Sahaja Yoga Essentials

What does it mean to become your own guru? Firstly, it means that you are able to find out what your spiritual state is. Secondly, it means that you have the ability to bring yourself back into balance after having determined that you are not in a balanced state.

How do we find out what our spiritual state is? We do so through what is called vibratory awareness in Sahaja Yoga, an awareness of the state of our energy centres, also called chakras. This awareness manifests through our hands and feet, as well as directly in our body through sensations of tingling, heat or coolness, but only once we have experienced self-realisation. Coolness indicates that a particular energy centre is in a good condition, whereas heat implies that it is not in an ideal state, and that we need to change our behaviour and cleanse this energy centre to bring it back into balance. Each finger corresponds to an energy centre, and so we are able to decode these vibrations quite clearly.

In addition to vibratory awareness, another very helpful approach is to use introspection to find out where our mind is going and why it is doing so. This introspective approach is very clearly manifested in many Russian writers such as Tolstoy.

Having found out what is wrong with us on a deeper level, how do we correct ourselves? This can be done by giving vibrations to the affected energy centres ourselves, or asking someone else do so. Cool vibrations start flowing through one’s hands as a result of self-realisation and these can be used as part of the cleansing process. Sahaja Yoga provides a number of very simple techniques to cleanse our energy centres and to bring ourselves back into a balanced state.

Probably the most powerful means of correcting ourselves, which Sahaja Yoga provides, is mental silence, i.e. the state of meditation. In this state one is able to go beyond any thoughts, worries, fears, or planning and experience the presence in all its beauty. This extract from a poem by William Blake expresses this very well.

To see a world in a grain of sand,

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

And eternity in an hour.

William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

The guru principle is expressed within us in the form of what is known as the Void, or bhavasagara, and is situated in the area of the stomach. There have been many great prophets who have embodied the guru principle: Mohammed Sahib, Guru Nanak, Moses, Abraham, Socrates, Confucius, Lao Tse, Sai Nath of Shirdi, Raja Janaka and Zarathustra.

It is no coincidence that the Void is situated in the same area as the Nabhi Chakra, which is the centre of good conduct within us. We cannot be masters of ourselves if we do not follow the principles of good conduct first.

The following is an extract from a talk by the founder of Sahaja Yoga:

As you know that the principle of Guru resides in the Void. This is the principle which gives you balance, which gives you the gravity. The gravity that we have in the Mother Earth is expressed through your Guru principle. The first point of gravity is that you should have a personality, a character and a temperament that people would see that you are a personality who doesn’t get dissolved into worldly things, a personality which doesn’t get ruined by the skirmishes of life. Is the personality of a Guru which sits down deep into his – into his being and is not easily disturbed or dissolved by any solvent what-so-ever. This is the first principle of the Guru, is the gravity. As I told you it is something which cannot be dissolved into anything. It settles very deep down into your personality. So it doesn’t float in the water.

Now you see, in the countries which are developed very much we think that we have a very great power of individual attainment. That individually we are absolutely free, we can do whatever we like and that’s why individual freedom becomes the goal of all democratic countries, neglecting the collective. Of course, individual is important, and it has to become all right to nourish the collective. But, if the individual does not have the gravity, then they float on the surface and anything can impress them. That’s why we find today people get impressed by fashions. By fashions, which by no logical reason are good for your health, for your wisdom.

Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, founder of Sahaja Yoga, 31 July 1988

Once you have experienced your self-realisation through Sahaja Yoga, a new dimension of awareness is opened up to you. You are able to experience thoughtless awareness, or nirvichara samadhi, which is a state where you are perfectly alert, but are conscious without having to think. This is a truly liberating state, as our state prior to self-realisation is characterised by constant nagging thoughts and worries, or planning for the future.

Another area of awareness that becomes available to you in Sahaja Yoga is known as vibratory awareness, in which you become aware of the state of your subtle system, which is depicted in the diagram. Sensations on the fingertips, such as tingling or heat indicate a problem in an energy centre, whereas coolness is associated with an absence of problems in an energy centre, also known as a chakra. The colours shown in the hand in the diagram correspond to the colours of the energy centres, and in this way you are able to decode the sensations on the fingertips. For example, if the thumb (yellow) on the left hand tingles this indicates a problem with the swadisthan chakra on the left hand side (also shown as yellow in the diagram).

In Sahaja Yoga it is common to hear people talking about being left-sided or right-sided. What does this mean? If you look at the diagram you will notice that there are three channels. There is a blue channel which runs down a person’s left side (as we are facing the person in the diagram it naturally appears on the right-hand side) and is called the left side or in Sanskrit terms, the Ida Nadi, where Nadi means ‘channel.’ On the other side, on the right side of our body, is the right side, or Pingala Nadi. In the middle, running along the spinal chord is the Sushumna, or central channel.

What are the qualities of these three channels? The left channel is also known as the moon channel, and if we move too much into this channel then we can become depressed and in extreme cases, suicidal. It is also associated with feelings of hopelessness, dejection, fear and failure. Normally the colour of this channel is blue, but as we move more towards the left side, the colour becomes quite black. How do we know if we have moved into the left-side i.e. our left channel has become overactive? We can tell from our behaviour, as described above, but through Sahaja Yoga we can also detect this more subtly on our hands. If we feel more coolness on the right hand than the left, then this indicates that we have indulged too much into the left side of our consciousness.

The right channel, or the sun channel, is associated with feelings of elation, excitement, planning too much, being futuristic, dominating and aggressive. The colour of this channel is gold when it is in balance with the left side, but as a person moves more towards the right, the colour changes to yellow, orange and then red as the person becomes increasingly aggressive. The ideal state in Sahaja Yoga is to be in the centre, which means that we are are moving on the central channel, and that we are not too left-sided or too right-sided. In this state we are detached, enjoy being with others, and enjoy ourselves more too. This can be felt on the subtle level as coolness on both hands.

By attending a Sahaja Yoga centre near you, you can find out how to balance yourself on a subtle level.

You’ve heard of Sahaja Yoga, but what is it? When people think of yoga they often think of Hatha Yoga which has a big emphasis on the physical level involving postures etc. Sahaja Yoga is a form of meditation, or a better definition might be that it is the key to meditation where meditation is defined as mental silence, thoughtless awareness or nirvichara.

Meditation only occurs when we have experienced self-realisation, which is a state in which the kundalini, a coiled energy, has awakened from its slumber at the base of the spine, and has risen up through the energy centres situated on the spine, pierced the fontanelle bone at the top of the head and has connected with the all-pervading power. If you have not experienced self-realisation you won’t be able to go beyond thoughts, but will just be battling them in an effort to achieve silence, but this is a bit like banging your head against the wall.

So you could say that self-realisation is the starting point for Sahaja Yoga. This is not how it used to be. Prior to Sahaja Yoga people who wished to achieved their enlightenment would retire from society and would spend years, decades to overcome their attachment to the physical, emotional and mental aspects of their being. They would cleanse energy centre after energy centre, starting from the root energy centre, the Mooladhara and working their way up. Most of the time they would fail or give up.

In Sahaja Yoga you first experience self-realisation and then you go about clearing the chakras, or energy centres. Normally only a few strands of the kundalini rise up all the way to the top as there are obstructions in the chakras preventing more strands from rising up. The task of the person who has achieved this first step on their spiritual path is to then cleanse these energy centres in order to allow further strands of kundalini to rise up, and hence to deepen the experience.

How would you know which energy centres need cleansing? Well, one of the amazing results of getting self-realisation through Sahaja Yoga is that you are able to perceive your energy centres on your finger tips. This is known as vibratory awareness. Each finger corresponds to a different chakra, so that if a particular finger tingles or burns we know that there is a problem in the corresponding chakra. If you attend a Sahaja yoga program near you (and these are free) you will find out what to do to cleanse each centre. The cleansing methods are amazingly simple!

The other result of self-realisation is that you are able to enjoy mental silence, and at a deeper level, bliss. As you cleanse the chakras within you and continue to meditate you are able to discover the beauty within.