Begin the meditation with vigorous breathing, the energizer, to lighten up.  Strong, vigorous breathing.  When you feel the lightness follow up with the rhythmic breathing, the harmonizer.  Long and deep breathing, strong breathing – strong enough to be able to hear it. Fill up completely – empty out completely.

Deep breath, long breath, longer the breath the better it is, strong breath—to be drawn into your heart, to be centered. And in the heart is prayer; in the heart is the remembrance of God.

In the heart you are alone with God; there is no other. And when you have found God the Reality you have found everything.

And in the heart is prayer; in the heart is the remembrance of God. In the heart you are alone with God; there is no other. And when you have found God the Reality you have found everything –yourself and all that Is.

So use the breath to be centered. Breathe in, breathe out – continuous breathing. Long, deep, and strong enough: it will bring you to yourself. And then allow yourself to be drawn into the heart, the heart of prayer.  It will take you to a meditative space. Bring yourself to meditation, bring yourself to prayer, bring yourself to being indrawn—bring yourself to being centered.

Of course it requires commitment; it is sadhana—a continuous one at that.

This breathing you can do any time, even when alone with yourself – anytime, every time. It will bring you to your awakening. With it, you can join yourself to prayer; with it, you can join yourself to meditation. With it you can join yourself to work – which is worship. With it you can join yourself to your own divinity; arrive at the divine in yourself and in all things and beings; arrive at God.

So help yourself through the breathing. Help yourself through prayer, help yourself through meditation, help yourself through your work, which is worship, which is devotion, which is a joy that springs from your own heart for no reason…

It will deepen you, it will lengthen the spaces in your being: it will bring you to your heights; it will deepen you to your depths.

It is a prayer, it is a worship, it is meditation, it is a devotion—all this you are! There is no end to you.

This is a new way of breathing I am giving you for your life: it will modify and change your life completely. It is a due process; it is an intervention in the way you are now to carry you further in a very radical way. It is a transformation. So much as you intervene, proportionate to that is the transformation. It is integration; it is a timeless transformation through time! It is the rejuvenation of your being to arrive at immortality.

Breathe in, breathe out – be with it. It is an integration of the whole of your being. And yet remember, it is a due process: integration through time, through a process – increasingly so, and therefore an increasing manifestation of what is the Reality.

Breathe in, breathe out: long breath, deep breath, strong enough to energize. It will straighten your mind; it will straighten your being and bring you to your awakening – bring you to God.

Allow it to draw you in. Feel your heart; feel the prayer.

 

Asato Ma Sad Gamaya

 Tamaso Ma Jyotir Gamaya

Mrityor Ma Amritam Gamaya

 

It is a prayer to God from the soul to the super-soul – the Supreme.

Lead us, reach us to the Reality—increasingly so.

Lead us, reach us from darkness to light; from ignorance to knowing, to wisdom—to What Is…

Lead us, reach us to enlightenment that has no end. Lead us, reach us from death to immortality.

See if you can bring your heart into it, bringing feelings from your heart.

Through your heart connect to God, which is yourself ultimately, and all that is. He is the wave and also the ocean. You create a relationship through the heart.

It is the cry of the soul…

Prayer is the cry of the soul – the call of the soul reaching out to its own awakening through God…

It is your heart’s profundity, it is your heart’s poignancy, it is your heart’s fulfillment!

Turn your tears, your emotions to the call. Let them become a call unto God. This is the way of devotion; this is the way of emotion.

Through your emotions you turn the whole of your being to God, to the Reality. Even so through your thoughts, even so through all your feelings: the whole of the Being turned to God.

Asato Ma Sad Gamaya

Lead us, reach us to the Reality, increasingly so.

Tamaso Ma Jyotir Gamaya

Lead us, reach us from darkness to Light, from ignorance to wisdom, to enlightenment which has no end.

Mrityor Ma Amritam Gamaya

Lead us, reach us from death to immortality while we yet live in the body.

Through prayer you commune with God, you commune with the Reality.  It is a relationship; it is devotion.

Humility and tenderness are natural to the heart. Arrogance and assertiveness are natural to the vitals. Allow the heart to rule over your vitals. Allow the heart to melt your vitals through your tears, through your feelings, through your prayer.

Asato Ma Sad Gamaya

Tamaso Ma Jyotir Gamaya

Mrityor Ma Amritam Gamaya

When through the heart, through the prayer the vitals are integrated, they reach to a transformation; they become a powerful force in the hands of God. They reach to élan: they become an instrument of God.

Therefore the Tantra says there is immortality in your vitals, in your navel. It is the élan in the hands of God. The vitals are a powerful force; and they live in light when they are in the hands of God.

There is prayer in your heart. Be spontaneous, and allow that prayer to come forth. It is the natural essence that abides in your heart.

The essential nature of your heart is prayer, of oneness with all things, which is love, which is devotion, which is surrender unto the Divine, which is your very Being and all that which is, all that which is the Reality.

Out will come that sweetness, from that deeper heart, the deeper Being, like the ‘honey in the rock’ – which is your Immortality.

Asato Ma Sad Gamaya

Tamaso Ma  Jyotir Gamaya

Mrityor Ma Amritam Gamaya

Reach into your heart. Also you can always take the help of the breathing to arrive in your heart. It is always a long breath, a deep breath and yet strong enough to keep you with it and allow yourself to be drawn into your heart where you find prayer, prayer unto God, prayer unto your deeper being, your higher being, your being in all things and all beings, your being everywhere.

The call of the soul unto the Supreme, unto the Reality, unto God…

 

Arya Vihar

23 March 2000