This guided meditation is based on a classical tantric yoga practice called Deha Shuddhi or burning of the body image.
It's a visualization practice to help you let go not just of your body image but of your conditioned ideas about yourself,
Releasing the psychological impressions that life leaves on you.
By doing this,
You release the fetters of your own mind,
Moving towards the freedom of open awareness.
Begin by finding a comfortable seated position with your hands resting in your lap,
Closing your eyes,
Making any small movements and shifts in posture that help you settle and relax a little bit more.
Feel the uprightness of your spine,
Allowing it to gently float upwards without muscular effort.
Allow your body weight to settle down into your seat.
Feel the muscles releasing.
As you settle deeper,
Take three full relaxed breaths,
Inhaling through the nose as fully as you can,
Exhaling as slowly as you can,
Letting your breath leave your mouth through slightly pursed lips as through a straw.
When these big breaths are done,
Allow your breath to settle into its natural relaxed rhythm.
Sit for a short while,
Feeling the movements of the breath coming in,
The breath going out,
Perhaps sensing the gentle rise and fall of the abdomen as you breathe.
Now imagine a white hot flame sparking into brilliant life in each of your big toes.
See it,
Sense it,
Feel it,
Imagine it.
Sense this fire spreading through your other toes and into the rest of each foot.
Incandescent white hot fire,
Moving up through your ankles,
Up the lower legs,
Passing through your knees,
Up the thighs,
And now the flames fill the bowl of your pelvis.
Pause here and sense this white hot fire blazing brightly in your pelvis and down through the legs,
Burning away your conditioned body images,
Burning away limiting ideas you have about yourself,
Burning away everything that's not true.
The flames begin to move up through the body now,
Up the belly,
The abdomen,
The chest and back.
Incandescent fire filling your whole torso.
Pause a while and sense the heart space in the midst of the fire,
Blazing white hot.
The fire moves across your shoulders and down each arm,
Upper arms,
Elbows,
Lower arms,
Through the wrists and into the hands,
Filling all the fingers with white hot flames.
Now the fire turns around and comes back up the arms,
Forearms,
Upper arms,
Into the shoulders,
Up the neck and throat,
Consuming the head,
The whole body now,
From head to toe,
Blazing radiant white fire,
Burning away all the conditioned self-images and beliefs that imprison you.
Now in an instant the flames die out and all that's there is pure transparency in the shape of a body,
Pure open awareness.
Sense this body as pure transparency,
Clear and open,
Unmarked by anything.
You notice a circle of fine ashes around this transparent body.
These are the ashes of what's been burnt away,
The ashes of your body image,
Your conditioned ideas about who you are,
Those psychological imprints.
You feel a wind approaching and suddenly it sweeps in and blows those ashes away,
Leaving only this body of pure open transparency.
Sit like this for a short while as pure open awareness.
You begin to sense a bright golden light coming from above.
Now it pours through the crown of your head.
It fills a channel running through the centre of the transparent body,
A channel from crown of head to pelvic floor.
This channel is filled with golden flowing light.
At the bottom of the channel,
In the perineum,
It branches into two tributaries,
Two more channels,
One flowing down each of your legs,
Golden light pouring all the way down to your feet.
Off these three main channels come thousands of very fine channels and they too fill with golden light.
The transparent body now takes shape as a vibrant interconnected web of gold light throughout.
Sit with this for a while,
A body of brilliant luminescence.
Slowly your physical body begins to take shape,
The body of light being fleshed out with muscle and bone and all the tissues that make you up.
Feel your physical body taking shape,
Slowly solidifying around your body of light.
Without moving your physical hands and with your eyes still closed,
Make Anjali Mudra in your mind,
Bringing hands to heart and prayer position,
Honouring the light within you and within all beings.
Release the gesture in your mind and softly bow your physical head,
So facing down.
Now allow your eyes to slowly open and look at your body as if for the first time.
Sit here for a short while,
Gazing upon your body.
When you're ready,
Slowly raise your head and bring your hands to your heart in prayer position,
Honouring the light within you and within all beings.
This brings us to the end of the meditation.
