The boy was so focused that he was oblivious to the cold and to the snow piling up around him. The snow rose to cover his legs, then his waist, and, still, the boy remained virtually motionless. Everyone else had long since left for the comfort of a large heated tent. Knowing the group was waiting for us, I asked the boy if he had finished his poem. “Not yet,” he replied. Then he immersed himself once again in his poem.

The absorbed boy sitting in the white sea of snow made a strong impression on me. Swami Kriyananda says, “To worship God ‘in Spirit’ means, in deep meditation, to rise above body consciousness.” The Japanese boy beautifully demonstrated the principle of one-pointed concentration so essential to deep meditation and finding God.

The goal of meditation is to free us from physical and mental limitations and realities. In Conversations with Yogananda, Swami Kriyananda tells how Paramhansa Yogananda could withdraw his mind completely from any pain his body suffered. Once, a thousand-pound concrete wishing well slipped from the grasp of the men lifting it, and crushed his foot. Immediately Yogananda said, “I will show you something, I will focus my concentration on the point between the eyebrows.” As he did so, every trace of pain instantly vanished from his face, and he could walk back and forth easily.

When we withdraw our life force into the spine and brain, we experience another world — a world of Spirit. A friend was standing on a hotel balcony one night in Mexico, enjoying the city lights spread out before him. Suddenly a power failure plunged the city into darkness. As the lights of the city were darkened, the brilliance of the stars came alive. The glow of the city had over-powered the stars’ subtler light. For the devotee, a “spiritual power outage” occurs when he pulls the plug that connects his life force with the senses, and then the inner world comes alive.

Nature’s manifestations are often symbols for deep, inner realities. The sun, for example, is the most immediate “physical” form of AUM, because it enlivens all life.

Similarly, the awakened yogi’s spine finds a physical counterpart in a river, because the human body also has a vast tributary system that feeds life force into the central channel of the spine.

Swami Kriyananda wrote in the Raja Yoga part of the Ananda Course in Self-Realization:

Tremendous joy and awareness are experienced as one’s consciousness becomes centered sensitively in the spine. The spine is, indeed, the holy river of baptism in which the Godward-moving soul becomes cleansed and regenerated in waters of divine joy.

There are instructive parallels between rivers and the flow of energy in one’s spine.

The Mississippi River’s drainage area comprises 41% of the continental United States. After it has gathered the water from tributaries along its 2,350 mile length, its flow rate is tremendous — 600,000 cubic feet per second. At its headwaters, however, the Mississippi River is puny — flowing at 6 cubic feet per second — making the river’s volume 100,000 times greater as it enters the Gulf of Mexico. The disparity in flow rate between the Mississippi River’s headwater and mouth is comparable to the difference between the energy flowing in the spine of an ordinary man and an advanced yogi.

Most people’s spines are spiritually paralyzed, and their life force is locked up in their bodies. Spiritual progress begins when we redirect our energy inward — changing the center of our consciousness from the body and senses to the spine and brain, and thus transmuting it into superconsciousness. Withdrawing the life force is the inner, universal path of all spiritual effort.

The goal of every raindrop is to reach the sea, just as it is the goal of every soul to unite with God. Both, however, must enter their respective “channels” if they wish to make rapid progress. Geologists estimate that it takes 90 days for a drop of water to travel the length of the Mississippi River until it merges into the Gulf of Mexico. By contrast, if that drop remained in the earth as groundwater, it would travel just four inches per day. To journey the length of the Mississippi would take it 100,000 years — over 400,000 times longer than by traveling in the river.

Kriya Yoga draws our energy into the river of the spine, which makes it, as Yogananda says, the “super-quick” method for finding God.

According to yoga science, cosmic energy enters the body through the medulla oblongata, the negative pole of the sixth chakra, located at the base of the skull. Then it descends down the spine and out through the chakras to different regions of the body. The energy flowing from the heart chakra, for example, radiates outward through the nerve channels to the physical heart, lungs, and chest, and into the arms and hands.

The spinal centers, or chakras, are found at the points where tributary streams of energy can either flow outward to sustain the body or flow from the physical body inward to the spine. There is a tremendous amount of energy locked in our bodies waiting to be released. When it is released, the devotee feels an overwhelming sense of joy in his spine.

To drive this point home to us, Swami Kriyananda said, “You don’t realize how much power, bliss, and expansion there is in the chakras as you go deeper into them.”

To give you a greater sense of this subtle reality, practice The River of Joy visualization during your next meditation:

Visualize your spine… as a mighty river flowing inside you.

Feel its magnetic current rising upwards from the base of your spine to your spiritual eye and merging into the vast Ocean of Spirit.

Feel streaming into your chakras rivers of divine joy. Feel all of your chakras and your whole spine nourished by inflowing rivers of bliss.

Pray: O Ocean of Bliss I Return to Thee!

Swami Kriyananda has defined Ananda as a rising flow of energy. The whole path of Kriya Yoga: devotion, selfless service, attunement with one’s guru, meditation, and right living and attitudes, help keep your consciousness interiorized and expansive. God’s nature is joy, and when we, like the prodigal son, begin our journey home, we’ll experience more and more of His bliss in our lives.

Interiorization is not only a state one achieves: It is an attitude that must be cultivated consciously. I invite you, dear friend, to share what practices you’ve found helpful in keeping your consciousness interiorized and inspired throughout the day.

May your feel ever more deeply the blissful presence of God. I want to wish you a blessed New Year.

In divine friendship,

Bharat

During my first year at Ananda Village I asked Swami Kriyananda if he had advice for my meditation practice. He replied, “Keep Divine Mother first.”

I realized he was encouraging me to focus more on giving rather than receiving.

The goal of meditation is self-forgetfulness. Yet one’s ego refers everything back to itself, instead of offering itself freely to God. The grasping quality of the ego creates tension, which drives away true meditation experiences.

When we meditate with deep attention and devotion, we break the cycle of habitual self-involvement. This is why concentration is so essential. Concentration is sincerity and its fruits are love and absorption.

In Swami Kriyananda’s book Awaken to Superconsciousness he says that during the higher stages of meditation “even the thought ‘I am concentrating’ is a distraction, and betrays an imperfection in one’s mental focus.”

During your meditations, offer to the Spiritual Eye every personal motive, thought, and feeling of separate existence. Feel that God is meditating through you. Give yourself to the Superconsciousness with the deep receptivity and love. If you do, Paramhansa Yogananda said, someday, when you least expect it, God will reach down and lift you up to His Beloved Presence.

Swami Kriyananda on meditating with a pure heart:

“Even in meditation, it is important not to meditate with desire for the results. We think the spiritual path is about the experiences we receive in meditation, but it is much more about the refinement and purity of our self-offering to God.”

“If the devotee starts to think of how he can get more experience or more realization, then he falls back into delusion. It has to be a constant giving, and in that giving, God can give us more.

“Spiritual experiences will freely flow to us when we meditate with this kind of attitude, there being no longer any hindrances to stop the flow.”

“To eliminate the strain and tension of trying to concentrate, release also the thought, I am meditating. Think rather, the Cosmic Vibration is reaffirming, through me, its own reality. Cosmic love, through me, is yearning for God’s love. Cosmic joy, through me, is rejoicing in our Infinite Beloved.”

As we deepen our meditation practice, we will experience more and more the Great Reality of God, and we will know and say—“I am this reality!”

May your practice of meditation immerse you ever more joyfully into God’s light and love.

In divine friendship,

Bharat

The universe is projected from God through vibration…

–Swami Kriyananda

“Why did you make creation?” a saint asked God. “I did so,” He replied, “because I wanted to share My joy.”

God’s nature is bliss, and to share His joy He created us through the Cosmic AUM Vibration. When we commune with AUM, we enter into, and flow with, the stream of God’s love. AUM is Divine Mother existing in the heart of all things. During the Meditation on AUM exercise, try to feel Her blissful presence in everything you see and hear.

AUM not only proceeds from God, it is God.

–Paramhansa Yogananda

The Sun Is the Form of AUM

Look at the sun. See its rays flowing down, warming the nearby hills, and enlivening the trees and flower-covered meadows. Reflect on how all life depends on the sun.

Gaze at a plant and feel how it, and everything else, is nourished and influenced by the great power emanating from our star.

Just as an iceberg is formed of water, so the sun is formed of AUM. “The sun,” Kabir said, “is the most immediate ‘physical’ form of AUM we can experience, for it is really solidified, materialized AUM.”

See the sun as AUM. Think of it as AUM materialized.
Feel its vibratory rays descending from heaven and bringing into manifestation all life around you.

See each bird and flower as AUM solidified. Behind every form, sense AUM’s underlying presence and vibrancy.

Feel and hear all nature proclaiming and singing AUM.

Let Every Sound Remind You of AUM

Even in outward, physical imitations, sounds can be thrilling.

–Swami Kriyananda

Listen intently to the sounds around you: the rushing wind… the roar of a river… the buzzing of a bee… the joyful song of a bird. Commune with each sound you hear. Open yourself completely to it; feel it coming into you. Listen for the sound of AUM within every outer sound.

Watch the wind flow through the trees and grassy fields. See in every trembling leaf and sailing cloud — in every movement — the sacred AUM Vibration.

Try to perceive AUM in everything you do, see, and hear.

Attune to the Cosmic Choir

Observe the ways God, through Cosmic AUM, expresses Himself. Notice how each tree is marvelously unique. Take delight in the countless expressions of AUM you see before you.

Communing with AUM helps us understand and utter the language of all creation. When we unite with AUM, we unite with all existence.

Affirm your oneness with all beings and with God by practicing the following meditation by Swami Kriyananda from his book Awaken to Superconsciousness:

Imagine a choir composed of every atom in the universe, each one an individual, but all of them singing together in blissful harmony.

In your own mind, join that mighty choir, composed of all life.

Determine from today on to sing in harmony with the universe. Don’t impose on the great anthem of life your little wishes for how you want the music to sound.

Unite your notes to that Infinite Sound.

The more you do so, the more deeply you will know yourself to be an expression of the soaring anthem of Infinity.

Whenever you feel anxious or inharmonious, use this meditation to attune yourself with God and all creation. Then you will feel the universe is not against, but with you, in loving unity.

Live in the Consciousness of AUM

You are not a physical body, but a blissful manifestation of AUM.

–Swami Kriyananda

Live in the consciousness of AUM. One who constantly sings AUM during his activities, and with his whole being, makes his life a continuous song of joy.

AUM Booklet and CD/MP3

To inspire greater attunement with the Cosmic Vibration, I am creating an inspirational resource on AUM from the writing of Paramhansa Yogananda, Swami Kriyananda, and other saints. Included in this project will be personal stories from devotees to help make AUM more real to our consciousness.

If you’ve had a deeply inspiring experience of the Cosmic Sound, would you share it with me for possible inclusion in the resource? I realize spiritual blessings are sacred and should not generally be shared with others, so I will keep your experience confidential.

Below is a story a friend recently told me.

The Healing Power of AUM

“When AUM came,” a lady once said to Paramhansa Yogananda, “all my troubles vanished.”

A friend (who I will call “Nancy”) told me recently how her troubles had also vanished in the consciousness of AUM.

Nancy was waiting to make a deposit at her bank, when, suddenly, she found herself in the middle of a robbery. It was a highly stressful situation, and Nancy said she “lost it” emotionally.

After the robbery, Nancy was disappointed in herself for reacting so emotionally. To change this tendency in herself, she began chanting AUM all day long. Whenever there was a tense situation, Nancy would silently and lovingly call on the healing power of AUM to calm herself and others.

AUM is the Great Comforter, and Paramhansa Yogananda said that when you are in the consciousness of AUM, nothing can touch you.

Three years later, Nancy was at her bank, and another robbery occurred. This time it was a much more violent one.

During this bank heist, Nancy was knocked to the floor. But her constant practice of thinking of and chanting AUM kept her calm and centered.

As Nancy began crawling discreetly away from the robbers, a hysterical woman latched on to her and she guided the terrified woman out of sight of the robbers, where they both would be safe.

Later, during an interview with the FBI, Nancy was told that the odds of being involved in two bank robberies were incredibly low. She was the only witness who could give an accurate description of the robbers.

Nancy attributed her calmness to her practice of tuning in to the unifying presence of AUM.

Paramhansa Yogananda said, “Most people live in the past or the future. When you can be truly happy in the present, then you have God.”1 This month’s Daily Meditator features The Vibrant Peace Walk, a meditation designed to help you experience the vibrancy and power of the eternal now.

Swami Kriyananda once told me, “When I was a child, beautiful colors would send me into ecstasy.” The more you are centered in the here and now, the more life will leap like a dancer and fill you with great joy.

Whenever you are in a beautiful outdoor setting, you can focus on the whole Vibrant Peace Walk or just favorite sections.

The Vibrant Peace Walk

“All good things come from stillness”
–Joseph Bharat Cornell

Feel the joy, serenity, and love that come from being fully aware of the present moment. John Muir said that to know trees (and all of nature) we must be as free of cares and time as the trees themselves. When we quiet our internal dialogue and are no longer self-preoccupied—every leaf, flower and rock will speak to us.

The secret to experiencing nature is to still our thoughts so we can fully receive and merge with the world around us. Li Po, the Chinese poet, beautifully expresses how the mind becomes mirror-like when it becomes still:

“The birds have vanished in the sky, and the last cloud drains away.
We sit together, the mountain and I, until only the mountain remains.”

The senses become heightened when we live in the present. Every tree, birdsong, and cloud seems vivid and joyous because our attention is totally focused in the here and now.

We see the world as being not separate but unified with us, and we feel great delight as we sail with the clouds and soar with the cranes high across the sky.

Thoreau’s Advice

Henry David Thoreau was serious about his walks in nature and gave the following advice for anyone contemplating taking a walk outdoors:

“We should go forth… in the spirit of undying adventure, never to return. If you are ready to leave father and mother… wife and child and friends, and never see them again, — if you have paid your debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free man, then you are ready for a walk.”

“When in the wilds, we must not carry our problems with us or the joy is lost.“
–Sigurd Olson

Calm Yourself

The breath reflects one’s mental state. As the breath becomes calmer, so does the mind, and vice versa. Relax your mind by doing these simple breathing exercises:

Inhale and tense your whole body. As you exhale, relax your body and feel you are energetically casting aside all worries, problems, and thoughts. Do this three times.

Inhale slowly counting one to eight, hold your breath for the same number of counts, then exhale for the same count. This is one round of “even count breathing.” Do five rounds.

The Stillness Meditation
(This is a variation on the Hong-Sau Technique of Concentration taught by Yogananda)

Observe the natural flow of your breath. Do not control the breath in any way. Simply follow it with your attention. Each time you inhale, think “Still.” Each time you exhale, think “Ness.”

Repeating “Still … Ness” with each complete breath helps focus the mind and prevents your attention from wandering from the present moment.

During the pauses between inhalation and exhalation, stay in the present moment, calmly observing whatever is in front of you. If thoughts of the past or future disturb your mind, calmly bring your attention back to what is before you, and continue repeating “Still … Ness” with your breathing.

Become Everything

When your mind wanders, repeat the following poem. It will help bring you back into the present.

“Let my mind become silent,
And my thoughts come to rest.
I want to be
All that is before me.
In self-forgetfulness,
I become everything.”
–Joseph Cornell

Feel Yourself in Every Sound and Movement

It’s wonderful how everything in wild nature is part of us.
“The sun shines not on us, but in us.
The river flows not past, but through us.”
- John Muir

As you walk, feel that everything around you is a part of you. Feel yourself in the trees, standing tall and firm. Feel inside of you the movement of their branches and leaves as they sway and flutter with the slightest breezes.

Become the birds as they flit from branch to branch. Listen to their voices and feel their joyous songs resonating within you.

Follow the wind by the sounds and movements it creates as it flows through, around and over trees, meadows and rocks.

Feel yourself in every sound, movement, and creation of Nature.

Live Expansively

If your mind begins to dwell on the past or to anticipate the future, focus your thoughts with the following practice:

As you walk, Make a smile with your whole body and joyfully repeat the words:

“I am peace… I am joy.
I am… in all things.”

Always live expansively. Enjoy the contrast between being self-absorbed and tiny—and embracing all life around you.

1. The Promise of Immortality
By J. Donald Walters (Swami Kriyananda)

I would like to share with you a marvelous visualization we have been using at Ananda Village for lessening (and even transcending) the intensity of karmic challenges. This visualization was inspired by our study of Swami Kriyananda’s course, Success and Happiness Through Yoga Principles. Since Ananda members have found this visualization so beneficial, I thought you might find it useful, too.

“To overcome karma,” Paramhansa Yogananda said, “meet it calmly and pleasantly.” Too often, however, we resist rather than embrace our karmic tests. We forget that whatever comes to us is coming directly from God. Swami Kriyananda has told us, “Karma is an expression of divine love.” Karmic circumstances are a gift, especially crafted by God and designed for our growth and liberation.

Years ago, I had a major illness for 3 1 years. It was an extremely challenging time for my wife and me. Fortunately, during the last 8 months of the illness, I was able to see what a great gift the illness was and I was deeply thankful to God for the soul lessons I had learned. Interestingly, years later after I had recovered from the illness, a psychic told me during her reading of my life, that it was uncommon to see someone make such a dramatic change in one lifetime. She said this transformation was due to my friend – the illness I had had for 3 1 years.

Accepting with love and faith whatever God sends us is the fastest way of moving through karmic challenges, because we attune to the process more deeply. “When you accept reality as it is, your energy becomes positive,” says Swami Kriyananda, “and that positive attitude will help you transform failure into success.” What appears to be a disaster in your life can be your greatest blessing.

The highest form of accepting reality is seeing that it is God who comes to you through all your life experiences. Seeing God as the real doer in your life can turn the despair or pain you might feel due to challenging karma into loving faith and courage.

_______________

When you face challenging or intense karma, use the following visualization to feel God’s loving presence in the situation. You can also use this visualization before meditation and during the day to free you from something that is troubling you.

People have reported immediate and transforming changes in their consciousness and outer life after using this visualization because it has helped them become more receptive and positive:

“After doing the visualization twice, once at the start of my morning meditation and once in the evening, I felt a significant lifting of a karmic challenge that I know is coming my way. I felt my body relax and the tension in my lower back release. The fear I felt over this impending challenge has greatly lessened. I’m certain that as I continue to do the visualization it will disappear entirely.

“As I do the visualization, I remember that the karma that comes to me is already greatly mitigated by the guru’s loving help. When I receive the gift of karma from him I take it into my heart and then fold my hands over my heart in prayerful gratitude.

“I’m doing this visualization regularly and absolutely love it. There is great power in it.”

~ J.S., Palo Alto, California

Embracing Your Karma Visualization

Karma is an expression of divine love.

Everything that comes to us is made especially for us by God—to free us from all limitation.

Visualize God as the Divine Mother, standing before you.
(You can visualize Yogananda or another saint if you prefer.)

See Her eyes gazing deeply into your own, filling you with Her love.
Know that She is with you, always.

Think now of a karma that is challenging for you.

See Divine Mother holding before you this karmic test. See Her smile as she reaches out and offers this test to you with loving kindness.
Reach out your arms and take hold of this karma.
Bring this karmic challenge into your heart.

Accept this precious gift—sent from the Wisdom of the Universe.
Know that it is a perfect gift, sent by Divine Mother, to help your soul become free.

In your heart embrace this karmic test fully, with gratitude and trust.
This karma can help you raise your energy level and consciousness to where your Godly nature resides.

Focus now at the point between the eyebrows.
See yourself rising to meet this karmic test and transcending its limitations.

See yourself becoming free in God.
Feel the bliss of being united with Spirit.

Sharing Nature Worldwide

Do you enjoy the expansiveness of nature and the stillness felt in beautiful and wild places?

For many years I have written nature awareness books to help children and adults feel the joy of nature. The exercises in my books have become well used and loved all over the world. I thought you might enjoy reading how I’ve used the principles of meditation and universal awareness to help people have a more inspired experience of their inner and outer nature.

This May 3 – 8, 2009, I will be hosting at Ananda’s Expanding Light guest retreat an international Sharing Nature Training and Retreat.

To learn more about Sharing Nature, read the Sharing Nature Worldwide 30th anniversary booklet (PDF).

May you always feel the guidance and loving presence of God.

In Divine Joy, Bharat Cornell

Ananda Meditation Ministry
14618 Tyler Foote Road
Nevada City, CA 95959
530-478-7561 ext 7014
meditation@ananda.org
www.learn-meditation.org

“True meditation begins only after the mind has been interiorized.”
–Swami Kriyananda.

In this month’s Daily Meditator, we offer excerpts from Swami Kriyananda’s book, Awaken to Superconsciousness, where he describes the deeper states of meditation.

His description of them is a valuable reminder of where, ultimately, we’re trying to go in meditation.

Last week I was studying Paramhansa Yogananda’s higher meditation techniques when I was again impressed by his emphasis on practicing them with strong mental focus. Without deep concentration, one’s effort to meditate will be neutralized, because it is by complete attentiveness that we cooperate and align ourselves with the goal of the technique.

The Highest States of Meditation

“The mind, in meditation must be so perfectly still that not a ripple of thought enters it. God, the Subtlest Reality, cannot be perceived except in utter silence. Once the mind is interiorized, it receives the first clear intimations of the ecstasies that await it in superconsciousness.

“Inner sounds and lights, tear-inducing love and joy, healing peace – all of these and more are enjoyed by many meditators from the very beginning. To perceive them clearly and steadily, however, instead of in fleeting glimpses, is another matter.

“The moon, reflected in a lake’s surface, rarely appears as it does in the sky. What is seen are reflections, leaping, glimmering, darting here and there in a thousand ripples, its light ever lacking in definition. Only when the surface of the lake is completely calm are the reflections in it perfectly clear.

“Dharana, (the sixth stage of Patanjali’s Eightfold Path), means ‘concentration.’ This concentration implies not only a focused mind: It implies the rippleless first stages of superconsciousness, when the ego perceives clearly at last levels of reality of which it has received only flickering glimpses before.

“The seventh stage on the path is called dhyana, or ‘meditation.’ Dhyana signifies that stage when the mind, calm and fully receptive, loses itself in the light (or in some other divine attribute) and finds its ego-consciousness dissolving in that light. If one is communing with AUM, the sound vibration is experienced in the entire body. The soul marvels in the realization: ‘This is what I am! Not a physical body, but a blissful manifestation of AUM.’

“The light that one beholds in deep meditation, or the sound that one hears, or the love or the joy, redefine one’s self-awareness. One recognizes oneself as a manifestation of Infinite Truth, and longs to become absorbed in it.

“Spiritual awakening is an ‘unlearning,’ finally, in the sense of being a process of divine remembering. ‘Ah, yes!’ the soul murmurs. ‘I recall everything now. This is what I am!’

“Dhyana, the seventh stage, is the true state of meditation. At this point the ego, contemplating the supernal reality, forgets its separate identity and becomes the soul.”

May your love and deep concentration bring you ever closer to divine awareness.

In Divine Joy, Bharat Cornell

Ananda Meditation Ministry
14618 Tyler Foote Road
Nevada City, CA 95959
530-478-7561 ext 7014
meditation@ananda.org
www.learn-meditation.org