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How
to Experience the Divine Presence
By Dave Warner
A friend recently
expressed discouragement with her lack of progress in meditation.
"I never see God or the Masters in meditation," she sighed
with great disappointment.
Realizing that
she must have felt something, I asked her what she experienced.
"I feel some joy, sometimes peace, and often deep devotion,"
she replied. In that one sentence she showed she had actually experienced
God, by experiencing three of His attributes—joy, peace, and
devotion.
Even Paramhansa
Yogananda in Autobiography of a Yogi, after repeated experiences
of samadhi (mystical union with God), asked his guru whether he
had found God. Describing his guru's response, he writes: "My
guru was smiling. 'I am sure you aren't expecting a venerable Personage,
adorning a throne in some antiseptic corner of the cosmos... Ever
new joy is God."
Swami Kriyananda
defines meditation as "that level of absorption when one has
an actual experience of God, or one of His attributes." The
Indian scriptures define those attributes as peace, calmness, light,
sound, power, love, joy, and wisdom. The more consciously we tune
into those qualities, the sooner we will reach our goal of union
with Him.
PEACE
Swami Kriyananda
has said, "God first comes to the devotee as deep peace."
The first time I ever knew I was experiencing God's presence was
during a walk in the woods as a teenager. The peace I felt was so
deep, so refreshing, so blissful, that it actually changed my life.
Through divine grace (I believe), I knew that this was God, and
so vowed from that moment on to spend my life seeking Him.
The next time
you are in nature, consciously try to tune into its peace. Be aware
of the stillness surrounding you. Meditate there and feel that all
your thoughts, your worries, and your burdens are being stilled
and cleansed in that peace. Expand your awareness until it includes
the trees, the mountains, the birds, the wind. Become one with the
stillness that surrounds you. Feel that you are that peace.
Swami Kriyananda
offers a guided meditation to help us feel peace. Visualize a lake
with many ripples. As your thoughts become still, see the ripples
slowly subsiding. Then see the water becoming calmer and calmer,
until the lake becomes perfectly still. Remember that this peace
you feel is God.
CALMNESS
Although similar
to peace, calmness is a much more powerful and expansive aspect
of God. Swami Kriyananda describes it as a dynamic awareness experienced
when uplifted into superconsciousness.
The following
practice, recommended by Swami Kriyananda, is very helpful in feeling
the expansion of awareness that brings deep calmness. Each night
mentally build a fire. Offer into this fire all your attachments,
desires and responsibilities. Imagine that you could die during
the night, and that you would like to leave this world completely
free. This is the attitude we should take into meditation. When
we have this level of freedom from worldly entanglements, we feel
that expansive calmness.
LIGHT
Many saints
have experienced God as a great light. When we meditate and see
the light at the point between the eyebrows, we are seeing Him as
light. As Christ reveals to us in Matthew 6:22, "The light
of the body is the eye: therefore if thine eye be single, thy whole
body shall be full of light."
Many devotional
chants we sing at Ananda ask God to come to us as light. The first
two lines of my favorite are "When I awake I'll see Thy face;
When I awake I'll see Thy light."
Call to God
as light. Spend time in meditation gazing intently and with deep
devotion at the point between the eyebrows, and you will see and
feel His response there. If you don't see light in meditation, then
visualize God's light bathing you, purifying you, and freeing you.
Visualizing God as light can draw that experience to you in meditation.
SOUND
Swami Kriyananda
tells us that the easiest of God's attributes to become absorbed
in is sound. The AUM technique of meditation, when practiced with
concentration and devotion can take you all the way to God. Yogananda
said that "When you actually hear this sound and feel the Cosmic
Music spread through every particle of space, then you will know
God, and you will know that you know God."
I've also discovered
that natural sounds can draw me into a meditative state. The next
time you're out in nature, listen to the sound of the wind in the
trees, water bubbling in a creek, or the singing of the birds. If
you listen to these sounds as if they are the AUM vibration (in
fact, all sounds are aspects of AUM!), it will help you hear the
AUM vibration in meditation.
POWER
Another aspect
of God is power or energy. Practice Yogananda's Energization Exercises
and experience divine energy coursing through your body. Express
that energy in selfless service. As Yogananda said, "Lest in
sloth I lose Thee, I will find Thee in activity." You can practice
feeling God's energy while you walk, garden, do yoga postures—any
time you move.
Physical exercise
is a very direct way to feel God's energy flowing through your body
and mind. I've learned that no matter how tired I am, if I go for
a run I always have more energy afterwards. Whenever you strongly
put out energy, you draw more energy from the surrounding cosmos
Tuning in to
God's full power can be awe-inspiring, and even frightening. I was
once struck by lightning and though physically unharmed, I was sent
flying across the room and into a wall. The feeling of God's power,
expressed in that lightning, is one I'll never forget. This kind
of power, which comes with divine attunement, we see in the saints.
LOVE
Love is the
one quality of God that draws all of His attributes. Without devotion,
we won't draw God in any of His forms. Always begin your meditation
with a devotional chant and pray deeply before practicing any of
the meditation techniques.
My favorite
practice is to end meditation by visualizing Yogananda's eyes. When
I gaze into them with love and devotion, I feel bathed in his unconditional
love.
A particular
affirmation helped me a lot in developing devotion. When I moved
to Ananda, I was a hermit by nature. It was easy for me to feel
God in nature, but difficult to see God in other people. To overcome
this shortcoming, I used one of Yogananda's affirmations: "I
will radiate love and good will to others, that I might open a channel
for God's love to come to all." With this powerful thought
churning through my mind for a couple years, I discovered my heart
opening more and more.
JOY
"Ever new
joy is God." We often think of joy as something to strive for.
Swami Kriyananda tells us that when we live our life with joy, rather
than waiting for it to come to us, then we've reached the goal.
I've learned that if I give joy to someone else, then in that instant
I feel more of God's joy. Try it! Next time you're feeling joyless,
share what little joy you feel with someone, even if you can only
manage a smile.
WISDOM
Wisdom is the
last of the eight attributes of God. By wisdom is meant soul-knowledge,
the understanding that life is a dream and nothing matters but love.
This understanding comes not from the mind or the use of reason
but by the development through meditation, of the soul's intuitive
power of knowing. There is a beautiful chant by Swami Shankara,
"No Birth No Death," that awakens this quality within
us:
Feeling a little
wisdom or joy doesn't mean that we've reached our goal of union
with God. In fact, we've just begun. But to the extent that we are
aware of these aspects and experience then in deep meditation, to
that degree we know God.
Dave Warner, a Lightbearer and resident of Ananda Village, is in
charge of the Ananda Sangha websites.
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