Soham Yoga: The Yoga of the Self

What Readers Say

★★★★★ Abbot George is like the Emily Dickinson of modern day spiritual writers.

–Reverend Gerry Nangle

★★★★★ The more I read this book, study it and practice Soham meditation and japa, the more thrilled I am to find this book. It is a complete spiritual path of Yoga... This Soham meditation has been the most simple, effective kind of meditation I have practiced. Everything one needs to learn and practice Soham meditation is in this book. It is a treasure.

–Arnold Van Wie

★★★★★ I liked Abbot George's recent book called Soham Yoga because it clearly explained the ancient history of the use of this sacred mantra and even more importantly the encouraging way Abbot George suggests the easy yet effective daily use of this technique even in our hectic western world lives.

–Dr. William James Cunningham

★★★★★ This is the most inspiring book I have read in decades. I have been practicing meditation for 47 years, but this technique has literally been a God send for me. ... Abbot Burke is clear and complete in his presentation of this extraordinary subject.

–Amazon Customer

Soham Yoga

The Yoga of the Self

Swami Nirmalananda Giri

(Abbot George Burke)

Light of the Spirit Press

Cedar Crest, New Mexico

Published by

Light of the Spirit Press

lightofthespiritpress.com

Light of the Spirit Monastery

P. O. Box 1370

Cedar Crest, New Mexico 87008

OCOY.org

Copyright © 2021 Light of the Spirit Monastery.

All rights reserved.

paperback edition:

ISBN-13: 978-0-9985998-7-8

hardcover edition:

ISBN 13: 978-1-955046-02-2

epub edition:

ISBN 13: 978-0-9985998-8-5

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018948347

Bisac Categories:

• OCC010000  BODY, MIND & SPIRIT / Mindfulness & Meditation

• YAN024090  YOUNG ADULT NONFICTION / Health & Daily Living / Mindfulness & Meditation

03232024

To the Reader

I was planning to begin the revision of my autobiography, written many years ago, but recently realized that is was pointless. My limited life can be of no use to you, for it has no effect whatsoever on your life: body, mind and spirit.

I, like you, am essentially an individual consciousness, an Atman, existing and evolving within the Absolute Consciousness, the Paramatman, the Supreme Being, the Supreme Reality. And both you and I are presently in this world for one primary reason: to realize the Atman and go on to become one with the Paramatman and thereby attain moksha: complete freedom for eternity.

This is the only goal set before us by the great rishi-sages of Bharat (India). And the way to that goal has also been given us by the yogi siddhas, the liberated beings of the true, original tradition of the first public teachers of yoga sadhana: Matsyendranath and Gorakhnath. Their lineage is commonly known as the Nath Yogi Sampradaya. Its priceless offering to humanity is the process of Soham Sadhana, Soham Yoga, the process of transformation that culminates in moksha, in the same divine vision as that of the ancient rishis.

Therefore I am going to relate to you now the real story of my real life: my discovery of Soham Yoga.

Many years ago I learned this maxim:

The parents give birth; the guru gives life.

There is an end to birth; there is no end to life.

The ultimate Guru is God alone. But teachers and teachings can be our upa gurus–secondary or adjunct gurus. The teachings and the practice given in this book can be the upa gurus to those who learn and apply them correctly and conform their lives to the yogic principles. How do I know these teachings and practices? By long search and experience.

From early childhood I displayed Bharati (Indian) ways in my behavior and outlook. These were not favored, so I had to suppress them outwardly. One conviction did result in a secret attempt. I had the absolute conviction that if I would shut myself in a closet and sit there in the dark something would happen. So one day I went into my grandfather’s bedroom closet and closed the door and sat on the floor. In a moment I saw a blue-white light and a strange form within it. In response I was scared and opened my eyes and the closet door and departed quickly! But I always felt that something more should have happened.

Years went by during which I immersed myself in the Fundamentalist Protestant religion of my family. On Friday, July 6, 1955, I was reading the Bible and came to the part in the book of Acts where it said that the shadow of Saint Peter cured the sick, insomuch that they brought forth the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them. There came also a multitude out of the cities round about unto Jerusalem, bringing sick folks, and them which were vexed with unclean spirits: and they were healed every one (Acts 5:15-16). And I also about Saint Paul that God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul: So that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them (Acts 19:11-12). All these miracles just from the shadow and the touch of these two men!

In my amazement I realized that they had not just believed in Jesus and been saved, they had been transmuted into something more than ordinary human beings–and everyone who believed must become the same. But how? So at four in the afternoon, kneeling down I took a vow to God that I would not stop seeking the way to the same transformation until I found it.

Some years went by, but I did not forget my vow. And I did seek diligently, even traveling long distances to find spiritual instruction. Not much resulted except discouragement. Then one morning in a single instant like a lightning strike my consciousness opened up and I KNEW that reincarnation, karma, evolution of consciousness and the journeying through rebirth of the evolving individual through higher and higher worlds until the Ultimate was reached were absolutely true. I sat for six hours or more to assimilate this.

Then it hit me. I was not a Christian if I knew those things were true! And I did not just believe them, I knew they were The Truth. Yet I also knew I needed a religion–but what religion? I decided to expand my religious horizons and find out. There was also one thing I also knew positively from my experience: Meditation was the way to higher consciousness, not mere beliefs. The truth was within, not without. So I made attempts at meditation which were only blind feelings in the dark. Some were pretty pathetic, and none satisfied me.

When I was in my early teens I had walked by a pharmacy (drug store, in those days) every day on my way to school. One afternoon as I walked home with a friend, through the pharmacy window I saw on a revolving book rack a paperback book with a brightly colored cover. I felt it was a holy book. Immediately I went in and looked at it. In the introductory pages it said it was part of an epic poem from Bharat. So I put it back, walked outside and told my friend, I hoped it would be a holy scripture, but it is just a poem. But every time I passed the pharmacy I would look in and see it. And I remembered its name: Bhagavad Gita: The Song of God.

Years later when I was in college and my lightning strike had occurred, I mentioned to a fellow student how I had been drawn to the Gita for years, even when I discovered it was just a poem. Oh, be glad you didn’t bother with it, he told me. We read it in our oriental literature class and it is worthless–just junk. I asked to see the text he had, and he showed it to me. What I read was incomprehensible nonsense. (Later I found out the translator was utterly incompetent.)

However, in just a few weeks I went into the local town library to look for religious magazines. Nut religions were a hobby of mine, and I liked to read about them and marvel at their absurdity. I found a magazine I had not seen before and began to read. At one point there was a brief commentary on a verse from the Bhagavad Gita that showed the Gita had profound wisdom when translated rightly. So I put back the magazine and walked down to the college bookstore on the corner where the same Gita translation I had seen in the pharmacy was for sale. I bought it, took it home and began reading it over the next few days.

The Gita was like nothing I had ever read. It did not feel like I was reading words from thousands of years before. Rather, I felt like my own soul was talking to me. And I was not learning anything new: I was remembering it. I had always known it; and now it was being given back to me. At last I knew The Truth; my soul was relieved.

Still, meditation was a mystery. The fragment of the commentary on the Gita that impelled me to buy and read it was by Paramhansa Yogananda. I knew he had written a book, Autobiography of a Yogi, so I decided I should read it. Putting a load of books I no longer wanted in a big grocery bag, I went to the tiny secondhand bookstore downtown and traded it, plus fifty cents, for a new copy of Autobiography. That, like the Gita, was a revelation, which I followed up on by moving to California at the end of the academic year. After a month I moved next door to the Self-Realization Fellowship center on Sunset Boulevard and began to really begin.

But after a while I began to wonder if I was being taught the full wisdom-religion of Bharat–Sanatana Dharma–or was being given a watered-down or altered version intended for Western consumption. The only way to find out was to go to Bharat and see for myself. So I did. It was both a spiritual homecoming and a revelation. Over the years I became more and more a Sanatana Dharmi and therefore more and more a yogi. This was because Sanatana Dharma, the Hindu religion, is the framework, the rationale, for yoga and the practice of yoga. At the same time, yoga is the apex, the fruition of Sanatana Dharma, and its justification as well as the means to perceive and prove the truths of Sanatana Dharma.

As a yogi, over the span of over fifty years I followed a few gurus and faithfully practiced many, many techniques of yoga meditation. I found that the gurus were worthless and the methods, although they did give various interesting psychic experiences, each kept going over the same territory and proved to just be psychic gimmicks. They never gave experience of the divine Self, for they were not true yoga. I was just a spiritual hamster running in its wheel over and over and over. But I never gave up hoping to find the true way eventually.

One day I was doing some kind of search on the internet–I do not remember for what, exactly. At one point a site came up that intrigued me. At the top it had a photograph of two buildings in typical north Bharati temple style facing one another. Right under that was an area in which four photos of a man kept appearing one after the other in perpetual change. Photographic copies of various brief texts in an unknown Bharati language followed. Finally there was a link to download a text with an English title. I clicked the link and the text of an entire book came up. I looked at a bit of it and then got off the internet, foolishly not having noted the web address. I could not remember how I had gotten there, but after a few days of trying I somehow got back to it. So I noted the web address and came back a few times, reading at random what little was in English (not the book). And then one day I typed in the web address and got a Chinese gambling site! The original site have been kidnapped. That was the end of that.

But I told about my experience to a website expert who found out how to retrieve the original site. Believe me, I copied that book. Which was good, because when that site came back under a slightly different url, the English book was no longer offered. And after a few weeks the site disappeared again permanently.

Eventually I printed out that book and read it through. It gave a great deal of detailed information about the Nath Yogi Sampradaya and included the life and teachings of Sri Gajanana Maharaj, a virtually unknown twentieth-century master yogi of the Nath tradition. (He was not the very famous Gajanana Maharaj of the same name who died in 1910.)

There is an old expression, honor among thieves, that means thieves respecting each other’s territory and not trespassing on them. This applies to many gurus operating in Bharat and abroad. They do not blow the whistle on each other, but say all gurus are to be respected and are really all the same spiritually. Sometimes they even visit each other and prostrate to each other to show their universal outlook and reverence. They also insist that all paths lead to the one goal, so no one path is better than another. This is all insincere, but presents a very positive, open and spiritual picture to the uninformed and the unwary.

So I was utterly astounded to read that Gajanana Maharaj openly and often spoke of false gurus and false yogas. He often delineated the characteristics by which they could be detected as frauds. Having lived through the American yoga boom that began about 1967 or 1968 and lasted about ten years before evaporating almost totally, I was very aware of such gurus and yogas. And my respect for Maharaj was increased. He did not lie to get followers.

But his teachings held something vastly more important than honesty. He also explained the nature of a genuine sadguru as one who simply teaches the way to Self-realization to others as their friend–not a master or necessary link to God. And even more important, he taught the authentic yoga that would lead to Self-realization: Soham yoga sadhana. I tried it and within five minutes realized that at last I had Found It. I realize it every day at every meditation.

And that is what this book is all about.

As an angel’s voice said to Saint Augustine when he found a book in an abandoned house that changed his life forever: Take And Read.

Swami Nirmalananda Giri (Abbot George Burke)

Preface

Some history

Yoga is an eternal science intended to reveal and manifest the Eternal. Although the identity of the Supreme Self (Paramatman) and the individual Self (jivatman) with Soham is indicated in the Isha Upanishad (16) and the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (1.4.1) respectively, no one knows exactly when it was that the knowledge of Soham Yoga was revealed in the world, but the following we do know.

A young man was wandering in the mountains somewhere in Bharat–most likely in the Western Himalayas. He had seen no one else for a very long time, but one day he heard the faint sound of a human voice. Following it, he saw from a distance some people seated together near a river. Slipping into the water, he began swimming toward them. All along the river on that side thick reeds were growing so he was not seen as he stealthily made his way closer.

Soon he began to understand what was being said. Fascinated by the speaker’s words he came as close as he dared and for a long time remained absorbed in the amazing things being spoken. For the science of yoga was being expounded by a master to his disciples. Then he heard the master say: There is a ‘fish’ in the reeds over there, listening to everything I am saying. Why doesn’t he come out and join us? He did as suggested and became a resident of the master’s ashram and learned the philosophy and practice of Soham Yoga.

After diligent practice of Soham meditation for quite some time, the master asked him to return to the plains and teach that yoga to whomever he thought capable of its practice. He was also given a new name: Matsyendranath. (Matsyendra means Indra Among Fish and Nath means Master. Indra is king of the gods.) We have no knowledge of what the master’s name was. Matsyendranath and his disciples only referred to him as Adi Nath–Original/First Master. Some believe Adi Nath was Shiva himself manifested to teach yoga, or perhaps Bhagavan Sanatkumara about whom the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad says: To such a one who has his stains wiped away, Bhagavan Sanatkumara shows the further shore of darkness (7.26.2).

Matsyendranath wandered throughout the land, teaching those whom he perceived were awakened enough to desire and comprehend the yogic path. One day in his wanderings he came to a house where the owner’s wife gave him something to eat and a request: that he would bless her to have a child. In response he blessed her and gave her some sacred ashes, telling her to swallow them. Then he left. The woman followed his instructions and soon conceived and gave birth to a male child. Several years later Matsyendranath came there again and saw the little boy outside the house. He told him to bring his mother, and when she came he asked if she remembered him, which she did. Pointing to the boy, he said: That is my child. I have come for him. The woman agreed and Matsyendranath left with the boy, whom he named Gorakhsha, Protector/Guardian of Light.

Goraksha in time became the monk Gorakshanath (usually called Gorakhnath), considered perhaps the greatest yogi in Bharat’s recorded history. In every part of Bharat there are stories told of his living in those areas. He also lived in Nepal, Tibet, Ladakh, and Bhutan. There are shrines and temples to him in all those countries, both Hindu and Buddhist. Considering all the lore about him, Gorakhnath must have lived at least two or three hundred years, and there are many who claim that he has never left his body but is living right now in the Himalayas.

Gorakhnath had many disciples, a large number of them attaining enlightenment. They were the first members of the Nath Yogi Sampradaya, which in time numbered in its ranks the great sage Patanjali, founder of the Yoga Philosophy (Yoga Darshan) and author of the Yoga Sutras, and Jesus of Nazareth (Sri Ishanath). For many centuries the majority of monks in Bharat were Nath Yogis, but in the nineteenth century there was a sharp decline in their numbers, which continues today. However there are several groups of Nath Panthis that follow the philosophy and yoga of Matsyendranath and Gorakhnath, and therefore are involved with the Soham mantra as the heart of their sadhana.

Soham

Soham (which is pronounced like Sohum) means: I Am That. It is the natural vibration of the Self, which occurs spontaneously with each incoming and outgoing breath. Through becoming aware of it on the conscious level by mentally repeating it in time with the breath (So when inhaling and Ham when exhaling), a yogi experiences the identity between his individual Self and the Supreme Self.

There are mantras that change things and others that reveal the eternal nature of things. Soham does both. According to the Nath Yogis (see Philosophy of Gorakhnath by Askhaya Kumar Banerjea), Soham has existed within the depths of God from eternity; and the same is true of every sentient being. Soham, then, can reveal our inmost being. By meditating on Soham we discover our Self, within which Soham has existed forever. The simple intonation of Soham in time with the breath (see Chapter Two) will do everything in the unfolding of the yogi’s spiritual consciousness. For sound and breath are the totality of Soham sadhana. (See Appendix Six: Breath and Sound in Meditation.)

The practice is very simple, and the results very profound. Truly wondrous is the fact that Soham Yoga can go on all the time, not just during meditation, if we apply ourselves to it. The whole life can become a continuous stream of liberating sadhana. By the mantra ‘Soham’ separate the jivatman from the Paramatman and locate the jivatman in the heart (Devi Bhagavatam 11.8.15). When we repeat Soham in time with the breath we are invoking our eternal being. This is why we need only listen to our inner mental intonations of Soham in time with the breath which itself is Soham.

It is my hope that through practice you will experience for yourself the value and benefits of Soham Yoga that is presented in this book. The important thing about Soham Yoga is that it really works. It only takes perseverance.

Archimedes said: Give me a fulcrum and I will move the world. Soham Yoga is the fulcrum.

See the Glossary for the definition of unfamiliar words and also for brief biographical information on unfamiliar persons. Since it is now the preferred and respectful terminology, I have in this revision used Bharat and Bharati instead of India and Indian. Jai Bharat Mata.

Chapter One:

Yoga

Yoga is a Sanskrit word that means to join. Yoga is both union and the way to that union. What do we join through yoga? First, we join our awareness to our own essential being, the spirit whose nature is pure consciousness. In yoga philosophy this is known as the Atman or Self. Next, we join our finite consciousness to the Infinite Consciousness, God, the Supreme Self (Paramatman). In essence they are eternally one.

The individual Atman-spirit (jivatman) originally dwelt in the consciousness of that oneness. But through its descent into the material world the spirit lost both its awareness of the eternal union and the capacity to manifest it on a practical level. Through yoga the lost consciousness can be regained and actualized in the yogi’s practical life sphere.

Regarding this, a yogi-adept of the twentieth century, Dr. I. K. Taimni, remarks in his book The Science of Yoga: "According to the yogic philosophy it is possible to rise completely above the illusions and miseries of life and to gain infinite knowledge, bliss, and power through enlightenment here and now while we are still living in the physical body…. No vague promise of an uncertain postmortem happiness this, but a definite scientific assertion of a fact verified by the experience of innumerable yogis, saints, and sages who have trodden the path of yoga throughout the ages."

Since rational thought precedes rational action, we should begin with the philosophical side of yoga.

Yoga philosophy

The basic text of the Yoga philosophy is the Yoga Sutras (also called Yoga Darshana), written by the sage Patanjali, a Nath Yogi of ancient Bharat. In contrast to other philosophical systems, Yoga is a philosophy which stimulates its investigators to engage in yoga as a practice through which they will experience and demonstrate its truth and worth. What begins as theory develops into practice which culminates in realization. Yoga is philosophy, discipline, and experience–a revelation of consciousness.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna the teacher tells Arjuna the student: Truly there never was a time when I was not, nor you, nor these lords of men–nor in the future will there be a time when we shall cease to be (Bhagavad Gita 2:12). We are eternal beings, without beginning and without end. Originally we were points of conscious light in the infinite ocean of Conscious Light that is God–gods within God. And so we still are, for it is not possible to be outside of Infinity. Yet we are also here in this ever-changing world, the experience of which blinds us to the truth of our immortal life within God. As Blavatsky wrote in The Voice of the Silence: Heaven’s dew-drop glittering in the morn’s first sunbeam within the bosom of the lotus, when dropped on earth becomes a piece of clay; behold, the pearl is now a speck of mire. Each one of us is a dew-drop of heaven, but for countless life-cycles we have forgotten that.

God the Lord–Ishwara

In the Yoga Sutras the word for God is Ishwara: the Lord, Ruler, Master or Controller possessing the powers of omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience. It is toward this Ishwara that our life is to be directed if we would attain perfection in yoga. In Yoga Sutra 1:23, Patanjali says that samadhi, the state of superconsciousness where absoluteness is experienced, is produced by Ishwarapranidhana: the offering of one’s life to God. This is not merely dedicating our deeds and thoughts to God, but consciously merging our life in the greater life of God and making them one. Yoga is the way to accomplish this.

Since yoga is a practical matter, we need some workable, pragmatic understanding of the nature of God. For how will we seek and recognize Him if we have no idea who He is? Patanjali supplies us with exactly the kind of definition we need: Ishwara is a particular spirit who is untouched by the afflictions of life, actions [karma] and the results and impressions [conditionings] produced by these actions (Yoga Sutras 1:24).

A particular Spirit. God is a special, unique, conscious Being, not just abstract existence. God is a particular Spirit in the sense that God can be distinguished from among all other things or beings.

Untouched. Though Ishwara is within all things and all things are within Him, yet He stands apart. This is stated several times in the Bhagavad Gita: Know that [all] states of being proceed from me. But I am not in them–they are in me.… [This world] does not perceive me, who am higher than these and eternal (7:12-13). [I am] sitting as one apart, indifferent and unattached in these actions (9:9). [I am] outside and inside beings–the animate and the inanimate–incomprehensible because of its subtlety, far away and also near (13:15). All beings dwell within me, but I do not dwell within them (9:4).

God is unique in the sense that He is Ekam Evam Advityam Brahman: the God who is one, only, without a second. He is not one of many, nor is He even one of two. He is one in every sense of the term. God is neither conditioned nor confined in any manner. Therefore He is not touched or tainted by the afflictions or faults of life (relative existence), in contrast to us who live within them as though they were the air we breathe and the basis of our existence. Nor is Ishwara bound or in any way conditioned by actions; therefore He is ever unchanging.

It should be noted that Ishwara is considered to be male in contradistinction to the divine creative power, Prakriti or Shakti, that is female. Consequently Ishwara is referred to as He. Brahman the Absolute is referred to as It because Brahman transcends such dualities as male and female, positive and negative. Since the English word God almost always implies Ishwara, in this book God will be referred to as He.

Infinite Consciousness: Omniscience

God is the essence and the apex of consciousness, so Patanjali further says: In Him is the highest limit of omniscience (Yoga Sutras 1:25). Commenting on this, Shankara says: The all-pervading mind of the supreme Lord is in simultaneous contact with every object. The omniscience of God is total and absolute, for in truth God is Omnipotence, Omniscience, and Omnipresence.

In this sutra Patanjali introduces a significant fact, for he does not just say that omniscience (sarvajna) is in God, but that the seed of omniscience (sarvajna bijam) is in Him. Within God is the seed or potentiality of omniscience for those who are united with Him through their practice of yoga. Omniscience is not just objective knowledge, but infinity of consciousness, the Being of God Himself.

The two Selfs

The age-old question asked along with Who is God? is Who am I? The true I of each sentient being is the spirit-Self. But there is more. God is the Self of the Self as the ocean is the self of every wave. The illumined know that they are the immortal Self whose ultimate Self is the Immortal Itself. We are spirits within Spirit, in a wondrous way both ourselves and Brahman, both finite and infinite.

Two birds, companions [who are] always united, cling to the self-same tree. Of these two, the one eats the sweet fruit and the other looks on without eating. On the self-same tree, a person immersed [in the sorrows of the world] is deluded and grieves on account of his helplessness. When he sees the other, the Lord who is worshipped and his greatness, he becomes freed from sorrow (Mundaka Upanishad 3.1.1-2).

The key

Meditation is the key to knowledge of both the Self and the Self of the Self. Knowing one, both are known, so say the sages. Dr. I. K. Taimni, in The Ultimate Reality and Realization, says this: It is only when the realization of being a pure spirit or atman has been attained that it is possible to achieve the final goal of union of the atman with the Paramatman, the Supreme Spirit which exists eternally beyond the manifested universe and from which the manifested universe is derived. When this final realization has been attained and union of atman with Paramatman has been brought about there is not only a complete sharing of consciousness between the two but also of the infinite Power which is inherent in the Universal Consciousness.… It is necessary to distinguish between the powers which are acquired on the realization that he is a pure spirit or atman and those which are attained when he is able to destroy the last vestige of egoism and his consciousness becomes united with that of Paramatman. The former, though tremendous in some respects, are still limited, while the latter which are really the Powers of the Supreme Spirit are infinite and can manifest through the center of consciousness of a Self-realized individual because there is fusion of the individual consciousness with the Supreme Consciousness and the channel between the two is open.

God and gods

We are gods within God, finite spirits within the Infinite Spirit. But what is spirit? Yoga philosophy tells us that spirit is consciousness. We are eternal consciousnesses, each of us individual and distinct. Yet we are more. Each of us takes our being from God as the wave takes its existence from the ocean.

God is the eternal root, the ground, of our being, our greater Self. We are not God, but in some ineffable manner God is us: the Self of our Self, the Spirit of our spirit. God is all, and we are the parts, each of us possessing an eternal and irrevocable distinction. That is why Krishna told Arjuna: "Truly there never was a time when I was not, nor you, nor these lords of men–nor in the future will there be a time when we shall cease to be" (Bhagavad Gita 2:12).

There are two selves that drink the fruit of Karma in the world of good deeds. Both are lodged in the secret place [of the heart], the chief seat of the Supreme. The knowers of Brahman speak of them as shade and light (Katha Upanishad 1:3:1).

God and creation

God, the infinite Spirit, is pure consciousness, but has extended or emanated himself as the cosmos: physical, astral, and causal. Brahman, indeed, was this in the beginning. It knew itself only as: ‘I am Brahman.’ Therefore it became all (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 1:4:10). This seemingly dual nature of God as Light and Power, as Consciousness and Matter, has puzzled