Begin with Vigorous Breathing to lighten up.

When you feel the lightness follow up with the Rhythmic Breathing.

Centre yourself through the help of the breathing.

 

We will do Jagriti-Abhishekam Kriya using Prana, the breath.

We work with the breath, first with Jagriti for some time.

 

Breathe in, long, deep and strong breath;

take it down all the way to the first center,

Mooladhar, the area between the anus and the genitalia,

and as you release the breath

you feel the energy rising upwards to the head,

to the top of the head – Sahasrar, the seventh centre.

This is Jagriti.

 

Abhishekam is to breathe in and raise it up above the head,

as high as you can take it, into the skies – unto the heavens,

follow it, feel it, and then as you release the breath,

Grace descends with it, bathing you,

showering you completely from head to toe.

And you feel this energy and blessedness.

Of course all this is done not technically,

mechanically,but with feeling.

 

It is a devotion.

For you have a heart.

The heart is the seed of devotion.

The heart is the seed of love,

of the kingdom of God.

So why shall we miss out a part of us.

In fact a profound part of us.

Truly the very seed of the soul.

If there is no heart there is no soul.

So we always work with the heart.

For when you work with the heart it is easy to gather yourself.

When you love someone you are totally there.

You may otherwise plan and think out,

how to be with someone or something,

but you can never be totally there.

But when there is the heart then you are there.

This is the power of the heart.

 

So we awaken from below and seek from above.

Why I use the word ‘seek’?

It is so that we turn to that, which is above us,

with true devotion.

It is a mellow. There is no conceit in it.

 

When you love someone you offer yourself

and then the receiving comes.

One never grabs.

There is quality in that – a quality difference.

A moment is reached when you do not even seek.

Then you are most qualified to receive.

You only love.

That is the true nature of love.

Love for loving’s sake.

When you have arrived there,

you have arrived in God.

When you love in this way,

you love in a Godly way.

 

So whatever we do in our seeking,

let it be out of love.

And love knows no boundaries,

so then what you receive automatically has no boundaries.

When you love someone you never hold back.

You give – you do not even think

what you should and what you should not.

It just comes forth – a flow – you offer completely.

It is a spontaneous movement.

You just melt.

 

So love is an offering that holds nothing back.

That is how we seek in meditation too.

That is when meditation has a certain quality,

when it is invested in and with love.

So that is why we have given these two names to this Kriya:

Jagriti-Abhishekam.

 

You awaken the force.

You awaken to the light from below.

Of course when it awakens there is a lot

that comes up from the lower regions;

all the activities of life, with great intensity.

That is why I say be a warrior.

This journey is only for the warrior – the brave.

And the bravest is a child.

The innocence in you is what makes you brave and courageous.

So whatever that may come up – see it with innocence.

For seeing it with innocence is seeing it with sacredness.

For all life is sacred.

 

So Jagriti – that we may awaken to this seeing.

Abhishekam – so we may constantly, continuously dwell in the grace.

Forever continue to feel the shower,

shower of all that which is above.

Shower of Grace.

 

We will chant first to create an atmosphere.

I have given this word a little twist and I call it Atmasphere.

The sphere of the Atma – Atmasphere.

What is energy-field? It is sphere. The atmosphere.

Of what? Of the Atma, the Self. So Atmasphere. Atmosphere.

The field in which the energy of the soul, the Atma, expresses.

 

So, we all each time each moment carry a certain atmosphere,

which we can create; re-create, modify, alter, enhance.

Chanting will create that kind of energy-field, atmosphere;

which is conducive for us to carry on

with the awakening of the Atma.

 

That is why in the Gita it is said,

through the self the Self is reached.

It further carries on to say, the self is a friend of the Self.

The closest friend, and yet sometimes the same self

can become the enemy of the Self in the journey.

Of course, all part of the learning, the discovery of what is.

 

So we will chant for ten minutes.

Then do the Kriya.

For this journey of Self-Discovery.

 

Asato Ma Sad Gamaya
Tamaso Ma Jyotir Gamaya
Mrityor Ma Amritam Gamaya

 

Asat is the unreal

Sat is the real, the true.

This is a prayer. Very ancient, comes from the Vedic times.

It is a prayer unto the reality, that which is true,

to lead the soul, your self, to uncover the real from the unreal.

To take away the cover of the seed and let the tree, the plant,

the flower to blossom and show itself, which is the real.

Ma is negation, turning away from the unreal.

Asato Ma Sad Gamaya.

Not the unreal but the real.

 

Let us seek completely not incompletely as we do now.

Let us live in the real and not in the unreal.

Let us move continuously towards the real.

Let us see in sacredness, for the real is always present.

 

Tamaso Ma Jyotir Gamaya.

Tamas is darkness, it is ignorance.

Jyoti is light.

A prayer to uncover the light.

For the darkness to fall away, the ignorance to disappear.

So the soul’s yearning and longing

to reach again and again to light;

and for its covers of ignorance to fall away,

for the covers of darkness to disappear.

 

 

Then again

Mrityor Ma Amritam Gamaya.

Mrityor is mortality.

Death, limitations.

Finity, that which is finite.

That which is finite is always binding.

So long as we perceive ourselves to be finite,

so long as we experience limitations,

we are bound, within a certain framework,

that which we cannot cross.

Our capacities are limited.

It is an imprisonment, however large the prison may be.

 

And Amritam is immortality, infinity.

Not only in its state of absolute above life,

but even so in terms of its manifestation,

progressive manifestation.

To be able to perceive the immortal

in that which seems to be mortal.

To be able to perceive the timeless in time.

The infinity in that which is finite.

To be able to see the motionless in motion.

To be able to see the continuous even beyond death,

and therefore death losing its limitation.

Now we stop at death, we cannot see further.

So life is endless.

The reality in its infinity is not only beyond life,

but even in life it is so.

There is continuity that can be endless.

 

Does life end in death?

We seem to see it so now.

But a moment is reached when you do not see it in that way.

You can see the continuous reincarnation.

Just as when you go to sleep in the night,

and you get up in the morning, you do not stop,

you do not end with your sleep.

So also you do not end when the moment of death is experienced.

For that which is immortal cannot die.

Really there is no such thing as mortality, to even the body.

It is only the shape and form that continuously modifies itself.

It is just a modification that happens.

It is because we do not see a form anymore that we say it is over.

But it is inevitable for that which moves

to continuously move, modify – change.

In that it is immortal. Changing immortality.

So therefore the movement is also immortal.

 

The form –

the underlying substance,

the underlying principle behind the form is the immortal.

It is the immortal that continuously modifies itself.

So the modification is also immortal.

So this truth is what is being sought in this prayer.

It is a very ancient prayer.

Comes from the times of the Vedas.

They sought and they found.

 

Do the Jagriti first.

Ten minutes the actual Kriya,

and five minutes of rest and silence.

This Kriya can be done with sound also.

 

We will begin; we will do this now with breath.

Take a deep breath; take it all the way down to the first center.

All the way down, even further if you can manage.

Even down there, it is infinity.

There is nowhere, where it is not.

And you follow the breath.

So wherever it stops be there with it for a moment.

Then as you release the breath,

feel the energy rising upwards

from the first center to the top of the head.

For ten minutes we will do this,

then we will stop for five minutes.

Remaining in ourselves, in the heart.

 

The second round after the five minutes stop will be Abhishekam.

So it is a continuous cycle.

 

So first the Jagriti for ten minutes,

then five minutes stop.

 

Then Abhishekam,

where you breathe in,

and the breath rises above to the top,

above the head as high as you can go,

opening out to the Heavens above your head.

Then as you release the breath-

You feel the energy coming down from above.

You feel the Grace descending.

You feel the Blessedness.

It is all present up there.

And you feel it in the whole of your body,

moving down – inside, outside.

For ten minutes we will do this.

Then again five minutes stop. Resting in the heart.

Then we will repeat.

 

We can begin. So ten minutes Jagriti.

Take a full breath, a deep breath.

If you do not manage, if you cannot manage,

try and try again and then you have it.

Practice makes it possible – perfect.

As the breath moves in and down, you follow it.

Then stay down with it as far as it has managed to reach.

To the first center, at least.

 

Then as you release it,

as it rises up and out,

you feel the energy rising,

reaching the top of the head.

For ten minutes stay with the breath throughout,

and the energy as it moves up.

Once you get the hang of it, it becomes easy.

It becomes natural.

 

It is also an exercise on being able to focus your attention,

on being able to concentrate on one thing for a length of time.

The energy reaches the top of the head,

stay there for a moment.

You follow the energy up to the top of the head,

be there for a moment,

and then repeat with the breath again.

 

There is a moment when you stop

at the lowest centre at the bottom,

and then there is a moment

when you stop at the top of the head.

In that sequence.

 

 

In Abhishekam it is the other way round.

You go up, you stop up there for a moment

and then when the energy comes down,

you stop at the bottom for a moment

with whatever you have felt.

 

Ten minutes of Abhishekam.

Take a deep breath but raise it up

to the top of the head and above.

And then as you release the breath,

down with it comes the Grace,

the blessedness.

And you feel it, the energy coming down.

All the way down.

You stay up a moment as you breathe,

and reach up to the top,

above the head.

Stay a moment up there, unto infinity.

Then as you come down, releasing the breath,

the energy comes down, reaching the bottom,

you stay there for a moment, before you repeat.

Ten minutes in this way,

then five minutes stop and being in the heart.

 

Follow the process throughout, the breath upwards.

Then as you release the breath at the top,

from the top you follow the Grace, the energy down.

On the top stopping for a moment.

Then again at the bottom stopping for a moment,

being there with your attention.

 

You can stop and rest for five minutes in the heart.

 

Ten minutes of chanting to finish the meditation.

 

Asato Ma Sad Gamaya
Tamaso Ma Jyotir Gamaya
Mrityor Ma Amritam Gamaya

 

 

 

 

Arya Vihar

2 September 1998