MATTER TO CONSCIOUSNESS
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Shakti Dhaarana: Harnessing the energy of Existence
ABOUT THE TECHNIQUE
An unspeakably beautiful meditation. It is more like a prayer than meditation! Drawn from the Kularnava Tantra, this meditation is a direct way of putting you in touch with the energy of all of Existence. It takes you to the threshold of the state of turiya, where you are in a state of total awareness but without thoughts.
This mediation is best practised at night, just before you go to sleep. If you do it during the day, be sure to rest for fifteen minutes afterwards to assimilate the energy, or you will be in a state of intoxication for hours afterwards!
Instructions
Choose a cool, dark room with enough ventilation. If you choose, you can practise in a private space outdoors. Kneel on the ground. Don’t sit on your haunches. Use a mat if it helps you feel more comfortable. Raise yourself up on your knees, and raise both your arms towards the sky. Turn your face skyward and wait. If you wish, you can visualize the blissful face of your master or your favorite deity – whatever helps you connect instantly with the Divine energy. (Just as a miser is at the peak of his energy when counting money, or a lover is at the peak of his energy when he is with his beloved, so also a master is at the peak of his energy when laughing or smiling. Just remember his blissful face and allow the energy to flow through you.) In a moment, you will feel the energy of Existence pouring into you. Be unresisting. Let the energy enter into you. You will feel a tingling sensation, then a trembling in your arms; then slowly your whole body will begin to tremble and sway with the energy, like a leaf dancing in the breeze. Allow the movements. As you drink in the energy, you become the point where male and female energies melt and merge, the point where earth and heaven meet. You begin to feel floaty, as if your body is no more. Allow any feeling. Just drop yourself completely! There is no ‘you’. You have simply dissolved into Existence. Bend down, and kiss the earth, or at least let your forehead touch the ground. You become a medium or a passage for the divine energy. When you feel completely saturated, bend down and kiss the earth.
Instructions
Let your forehead touch the earth. Stretch out your arms and place your hands, palms downward, on the earth. Give all your love to the earth. Feel it flow out from your lips and your palms. Offer your energy to mother Earth in a mood of total surrender. If you wish, you may visualize the feet of the master when in this posture. Simply become an instrument carrying the divine energy into the earth.
This meditation tremendously improves energy circulation in the body. All troubles related to the backbone will simply vanish by doing this meditation, as the maximum energy goes to the muladhara chakra at the base of the spine.
Repeat this cycle seven times. Each time, each of the seven major chakras is energized. If you repeat it more than seven times, you may feel over-energized and restless.
When you have finished your prayer, go to sleep in that prayerful state. Fall into the energy, sleep in it. When you wake up, you will feel refreshed and revitalized. As you practice this technique, a beautiful and live connection is created between Existence and you. You experience causeless joy, and each day will become a celebration!
Matter is consciousness!
ABOUT THE TECHNIQUE
Just as we feel our own boundary very strongly, we assume the boundaries of all objects to be solid and unchanging. But under an electron microscope, our entire view of the world would break down! What we think of as matter does not exist at all. Matter is nothing but energy vibrating at high frequencies, which makes it appear as various forms. But because the frequency of vibration is so high, we are not able to perceive the vibrations. Actually, what we call ‘matter’ is nothing but clusters of consciousness in an ocean of consciousness! There are no differences such as matter or energy – all is energy. When everything is energy, with no differences of name or form, what will you do? Neither can you hold onto anything, nor is there any need to! When you grasp that the objective world is pure consciousness, where all boundaries (including yours) are imaginary, you realize the foolishness in trying to hold onto anything as ‘I’ or ‘mine’.
Instructions
Continuously experience your environment as a fluid continuum of energy, which includes and extends beyond matter. When you look at a person or an object, don't let your attention go to their form or shape. Don't try to physically define them in any way. Just erase all the borders from your perception! Instead, become aware that the same energy exists inside and outside their physical boundary; the physical boundary is only an optical illusion.
Just as some sugar cubes lying in a bowl of sugar can be seen distinctly, but are still only sugar, all the distinct shapes and forms you see have only been molded out of the same consciousness.
As you stay with this awareness continuously, your focus will shift to the substratum underlying the forms. All distinctions will fade, and consciousness, the stuff of which it is all made, will reveal itself as the reality.
