How Heartfulness Meditation Can Change Us Mentally & Spiritually

This audio explains how to meditate and what heartfulness practice is about. These are briefly described in this guided meditation. It also explains how spirituality changes us in viewing and judging things and people around us.

Transcript

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In India,

You need not know why,

What,

How of meditation.

Most people,

They are aware of it,

That there is meditation,

A way to spirituality.

How to look within,

These are the methods that are there.

But to explore the methods suitable to your own self,

It's difficult to find.

Most people are meditating actually.

You name a child,

To a teenager,

To a lady,

Or students,

Or working in various environments.

They are all meditating on something or the other.

Business man is meditating on money.

Student is meditating on whatever subjects,

Education,

Right?

Now,

The idea of meditation is to think on one object,

God.

That's how we first proceed with this idea,

With the thought.

Now,

This thought process must evolve into the next level.

Like when I am using mantra,

For example,

I am reciting Om Namasivaya Om Namasivaya Om Namasivaya Om Namasivaya.

It goes on.

It is like you phone somebody,

Let's say your friend or your mother,

Mother,

Mother,

Mother.

Even when she picks up the phone,

You keep on saying mother,

Mother,

Mother,

And you don't let her answer.

So mantras to me are like that.

Om Namasivaya Om Namasivaya Om Namasivaya Om Namasivaya.

God may be trying to communicate with you,

But you don't give him a chance to reciprocate.

In true meditation,

You start with avocation.

You invoke the presence of deity or whatever,

And you wait for that experience to surface on its own in your heart.

So you may start with the thinking apparatus,

You know,

With,

Okay,

I am thinking on presence of God.

But next step should be,

This thought must translate into experiencing or feeling the presence.

So meditation allows you to move forward from thinking to feeling the presence of divinity within.

Though the divinity is everywhere,

But it is wiser to experience it in my heart.

Some people meditate on this forehead,

Some people on swadhisthana,

Some on nail,

Some on heart.

Some actually meditate on outside object,

For example,

This statue is there.

People go on focusing their eyes on it or some deepam.

But how to move next forward?

Let us see.

When the idea is to feel something,

Am I going to feel things with my forehead?

Forehead prompts you to think.

Can I feel the things with my navel,

With my shoulders,

With the candle or deepam in front?

The only organ that prompts me to feel something is my heart.

So we start with this idea of presence of divinity in my heart and try to feel the presence.

Now,

How to move next to the next stage?

From thinking to feeling is the first step.

It is the biggest step one takes.

For example,

When you are worshipping a deity,

You have a murti,

Your father or mother or your grandmother may have told you,

This is God,

Remember this is God.

From childhood you have been ingrained with this idea.

You grow up a little bit more and then they inculcate you with this idea,

God is everywhere.

But then you start questioning,

Mama you told me he is only here.

Then you start thinking,

If God is everywhere,

Then what is the use of this?

Nevertheless we still respect,

We worship,

We revere,

But the mind is not happy with the answer.

Nevertheless we keep on doing the same thing out of respect,

Out of fear perhaps,

Out of temptation maybe.

So whenever we have the end goal,

Because of this I am doing it,

Then there is a problem.

See our ancient sages,

They have somehow invented various kinds of prayers.

And four fundamental prayers are to fulfil four fundamental requirements.

First requirement,

Depending upon who it is,

You ask somebody what is your requirement?

Oh I need a lot of money.

Another person,

Oh I need to have my kamas satisfied.

Another person may say my dharma has to be satisfied.

Another fellow might say I want to achieve moksha.

So based on these fundamental four requirements we have four paramaarthas,

Artha,

Dharma,

Kama and moksha.

Now the beautiful thing is when you have fulfilment of artha,

You have a lot of money,

The three things may elude you.

You may not have fulfilment of your desires,

You may not have dharma,

You may not have moksha.

Next step,

Suppose even if you are satisfied with dharma,

Righteousness,

But you are a pauper,

Left without moksha,

What are you going to do?

Nothing.

But if moksha is fulfilled,

Then other things remain irrelevant.

So the goal is moksha,

But according to this tradition that I am following,

It's a first step into spirituality.

What is moksha after all?

It is what we call in our sastras as liberation.

Why are we not getting liberated?

So many years of worship.

It has nothing to do with death,

But feeling that I am free from everything,

I am detached from everything.

Even the idea of freedom has to go away,

Otherwise you are trapped with the idea of freedom.

To talk about attachment and detachment also,

Sometimes you might laugh,

Oh he is so attached to his non-attachment.

So tricky things develop out of all these things because of ignorance.

Though the idea of moksha is there,

What traps us here is our own samskaras,

Our own impressions about things.

And because of this we take birth after birth after birth to get rid of all these samskaras.

What are samskaras after all?

I have a baggage that I carry from my past life.

Punya samskaras or papa samskaras,

Whatever they are.

In order to dissolve them,

I take this birth.

When I have no more samskaras,

No more seeds left for it to grow in my life,

Then it will end.

Life will end.

And then the soul without samskara,

Pure in itself,

Will merge in the ultimate.

It will start its journey forward.

But while we incarnate ourselves on earth with whatever samskaras,

So that we can undergo the bhoga of it,

But in the process we make more and more of samskaras and it is a never-ending cycle.

Through proper method of meditation,

We are able to erase these samskaras.

It's almost like erasing your pen drive and put some new programs in it.

Something like that.

So meditation,

Though it is so widely understood and known in modern world,

But its applications are much greater.

Today you ask anybody,

Why meditate?

Oh,

I want to feel cool.

I want to feel distressed.

I want to remove the stress from my system.

I want to feel relaxed.

I want my depression to go away.

I want to sleep better.

I want to feel good.

But these are all peripheral satisfactions.

The real thing is minimum liberation and go beyond.

Suppose you are on your journey from Hyderabad to Delhi,

For example,

And you have attained,

Or let us say your destination is temporarily Sikandarawat,

Or your station,

Your train is stuck there.

So what are you going to do?

It is like though the station is there,

Though the spiritual condition of liberation is there,

You are stuck on an infinite journey.

There is no destination.

Destination always precedes you further and further and further.

There is no end to it.

Well,

We have termed this as heartfulness meditation because it is all about heart.

There is no other way of putting it.

It is all about heart.

Guruji has named it as Sahaj Marg meditation because it is so simple.

Path is so simple.

Heartfulness.

Anything you do heartfully,

We start with meditation.

Heartfully done meditation teaches us something.

To do everything heartfully,

You cook heartfully,

You converse heartfully,

You perform all your daily chores,

Daily activities,

Perform all your daily chores,

Daily activities heartfully.

So this is how you are trained actually.

You know,

In Lord Krishna says,

In Gita,

Yoga ha karmasu kausalaam.

Through yoga all your activities should become,

Or will become,

Kausalaam means perfect,

It will become skilled,

Your actions,

Skillful actions.

So when you are in a meditative state,

You are no longer grouchy,

You are no longer getting irritated for every little thing.

If you are in a meditative state.

So one should be actually meditating actively and actively participating in daily activities with meditative mind.

Meditation is just the beginning of it,

But it must extend in our daily life.

Otherwise it has no meaning.

Heartfulness meditation differs from so many,

I would say almost all sorts of meditations.

Number one,

Meditation is on the heart.

Secondly,

This meditation is aided,

Supported by Rana Hruthi,

Called yogic transmission.

Thirdly,

This meditation is also supported by cleaning process we call,

Or fine tuning yourself.

And another next very important element is prayer.

Now let's begin with what is this Rana Hruthi or yogic transmission offered in this system.

Heartfulness meditation does not want you to believe in the system with blindfold.

You must not believe just because your mother says so,

Or your friends say it so,

So you do it and say,

Oh it's going to elevate me to the highest.

No.

You believe it only when you experience it.

So,

Or you feel something like scientist does an experiment,

It is in his laboratory.

He goes through various conditions of experiments and then either proves it or disproves it.

Likewise,

When you meditate with this system of meditation with yogic transmission.

Now,

Let us talk about,

Before we understand transmission,

Let's talk about placebo.

How are these medications,

Drugs,

And research in the laboratory?

First,

They experiment with placebo.

If placebo effect is 50% and the effect of new drug is also 50%,

That means drug is not effective.

If the drug impact is about 90%,

Then you can say yes,

It is better than placebo and can be marketed for whatever reasons.

So they compare placebo versus the active medicine.

Now with meditation,

With transmission,

And meditation without transmission,

Meditation without transmission is like meditation done with placebo effect.

And with this transmission,

It is like with the active medical ingredient.

So now,

When we offer this system to newcomers,

Okay,

You meditate,

We will give you the method.

It is like placebo,

But we will not transmit to you.

You sit for 15 minutes,

20 minutes,

Or if you don't want to waste your time with this empty meditation,

Recollect one of your best experiences that you ever had in your life,

Through whatever system,

Or no system.

Try to close your eyes and try to feel something.

Write it down.

Now,

Meditate with this,

Through this meditation practice method with transmission and see the difference.

Now,

What is this yogic transmission?

If I have to answer it briefly,

It is a spiritual food,

Just as we have nutrition.

We have balanced diet,

Vitamins,

Minerals,

Etc.

For the body.

For mental enrichment,

We educate ourselves.

What about spiritual enrichment?

What would fit the soul?

We have known how to fit the body,

We have known how to fit the mind.

How are you going to fill the soul?

This transmission does that job.

Transmission enriches our soul.

So when it is in that enrichment,

Just as we have taken a nice meal after a good fast,

You feel that yes,

You are content.

Likewise,

When the soul is satisfied with transmission,

The soul will sour you with so much of grace and peace,

Samadhi-like state,

It will be unparalleled.

When you feel this,

Then you can say,

Yes,

I am the scientist who was experimenting on my heart and my experience will only tell me it is right or wrong.

You are the judge.

So I like to say that don't trust the system because somebody says so.

Follow this meditation like a scientist would and prove it to yourself,

Beyond any doubts that yes,

It can do so.

So this is what we are offering in a bold way,

In a courageous way to all the young minds,

Old minds.

All are welcome to try it out in the laboratory of their own heart.

Now,

The second extraordinary feature I told you about is cleaning,

Fine-tuning yourself.

Now,

What is this cleaning?

Suppose I go to a theater,

Watch a movie,

I come up with some sort of impression.

Whether I enjoy it so much,

I keep laughing,

Remembering the characters.

Or another character I remember and feel like crying.

See,

These are the impressions I carry.

I am not part of this whole scenario,

But story has impacted me so much.

It forms an impression in my mind.

On the way,

When I see,

For example,

In the garden,

A rose flower,

I look at it open.

It's a beautiful rose flower.

Second day,

When I am passing through the same garden,

It's even better looking today.

I try to hold it now.

Third day,

I want to hold it in my hand and smell it.

See how it continues.

Fourth day,

You might be tempted,

Pluck it and take it home.

See how this is how first impression goes on,

Marching and make us do so many things.

Or take,

For example,

Another person,

For example,

A doctor,

Making rounds in the hospital,

Going up patients after patients after patients.

Suddenly he finds one person,

Looking apparently healthy but complaining,

I am not feeling well,

Doctor,

I have this problem,

Why don't you check me?

My heart is pumping so hard.

The doctor says,

You look good,

I will come to you later.

And by the time he comes,

Patient is dead.

So what would go through the doctor's mind at that time?

I had the opportunity.

He was calling me,

I need your help,

And yet I avoid it.

So not only the actions makes you form the impressions in your mind,

But many a time your inactions,

That forms a horrible impression in your heart.

Some people say,

I am not good,

I am not good,

But I am in the heart.

I often remember exam times,

And so many of my friends,

They say,

Kamalajwai,

Last night I had a dream,

And dream was,

I am going to exams,

But I forgot the pencils,

Or I forgot the pens,

And then I had to go back home picking it up,

But by the time the examination hall was closed.

Things like that,

See.

They haunt us.

The impressions clouds us.

About the person for example,

Your mother shouted at you,

And when you come back home,

You are entering the same mind frame,

Oh mother,

Maybe still angry today.

But she may not be.

It was your morning impression.

See,

Likewise many other people say,

Oh he is driving Mercedes for example,

Not necessarily he is the owner of it.

When we remove these impressions and see the things directly,

Without the help of these impressions,

We are able to judge things better,

With total clarity.

So we have to get rid of these impressions,

Little by little,

Little by little,

Because only because of these impressions,

We are not able to decide things in an unbiased way.

When you have an impression about something,

That will make you judge according to the previous impression.

When you want to judge a person or a situation,

Let there be a fresh perspective.

So through cleaning we are able to remove all these impressions.

Often there is a moment,

I mean there can be so many moments in our life,

Where we form very very deep impressions,

And often these deep impressions are arising out of guilt.

What is the chain reaction?

How they form?

Have you seen,

I mean you analyze yourself from morning to evening.

The moment you wake up in the morning,

Till you go to bed.

Our constant preoccupation is with likes and dislikes,

And accordingly we form impressions about objects and people and so many things.

With impurities in our heart,

Samskaras in our heart,

I don't think we can fine tune our heart and play the veena.

It's not possible.

There must be a relaxed state.

Fear comes,

Tension comes,

It's because of certain impressions we carry about whatever it be.

I had to be out of all these impressions of fear,

Even extraordinary love.

All unnecessary things.

Not that we don't love people,

But not in such a way that it destabilizes your system.

That's what that is.

That's what that is about.

Cleaning.

About prayer.

Often people,

I would say without an exception,

They pray for themselves.

Even when they say,

My Lord,

Let there be peace in the world.

But often you are asking for your peace.

Even when you mean,

Let there be peace in the world.

But then when we are expecting peace inside,

Though we offer prayer for the world,

It's a psychological twist.

When we say we like to achieve the highest state,

When we pray on behalf of the family or the state or the whole universe,

But then too,

Mind is preoccupied with my progress,

My growth.

Words also fail,

Even when we say we,

We mean to say later on,

I.

Somehow there is a psychological twist.

The prayer we offer is also quite unique,

But we will take up this aspect of prayer much later,

When the whole thing is ready for accepting this practice and how to offer the prayers to God so that this transmission can flow automatically.

So these are the,

I would say,

Briefly these few characteristics that defines what Heartfulness Meditation is all about.

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