My question is addressed to Nayaswami Mukti. While doing the exercise of superconcentration that she described, I find that I don’t feel a real connection with God. Could you please tell me what I could do to feel it? Also, I understood that we can count 12 times while holding the breath out, and repeating mentally, I am Spirit, bliss. It is difficult for me not to breath during all that time. And then, I might have misunderstood, but should I repeat the exercise 12 times?
—Julia, USA
Dear Julia,
There are two aspects to your question which reflect the two aspects of any spiritual practice. There is how to tune into the Divine Presence, which is the reason for doing any practice, and there are the details of how to do it.
First, God is always with us: the essence of every particle of our being. The main barrier to feeling this presence is restlessness. So stillness, relaxation and deep awareness are all essential. That is why meditation technique can be so helpful.
For a fuller discussion on what it means to feel the presence of God, it’s helpful to look at Paramhansa Yogananda’s 1924 book The Science of Religion. In it, he says God is Bliss. “Of course when I say that God is Bliss, I mean also that He is Ever-existent and that He is also conscious of His Blissful Existence,” he says in the book. “And when we wish Eternal Bliss or God, it is implied that with Bliss we also wish Eternal, Immortal, Unchangeable, Ever-conscious Existence.”
How do we know if we are feeling the presence of God? Yogananda said we should feel “an inward expansion and an all-embracing sympathy for all things.” We should feel that we have risen above our “petty” feelings of love and hate and pleasure and pain.
“It is evident, then, that God cannot be better conceived than as Bliss coming within the range of every one’s calm experience,” Yogananda said.
But if this is not what you are feeling right now, don’t worry. In How to Awaken Your True Potential, Yogananda says:
“Never mind if you cannot at first contact God or hear His knock at the gate of your heart. For a long time you have been running away from Him, hiding in the marsh of the senses. The noise of your own rowdy passions and the flight of your heavy footsteps in the material world have made you unable to hear His call within. Stop, be calm, meditate deeply, and out of the silence will loom forth the Divine Presence.…God can never hide from the person who exercises devotion, love, right meditation, and a soul-call.”
Regarding the details about how to do the spiritual practice: The meditation technique called Hong-Sau actually has three components. There are preliminary techniques that help prepare the mind and body to meditate. There is the meditation technique of concentration on the flow of breath adding the Hong Sau mantra. Then there is letting go of the technique and resting in and expanding into any aspect of the divine presence that has been awakened by use of the technique. It seems you have mixed the preliminary techniques and the Hong-Sau concentration practice together.
We use a count with one of the preliminary techniques (even-count breathing), but we adjust the count to fit our natural breath span as we breathe through the nose. So it may be most natural to mentally count 4 on inhale, 4 hold, 4 on exhale and begin again. The point of the technique is to relax the mind and withdraw the energy inward. We only do this even-count breathing for 4-6 rounds or so before we let go of controlling the breath and move to Hong-Sau concentration.
Hong-Sau involves watching, observing, concentrating on flow of breath at the place in the nose where it is most clearly felt and allowing the breath to flow naturally without any control. The breath will gradually slow down, and pauses between breaths may occur as your awareness becomes more inward.
So you can see they are quite different techniques. I have just touched on a few points here. I encourage you to take a look at our free Meditation Mini-Course which will explain the complete Hong Sau technique in detail. It is an easy and powerful technique to do.
The second part of your question is how to feel the divine presence. God is always with us: the essence of every particle of our being. The main barrier to feeling this presence is restlessness, so stillness, relaxation and deep awareness are all essential. That is why meditation technique can be so helpful.
I encourage you to refine your meditation technique further. Make meditation a regular part of every day. Each time you sit for meditation have the expectation that this is the time when you will experience deep peace or calmness or light or another of the divine aspects. Enjoy the process of ‘becoming better’ at meditation. Don’t allow frustration in. No effort is ever wasted! In enjoyment you will open a door for connection with God.
In closing, consider this advice from Yogananda recorded in How to Awaken Your True Potential:
“The more you meditate, the more you will realize that nothing else can give you that refined joy but the increasing joy of silence. That joy-contact in meditation is contact with God.
“…Do not be impatient. Keep on steadily. Incorporate this practice into your regular routine, making it as much a part of your day as eating, brushing your teeth and bathing, or sleeping…As in everything else, the highest results cannot be attained in a day or even in days. Practice! Practice the technique, and apply to your daily needs the calmness it produces.”
Many blessings,
Nayaswami Mukti
Updated April, 2023, by Ananda Communications
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