Course in Meditation: Part 4

Swami Kriyananda
Video Transcript

This is class number four. At the end of the last class, I said I would talk about what I mean
when I say, “Lord.” What do we mean when we say, “God?” God is an infinite consciousness
but we don’t need to define him in such a way as to be completely accurate. What we need to
do is to define him in such a way that draws us to him. We can define him in abstract words like
cosmic ground of being. You hear expressions like this but does it make you really say, “I’ve got
to know that person?” Does it really make you say, “I’ve got to meditate and achieve that
state?” Actually, as human beings we feel that the infinity of love is more real to us when we
find it expressed as a mother, as a beloved, as a father, as a friend. This human heart can
understand best what it perceives in human ways, after all, God, even if we do define him
perfectly, that wouldn’t impress him particularly. First of all, no definition can be perfect
because it is always going to be limited whereas he is limitless but the thing is, as far as wisdom
is concerned he’s got it all. What he doesn’t have is our love and so when we think of God, we
should think of him in some way that makes us want to know him, makes us love him.

To Jesus, the father aspect of God was the most attractive and that reality is part of the infinite
structure. God is your human father. God, therefore, has fatherly attributes and you can love
him as your father and know him that way.

You can love him also, however, as your mother. It is a mistake to think that God really has a
human form. God who produced all these hundreds of billions of stars, one hundred billion
galaxies that the astronomers have estimated, how could he have a form like yours and mine?
It’s certainly an infinite consciousness but infinite consciousness seems so dry by itself.
Infinite love, infinite joy, these are understandable in, more understandable in human terms
but infinite is something that, we also need something near and dear.

In the Bhagavad-Gita which is the best-known scripture in India, the best-loved scripture,
Arjuna is given by Krishna the vision of himself in his divine self because Krishna was not only
human but also God incarnate and after having seen Krishna in this infinite form, in other
words, seeing God, Arjuna later in the next chapter said, “Lord, my heart longs to see you in
your human form.” This is natural for the human being. Even knowing that God is infinite, the
great Saints want to worship him as their divine mother.

There was a saint in India used to pray to God as his divine mother but in one of his songs he
said, even though he was a devotee of the divine mother, he said thousands of Scriptures
declare that my mother has no form. So it’s a good thing to think of God with form if you like
but then expand that consciousness into that motherly infinite that is compassion, that love.
In some ways the motherly aspect of God, it’s easier to love because the father tends to be
more rational, more just and sometimes it isn’t justice we want, it’s mercy, isn’t it? So to love
God in the mother aspect, who is dearer to our hearts is sometimes easier.
You can love him as your friend, as your love, any form that you hold particularly dear but
remember that behind that form so that you don’t become a fanatic and think, “This is what
God is.” Remember, behind that form is the infinite, the infinite consciousness out of which this
whole universe was born so be led by that form, don’t be bound by it, be led into a broader and
broader understanding of the infinite love and the infinite joy.

There is another thing to think about when you want to define what that infinite consciousness
is and that is the definition given by one of the great sages of ancient times, Swami
Shankaracharya. He called God “Sat-Chit-Ananda,” which Yogananda translated in modern
terminology as “ever existing, ever conscious, ever new bliss.” We all want bliss. This is
something natural to us. We don’t know that it’s bliss we want but we want joy or if we don’t
want joy, we want happiness or if we aren’t yet aware enough or sensitive enough, we find
enough spiritually to be aware that we want happiness, if our minds are so dark and so filled
with attachment and desire that all we can think about is the senses and the body, then we
may only want to escape pain. We consider happiness that state of consciousness where we
suffer a little bit less perhaps.

In all human beings there is this, a wish to rise out of pain and suffering into greater and greater
happiness. Now why do we have this instinctive desire? Because we’ve all come from that.
Because that’s the only reality, that we have been dreamed by that great consciousness of God
into our present existence and the whole universe is a dream. You know, even scientists have
described this universe as looking suspiciously like, maybe, well, I think it was James Joyce that
said that it looked like a dream in the mind of the creator. It is a dream. That great
consciousness has produced everything and we, being a part of that we naturally want what is
our birthright. We have come from God. Jesus said that no man can ascend to heaven save him
who came down from heaven. Is he saying only he can go back to heaven and all the rest of us
are lost? He was really saying that we have come from that and that’s why we can go back.
That’s where we belong. That’s our birthright. We’ve lost it long ago.

You know Patanjali in his yoga scripture said that the state of divine awakening, he defined it as
smriti or memory. In meditation you go deep into that calmness and suddenly you remember,
“But of course. That’s what I am. It’s my nature to love. It’s my nature to feel joy. It’s my nature
to be calm, to be free from all of these worries. That’s my reality.” We have this instinctive
longing which on deeper than conscious levels we remember even though consciously we don’t
know. That’s why Jesus talked of the prodigal son. Our home is in God. We wander out through
this world of the senses but then when that world begins to cheat us and we enter a time of
famine because we lose all our happiness, then we begin to remember and we say, “Oh, but
when I lived in my father’s house, I was well and let me go back there.” The father recognizes us
and gives us the great feast and takes us home again even if we sinned. He doesn’t count how
many sins you committed. What he counts is how deeply you love him. How deeply do you
want to find him again.

So that’s another definition of God, that he is the joy that you’re looking for, he is that freedom
and joy that your heart really craves. Now how do we obtain that? Well, there are certain
things that we need to remember. You know, many people think that meditation is just a
matter of closing your eyes and going into some sort of an abstract state, they don’t know
what. Actually, if you want to learn to play the piano well, you need to learn finger exercises,
don’t you? Otherwise, you’ll never get control over these fingers well enough to play the way
your mind tells you should play. If you want to climb a mountain then you need to learn the
techniques that enable you to keep climbing without the danger of falling or minimizing that
danger and in anything, if you want to be an accountant there are certain techniques that you
need to learn that will make it much easier for you to add up those figures. In anything that you
do in life, techniques are a part of it.

Then why do you think that to pray deeply or meditate deeply just close your eyes and hope for
the best? In fact, techniques are the important thing. It isn’t that they take the place of
meditation. It isn’t that they take the place of devotion but they are adjuncts to it. They are
what help to free your mind in order that you be able to enter more deeply into that peace.
Some people will say, “Well, God will give me grace and then I’ll get there.” Well, grace is for
everybody. Don’t think that God gives his grace to some and not others because he likes
people’s blue eyes and doesn’t like brown eyes or something. God’s grace is there all the time.
You might describe it as being like the sunlight on the building. Now if you keep your window
drawn shut, your curtains drawn shut then that sunlight will not come into the room. But is that
the sun’s fault or is it yours? You’re in a lighted room and you close your eyes and you keep
walking around and you’re barking your shins on the furniture and falling over things and you
say, “Why doesn’t somebody turn on the light?” Well, the light is on. You’ve got to open your
eyes.

We have to do our part. We can’t let God do it all. On the other hand, if we have this egotistical
thought that I can do it all then we don’t open ourselves to that reality which would flood us
with grace. The two are absolutely essential but techniques are that which help you to open
yourself to that inflow of grace to make you aware of subtle realities without which you won’t
grow but if you don’t know the nuts and bolts, you might say, of meditation, then you won’t
learn so techniques are important.

In the next series of classes we’re going into techniques at much greater length but the first
thing that I want to talk about and we can call this technique too is that if you’re going to direct
your energy toward God then you’ve got to withdraw it from involvement in those things that
are not of God, the world. Here’s a good example. If you eat a very big meal and are just stuffed
and bloated somebody comes and asks you to solve some difficult problem whether in work or
in his life, his personal life or whatever it might be, the chances are you’re going to say, “Wait
until I’ve digested this meal.” Why? Because your energy has been brought down from the
mind to keep the stomach busy digesting that food. Once your stomach is empty, the energy
can rise again to the brain and you can think more clearly and talk more deeply and intelligently
and so on.

Well, the thing is that we’ve got to be able to withdraw the energy first of all from the body.
It will help you as I talked last time about the importance of right attitude as a means of
bringing yourself, sort of integrating yourself completely within yourself, whole, integrated,
directed. Well, now let’s do it more specifically. When you sit to meditate, try to withdraw
yourself mentally from those things which are a part of your life. Let’s just sit upright as I told
you to do before, calm your body and your mind, close your eyes and think of the world around
you and just withdraw yourself. Just sort of let go. You can even think of your heart as having
strings going out attaching you to all the different things that you own, all the different projects
you want to accomplish, all the memories you hold whether dear or bitterly, and just sort of
snip away those cords. Just let go of them. It might even help you to visualize a fire and taking
desire out of your heart and throw it into the fire and just watch it burn and be joyful in that
burning because it makes you free. So often when we try to give up desires, we think that
they’re making us less than we were but in fact the more you can free yourself from those
things, the more you realize that you need nothing, you own nothing, you are whole in yourself.

Now then, let us relax the body. Remember I told you to sit straight up to keep the body
relaxed but you know it’s not that easy to relax the body when the tension is either something
you’re not actually conscious of or on such a low level that it hasn’t really sort of intruded itself
on your attention yet. You may be vaguely aware of it but it isn’t bothering you that much and
yet lots of little points of tension in your body are enough to keep your mind down. Let us now
just practice a technique, if you will, to relax the body and that is to increase the level of
tension. By tensing the whole body what we do is first of all equalize tension all over the body.
Secondly what you will do is increase to a level of awareness those parts that are sort of
burning low energy. Bring it up to a high level of tension then relax it all at once. The way to do
it is to inhale, tense the whole body till it vibrates, throw the breath out and relax - inhale,
tense, relax. Do it once more, tense and relax.

Now hold your body completely still. You’ll never be able completely to relax if you allow
yourself to fidget. When you meditate then just tell yourself, “I’m not going to move a muscle.”
Become more centered within your spine. Become more centered in your inner self.

Now then, I’m going to take you into deep relaxation. Keep your eyes closed and feel that you
are sitting in the midst of space. Gaze millions of miles to left of you, millions of miles to the
right, millions of miles in front, behind, above, below. There’s nothing anywhere but space.
You’re surrounded by space. Now think of your body and think first that any lingering tension
sort of like vapor is emanating from your body in all directions and being lost in space. Hold
your body still, concentrate on relaxing it, see that space vapor going, I mean that tension vapor
going out into space. Now imagine that space entering in into the vacuum of form. You’ve
emptied your body of tension and space is taking over. Space is coming into the pores of the
skin of your feet, of your calves and shins, your thighs. Your legs and feet are made of space.
Now abdomen, stomach, buttocks and forearms, upper arms, shoulders, chest, back, neck,
sides of the neck, jaw, lips, tongue, the roof of your mouth, your cheeks, your eye muscles, your
brain. You are space.

Concentrate now at the point between the eyebrows and feel the light there. This light too is
without substance. Feel that light expanding outward over your forehead, over your brain, into
the rest of your head, your neck, going down into your heart and outward from your heart
radiating into the whole body and beyond the body to infinity in all directions. Keep
concentrating at the point between the eyebrows and feel yourself going through a tunnel of
light into that infinite so that that sense of space and light are also directed toward your own
super consciousness. Enjoy that state as long as you can. Om, peace, peace, amen