Sadhana

From Spark to Silence: The Fire of Spiritual Growth

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Over the last weekend, I sat with a wonderful group of young volunteers at a hall in Benglauru’s tech hub, Electronics City. Amidst the constant hum of traffic and tech talks, a deep question came up. How does a person truly grow from having a simple first spiritual experience into achieving deep inner wisdom? We discussed how this path is not a smooth line, but a series of difficult transformations where you cannot skip any single step. Spiritual growth is a beautiful journey of changing your awareness. It is not a straight line, but a deep change in how you see yourself and the world. Every stage requires a painful breaking of the old self to step into the new. Thanks Mythili for capturing our discussions (I would not like to call the session as my address) and writing this out for me for wider sharing

Anubhuti – First Spark

Every spiritual journey begins with a sudden moment that opens your eyes. It could be a feeling of deep peace while looking at a sunset over the river, or a strange coincidence that feels like a sign from the universe. In this moment, the normal daily life fades away for a second. You experience something that your logical mind cannot explain. This makes you realize that there is a deeper layer to reality than just the material world. You cannot bypass this beginning, because without this initial shake to your system, your mind will never wake up from its deep sleep.

Jignasa – Eager Search

Once you experience this spark, you cannot forget it. Deep curiosity begins to grow inside you. You start reading holy books, exploring philosophy, or learning about yoga and meditation. You look for answers to explain that first unusual experience. This transition is highly painful because your old comfortable beliefs start to shatter. You move from a normal life to a life of active seeking, and the realization that you actually know nothing about reality causes immense mental restlessness.

Sadhana – Daily Practice

Soon you realize that just reading books is like reading a hotel menu without eating food. You need actual practice. You commit yourself to daily habits like mindfulness, chanting mantras, selfless service, or breathwork. You cannot jump straight to peace without doing this hard work. This stage brings intense suffering because you must break your own ego, face old habits, and burn away deep emotional blockages. It feels like a painful death of your old identity.

Abhyasa – Living the Truth

The real test of spirituality does not happen on a meditation mat. It happens when you are stuck in traffic or dealing with a difficult relative. Moving into this stage is another difficult transformation because you have to drop your spiritual pride. You cannot pretend to be holy anymore. Your spiritual practices must mix into your daily life. You become more patient, calm, and loving, but only after completely crushing your old reactive nature.

Jnana – True Wisdom

This is the final stage where all seeking ends. You cannot skip any of the previous struggles to reach here, because wisdom is earned only through that fire of transformation. You no longer need to read maps or follow rules because you have direct realization. You live with an inner understanding that everything in the universe is connected. You see the divine energy in every person. You move from knowing about the truth to actually becoming the truth, and a quiet joy stays with you always.

Seamless & Step-wise Journey from “Where” to “What”

Arjun’s Journey to Light

Let us look at the life of Arjun, a busy clerk in a noisy city. His life changes one evening when he sits by a quiet temple pond.

Suddenly, Arjun feels deep silence inside his heart. World around him stops. This is his first spark. He tries to return to his normal office life, but his heart is restless now. He cannot ignore this touch of divine.

Arjun begins his eager search. He buys heavy books, visits different temples, and asks everyone about god. This transition is painful because his old comfortable ideas about life are destroyed. He feels lost and confused, but he cannot go back.

To find peace, Arjun starts daily practice. He sits for meditation every morning before sunrise. This stage brings real fire. As he sits in silence, all his hidden anger, jealousy, and greed come to surface. Arjun cries many nights because breaking his own ego is highly painful. He wants to run away, but he forces himself to sit on meditation mat day after day.

Now Arjun must live this truth. He goes back to his crowded office. When his boss screams at him, Arjun feels old anger rising. But he remembers his practice. He chooses patience instead of shouting back. This transition hurts his pride, but Arjun slowly learns to crush his ego in daily life.

Finally, Arjun reaches true wisdom. He does not sit in cave. He works in his office and lives with his family, but his heart is always in deep peace. He sees same divine light in his difficult boss, his loving wife, and poor beggar on street. Arjun has crossed every painful step to become wisdom itself.

The Journey from “WHERE YOU ARE” to “WHAT YOU ARE“

AUM/OM – a beginner’s narrative

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This is in response  to two of my fellow bloggers on another discussion forum (which is not functional now) – Ved Vahan and Subash. Cross posting it again to share it with the audience here. While I don’t have access to those blogs wherein those 2 loving souls had brought out concept of OM, I humbly submit that this is an amateurish attempt to complement their indisputable explanations. Wherever relevant, I have made any reference to their writing,I have specifically reproduced for relevance.

So here I go….

For our ordinary minds (and true for almost all beginners on the spiritual path), it is not so easy to conceptualize or comprehend an idea without expressing them in words. If it cannot spoken about or if not expressible we somehow get a  feeling of surreality or unreal.

So this idea of God or Divine, has to necessarily be associated and expressed with Words. Another condition is that since God/Divinity is considered fundamental fact of the Cosmos, the word expressing It needs to be fundamental too. The ancients saints, seers and Rishis struck upon and agreed that this word “AUM” is a fundamental word that can truly express the Divine.

Why is this word fundamental? Here let me begin by exploring deeper purport of one of my fellow blogger on another site – Sri Subashji’s explanation. Representing the “G”enerator, “O”perator and “D”estructor – nature of GOD.

“A” the creative force originating at the lower part (Step on a thorn or when you get hurt on your legs or feet, the natural sound that emerges out is “Aaaah”)

“U”, the maintaining force originating at the middle part (someone punching on your abdomen, the natural sound that is expressed would be “Uuuuuu”).

“M”, the destructive force – of evil tendencies originating at the top part (ask
someone to give a sharp knock on your head, the sound that emerges would be “Mmmmm”).

Sum total of these forces represents the entire universe and hence lends a legitimate expression representing God representing the Trinity – Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, considered as the Creative, Maintaining and Destructive Forces.

The very construct itself renders AUM a fundamental WORD.

“A”, the root sound is pronounced without touching any part of the tongue or roof of the mouth,

“M” pronounced with closed lips representing the last possible sound.

“U” rolls from the root to the end of the palate, right upto the lips. So the three
syllables together forms the PRIMORDIAL expression called “AUM”, which represents the whole phenomena of sound production (“A” + “U” representing “O”).

Next why 3 times? As Ved-Vahan ji rightly said, “it represents three dimensions of our existence and a honor to all the three dimensions representing the
divinity in us. More importantly someone said, “It is Gurudev’s bidding (referring to His Holiness Sri Sri Ravishankar ji of Art of Living) , HE knows why :-)” (personally the most important and favourite reason for chanting it 3 times).

It is pertinent to remind here that chanting of 3 times is an aspect specific to Sudarshana Kriya and many Art Of Living processes but not mandatory – it could be more. (As HE keeps saying in various forums, in these busy times,
it is good enough if someone can chant 3 times – anything more and people would simply cite lack of time and discontinue Sadhana). 108 time chanting is quite popular too (9 Grahas x 12 Rashis).
My personal experience (not to do with numbers, but the very act of Chanting OM) – it clearly demarcates the activities on either side of my chanting. Prior to starting with a Sadhana, I disconnect the pre-Sadhana life with OM. As a rule, our group of AOL’ites whatever be the spiritual practices we embark on (viewing Knowledge Videos, beginning of AOL meetings, beginning satsangs)we chant OM, which clearly separates (mentally and physically) the mundane things from our mindspreparing the ground for our subsequent activities.

ॐ ॐ ॐ

Selfless Service – Best Antidepressant

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Why do we have the mood swings – against which was the very reason why we took up such practice in the first place. This question was posed  by an ardent devotee to the Master, His Holiness Pujya Gurudev Sri Sri Ravishankar – (you can follow HIM on twitter here @SriSri or through the official Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/HHSriSriRaviShankar)  Many of us get into suspicion mode as to why despite so much of sadhana (spiritual practices like yoga, classical music etc) we are not elevated.

HE went about explaining the phenomenon saying, sadhana raises energy levels to such high levels that unless it is channelised productively, there could be some restlessness and uneasiness. The most productive channel is to be of service to others (Seva). Seva thus  is the panacea for these kinds of ills. But then to sustain Seva levels regular Sadhana is a must – therefore both of them go hand in hand. While on the subject, here is a nice story on selfless seva and its benefits to the sevak later on. (The original story is in German and here is the best translation that I could manage – all Credits to the original author for this wonderful story)

The Clouds

One hot summer morning a little Cloud rose out of the sea and floated lightly and happily across the blue sky. Far below lay the earth, brown, dry, and desolate, from drouth. The little Cloud could see the poor people of the earth working and suffering in the hot fields, while she herself floated on the morning breeze, hither and thither, without a care.

“Oh, if I could only help the poor people down there!” she thought. “If I could but make their work easier, or give the hungry ones food, or the thirsty a drink!”

And as the day passed, and the Cloud became larger, this wish to do something for the people of earth was ever greater in her heart.

On earth it grew hotter and hotter; the sun burned down so fiercely that the people were fainting in its rays; it seemed as if they must die of heat, and yet they were obliged to go on with their work, for they were very poor. Sometimes they stood and looked up at the Cloud, as if they were praying, and saying, “Ah, if you could help us!”

“I will help you; I will!” said the Cloud. And she began to sink softly down toward the earth.

But suddenly, as she floated down, she remembered something which had been told her when she was a tiny Cloud-child, in the lap of Mother Ocean: it had been whispered that if the Clouds go too near the earth they die. When she remembered this she held herself from sinking, and swayed here and there on the breeze, thinking,–thinking. But at last she stood quite still, and spoke boldly and proudly. She said, “Men of earth, I will help you, come what may!”

The thought made her suddenly marvelously big and strong and powerful. Never had she dreamed that she could be so big. Like a mighty angel of blessing she stood above the earth, and lifted her head and spread her wings far over the fields and woods. She was so great, so majestic, that men and animals were awe-struck at the sight; the trees and the grasses bowed before her; yet all the earth-creatures felt that she meant them well.

“Yes, I will help you,” cried the Cloud once more. “Take me to yourselves; I will give my life for you!”

As she said the words a wonderful light glowed from her heart, the sound of thunder rolled through the sky, and a love greater than words can tell filled the Cloud; down, down, close to the earth she swept, and gave up her life in a blessed, healing shower of rain.

That rain was the Cloud’s great deed; it was her death, too; but it was also her glory. Over the whole country-side, as far as the rain fell, a lovely rainbow sprang its arch, and all the brightest rays of heaven made its colors; it was the last greeting of a love so great that it sacrificed itself.

Soon that, too, was gone, but long, long afterward the men and animals who were saved by the Cloud kept her blessing in their hearts.

As seen, the fruits of seva continued to linger in form of blessing of the people and animal long after our existence – in case of the clouds the blessings ensured continuing supply of clouds to the mankind. How many songs or verses are written everyday in praise of Clouds to this day.

While we involve and indulge in seva and sadhana, it definitely raises our spirits (the extent of seva should be so high that we should’t have time to worry about our silly problems). We also find that our problems which were insurmountable (in our minds, of course) compares pitiably to the problems many other face much more bravely than us.

Seva is not a duty – it is an Opportunity! I am blessed with loads of opportunity that keeps coming my way, almost every moment. It has indeed enriched and enlivened my life. I am sure it does that to everyone.

To summarize, It pays to serve…It pays to do sadhana

PS: The photograph clicked from a flight in Chennai Skies on return flight from Colombo