Conference held by Jaya Yogācārya on Feb. 7th, 2020 during meditation class
Here we are together to joyfully proceed on the path of self-conquest.
During the many conferences held this year, we talked about complex aspects of Kuṇḍalini कुण्डलिनि rise, useful to practitioners of Kriyā Yoga क्रियायोग, and we are going to pursue this ascent in your respective levels.
The rise of supreme energy in your being is not dissociated from the spiritual and psychological maturity necessary to make this experience.
That is why we also discussed the concepts of self-remembering, in the constant preoccupation with the harmonious evolution of your being and its integration in this world.
Don’t forget that awareness of the self is the path to awareness of the SELF, and that giving behavioral spiritual missions to oneself is practicing self-remembering in any situation.
Self-remembering is equivalent to remembering the absolute in oneself.
This cannot be done without a continuous and flexible awareness. This awareness consists in paying attention both to oneself and to the outside situations.
Seeing your reactions will make this awareness grow inside of you.
Remember, we do not know what we believe we know and that is why we are not free. The necessity of taking a fresh look at each moment at your environment is equivalent to understanding reality and changing it even.
The state of objective witness, or of indulgent fine observer of ourselves and of the world, requires that we practice this continuous awareness without fear nor sustained effort.
Fearlessness during the observation of our mind’s mechanisms when it blocks our vision of the absolute in us, enables to remove all tension and justification.
Who says spiritual practice also says knowledge and tools to integrate this knowledge.
The simple formula "Make the two into one and do it here and now" is a precious tool. Hopefully, you have been able to use it!
"Going back from two to One" is one of the finest Sādhana साधन.
Everything being already there in the present moment, this inner adjustment enables to create unity within oneself and brings the solution to the agitation and scatteredness of your being which doesn’t see clearly what is obvious for itself.
Trust, fearlessness, constancy are the qualities of a spiritual practice destined to succeed.
To this end, your point of view of yourself and the world can change.
There are two possibilities:
Either you consider that your usual condition and the world are not satisfying and are the norm, and you have to work on purification processes to change them in order to bring peace in you.
That is indeed what most people feel or do.
Or you reverse the process.
You consider yourself, right away, as you are, as a criterion of peace and plenitude, and you observe the disruptive psychological mechanisms that appear and make this peace disappear in one way or another.
Either you consider the reality you perceive as unchangeable, or you change reality.
What does that mean?
It means that everything is already there!
Freedom, Wisdom, Consciousness, Peace are already there in the planes of the absolute.
If they were not there, they would derive from the phenomenal world, from what is created, caused, relative. They would have a beginning and an end, because produced by causes.
The "peace" wise men talk about is a state of the unchanging absolute accessible to man, because already in him. But for that, he has to awaken.
One is awakened or not!
The mind has been destroyed or has not been destroyed!
One perceives the world through the ego, or through Consciousness, without ego!
One perceives the world and oneself with the subjective mind or one perceives it with the soul!
Everything depends on you, on your capacity to listen, to listen to yourself, listen to the world, listen to your secret inner requests, the requests of your heart, your unconscious, your spirit, your subconscious.
Everything depends on your connection with your soul.
Your soul doesn’t ask for anything. It is there, it waits for you to understand its language. All the answers and solutions are within it.
You will never be as close to it as when you accept to just be. Being There, here, inside all forms of the manifest world.
Ātman आत्मन्, the soul, is unborn and free.
It belongs to the infinite Consciousness that is mentioned in all teachings.
This formless, unmeasurable, totally free Consciousness is already there in each one of us.
This Consciousness Is!
It exists by itself, without change, without modification. Nothing is missing to it, nothing can be taken from it nor added to it.
Hindus call it Pūrṇam पूर्णमा, Ātman, Buddhists śūnyam शून्य.
For the average people, entangled in their state of limited consciousness, bound to their processes of cause and effect, this idea of absolute Consciousness is difficult to grasp, to experience.
If you look at an immaculate blue sky and a bird flies by, the ordinary man will focus on the bird. If you see nothing but the bird, your entire consciousness takes the shape of the bird and you don’t see the immaculate blue sky anymore. Immaculate blue sky, Ocean, still lake are a few examples.
The formless is in the forms, and forms are in the formless.
Arnaud Desjardins says that the limited forms of consciousness are in the unlimited Consciousness, and that unlimited Consciousness is in the limited forms of consciousness.
Learn to feel, even for a short moment, that you are also this silence, this immaculate sky, this still lake, without any wave, without fear.
You are a free being, free to dance, run, fly, take that which is yours.
What characterizes you in all this, is the fundamental stillness from which all movements are possible.
In fact, this Consciousness from which everything can emerge is a totally happy and peaceful state because it is fearless, stable, established, asking for nothing, refusing nothing, still but highly creative.
In this inner silence, duality disappears, and Consciousness is full or empty, it is the same thing.
It is the meditative, contemplative state, and this state can be accessed at any spontaneous moment in life.
It is sufficient for that, that you listen to your soul and align your heart and mind on it.
Learn how to listen to the song of your soul and quiet the cacophony of your mind.
Perceive the whispers of your heart.
Everything is already there!
Tune your tessitura to the tessitura of the universe and the universe will sing for you.
Neither idealization nor discontentment toward it have a place in your song.
"Difficult to judge what we have not created ourselves", will it say to you!
But it will also say to you: "All is there! "
"Stop walking blindly and stop hoping for what is already within your reach. "
Of course, a lot of people not anchored in the spiritual quest and transcendence, have far more practical goals such as fame, wealth, health, love, social success, etc.
The universe is there for each one of us, but we will only receive the best from it if we give our most beautiful song to it.
Given the chaos people create and have in themselves, it is very difficult for each one of them to become a vehicle luminous and purified enough for the absolute, the Universe to converse with it.
Working on this is proper to spiritual practitioners.
For most people, it is difficult to make enlightened choices regarding the goals they give to themselves, if they give themselves any!
Toxic lifestyles, the dependency on the family, society, professional, and religious systems make it difficult to access the true inner freedom brought by the awakening of consciousness.
Unfortunately, we all depend on a system, in a more or less violent and disguised manner.
However, man has freedom of choice.
But his freedom starts with the identification of his dependence on many systems which are only there to take his vital energy.
Your employer for example, especially if it is a big group, is not there to take care of you, but to take your energy, making you dependent on it so that it can operate and get bigger or stronger.
In return, your employer gives you a paycheck.
This is not an anarchic thought inviting you to blow everything up, starting with your financial security.
If you are indeed financially dependent on such a system, you have to recognize it and not serve your soul up to this system.
What the system expects from you is flawless work, and because you are paid for it, give it.
But don’t put your soul into it! !
And this applies to any system we depend on, small or monstrously big. Media system, consumption system, health system, etc.
Invest reasonably in these systems, by putting in just the right amount of effort to produce your best work quality. Play your role to perfection.
"Play" is the right word indeed. Play while being sincere and positive. No negative simulation strategy is requested from you.
The suggestion for you is to fly above those planes in order to be freer, less tired, happier, even at work.
Become light enough, but aware, to give the best of yourself in your job, but don’t give your absolute, your soul to these systems, which are not there to give you vital energy, but to take vital energy from you.
However, if you manage to fulfill yourself with passion through work, it means that you are at the right place and that you have successfully applied freedom of choice.
However, if you fall into chronic fatigue because you work too much and are too committed, you may have to readjust this commitment and become aware again, aware of your self, aware of the SELF.
This absolute, keep it for yourself, your relatives, your passions, your high goals, your deep aspirations, your artistic creations, your spiritual quest.
Have trust, Everything is already there.
Hari Om tat Sat
Jaya Yogācārya
Bibliography:
– "Au-delà du moi" by Arnaud Desjardins, La Table ronde Editions
– Comment and adaptation by Jaya Yogācārya
Translated by Stéphanie Bosco
© Centre Jaya de Yoga Vedanta, Réunion Island