Ida is lunar and Pingala is solar. Ida is the woman and Pingala the man. Ida is the night and Pingala the day. Both together make for all the energies male and female present in you. And the central Sushumna, which takes you beyond – and infact, harmonizes both the male and the female, the day and the night, the Sun and the Moon.

So you can see the energies are different, if you observe yourself in terms of their nature. Even at the most physical level, when the sun is out, it is hot! Moon, the light of the moon is cooling, while the light of the sun is heating.

Ida and Pingala. Ida is the Moon and Pingala is the Sun. Ida is left and Pingala is right. And Sushumna, that which takes you beyond – the central. So when the Energy is more prominently in the Pingala there is more heat in the body, there is more male side to you. When the Energy moves more prominently in the Ida, then there is a softer, feminine side to you – romance and poetry and contemplation.

The night is also more in-going, and the day more out-going. The solar is more out-going; the lunar is more in-going. And the Sushumna, the central, no-going – and yet going everywhere: all-going!

And if you observe – your breath during the twenty-four hours cycle will move more prominently through one nostril or the other.

So if the solar is excessive you can work with pranayama – work with the breath accordingly, and through the breath’s movements mellow it. And if the lunar is excessive you can modify by moving the breath accordingly, applying yourself.

But with the awakening of the Force – which in the Tantra and the Yoga shastras – books – is called kundalini – she harmonizes both. She awakens you to your natural rhythm which is universal – within which is the uniqueness of your personality.

So if you allow for the awakening through a whole process, she balances you out, and completely harmonizes your Being and the movements of the Energy, at the same time bringing you to a total freedom – total and complete. But it is a process.

It reaches you to a total and complete enlightenment. It brings you to the realization of the Reality in totality.

So day is male and night is the woman. And yet when the woman is, the man is there waiting; and when the man is, the woman is there waiting.

So even when the shifts happen – the male and the female – through the awakening you yet are beyond, and yet you have the freedom to be inclined more to one or the other making for yourself your own unique personality. 

So to stand back and watch the shifts… Of course, it is labour to begin with, finally easy and flowing.

To see the day in the light of the night and to see the night in the light of the day – relatively: how there are the shifts in the states and the movements of the energies at different times. See your perspectives at different times: how they change in the same situation, how you see differently the same thing at different times. How the states also can be like traps – when you are there you see only in that way and no other way; and yet when you move out into another space you see differently. This is all part of our meditation – the process of a complete enlightenment. This is all part of our sadhana.

It is the Being around which all the shifts happen, occur. But because the Becoming or the identification is total you just move from one to the other without having the objective purview. The witness must be always present. You are a witness to yourself. But initially you can remember in retrospect until you can do so in present.

And when you stand free behind you can have a perception of how things are moving in your Being. Then you develop foresight, insight – you know the future and then you also come to know the past – although sometimes the past can be quite embarrassing…

So be at it. It does not matter how long the awakening takes place and then thereafter the Process. It is the ultimate adventure, it is the ultimate life – it is the ultimate objective. But it demands of you the whole of your Being. Therefore, the awakening and your meditation were always suggested to be a worship and a reverence – to yourself and to all life – and so was sacred.

So coming back: there is a sun out there; there is a sun also here. There is a moon out there; there is also the moon here. And you will see that everything around you affects your energies. The sun of the summer affects you differently than the sun of the winter – you start to become aware – because you are not just limited to this body; you have a larger body – a cosmic body. And you can perceive it as you experience the facts of your Being.

Visitor: Concerning kundalini working in the Sushumna channel, is it a matter of awakening the kundalini or to clean the channel? Or both? Or is the channel clean all the time?

The Force does that when She awakens. She would not awaken if there was not some opening within yourself, if you are not prepared. It can come as a gift of Grace, or through one’s effort, through meditation, through prayer… Because when you are in prayer you are obviously ‘cleaning’. So then, as she moves she opens you out – and that you can call ‘cleaning’. She will refine you completely as she moves, as she rises.

There is an ascending movement and a descending movement.

V: Of kundalini?

Yes! There is not only an ascending movement, there is a descending movement. And it mutates your state – different states will follow. Your states of emotions will be enhanced, your states of thought – ideas will be enhanced, your states of passion will be enhanced. And yet she will take you beyond these states, transcending life-levels – but it is a process.

V: Everyone emphasizes meditation and mental processes to awaken the kundalini. Are you aware of physical processes that can do the same thing?

Well, Hatha Yoga is there – all the postures and the kriyas are supposed to. Our ‘body dynamics’ can bring about the same thing.

And really meditation is not just mental; meditation is the whole of your being – and that includes the physical.

Meditation is not just sitting – meditation is the whole of your life! Meditation is prayer – and meditation is also your work. This is a misunderstanding that meditation is only sitting. Meditation is the whole of your life – and that is yoga. When you are in yoga the awakening will be.

This is what we say that meditation –Yoga – is the whole of your life. It is all the techniques, the kriyas that you do – plus the whole of your life – your actions, every moment, every thought, every word and every emotion. It is the whole of you! And of course within that there are techniques – that too. But if they are just techniques they have no significance.

That is why I say – worship. And therefore to see your life as sacred – even your body movements.

And we also say, with the awakening of the Force there must be love of God. We put our entire basis on that. Otherwise it may just become a technical process – and even if one manages to awaken the kundalini, if he or she does not get situated in the love of God he or she misses out on the most profound realization.

V.: We are not aware of the spiritual aspect of life so we do not have awareness of our actions. In the context of what you are saying it would seem very important to be aware of all of our movements…

Yes, conscious – conscious of every movement. And therefore you require initially the environment, the Sangha, so that you are reminded again and again first, before it becomes your consciousness. Not until it becomes your consciousness can you be really conscious. Until such time you have to remember – that is why it is – labour.

And therefore the Buddha says Sangham Sharanam Gachchhami: Take refuge in the Sangha that will remind you. Because there is the atmosphere, especially in the presence of one who has it! His presence, his field, his ‘field of Atman’ – atmo-sphere – will take your consciousness into His own, and bring it about.

V: If kundalini fully works and you enter the Self you are in a blissful state. But still you will have good and bad tendencies. Does one still have to work on them, or once we are in that state we are clear?

At one level you are clear – at another you have to work on them. That is part of the work – the transformation, evolution – to rise into the Divine Consciousness. That is why I said earlier, ‘In the light of the day see the night, in the light of the night see the day.’ That will give the perspective: what is worth keeping and what is worth eliminating.

The transformation basically is a process of evolution which comes from an inner understanding, an inner development. And then when you see something that needs to go you let go of it. Initially you may require effort, but when you have the capacity within you, the power, the will, the Force, and also the consciousness, it is easy.

It is a process and it is simultaneous, and works at many levels at the same time. So the work involves a sincerity and will which is more comprehensive and complete in its transformation, in its evolution, where there is the ‘enhancement’ which we talk about: where you have the capacity to enhance certain qualities, to eliminate certain qualities, to transform certain qualities – alter them.

V: Can you give an example of this?

Say you feel love and you would like to keep love, you enhance that love, you can increase that love – you have the capacity. Because you can work with your energies, you have the freedom; you become the master of your energies. While now, energies, feelings emotions, they come and go. Also they fix you in certain way – you cannot easily nourish them now and transform them.

And these capacities, they come through this process. While you begin from where you are, work from there onwards, with as many sides as possible. But when the awakening happens – and it can happen with any tendencies still present where the work still needs to be done – then the refining process will give you the perception to see.

And a lot of times it will break your concept of what is right and what is wrong also. Your idea of values will also change. Hidden behind the negative you will perceive the positive – which you could not perceive at one time.

Your perception changes: it is not linear anymore; it becomes more comprehensive, wider, many-sided, in fact, multi-sided. The very thing that you may have condemned at one time now seems to hold a truth in itself!

So therefore you work from where you are and continue. That is why it is a process – of evolution and therefore manifestation.

And therefore I call it an adventure, the greatest adventure – establishing yourself in Divine culture. To bring out the Divinity in you, just as at one time the human was potentially latent in the animal and then the animal evolved into the human.

Life in its sleep has been a stone. Then the plant, the plasma, then the animal, then human. Then – to follow – the Divine. So this process is to turn you Divine.

You will observe there is much within one’s consciousness that is the animal, even though in the human form. And somewhere it may be even touching the Divine – just touching maybe, or having an idea, catching a glimpse – while in the middle it is the human.

So it is an upliftment – raising oneself to God! And to manifest the Godliness – for you are God! For God made man in His own image… But the journey began from the worm! Even earlier – from the stone. Nay, even before, when the earth was only a dream…

The God without form to manifest in and through the form! The greatest miracle, the greatest adventure – God’s Self-Creation.

So, emergence increasingly of Consciousness and therefore Manifestation. The discovery of meditation is the way; the discovery of prayer is the way. When the human consciousness was ready, they discovered meditation, they discovered prayer – they discovered all that leads to This.

Until such time they sought only the daily bread – even if it be with Philadelphia cream cheese!!! But man is more than food and raiment! He and she is a God in the making – not for an escape into another world but to walk on this very earth.

The journey may be long, but – do you not see – it is all worth it. And I tell you, you are helpless… And it is better that you are helpless seeking this than seeking anything else!

So offer yourself completely, that the whole of you be made in God – even so the body.

But for that you have to exceed yourself. You must always be ready to exceed yourself, and not remain bound up tight to what you consider yourself to be, on the pretext of ‘being yourself’. Of course, you begin from where you are at – but you begin. You do not end there – otherwise you remain there. Of course you have eternity, in terms of time. But your attitude and your application are required.

So rejoice, from this very moment. Let the journey be one of rejoicing. Even in your labour remember there can be joy. Most times it is yourself that prevents it to come, because you have ideas and concepts as to what is joy and what is not.

Joy is your own Self.

Be touched by God… It is the easiest way – that is why I say love of God. Otherwise the awakening of the Force – that is why I do not want to use the word kundalini – I give it its sacredness – becomes so technical. When it comes as a Grace, out of a love of God, it has a different quality.

And in your heart is this love – seek it through prayer. Even your meditation can be prayer, a worship. Even so your prayer can be meditation, contemplation – even so your works. There is nothing outside this – even your pleasures – but that they may not stand in your way, rather be stepping stones to your freedom.

A time comes when you start to see it like this, then the journey becomes easy; then it truly is a ride of freedom. That is when it becomes a rapture and an ecstasy; you become a walking ecstasy, you become a living rapture… You have been touched, and you have opened like a flower, and you continue to open and find.

It is the beginning of the greatest journey.

So through all that you do, keep yourself there – who knows when God may come knocking on your door – lest He find you sleeping, or so busy with yourself that you deny Him entry.

Come from the heart, sacred heart.

For I tell you with all guarantee that all your labour will never go un-rewarded. In the realm of God there is no unfairness, there is no injustice. It is only in the realm of man that these things exist. So therefore when you labour, when you seek, do so with the whole of your Being. Do it remembering that your life will be fulfilled, and through you therefore all life.

Amen.

Arya Vihar

5 August 1999