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 has
reached 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 with
God, 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 is
gently 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 us
which 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 of
existence, 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
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 who
is 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 the
practice 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 the
object 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.
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 are
not 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 supposition
that 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 it
should be done.

Evening Cleaning

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