness and they come out in the waking state with this fragrance.”

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3.22. prāṇasamācāre samadarśanam //

“When his breath begins to slowly move out toward the external state, then he also experiences the pervasion of God consciousness there.”

3.23. madhye ‘varaprasavaḥ //

“He does not experience the state of God consciousness in the center of these three states.”

All of manifestation undergoes a three stage process. Creation, maintenance, and disillusion, known as the Acts of Shiva. This process is at work in the biggest cycles of reality, like our expanding universe, as well as smaller cycles, like the cycle of a day, or even smaller like the cycles of our cells. And in terms of time, most of our life is spent in the maintenance phase. Think about it, a sunrise and sunset are relatively short compared to the overall length of a day. The time it takes to build a house, or the time it takes to tear down a house, pale in comparison to the amount of time you spend living in, and maintaining, the house. And likewise during the activities of our day, we’re excited to start a project, received to end it, how do we feel in the middle of it? This middle space is where a majority of our lives and practice take place, and according to the Sutras, is also where we tend to lose our focus the most. As Lakshmanjoo teaches in Sutra 2.10, “Losing awareness happens to all yogīs, it is the great crisis in the yogīc world. All yogīs generally experience this state of losing awareness.” That’s why in this set of Sutras we are focusing on unlocking the energy in this maintenance phase of our practice.

What pulls us away from center during the midst of our lives and practice? Everything! For thousands of years, yogis have been pulled away from center by absolutely everything that surrounds them— “About this, the Mālinīvijaya Tantra says:‘Due to the impressions he has of what others think of him or expect from him and of his wanting to help others, to satisfy them with boons, he may lose his temper and become careless and uneven-minded, blocking his flow of God consciousness from the center of the three states of waking, dreaming and deep sleep. So, although he is aware of God consciousness in the beginning and in the end, he is played by this universe in the center, played by this universe in the center, played by hunger, played by thirst, played by every aspect of daily life. Therefore, the one who desires to achieve the highest being should not be attached to these outer impressions. (Mālinīvijaya Tantra)”

To rise to this challenge of the maintaining our awareness we need to pick up the mop bucket and start paying attention to the maintenance phase of our lives and practice. Imagine your on your own special episode of undercover boss, and your going to take a break from being the CEO of your life, and put on the Maintenance person’s uniform. We can begin to shift our energy from being the Director to being the maintainer. And what we find, according to our teachers and the Sutras, is that our lives get better when we take on this new job as maintenance yogis— As Babaji teaches, “The most surprising thing for me over the years was realizing that what I was clinging to and how I thought something should be were the biggest obstacles to having something better come along. We cling so desperately to our tensions. It is as if we have a strangle hold on an anchor, and we are sinking to the bottom of the ocean, and we won’t let go. It is not a fun way to be. But, if for a moment or two, you can reach that state where you are totally present, you are not in the past, you are not in the future, your heart is open, and you have a deep sense of gratitude, then everything releases. All you have to do is not grab it again. Grabbing it again is often our biggest problem.” (SP, 102)

Our status as CEOs is our biggest limitation. Put down the business card, and pick up the screwdriver, because creating our reality usually just re-creates our patterns. Being a maintainer of reality may not appear to be changing anything on the surface, but under the surface it’s changing everything. Be aware, though, that being the maintenance person is not initially as glamorous or exciting as being the CEO. The Maintenance person looks around the environment they are in instead of looking at their phone. The maintanence person can take a breath into their heart and practice Santosha, contentment, when 'nothing is going wrong’, where others might look for something to go wrong. The maintenance person might move slower, speak slower, breathe slower, react slower— because they are in it for the long run. To maintain our awareness across this huge swath of our lives and practice requires a big shift in our daily approach to tasks. It’s like Babaji is always teaching us, “see what’s possible,” instead of always trying to make things the way you want them. Support your environment, work within it, not against it. In this way we begin to work with our distractions instead of being flattened by them. A maintenance person is always ready to grease a squeaky wheel, to help prop up a wobbly table— they are ready to work, and they are working with what is present. Because the distractions of our day are very real, and they’ll always be there. So instead of trying to accept or reject them, start to work through them as they arise.

And what does a job like this pay? Maintenance yogis are not paid in dollars and distractions, they are paid in Spuranas. What’s a Spurana?… That’s the most exciting part of the job. A Sphurana is described as “The fragrance of the supreme glittering of God consciousness,” that’s what is directly deposited to your energetic bank account. For this Yogi, “the three states of waking, dreaming and deep sleep are filled with the dense nectar of God consciousness…They never loses the fragrance of God consciousness. This means that his God consciousness endures in each and every state of their life, whether it be waking, dreaming, or deep sleep.”

As a CEO you might get a lot of horizontal rewards, but as the Maintenance person you are paid in the Fragrance of Glittering God Consciousness. It should be noted that Babaji and Faith always say that Rudi smelled amazing. Faith talks about it in her book numerous times, “He hugged often and he smelled great – like the incense he burned in his Oriental antique shop.” Or later, "My primary feeling of the city was Rudi, and Rudi always felt and smelled fresh as a baby.” So whether this smell is literal, or energetic, the important thing to remember is that it is only paid to the maintenance yogis, those who are doing the work, slow and steady. As Faith also wrote in her book, "Rudi once said that he felt like a water buffalo hitched to a water wheel. Instead of grinding wheat into flour, he was being used to grind up the tensions of his students.” It is the slow and steady work that defines our practice. Our work is not complicated, its our lives that are complicated. Our work is as simple as an ox guiding grain, but we try to make it more complicated to match our lives. Let’s let both of them be a lot simpler this week. This kind of work is so valuable that Rudi used to say that he would trade 10 lawyers for 1 plumber, meaning that the value of a maintenance yogi is truly priceless. You know who were also maintenance yogis historically, Ram and Krishna— forms of Vishnu, the maintainer. They came to help clean things up here on earth, we should be so lucky as to follow in their footsteps. That’s the thing about being a maintenance yogi, you stop seeing life in terms of rank and hierarchy— you see life in terms of Consciousness. As the Sutras tell us, and as Rudi has taught about our practice in general, this kind of work dissolves all difference, and frees us from the bondage that difference entangles us within:

“When he has brought the daily active routine of his life to an end and holds the monistic state which bestows final liberation, then he is one with each and every deity. All castes (varṇa) and positions in life (āśrama), whether it be brāhmaṇa, kṣatriya, vaiśya or śūdra, are equal to him. He does not discern any difference between what is to be eaten and what is not to be eaten, or what is forbidden and what is accepted. He is liberated (muktaḥ), totally freed from all the various kinds of bondage of daily life.”

So this week, take a step into the background of your life. Observe the space you’re in, listen to it. Is it running smoothly? If so, take a breath into that space of contentment. Is it squeaking? Are you squeaking? Then let your awareness sink inwards and oil your heart with the Nectar of the pure consciousness, Turyarasa. Let’s all try to walk and talk a little slower than usual, in the hopes of occupying this middle space of our lives and practice with more presence and awareness. And be on the lookout for a direct deposit into your energetic savings account in the form of Spuranas— the Glittering fragrance of God Consciousness.

Mantranōm

To help with this in my practice I’ve created a little tool called the Mantranōm. It is a way of keeping my mantra going during the middle of my tasks. It is not going to somehow do the work for you, but it can give you a way to do the work yourself. Its basically a metronome, strategically set up for a certain mantra, while also allowing an optimal amount of time to breathe between mantras. This breath aspect is perhaps the most important. I have found it is precisely the lack of room for breathing in my mantra practice that keeps me from doing more mantras. We overload ourselves and have no way of sustaining. So this breath after each mantra keeps you nourished, and allows for the space of dissolution to take place naturally, so that each mantra can be born, live, and fade away.

Also, the subtlety of the mantranōm is what allows it to exist in the background of your life. It is the supreme maintenance person, quietly chipping away at their task while office life goes on as usual. It s quiet little tapping, like the ticking of a grandfather clock perhaps, that can simultaneously rest in the background of your awarensss while also being a part of its foreground. THe link between it being a background or foreground is you— its there when you need it, and by simply chanting along with it you bring it in to the foreground. When you need to answer a call, or talk to someone, its fades back easily, but stays there quietly till you can pick it up again.

I have found that the middle of my tasks have begun to be infused with mantra at th level I always wish they could be. For years I have tried, but that middle phase of awareness just slips away, but with this little tapping of the mantranōm it has a life of its own. This is not a new concept, I first heard a type of mantranom during the 21 Taras practice we do with Faith, you can hear it quietly in the background when people take breaths. For them the mantranom is a person with a small hand drum, helping keep everyone on track and chanting togehter— with modern technology, though, we can carry that little hand drum with us everywhere we go. We can literally put it in our pocket, which is what I do, and let that drum tap away, supporting us in our growth.

What’s fun about the mantranom too is that it can run in the background of apps, and even when your phone screen is off— this means that it can run while you are scrolling instagram, or while you are reading a text message, and while your phone is literally in your purse or pocket. It also works great in group settings, like the dish room here at Konalani. There will be 3 of us in the room toegehre, and we can easily do mantra and breathe while doing our taks, and when someone needs to say something its easy to just respond, chat for second, and then resume— instead of missing a verse in a song, for example, or even having to have a mantra or kirtan leader in those settings.

And finally, as an auditory learner, the mantronom helps me focus without over stimulating my auditory senses. I get saturated with music very quickly. AFter 10 minutes or so I physically need quiet— with the mantranom I haven’t felt that way, its just a comforting little tap. And after each male, there is room for silence, to help you feel that space again.

So this week perhaps the mantranom will help support you in bringing the practice into th emidst of your life. There is not trick for growth of course, but a good tool in the hands of a skilled practitioner can be a tremendous resource. A good tool in the hands of someone who doesn’t want to the do the work, of course, means nothing. But we are practitioner, its the most wonderful part of what we are, we practice, we want to grow. Some days more than others, but we are a hungry sangha. I hope this is like your best cooking tool, or favorite wrench, or most helpful app— I hope it helps you do the work of growing.

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Shiva Sutra 3.21: magnaḥ svacittena praviśet // “The yogī who is merged in his self must enter completely with his mind filled with great awareness.”

Quick Review We learned from the last sutra that the three states of waking, dreaming and deep sleep are like a sword that we use to cut through and carve out our reality. In between our swash buckling, we place the sword in its sheath, and have the opportunity to experience a different state of being, described as the Turya State. This state, where the sword of the mind rests in the sheath of the heart, is like an oil made of nectar, that not only nourishes the sword within it, but our whole state of being. Close your eyes and allow the awareness you normally keep in your head to sink down into this ocean of nectar in the heart. Feel yourself being deeply nourished, every nook and cranny of your awareness is lubricated and refreshed in sheath of this experience. We were instructed in Sutra 3.20 to expand this nectar into the 3 states. Though this sheath naturally oil our awareness at the entries and exits of our reality— for example, your morning and evening sit nourish you, but is that nectar present in the middle of your day. Or, you might be excited to start or finish a project, but where is that excitement during the project? Our work as yogis is to find a way to hold and spread this nectar into the other three states: “The fourth state (turya), which is filled with pure knowledge, pure light and the ecstasy and joy of turya, must be sprinkled and expanded just as oil expands when it is poured on a smooth surface like a piece of cloth. For just as oil spreads on this surface, adhering to it, so in this way a yogī must expand the state of turya into the other three states.” As was said before, to spread this nectar we must “hold” the Turya state as we enter and exit the many sheathing and unsheathing moments of our day. To pull your focus inside as you are about to engage externally, and to follow your focus inside, and keep it there, when that event comes to an end. “The yogī must prolong turya in such a way that its nectar becomes established and pervades not only in the beginning and the end but also in the middle of these three states. And the means to accomplishing this in all three states is to “hold it.” Hold it at the time of entry and hold it at the time of exit. This nectar of turya (turyarasa) must be properly held with full awareness so that it is expanded in the center of these three states. ” Simply taking one conscious breath before talking can help you draw that nectar of the heart up, and then taking time to breathe while you talk can help you stay connected inside. When you’re finished talking, let your awareness actually turn within, and pay attention to what the next person is saying, or to a slight pause that naturally occurs. You can also try to pay attention to the spaces between events, such as when walking from one room to another, or driving from point A to Point B— let your awareness remain sheathed in these in between moments so that when you arrive it will draw that nectar into your reality. And finally, trying to bring more awareness to the space between the waking and dreaming state itself, both by doing practice as you fall asleep, and doing a little practice before you leave bed in the morning. Just tapping into that nectar, until it starts to permeate. Sutra 3.20 sets the stage for the work, and gives us practical approaches to expand the space of Turya in our lives, but Sutra 3.21 tells us more about ‘how’ we hold that nectar. “The yogī who is merged in his self must enter completely with his mind filled with great awareness.” Ie. We must ‘merge completely’ in order to allow this nectar to permeate our reality. On the Hero’s journey of enlightenment, we are ascending a mountain of Karma to ultimately gain the perspective of enlightenment. We use physical tools to navigate the initial aspects of the journey— like healthy living, asana practice, and seva. Those become a foundation in our practice, and guide us towards a higher elevation, where we learn to use subtler tools of awareness like pranayama, mantra and silent meditation. These tools are like a GPS system, keeping us climbing towards our enlightenment. And Just like following a real GPS system, you walk or drive through your life, then we check in with our GPS to make sure we are on track. We sit in the morning, then we live our waking state, and then sit in the evening, and live our dreaming state. We might get off track, but our GPS guides us back on the path. In a way, this also mirrors the transition that is occurring in our tradition right now. We all have the luxury of a having a living breathing GPS called Babaji. You could say, in fact, that GPS stands for Guru Positioning System, in that your Guru keeps you on track when you start to stray. We can check in with our Guru during practice sessions and energetically be lifted and placed back on the path. This also goes for times in all of our sangha programs, as they are an extension of the Guru’s Shakti. You can log in, and with minimal effort be air lifted back onto the path— even if you are resistant! This is the nature of the three jewels— Teacher, Teaching and Sangha. They are jewels precisely because of the power they have to keep us on track towards our inner realization. This Sutra affirms this path from physical to subtle, but then extends our journey into the Supreme: “When he establishes and resides in the awareness of his God consciousness in the waking state (jāgrat), the dreaming state (svapna), and in the state of deep sleep (suṣupti), then the gross movement of his breath enters into the subtle movement of breath and the subtle movement of breath enters into that which is supreme, where he experiences the supreme motion (spanda) in his own nature. (Netra Tantra 8.12)” This “Supreme Experience” lies beyond the physical and subtle— and requires a unique kind of work and tool. Basically, the summit we are ascending goes beyond the reach of our GPS, and to go any further will require a level of surrender that hasn’t been asked of us yet. There is a scene in every great adventure movie, where the character has to let go of the tools or map that got them there, and find the resolve within themselves to complete the journey— this is that moment for us as a sangha, and for all yogis according to the Sutras. Imagine tossing your phone on the ground because it won’t help you anymore. Dropping your backpack of tools because youre beyond their elevation. You stop waiting for a chopper to fly in and save the day and you start walking up, not down, the mountain. As you can imagine, in this moment, you begin to merge with your destination— or it might be more fitting to say, your destiny. You finally begin to use your own being, your own awarenesss, as the tool to guide you. And according to the Sutra that precisely when it appears— an internal guidance system. No screens, no batteries, no softwares updates— its Shiva’s GPS, and it literally exists within you, as your very being. As Babaji says, you step off the cliff and go up. “When mind (mānasaṁ), individual consciousness (cetanā), the energy of breathing (śaktiḥ), and ego (ātmā), disappear, then that formation of Bhairava is found existing there.”- (Vijñānabhairava 138)” This is to say that literally when these outer distractions disappear, the inner one illuminate. That’s the tool and experience this Sutra is here to give us— one gained only by merging. There’s no button for this device, though, to access it, we are taught, you have to let go of external attachments— then it appears. Or here in the Jnanagarbha Stotra: “O Mother, “when, in ordinary daily life one repels the actions of the mind and shatters dependence on the senses, by which one is enslaved, causing one to follow them according to their every wish, and instead diverts their senses towards God consciousness, then by your grace they instantly achieve that supreme state of God consciousness, which floods them with the unparalleled nectar of bliss (ānanda).” “Set aside the gross means such as the holding of breath, concentration and contemplation, and by means of the thoughtless process, maintain one-pointed thought merged in the self (svacitta). ” - Netra Tantra The timing of this Sutra could not be more fitting for our current journey as a Sangha. Babaji is still with us, but simultaneously, is encouraging us to ascend higher in our practice, to begin exploring the space beyond the reach of our minds and devices. If we get off track, we can walk back down and reconnect through our traditional means— but this is the time to apply yourself to new heights— to go after the summit you have been envisioning for your entire life. To merge with your practice in a way that scares you, to go after the it with full resolve. The energy is there to support you, both in your ability to attempt it, but also in your ability to achieve it. What does this look like for you in your life? The Sutra tells us, that’s the place to start. “Keeping the activity of the mind apart, one must unite that activity in God consciousness. Then this bound limited being (paśu) will realize the state of Śiva and be liberated (muktaḥ). Thereupon, he is beyond the ocean of repeated births and deaths. (Svacchanda Tantra 4.437)” You don’t have to try to ascend this mountain all at once— you just unite this resolve within the activities of your life. Merge with your mission a little throughout the day, and watch as you begin to climb past your perceived limitations, towards a summit of Samadhi.

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Triṣu Caturthaṁ Tailavadāsecyam // The fourth state (turya) must be expanded like oil so that it pervades the other three: waking, dreaming, and deep sleep.”

“What are the three states? The three states are the waking state (jāgrat), the dreaming state (svapna), and the state of deep sleep (suṣupti). The fourth state (turya), which is filled with pure knowledge, pure light and the ecstasy and joy of turya, must be sprinkled and expanded just as oil expands when it is poured on a smooth surface like a piece of cloth. For just as oil spreads on this surface, adhering to it, so in this way a yogī must expand the state of turya into the other three states.” Jagrat- Waking state, awareness and navigation of your daily life and external world. Later referred to as the “Gross Body”, meaning the elements and senses. Patanjali called “Correct/Incorrect understanding” Tattvas 27-36, Elements Svapna- Dreaming state or thought state. The is is awareness of an unseen world, the world of the mind. Later referred to as “Prana”, which implies the organs of action and knowledge, your ability to work with the elements around you. Patanjali called “imagination and memory” Tattvas 16-26, powers of knowing and acting Susupti- Dreamless sleep state. Later referred to as Purastaka, which implies a subtler aspect of our mind, perhaps we underestimate what is meant by the mind if it is grouped with this state. Tattvas 13-15, the mind

The sword and the sheath “The three states—jagrat, svapna, and suṣupti, along with turya—are like a sword and its sheath. Here, the three states are said to be found in the sheath of turya. And although the three states are separated from turya, as a sword is separated from its sheath, they are united with each other. In the same manner, the yogī must be aware that jagrat, svapna and suṣupti are found as one with turya.” The text gives us a specific analogy to hep relate the 3 states to the turya state: “the three states—jagrat, svapna, and suṣupti, along with turya—are like a sword and its sheath. Here, the three states are said to be found in the sheath of turya. And although the three states are separated from turya, as a sword is separated from its sheath, they are united with each other. In the same manner, the yogī must be aware that jagrat, svapna and suṣupti are found as one with turya.” This analogy serves us on a few levels. Although the three states have different qualities, we can assume they all resemble each other in that they are states of differentiation, states of the mind, states of limitation. And that unlike these three, Turya is not a state of difference, is above the mind, and is unlimited. This is also obvious due to its description as pure knowledge, pure light and joy. THe analogy of a sword also shows us the role of the three states as well as the role of the turya state. Ie. We use the three states of mind as a sword to cut through life, to carve out our individual path and personality, to defend and pursue our likes and keep away our dislikes. And that we often do this from a place of separation, meaning, the sword is out of its sheath when we use it to carve our way through life. We generally only access this place of nectar, the Turya state, when the sword of our mind is in its sheath— that is, when we sit for meditation in a safe place and practice putting down our mind over and over again, surrendering the swashbuckling of our mind. Another time the Sutra tells us that we can find this Turya state is when we take the sword out of its sheath, and when we put it back in its sheath. “The state of turya is found in all these three at the moment of entry and at the moment of exit. So at the time of entering into the state of wakefulness, or the dreaming state, or the dreamless state, and at the time of coming out from any one of these three states, the yogī finds turya existing.” Transition 1, Falling Asleep: This brings to mind practices such as trying to go to sleep at night from a conscious place, such as doing mantra into your sleep, as Babaji has taught many times. Transition 2, Waking up: It also brings to mind the practice of doing gratitude practice, just one example, upon waking up as a way of accessing this turya state as we transition between dreaming and waking. In both cases we are told that we must learn to “hold” the transition point between states as a means of spreading the bliss of Turya into the 3 states. Transition 3, During your Day: Dreaming doesn’t just mean at night, dreaming also means thinking. Therefore, the end of a thought or experience is also a transition point. In previous sutras this was known as Nimesha, the ending of one thought, which brings you to the space between thoughts, Turya, before another one begins, Unmesha. This can be hard to contemplate, because thoughts are so subtle, but I often work with this practically by using my practice when walking from one room to the next— I find that this space is usually the space ‘between thoughts’ quite literally. So in this space, our work is to keep the sword of our mind in its sheath— but of course, we usually pull out our phones out, or start going over something in our mind, and pull that sword right back out. But we are not only dulling our sword, by over using it, we are also missing an opportunity to experience a worm hole to our true nature. So try keeping your sword in its sheath while you walk from room to room in your house, or in your day— try to hold that space of Turya between thoughts and spread it into your life.

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Shiva Sutra 3.19: “kavargādiṣu māheśvaryādyāḥ paśumātaraḥ // In the world of letters, words and sentences, the eight energies of the Lord, who are the mothers of beasts (take control and hold him).”

Class Notes: The words of our mind and experiences of our senses are like lassos that are constantly ensnaring us. As Paul Reps once quoted of the Upanishads, “who is that effulgent one directing eye to form and ear to sound?” That effulgent one is us, but the world of words and senses have pulled our awareness away from that effulgence. Through our practice we find that we can rise above these lassos of the mind and senses by connecting to our heart— to use our practice to reconnect with our true nature as we speak, listen and live, and by doing so we find that not only do our words become clearer, but our hearts become open, and a new level of nourishment and growth is able to flow.

Levels of Awareness Teaching from the heart is an expression common to our tradition. This implies the ability to put words together in a coherent way, listen to a teacher, or perform a task, while simultaneously keeping one’s awarensss in the heart. Initially this sound like our heart and our lives are in two separate places, and that we are trying to be in two places at once when we practice, but according to the science of yoga this is not the case. Our heart is the source of our reality, it’s where Shiva and Shakti begin to manifest as our reality. In the yogic chart of manifestation, we see this as Iccha Shakti, the first manifested tattva, which is described as an urge, not a thought or word yet. This urge is Shiva and Shakti, manifesting themself in the world, as the Sutra tells us: “When Lord Śiva desires to manifest themself in this world, then svātantrya śakti is transformed into the energy of will (icchā śakti). ” We experience this everyday, in literally every action or thought of our lives— there is always an urge which spurs the thought or action, an urge that we might say we ‘feel” before we think and act. In the Science of Mantra, and language, the heart is the source of our words power, the Paśyanti level of awareness. From the heart, this urge rises up in us to the throat, the Madhyama level of awareness, where we know what we will say, but have not yet formed the words to say it. In the tattvas, the next level of manifestation is knowledge, jnana shakti. When our words are in our throat, for example, we know what we will say but have not said it yet. Take a moment to swallow, and feel this area in yourself. Try to hold your awareness there, you’ll find that it requires focus and surrender, as our awareness is usually held in our head. And from the throat, words seem to escape our mouths instantaneously, like a slide. It’s as if there is an exponential factor at play, where the slope from the heart to the throat is very slight, but from the throat to the mouth becomes steeper, and from the mouth to the rest of differentiation it’s practically a cliff. This is the Vaikhari Level of awareness, and is the space from which we usually interact with our reality. From the perspective of the tattvas, this is the level of action, kriya shakti, and represents the moment before Shiva and Shakti are fully teased apart. When the words leave our mouth, all of manifestation begins to take form, and we can quickly lose our center and begin to suffer from it. We see in this sutra that words and senses are like lassos that are constantly ensnaring us, pulling us away from our center. “In the center of brahmarandhra is situated the supreme energy of Lord Śiva, the Divine Mother, surrounded by the eight divine mothers of beasts. In their hands, they hold the lassos (brahma pāśa) which entangle and bind one with limitation, keeping one from the unlimited state. These supreme terrible (mahāghorā) śaktis, create disturbance and ignorance again and again, and are very difficult to conquer.” We are told that as we interact with our daily life we are surrounded by 8 Deities: 3 dieties of the mind, the Manas, Ahamkara and Buddhi, and 5 more deities of the Senses. Whether we are simply looking out our window, eating a meal, talking with friends, or weed whacking, these lassos are constantly being tossed at us in the form of tag lines, colors, sounds, etc. Being caught by them means that our energy starts to flow out, instead of in, and when that occurs we are ‘played’ by our mind and senses, like a puppet on a string, and forget our effulgent nature: “words and sentences pierce their minds and make them weep, make than smile, make them laugh, make them joyous, make them happy and make them sad...By the penetration of the sounds of letters, words and sentences, they are oppressed with the delusion (moha) created by those who rule limited beings (paśus). This is the essence of this sūtra.”

Working with it The Sutra describes two methods of working with this situation, one way that ensnares us and another that liberates us. The ensnaring method occurs when we identify personally with the words and senses we are presented with. This is called the Savikalpa method. The liberating method occurs when we don’t identify with the senses and mind while interacting with them, this is called the nirvikalpa method. The ‘vikalpa’ part of these two words means “thoughts", that is, how much do the words and senses that surround you stir your mind? “There are two ways to observe this garland of letters—as savikalpa or as nirvikalpa. The Sanskrit word savikalpa means “with varieties of thoughts” and nirvikalpa means “without varieties of thoughts.”- LMJ Can you interact with your world with minimal thought? Is this possible? Does it make you dysfunctional or heroic? We learned in the Sutras describing the workings of our mind, that the mind needs to identify itself personally with our surroundings in order to categorize it and understand it, there is no avoiding that. We aren’t here to reject our reality, that’s far from ShambhavAnanda Yoga. There is a necessary percentage of focus that it takes to navigate our reality, as Rudi told us in his magic ratio— which has been interpreted as giving our outer life anywhere from a mere 5% of our awareness to 30-40% of our awareness— but no matter which interpretation, the ration clearly indicates that the outer world of words and senses only require a minority portion of your awareness. Because problems arise, when we invest too much awareness into the horizontal world, and word. We become ensnared by our mind and senses, dragged around by the news, for example, or even being deeply hurt by a casual, but maybe thoughtless, comment made by someone who loves you, like a friend or family member. The Nirvikalpa method of observing our mind and senses has to do with surrendering the words and senses while we interact with them, in order that we can stay connected to our heart, their true source. This is the calm at the eye of the storm, the deep centering before the martial arts showdown, or more yogically speaking, the perfectly balanced Shiva Nataraj at the center of the ring of fire. As always, the mind has a hard time with this concept. How can we surrender what is being said to us without missing it completely? Doesn’t surrender mean to let go of? What if I surrender my hammer while I hammer, does that mean it flies across the room? Though these are honest questions, which can never be solved by the mind, they are incredibly easy questions solved by practice with even the most minimal effort. As Babaji teaches: “When I become totally present there is no Baba. There is no past. There is no future. I am totally present. When I was walking every morning in Hawaii I would go to this big soccer field where Faith and I would walk for an hour. There was no past and there was no future. Yet, I was walking. I wasn’t thinking about me or what I was doing or where I was, but simultaneously I was aware of all those things, even though they had absolutely no hold on me. I observed them from a distance and I functioned. I didn’t trip over anything or fall down or bump around. That is what it is like. It is exhausting to be in your ego. You have to spend so much energy to support its misinterpretations of reality. The ego is a necessary part of living in the world, but I don’t take it seriously.” So, No, your hammer doesn’t go flying, you don’t trip and fall, etcetera— what you do is actually feel present and part of what’s happening. In the tattvas we see that the mind sits below the level of the heart, it is in the 14th tattva, where as the level of awareness we are describing is the third, fourth and fifth tattva. This practice requires that you work from a place that is more expansive than the mind. If you rely solely on your mind and senses, you can’t get there, you gotta start relating to a part of yourself that is beyond those tools. The path there, according to our teachers and the Sutras, is the heart. We breathe into our hearts while we interact with our mind and senses, and this keeps us moving up the tattvas towards our true nature. Sounds so obvious, but it’s really that true and simple. That’s because the path itself is very straightforward, but the experience of walking the path is where all the teachings unfold.

Rudi’s QUote Though the teachers of our lineage have supplied us with a myriad of ways in which to undertake this particular effort, I found a satsang from Rudi that felt really helpful. He begins by telling us that our life is more than a business exchange, that even in business, we need to know that the other person cares about our well being. We all need to know that the other person supports us on an energetic level, a level below the words. It’s not enough just to listen, but we have to listen from our hearts. It’s not enough just to speak, we have to speak from our hearts. It’s not enough to do the dishes, we have to scrub them from our hearts. This is where we find a level of nourishment that makes life worth living, and life livable at all. He gives the example of babies who were orphaned after World War II. It was not enough to simply have them in a crib, with enough food and water, they needed to be held, to feel someone wishing them into existence. He gives the analogy of feeding a baby as the daily exchange we might have with each other, and how even when you do this, you can’t stop there, you have to burp the baby. I’ll admit, this sounds funny, but don’t let yourself get pinned down to the physical metaphor, this is about our practice of course. This burping process represents the ‘surrender’ required to digest our daily life interactions. We give and take, give and take, but we must take time to surrender, to let the air bubbles out, and allow ourselves to sink back to the source of our reality in the heart. You aren’t burping anyone, you are using your practice to allow yourself to be burped. This is the little bit of surrender you can bring to a meeting, and throughout a meeting, that makes all the difference not only for yourself but everyone in the room. It’s not constant, it’s like a baby— you feed, then you burp. It’s along the way, and it keeps everything moving. This does not have to occur with people exclusively, for example, ShambhavAnanda once said in satsang that to really enjoy a hike, don’t spend all o your time taking pictures, or talking about how beautiful it is— take time to relax and connect to nature in your heart and navel, and harmonize with it. So we see that the greatest gift you can give someone, and yourself, is not the gift of our words or our senses, but to be connected to our hearts while giving/receiving those words and senses. This is just another way to understand the work of surrender that our practice revolves around, but it’s a way that probably comes up for you everyday, and a way that can help you support your fellow sangha members, and yourself, from within.

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Sailing Through our karma There is a current running through our lives, a current below and a breeze above, a reality unfolding not only around us, but right along with us— in our very being. In the Yogic Tradition this current is known as Svatantrya Shakti, the ever cresting wave of Shiva that unfolds infinitely to form our reality. Through our practice we can learn to feel this current as we navigate our lives, a small shift that holds the key to transcending your karma for good. Mapping the river: We often look at this flow in it’s diagrammatic form as the tattvic map, which shows this unfolding from one to many. In this form we can see the process of creation, which starts as an urge, becomes a thought, and manifests as an action, those actions takes infinite forms which you can see all around, and within you. Urge becomes thought, thought becomes action, action becomes manifestation “When Lord Śiva desires to manifest himself in this world, then svātantrya śakti is transformed into the energy of will (icchā śakti)…then that energy of will is transformed into the knowledge (jñānaśakti)…then that energy of knowledge becomes the energy of action (kriyā śakti)”
“(Mālinī Vijaya Tantra 3.8)” Map is only half the picture: Seeing the map of the river, seeing it’s overall trajectory and shape, is knowledge that can help you navigate it. This is one half of what the Sutras call Pure Knowledge, Shuddha Vidya, knowledge of how to practice. But this knowledge is only one part instruction, and the rest of it is experiential. Imagine trying to learn how to sail from looking at a picture of a river— it misses the actual experience of the river, the un-predictable quality of navigation itself. Shiva is a moving target: This experiential knowledge takes into account the fact that, though we can map creation, we can never map Shiva themself. Shiva's Shakti, manifestation, is never the same twice— Shiva is a moving target, an ever cresting wave we must learn to surf, or sail, or paddle— depending on your metaphor. JDS went out of his way in the notes to this sutra to say that ‘Shiva is not an object”, meaning that we can’t let ourselves try to pin down the practice, it is a state of being. Or as 500 BC Heraclitus put it, “NO man ever steps n the same river twice, for it not the same man, and it is not the same river. “ This is why the Sutra begins with “When knowledge of being is established in continuation,” meaning that we must stay in touch with the ‘being’ of our practice continually in order to be in touch with it at all— there is no way to simply ‘connect’ once and for all. Lear Learning to navigate the River: So to navigate the river’s of our lives, to sail through our Karma, we have to learn how to stay in touch with Shiva, the current below and the wind above, while we move towards our goals. As Paul Reps put it, move with, not against, the harmony Our time on the cushion is a way for us to get in touch with this inner current, so that we can keep this connection as we begin to move through our lives. Of course, there are many many times during everyday that we can reconnect with this current, and by doing so, connect our actions with Pure Knowledge, and start to free ourselves from repeated mistakes. When we move against the current, what happens? For the most part, it’s just like swimming against a current— everything just seems to take longer, and when you get there you’re exhausted. Which is how one meditation teacher in our current training describes her students, she says they all talk about how tired they are, and of course they’re telling the truth, it takes tremendous energy to swim against the current. Of course, this doesn’t mean that our lives are peachy just because we are doing our practice— karma is karma. Just because you are feeling the current on a raft doesn’t mean you aren’t going to work hard, it just means that your work will be more efficient, more effective. So if we can feel the current while we steer our ship, we are staying focused on the reality of Shiva, and we find that our ship starts to come under our control. Which was the teaching of the Sutra, 3.13, “All elementary worlds, all individuals, all words and all sentences are absolutely dependent on and under the control of such a yogī, who is always intent on determining the reality of Śiva. Whatever he does and whatever he wills will do and undo. (Svacchanda Tantra 7.245)” The Rewards of Proper Navigation: When we do this, we burn our karma, when we don’t do this, we create more karma, more re-births as the Sutra puts it. “When this pure knowledge of consciousness is established in continuity, then birth (janma) is gone forever. For him, there is no more birth and there is also no more death. What is the cause of birth (janma)? Action attached with ignorance is the cause of birth. That action creates the organs, the body and all its limbs. Therefore, when that action which is the cause ends, then the effect, being created and being born, also ceases to exist.” “When, through the successive teachings of the masters, one is established in one’s own consciousness, which is supreme and pure, then one becomes liberated (muktaḥ) and never again comes into this universe. (Svacchanda Tantra)”

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Class Notes:
3.17: svamātrānirmāṇamāpādayati // He can bring about forms in accordance with that measure or aspect of consciousness which is creative and in which he is established."

svamātrā:  The measure of consciousness which coagulates

nirmāṇamā : Produces/Creates

pādayati: Effects

“Svamatra means the measure pertaining to his consciousness, i.e. the aspect of the essence of consciousness that coagulates, that creates.”
-Ksemaraja (JDS Translation)

“By taking the deception of grossness, they become gross in this universe and by taking the deception of subtleness, they becomes subtle.” -Svacchanda Tantra 4.295 (LMJ Translation)

“Because of the power of creative thought (vimarsa sakti), the foundational Self makes Itself as the object of knowledge. The object has no separate existence of its own. If the Self were to depend upon an object, something outside itself, for creation, the Self’s absolute freedom would be violated."

-Isvara-pratyabhijna I, 5, 15 (JDS Translation)

“O dear one, one who knows from the mouth of his spiritual director that water and ice are (essentially) the same (is liberated). He has no further obligation to discharge. He will have no further birth." -Agamas

“This state, which is the real nature of Śiva, is not revealed; this state is the revealer…The revealed is not the point to be sought; it is the revealer that is to be striven for.”

Lakshmanjoo, Shiva Sutra 3.16 Commentary

Rudi Quote: “We are locked in so many of these things because of our need to be in the mind— to refute, to fight and endlessly find the differences— whereas when we're strong enough to know it's all one, then we have the capacity to be above it. All of those so called differences lead to the same oneness. And you have to do this in your own life. You have to do this with the people you work with and the people you live with, and the people you bond with. You either eventually love with them, and you all go up together, or you endlessly try to find differences. The differences never made a man free, it was the lack of difference that always freed people. It is to find the lack of difference for which you are living, because this holds within it the content, this flow of higher consciousness and energy. Difference makes walls, lack of difference breaks down walls. You must really open to that and feel the lack of difference, and then we drink it in, and the nourishment comes into all of us.”

-Swami Rudrananda

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We begin the sutra with a commentary that yoga practices alone are not enough to take you to the experience of your true nature. The example given is the Yogadarśana, the eight limbs of yoga. The 8 limbs of yoga begin with Yamas, or how to interact socially as a yogi through non-harm and non-greediness, for example, and then moving on to the Niyamas, how to work with yourself as yogi through cleanliness of mind and body, divine conduct, etc. And once those are established, the practitioner begins asana, the physical postures of yoga, pranayama, the breathing practices, pratyhara, concentration practice, and dhyana, meditation.

These practices beneficial and essential aspects of our path to growth, but we are learning in this Sutra that these practices can’t get you to the goal unless you also learn how to surrender them. So we must learn how to use the tool, and then learn how to set it down while continuing to maintain our inner connection. This is how we sink completely into the nectar of Shiva, pure awareness. When this occurs, we see that any posture, any practice, any action, any life we may have, becomes the fullest expression of Shiva.

“Actually, the postures (āsanas) explained in the yogadarśana are not really āsanas at all. Śivayoga is the only posture that must be understood when you are seeking to understand the real posture for such a yogī. This real posture is the supreme energy of awareness. You are seated in that posture when you hold and possess the supreme energy of awareness. Then in each and every act of your life you are aware, you are seated in that posture. This is the real āsana.”

We see that we must learn to ‘leave aside’ the effort of our practice while ‘remaining in the posture’. This particular kind of effort is described as effortless. In our tradition, we may describe this kind of effort as ‘surrender’, that is, consciously letting something go while maintaining awareness. When the body, breath and mind are out of balance, we use a tool to work with it— when that balance begins to come into view, we can begin to release the tool while ‘remaining in our posture’, while staying centered.

“leaving aside the effort of āsana (yogic exercises), prāṇāyāma (breathing exercises), dhyāna (contemplation), and dhāraṇā (meditation), simply remains in that posture with nothing left to do, aware of what he actually is. This is why the author has used the word sukham in the sūtra because “effortlessly” means that without exerting any effort in respect to breathing or yogic exercise, contemplation or meditation, they remain seated in that posture”

3.This kind of effortless effort, the work of surrender, is how we ‘dive’ into the ocean of nectar that is our true nature. “Diving” here is redescribed as a type of ‘sinking’, which again is helpful in describing out concepts of ‘going inside’ and ‘surrender’. Our work is to consciously release our body, breath, mind and even the void, and by doing so we sink into our true nature.

“And without any effort, the yogi finally immerses themself in the ocean from which the universe rises and expands. They dive and enter for good in that ocean, which is filled with real nectar. What does diving mean? In diving into the ocean of nectar, they let the impressions of the body (deha), of the breath (prāṇa), of the eight constituents (puryaṣṭaka) and of the void (śūnya) sink into that ocean and they become one with that nectar. This is the real way of diving.”

The Sutra concludes by bringing it’s teaching to an even more subtle level— not only must we surrender the practices themselves, but we also must surrender the experience. There is no way for us to understand the experience of surrender until we have become it. This experience is only revealed to those who have attained it— it cannot be revealed in any other way.

Your actual reality, the world that you live in and the experience you are having right now of that world— this is what changes. Perhaps this is why in our tradition we describe this process as ‘spiritual growth’— ‘growth’ meaning that what you will become doesn’t exist yet— like a tree growing a fruit. You can describe the fruit to the tree, you can show it other fruits, you can give it the nourishment it needs, but nothing can reveal this tree’s fruit except this tree’s growth. That is why Lakshmanjoo teaches that“ This state is subjective, not objective…this state of the revealer is not separate from subjective consciousness. It is only subjective consciousness.”

“”Netra Tantra 8.44–45: this state of the Śaivaite yogī is the real state of Śiva. This state is not revealed to others; it is revealed only to the revealers.” This state, which is the real nature of Śiva, is not revealed; this state is the revealer”LMJ.

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In the natural world we all recognize that a seed contains the blue prints and the impulse for the organism it will become— in Yoga that seed is Shiva, in Sanskrit Bija. As meditators, we use the tools of our practice like a microscope to focus our attention on this seed of our true nature, but we can only zoom in, past the infinite distractions of the manifest universe, via the magnification power of breakless awareness, in Sanskrit Avadhana. Join the ShambhavAnanda Sangha as we pursue the seed of our awareness and independence in the heart through the practice of breakless awarenessin this interactive LIVE Yoga & Meditation Philosophy Class.

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Lineage Teacher Swami Rudrananda taught that enlightenment is not a level, but learning how to raise your level. Because as this Sutra teaches, no matter what level of awareness we have attained, as yogis we must continue to raise that level, again and again, through all the different stages and settings of our life. This kind of pursuit goes beyond the mind, beyond the societal status quo, and into the realm of Grace. Ultimately, when we are able to maintain this kind of surrender both on and off the cushion, we arrive at the state of receptivity that allows us to receive Grace as it descends at any point in our day. That is the state of independence we seek.

3.14: “yathā tatra tathānyatra // This [absolute independence] is the same in the external world as it was in samādhi.”

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We all know the value of sincerity in our daily lives. When a friend sincerely thanks you, or someone sincerely enjoys your cooking, for example, you can feel it in your heart. This kind of sincerity is also a cornerstone of our practice, as it is required for our work to truly penetrate the obscurations that limit our experience of our true nature. When we practice with sincerity we can move mountains of tension, without sincerity those mountains don’t move anywhere. In Sanskrit the term is called “akrita”, unartificial, and is described as the combination of natural effort and intense desire, what a powerful force! In the practice of ShambhavAnanda Yoga, we interact with this notion as “the wish to grow”, and seek it in everything we do with an ‘open heart’. Let’s jump in and begin our exploration of sincere, unartificial practice from the heart, and find out why it’s so important, and how we can find more of it!

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If you swim with the current, you become as powerful as the current. If you swim against the current, you struggle and tire. In our everyday life, we use our practice while we work with the circumstances of our lives— like swimming diagonally across a strong flowing river. We might not end up exactly where we planned, but this way we will always get to the other side.

In this Sutra we discuss the Absolute Power and Independence we experience by swimming with the current of Our True Nature.

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Explore the yogic practice of surrender, which leads us to the ultimate experience of Absolute Freedom.

“3.13. siddhaḥ svatantrabhāvaḥ // The state of absolute independence is already achieved.”

“From earth to Anāśrita Śiva all beings are dependent on the conscious being, Śiva…The singularly unique aspect of Lord Śiva is complete independence, svātantrya. This complete independence is not found anywhere except in the state of Lord Śiva.” We usually think of independence as ‘freedom from dependance on anything’, but according to the Sutras, only shiva can be free from dependance on anything. So how can we be free? From the perspective of our small self, we can’t—because that perspective is always separate from it’s true nature, and when we’re separate from our Shiva Nature, we’re bound. Through our practice, though, we unite with Shiva, and experience absolute Freedom. In this class we’ll explore a few distinct vantage points and practices to help us realize the vastness of this promise.

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We have a ‘spiritual intelligence’ within us. When we do mantra, for example, and notice that our mind is wandering into thoughts, or slipping into doership, what aspect of our awareness is able to recognize this? Perhaps this is the spiritual intelligence this sutra describes.

Sutra 3.12: "Through the higher spiritual intelligence, there is the realization of the Light of the Self."

The word proficient doesn’t mean perfect, it means progress derived from practice. So even thought this aspect of our awareness is proficient at finding the light of the self, that proficiency is the result of practice.This is a double edged sword. On the one hand it means we all have the capacity to become realized masters, because it is only a matter of practice. On the other hand, though, it means we must practice, and that we can’t just expect it to do it on it’s own.

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Sutra 3.10 continues our metaphor of acting as a way of understanding the relationship between our essential and timeless true nature and the peripheral and temporal characters we play in our life. In this Sutra we see that as we learn to relax and allow Shiva to play our part, we become more skillful within our life and more enjoyable overall. We also see that the part we play, and the actions we make throughout our day, are not meant to be ends in themselves, but means of uncovering our true nature.

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The Path to Undoing Doership in our Meditation Practice

By Acharya Satyam Ehinger

We all know what a distracted mind feels like when we meditate, how we can drift invisibly from a to-do list to a potential-purchase to a new-idea and so on. When we realize what’s happening, we try to get back on track by saying our mantra louder, breathing deeper, or sitting straighter— but that just brings us to the other end of the pendulum, from a distracted mind to a doozer mind. What lies between these two pendulum swings is a state of balance, but finding that middle path requires a special kind of work, what Swami Rudrananda called the “double work” of surrender. This ‘double work’ requires that we use our mind to do a practice without allowing ourself to slip down the slippery slope of doership. We find that the key to unlocking this double work isn’t ‘more work’ or ‘harder work’ but actually relaxing into our work. That’s right, relaxing might just be the ‘work’ you’re missing. But before we can fully comprehend this statement, and put it into use, we have to reflect on our understanding, and tendency, towards doership itself.

In our physical life, we feel the slide into doership when we try to ‘push through’ an activity without maintaining awareness of how our body is actually doing— like that last half hour of yard work that seemed so important at the time, but ended up straining our back. Similarly, we can slip into doership in our meditation practice, such as when the Guru Gita tells us that “long and windy pranayamas” actually lead to disease when done with doership (verse 53). The Shiva Sutras gives us the same precaution about doing mantra with doership: “The life of all mantras is solely the energy of God consciousness. When that energy is absent, all those collections of words are useless just like a mass of clouds in the rainless autumn sky. (Tantra Sadbhāva)” (LMJ Shiva Sutras, 2.1). This means that saying your mantra louder or faster may produce impressive clouds, but it will never make it rain. Overall, the shortcomings of doership teach us that how we practice is more important than how much we practice. One conscious breath is worth alot. 100 willful breaths… not so much.

But why do we error so often towards over-exertion? Just look around you and you’ll see that we’re all drowning in a culture of doership. To excel in sports we must always give hundred and ten percent, right? To succeed in the world of business you’ve got to ‘pull yourself up by your boot straps’. Our national bird always flies solo, and freedom itself is often defined as being able to ‘do what you want when you want to do it’. So when you sit down to meditate, you can assume that if your mind is not distracted by a thought, then it is caught in the throes of doership trying to repel them.

And who can blame you? If somehow you weren’t programmed to be a doozer by your culture, then you may fall into the shortcomings of doership simply because it takes effort to meditate. There is no doubt that it often takes an internal push to make it to your cushion before dawn, or after work— but at some point that pushing has to transform into something more nourishing, or else you never ‘arrive’ at your destination. It’s like driving your car right up and over a mountain without stopping to take in the view. Sounds ridiculous, but we do it all the time when we practice with doership.

Transcending doership takes work, but not just any kind of work. In Rudi’s words it takes a type of “double work”. We can’t just put the pedal to the metal in the vehicle of our practice, that would be ‘single work’— we have to apply effort while feeling that effort effect us, that’s double work. As Rudi teaches, “The mind is the greatest danger— it must be continually surrendered to allow the force to spread. You must do the double work of opening within and using the mind to keep from narrowing the open areas and stopping the process. The student will often find that the entire work process has taken place in his mind. He thinks it through and in reality has expressed nothing” (Spiritual Cannabalism, 13). As Rudi says, we must use the mind to open within, but not let the mind narrow your experience of that opening. Otherwise we may find that we have spun our wheels for a half hour with nothing to show for it.

And this all makes sense if you think about Rudi’s original spiritual equation: Effort x Time = Growth. Look closely and you’ll see that effort and time are two categorically different things, and that no matter how much effort you put into a practice, growth still requires time. Effort alone is doership, ie. windy pranayamas and rainless clouds, but effort over time, that’s growth. So transcending doership requires that we embrace the element of time in our practice.

How do we do that? Rudi once said in a satsang that ‘when we drop a rock down a well we will always be surprised by how long it takes for the rock to hit the water below’. This means that we always tend to overlook time in our daily life. “Very rarely do we let the energy rise high enough,” he says, “everything needs time to build— a spiritual life or a house” (Spiritual Cannabalism, 14). It’s easy to drop rocks, it’s hard to consciously wait for them to land. Doership is like dropping mantras like rocks, for example, without feeling their vibration land within us. So how can we get better at letting our practice land within us, to start to employ this all important second half of our ‘double work’ as well as the second half of the formula for growth itself? Whoa there…chill out for a second…take it easy…relax. (that was actually the teaching).

As Babaji says: “You may think, “I have to surrender harder,” but that doesn’t work. Working harder to surrender means that you let go. You let go, you relax, and you become expansive.” (Spiritual Practice, 67) Babaji also teaches, “That kind of frantic practice can have the opposite of the desired effect. The goal is to open up, let go, relax, and release the tensions” (Spiritual practice, 35). As hard as it may be to believe, relaxing could be the very ‘work’ you’re missing.

But as we all know, relaxing on cue can be quite challenging. Usually, to “relax” we stimulate or distract our mind, which is not really the kind of conscious relaxing Babaji is referring to. To do this kind of relaxing you have to do nothing, on purpose, for a while— until your mind actually starts to slow down. It’s not as unusual as it sounds, in fact, it’s how most of us feel when we go camping, or even on long walk in nature. Nature has a miraculous way of calming the mind without distracting it, something no app will ever be able to emulate. We don’t always have time to go for a walk in nature though, much less a camping trip— which is why I’m happy to introduce you to a little thing called “Camping in”.

Camping-in is alot like a camping-out, except you don’t have to pack any supplies or go anywhere to do it. In fact, not packing and not going anywhere is what camping-in is all about! Camping-in is a time you set aside (5 minutes, 15 minutes, 25 minutes), to purposefully, and consciously, do nothing. When I say nothing, I mean all the obvious stuff like no phones, music or podcasts. But the list continues— nothing also means no talking, no list making, no drawing, no poetry, not even any ‘decision making’ (which is actually the most important one of all). I know, it sounds crazy, but in my experience I have found that any one of those things can quickly and silently steer me into ‘doing something’ which sort of misses the whole point of the exercise.

As a meditator, you might say, ‘oh that’s easy, I’ll just do mantra’ as you lock into your meditation posture— but for the sake of this experiment, we are even going to postpone mantra, pranayama, as well as our ‘meditation seat’, and even the tendency to ‘fix your gaze on a single point’. Why? Because too often we are infusing these elements of our practice with subtle tinges of doership, and the purpose of this experiment is to really neutralize all possibilities of doership in order for us to get a glimpse of what lies beyond it. In my experience, I have found that by really committing to camping-in can I let go of the most nagging thoughts and tensions. Rudi often taught that surrender must be total, not partial, and camping in is one way of accessing that potential as it really asks you to totally do nothing. But don’t worry you over achieving yogis (myself included)! You will definitely be utilizing your practice in order to ‘do nothing’ for even a few minutes- you’ll quickly feel the inner work of surrender taking place as you come face to face with the raw activity of your mind. And because you don’t have your normal bull-doozer tools for dealing with those thoughts— like a ‘deep breath’ or a ‘loud mantra’— you’ll actually feel a deeper glow of consciousness begin to burn within you as you access more natural reserves of surrender. When “Camping-in”, your only goal is to keep coming back to the present, to see, hear and feel your life happening without being sucked into any one aspect of it— it couldn’t be simpler, and yet you may find tremendous growth in it.

Ideally, “Camping-in” produces a state of mind is similar to how you feel when you’ve been camping out— you know, ‘doing nothing’ for a while. That calm, contented, yet fully aware, state of mind that nature so readily produces in us. But this isn’t a miracle of the forest, it’s a miracle of your being— it’s your true nature. So don’t worry if you can’t go camping out the next time your mind is caught in the the throes of doership— you can always go camping in. In fact, there’s absolutely nothing that could ever keep you from camping in because it literally requires nothing at all. Which reminds me of one of my favorite poems from the Tao Te Ching, a text that Babaji always says makes him laugh… “Doing less and less, until there is nothing left undone.” I hope this summer, whether camping in or camping out, we all get a chance to experience such bliss.

Click this link for a 25 minute guided camp-in and breath meditation session with Satyam.

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Imagine a projector in a movie theater shining it’s light onto the screen in front of you. You don’t see the projector, or the light streaming through the air, you only see the shapes on the screen. We react to the actors, and the drama projected in front of us— and it seems like a miracle, but the actors we watch the most keep getting more and more lines in this movie of our life. Good, bad, or ugly— the roles we identify with on the screen keep getting bigger and bigger parts. The Shiva Sutras tell us that this is because the projector is not behind us, but within us. And these actors are reading the very lines that we are writing for them, in real time. In this way, we see that we are writing this movie of our lives, and if we want to breathe some fresh life into it, this Sutra teaches, we must step back from the re-acting process and let this movie start to develop more naturally. As we learn to step back from the screen of our mind and senses we can allow our lives to play out in a more natural way. This doesn’t mean the movie stops, far from it, in fact yogis tell us through the generations that this is the only way to finally let the movie of our life play out to it’s highest fruition. Welcome to Shiva Sutra 3.11, The Senses are the Spectators.

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If you had 3 wishes what would they be? Tonight, Maha Shivaratri, the greatest holiday of Shiva in the Hindu Tradition, gives practitioners just this opportunity. The opportunity to practice, and the opportunity to wish?

The age old story of the genie in the lamp serves to teach us one simple thing— whatever ‘thing’ you wish for will eventually become your greatest obstacle. The Shiva Sutras, and the yogic tradition teach us that our greatest wish is not for a thing, or an experience, but for the tools to grow spiritually. Lineage teacher Swami Rudrananda said that when he went to India, the enlightenment he found was not a heaven realm where everyone sits around drinking tea, but rather his ‘enlightenment’ was the gift of learning how to work, how to practice— The greatest boon we can ask for is a practice, a teacher to guide us in that practice, and a community to practice alongside. These are three greatest wishes, the three jewels in the yogic and buddhist tradition, and here’s the astonishing part: If you are reading this, then you have already received this gift, you’re staring right at it now— Because the sole purpose of the ashram is to teach you how to use the gifts of the yogic tradition to propel your spiritual growth.

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Class starts with Intro & Intero-surfing.

Sutra Discussion Begins at 10:07

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Intro done at 4:10

Interception finishes and Sutra begins, at 9:11

Guided Meditiation begins at 49:33

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Intro done at: 00:03:15
Embodied Movement finished at 00:11:14
Guided Mediation starts at 00:51:46

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In this guided meditation we utilize the teachings of the Shiva Sutras to fan our sparks of awareness into flames of recognition, bringing our mantra from the level of the mouth to the level of the heart while cultivating spiritual focus on our breath in between.

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In this guided breath meditation we cultivate the heat of awareness by counting down from 60 to zero with a few stops along the way, slowing down our counting, counting with our breath, and eventually arriving at the ability to watch our breath with a higher degree of focus and sensitivity.

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SPECIAL OFFER AT THE END OF THE PODCAST!

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Intro done at 3:26

Interoception Practice done at 10:11

Sutra begins at 10:11

Guided Meditation begins at 50:50

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Intro finished: 3:27
Interoception Explanation and Practice Finished: 12:10
Sutra Begins: 12:10

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How do you quit something you don’t know you’re doing? How do you quit suffering if you don’t know you’re suffering? There are indicators that can help you notice it, but ultimately we can only recognize our own suffering, and surrender it, through an empowered meditation practice. Of course it’s easier said than done, which is why we spend this hour not just studying, but meditating while we interpret the teachings of this Sutra about the topic. I hope you’ll take the time to work with us in this class and find some insight to your own inner process of quitting suffering.

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In this class we continue to work with Shiva Sutra 3.7, and unpack the concepts of illusion, differentiation, pure knowledge and God Consciousness from within the context of a living meditation practice both on our cushion and in our life. Below are the quotes from the class, as well as the explanations and questions to inspire personal feeling and reflection. Enjoy!

As always, if you would like to attend the class live, drop us an email and we’ll let you know how to join.

Konalani Yoga Ashram, Hawaii.: Recent Episodes

Konalani Yoga Ashram, Hawaii.