Heartfulness Masterclass: Guided Practice #1

What is Transmission? An essential and unique feature of Sahaj Marg is the transmission of divine energy from the Master to the aspirant. This long-lost technique, called Pranahuti in Sanskrit, was rediscovered by the Grand Master of the system, late in the last century. The Master, who is himself merged with the Ultimate, is thus able to transmit the spiritual essence into the deepest level of the aspirant’s heart. We are guided by our Global guide Shri. Kamlesh.D. Patel, heartfully inviting you to experience a gentle body scan practice and the impact of Pranahuti even from the first sitting.

Transcript

Welcome,

Everyone.

And we're excited to share with you over the next three days our Heartfulness Master Class.

These master classes will be facilitated by Kanalash Patel,

Who is the global guide of the Heartfulness Organization.

So without further ado,

Let's begin our session.

Dear friends,

Welcome to day one of the Heartfulness Master Class series.

I'm glad to be here with you.

Our sessions will be very practical.

For the next five minutes,

I'll be explaining to you the basics of meditation,

And then I'll walk you through the heartfulness relaxation and meditation techniques.

Decades of rigorous scientific research have addressed and endorsed the benefits of daily meditation for physical and emotional well-being.

So I won't lecture you and bore you on why you must meditate.

What we are interested in is how to meditate so that we feel its benefits and are encouraged to meditate more.

Meditation is a skill.

Reputation is the key to mastering this skill.

The more we practice meditation,

The easier we understand how it works.

But if I don't feel anything,

Why will I ever meditate?

Instead of feeling of peace and harmony and stillness within us and the ability to keep our poise in the midst of hectic lifestyles,

Meditation becomes a dry exercise with no joy.

So experience is a must.

We would also like to experience the benefits of meditation today,

Not a week later or a month later or in a year's time.

So we look forward to meditating regularly when we feel and experience the promise of meditation in this instant.

Let us now adopt a scientific approach to meditation.

Like a scientist who sets up an experiment,

Makes observations and draws conclusions.

So too,

We will take up this experiment in the field of spirituality.

Let us join together and demystify the spiritual aspect of meditation.

We meditate and observe our experiences and draw our own conclusions based not on hearsay or faith or belief system,

But through actual experience arising out of meditation of Heartfulness practice.

In Heartfulness meditation,

We go into the heart.

We meditate on the heart.

Why the heart?

It is through the heart we feel things.

It is through the heart we make the rightful decisions.

It is through the heart.

We are inspired to act.

It is through the heart that we interact with the world.

It is through the heart we remain creative with our ideas.

Being rooted in a peaceful and meditative heart,

It increases our capacity to discern and make wise choices in life.

The unique feature of Heartfulness meditation is transmission.

Again,

We can evaluate the effects of this transmission with a scientific bent of mind.

Take for example in pharmaceutical industry,

The effectiveness of the active ingredient or active drug is measured against placebo.

This placebo contains actually no active ingredient or medicine.

And if the active drug performs significantly better than the placebo,

Then this new drug is considered effective.

Now with such a scientific approach to spirituality,

When we are trying to measure the effectiveness of transmission versus no transmission,

You must have meditated where there was no transmission perhaps.

Now you try and meditate with transmission.

In Sanskrit this transmission is known as pranahuti.

Experience this pranahuti or transmission during this Heartfulness meditation and see it for yourself.

Let me mention further also about certain aspects of this meditation.

Often people have confusion whether to start meditation or not because often we try meditating on our own and we get discouraged because of rush of thoughts during meditation.

Moment we close our eyes,

This rush of thoughts prevents us from meditation.

We see our inability.

So rush of thoughts is the biggest problem we all face when we are trying to meditate.

Second,

We try to accelerate this process of meditation and bring about somehow the state of concentration without realizing that the concentration is the by-product of doing meditation.

Can you concentrate?

Concentration is a state,

Not a process friends.

We are here to practice meditation,

Not concentration.

So let's abandon this idea of concentrating once and for all.

Thoughts are natural to us,

Just as our eyesight,

Our hearing.

What is a mind without thoughts?

But through meditation we like to train our mind,

Use its ability of thinking so that this thinking can be heightened to a creative level.

Whenever thoughts do arise in mind,

We just have to simply remind ourselves that I am meditating.

Whatever thoughts be,

If we pay attention to it,

It will draw our own energy and thrive.

So whenever thoughts do arise in our mind and trouble us,

We just have to simply remind ourselves that I am meditating on source of light.

We have to remain unmindful of these thoughts,

Whatever they be,

As we learn how to meditate.

Thoughts thus will not bother us.

They will simply pass like clouds in the sky.

Now,

For the next three to four minutes,

We will do Heartfulness Relaxation.

It is preliminary to meditation.

Once we know how to relax,

We need not go through the process.

Instantly the relaxed state of being can be invoked and we will be able to remain relaxed without going through the process of relaxation.

Same way,

Just as relaxation,

Which is started with a little bit of effort through a technique,

Which becomes effortless in due course,

Likewise meditation too.

It is an effort in the beginning,

But it automatically becomes effortless.

The state of relaxed mind will help us settle down properly and we will be able to invoke this source of light in our heart in a very easy way.

We will be in tune with our heart.

And when this transmission is experienced,

While we are meditating on the source of light in the heart,

Then somehow,

You know,

Just as a person who cannot walk and uses a crutch or a cane,

Likewise,

A person who is not able to focus his mind in a relaxed way is able to actually meditate in masterful way because of this transmission.

Transmission is like a cane.

It helps us walk.

Transmission helps us go dive deeper.

Transmission is an instrument that helps us shift our consciousness from one level to another level.

Moreover,

When we meditate with this mere idea,

Which is nothing but the thought that the light or that source of light is within my heart,

And I'm trying to meditate on that,

This transmission makes us move from this mere thinking to this wonderful feeling of experiencing the presence of the source of light in the heart.

The outcome is very profound.

I will not colour your experience by sharing what can happen or what will happen during this meditation.

I will not spoil this experience of yours.

Let it be your own experience.

Let it be your original experience.

If someone says you should feel like this in meditation,

Then sometime,

Oh,

I may wonder that was this effect casted by someone's thoughts?

So we will not get into this troublesome borrowing of ideas from others.

Let it be our original experience.

And this is what I would always insist that whoever is a spiritual seeker wants to find the truth for himself or herself,

Must rely on his or her own heart's experience.

Even when someone says,

You must experience this or you must not experience that,

I must be able to accept it through my heart.

If I'm not able to accept it,

Then that experience is not mine.

It belongs to someone else.

This relaxation technique,

You can try it before you go to sleep,

Especially when you feel stressed or anxious.

Try the relaxation technique on yourself.

You can experiment with your family and friends as well.

For example,

If a panic attack hits you,

Do this.

This is a different method though.

Breathe via your left nostril 10 times.

How?

Just close your right nostril with the thumb and breathe with left nostril very deeply 10 times.

And you will be amazed to see,

To witness how easily the panic attack goes away or how this state of anger can disappear in just a few seconds.

So now,

Dear friends,

Let's really begin with what we have been waiting for,

Actual experiment.

First I'll walk you through this relaxation technique.

I hope you will thoroughly enjoy it.

And immediately after that,

I'll walk you through the process of meditation.

So dear friends,

Are you ready to relax and meditate?

Okay,

Let's begin then.

In heartfulness,

There are no strict postures.

Sit comfortably now.

Gently close your eyes.

Feel your toes.

Feel the energy entering into your toes from Mother Earth.

See its relaxing effect.

Let this energy move upward to your feet and ankle.

Feel how it rejuvenates and relaxes this part of the body.

Let this energy move upward to your lower legs.

Feel the detensioning effect of this energy moving upward into your calf muscles,

Your upper legs,

The entire area touching the chair including the back.

Feel this energy relaxing the entire back.

Let this energy move forward,

Relaxing abdominal muscles,

Chest area,

Your shoulders,

Your shoulders.

Here feel especially the melting effect,

Detensioning effect in your shoulders.

Feel that they're melting away.

Let this energy move to your arms,

Feeling its effect through biceps and your elbow and your wrist area,

Your palms,

Fingers and your fingertips.

Let this energy move and rejuvenate the entire length of our arms.

It's okay if this energy can ooze out through our fingertips,

Let it.

Now let's pay our attention to neck muscles.

Feel the energy relaxing all the neck muscles.

Now let this energy move upward,

Relaxing all the facial muscles,

Forehead,

Your eyes,

Lips,

Ear loops,

Top of your head.

Feeling this energy now flowing in a very gentle way from the feet rising up slowly upward through the steps we just followed to the crown of our head.

If you feel like revisiting the stressed area of your body,

You can pay extra attention now until that part of the body is also fully relaxed.

Let's scan the whole system now from top to toe or if you prefer from toe to top.

Simply make a note of this experience in your note in your journal,

How you felt.

Take hardly half a minute or so to make note of this in your journal.

Okay if you have made an entry,

Fine.

Now we gently move into meditation.

With this meditation,

We will be going deeper into ourselves through our heart with the help of transmission.

I will be transmitting to you all and I assure you,

You will all feel it.

So now once again let's close our eyes.

Gently focus on the heart.

Just where it's beating away,

Two,

Three fingers below our left nipple.

Feeling that the source of light which is in my heart is pulling my attention inward and let this thought rest.

We'll continue with this meditation for let's say 20 minutes at the end of which I will say that's all.

So through this meditation you realize the.

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Reviews

I think the end comes when you are ready. I appreciated being able decide that versus being interrupted.

Interesting! Thank you

Very nice but ending was abrupt