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The Practice of Sahaj Marg- by Shri Parthasarathi Rajagopalachari

The term 'spirituality' has nothing to do with religion, as commonly understood. In fact,

according to Sahaj Marg, spirituality begins where religion ends. While the basic

education of man can be undertaken by religion, his further development when he hasreached what may be termed adulthood, can only be offered by spirituality. Religion

enforces an externalization of the mind in man's search for God. Mysticism or spirituality

internalizes the search and directs the mind to the heart of man where the search should

really commence. God is not something external, waiting with a rod in hand to punish us

for our transgressions. He is inside us and being inside, if He punishes us, He has to

endure that punishment Himself. Spirituality, therefore, focuses man's attention on the

divine effulgence radiating in one's own heart, which effulgence is created by the

presence of the Creator Himself in the heart. This immediately presents the Divine in an

altered light and brings Him to a proximity with one's own person which can hardly come

any nearer. Being within us, such a Being is not only always accessible, but readily

reachable and all that spirituality requires of us to achieve the sense of oneness withGod, is to focus the mind inwards and approach Him with love.

It is generally believed that meditation requires a lot of preliminary sadhana (practice)

and preparation. Sahaj Marg on the contrary says that meditation is a simple thing and

it does not require any preparation. In fact meditation can alone prepare the mind. In

meditation, mind is not controlled but regulated. The mind is bought to bear upon a

single subject, and disturbing and intruding thoughts are allowed to drop off by non-

attention. Non-attention is the greatest weapon to avoid thoughts, as thoughts without

human attention have no power. The mind, therefore, is not being destroyed, but isgently diverted to communicate with the ultimate.

Yoga, which means union, is the culmination of the spiritual practice and not merely the

practice itself. The perfection of the imperfect is what is to be achieved before the union

is possible. This is achieved by the cleaning process in Sahaj Marg. This is where the

need for a spiritual Master comes in most. It is the spiritual Master who is able to

remove past impressions from our mind and provide the input of divine energy into uswhich nourishes the soul.

Once a state of spiritually elevated consciousness pervades the individual self, normal

worldly life goes on while spiritual progress also follows hand-in-hand, thus bringing into

play harmonious and balanced development of the human being in the twin fields ofexistence, finally culminating in our achieving the goal of human perfection.

The average human being of today gives a great deal of thought, and applies a great

amount of energy, to attain high levels of material welfare. But notwithstanding even

success in this endeavor, there is yet much unhappiness, discontent and misery

pervading the lives of the people. Why is this? It is the result of unbalanced application

of effort. The human existence consists of two planes of existence, the material and the

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past impressions are eradicated, material existence falls into its proper place as does

every facet of existence.

This transmission is something which is capable of being felt by anybody who takes the

trouble of practicing this system for a brief period. In fact it is transmission which sets

Sahaj Marg apart from other yogas and from all other systems of human evolution.

Transmission under the Sahaj Marg system can be received directly from the Master whois adept in the art, or from preceptors who are also endowed with this power of

transmission by the Master.

Preceptors

A preceptor is an abhyasi who has been prepared and permitted by the Master to

introduce people to the Sahaj Marg system and conduct group meditation. Preceptors

also give individual sittings which clean the deeper impressions and impediments of

the abhyasi (spiritual aspirant). Just as the daily impressions may be cleaned by your

own efforts, the deeper impressions can only be removed by a capable Master. The

Master works through the preceptor to do this deeper cleaning. In order to begin thepractice of Sahaj Marg meditation, it is necessary to contact a preceptor to receive the

introductory meditation sittings.

The Practice

I shall explain the basic practice of Sahaj Marg for the benefit of all. There is first the

practice, second the attitudes. The practice consists of three steps: morning

meditation, evening cleaning and night prayer meditation.

Morning Meditation

Sit in meditation for an hour thinking that divine light is present in your heart. Do it in

quite a simple and natural way without forcing your mind, never mind if you do not see

the light there. Start with a mere supposition, so to say, and sit meditating in one

posture with your attention turned towards the heart in a natural way without any

effort to concentrate. Try to be unmindful of the thoughts arising at that time.Meditation means to think continuously about one thing, and we are supposed to take

as the object of meditation that which we wish to achieve. And here, because we are

involved in realisation, God realisation, Self-realisation, therefore the object has to be

of that nature. The goal of Sahaj Marg is an abstract goal called the Ultimate Self.

Therefore we cannot have any name or form for meditation. Nor can we have even any

qualities or attributes of Divinity. However, Master felt that for most people it would be

impossible to meditate on the abstract. So, in Sahaj Marg, our Master has taken as theobject of meditation what he thought, what He knows, what he has experienced to be

the subtlest thing that we can have for meditation without making it gross or with a

form or with a name, and that is: Divine light in the heart. So this has to be very

clearly understood that in Sahaj Marg, the object of meditation is Divine light in the

heart and nothing else.

And as I already told you, meditation means to think continuously of the same thing.

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What we do is to sit comfortably with our eyes closed, and have the thought that our

heart is filled with Divine light. We sit comfortably because during the period of

meditation the body should not interfere and break our meditation. In the Sahaj Marg

system there is no special asana (posture) prescribed. Patanjali himself described

asana as something which you can hold comfortably over a period of time. So we are

allowed to choose a position in which we can comfortably sit for one hour. But we arenot allowed to lie down and meditate; because if we lie down and meditate, the

relaxation produced will put us to sleep. During meditation, if we have to change our

position it is permitted, because the object is to be in such a situation that the body

does not disturb. Regarding the light in the heart, we are not supposed to see it or try

to see any light in the heart. As Babuji Maharaj has explained, it is a mere suppositionthat the light is there.

Now we are supposed to have this idea, or the thought, continuously for one hour. The

prescribed period is one hour and not less. Nor are we supposed to meditate for more

than an hour at one time. But if we have spare time, there is no harm in breaking the

meditation, relaxing for ten minutes, and then meditating for another hour again. After

the first hour ... you may break it for some time.

When we sit for meditation, we will of course have disturbing thought. We are taught

not to attend to those thoughts but to ignore them. Because Master's research shows

that when we attend to thoughts, the thought takes power from us, and become

stronger and stronger. So, when we ignore the thought we find it drops off! There may

be another thought in its place, but it is treated in the same way. Master says, "Treat

them as uninvited guests and they will go away." If we do this systematically and with

alertness we will find that in hardly a few months we can reach a state of

thoughtlessness. Here, it is necessary to understand that all these thoughts come from

inside us, our own thoughts in the form of samskaras (impressions). If we attend to

the thoughts when they rise, they become powerful, they multiply and they go back

inside. But when we are not attending to them, we allow them to fall off, the inner

store of samskaras becomes exhausted quickly, that is how we reach a state of

thoughtlessness during meditation. It is of course necessary to remember that

thoughtlessness is not our goal.

So I think that I have dealt with the morning meditation, except to say that it should

be done before sunrise as Babuji has instructed. Master has clarified that at the time

when the night meets the day and the day meets the night, there is a balance in

Nature. And when we meditate at that point of balance in Nature, it helps us very

much in our progress to achieve quickly our goal. Of course, this applies to normal

situations when there is a day and a night! Please don't ask me what we should do in

the North Pole or the South Pole! But wherever and whenever possible, this is how itshould be done.

Evening Cleaning

Sit for half an hour with a suggestion to yourself that all complexities and impurities