The Practical Aspect of Dhyan Yoga (Translation of a discourse of Revered Pandit Shriram Sharma Acharya)

(Post 15)

(http://literature.awgp.org/akhandjyoti/2003/Nov_Dec/v1.PracticalAspectDhyan_Yoga_II)

Bhakti Yoga included in Dhyan Yoga

Friends! The third kind of light, which I have asked you to focus upon during this dhyan yoga is that of the inner self.

It is the radiance of our intrinsic faith, our devotion, our sincerity, and our compassion, which sparkles all around in the form of pure love. Awakening of this love is the bhakti-yoga.

We strengthen our body by practicing physical exercises, and make use of the vigor thus gained in our routine chores, and in the hard work required for transaction of our duties on multiple fronts.

Similarly, when we begin with the devotion and love for God, the inner force of emotions we acquire through this bhakti (devotion) should also be utilized and expanded.

We should love our gross body; if we love it, we must take good care of it; keep it neat and tidy; discipline it and maintain its health and harmony. This is a reflection of our love, our devotion for God’s creation.

The same way our devotion should also extend towards our mind; we should look after it cautiously. We should not allow it to be disturbed or agitated. It should be kept calm and serene. Thoughts stored in it should be bright and pristine like the glow of the sun.

The Practical Aspect of Dhyan Yoga (Translation of a discourse of Revered Pandit Shriram Sharma Acharya)

(Post 14)

(http://literature.awgp.org/akhandjyoti/2003/Nov_Dec/v1.PracticalAspectDhyan_Yoga_II) 

The light of the rising sun you meditate upon should illuminate your inner mind. It should refine your knowledge and focus your thoughts in constructive directions. If this spark of gyan kindles in your mind, I will assume that you have comprehended and assimilated the training of meditation, for which I have guided you in this golden jubilee year of my anusthana sadhana.

If you do not understand and adopt these teachings in practice, your dhyan will only remain a pleasant imagination, and you will gain nothing worthwhile out of such shallow practices. Spirituality is not imagination; it is not a dreamy experience. It is real and experiential. It deals with every aspect of our life; it should be lived in our life today, every day. There is no place for dreams or myths in spirituality. God is not a creation of our dreams or imaginations. His presence should be reflected in all our daily activities.

The Practical Aspect of Dhyan Yoga (Translation of a discourse of Revered Pandit Shriram Sharma Acharya)

(Post 12)

(http://literature.awgp.org/akhandjyoti/2003/Nov_Dec/v1.PracticalAspectDhyan_Yoga_II)

(Translation of the original discourse in Hindi given during a Sadhana Camp in 1976)

The second part of this dhyan yoga involves meditating upon the light spot (of rising Sun) in the center of your brain. The infusion of this light in your brain, in your mind, should inspire you to become a gyan yogi.

The first sign of this progress is that there should be nothing negative or illusive in your mind, your thoughts should be positive and constructive. In general, the human mind is flooded by strong currents of pell-mell thoughts and imaginations; the bedlam of passions and impulses keeps hovering around it, like the fleas and mosquitoes around a drain. Sometimes your mind is boiling in anger, sometimes erotic thoughts perturb it, some moments you are thinking of a movie, soon you may begin to plan for the purchase of a lottery-ticket, and dream about what you will do with the wealth gained thereby and what not!

This way you keep recklessly wasting your mental energy in useless, purposeless and haphazard imaginations and thoughts.

If you were alert and had focused your mind on constructive or analytical thinking, and given a focused direction to your thoughts, you would have delved deeper in your selected field of knowledge; some of you would have become a Voltaire by now! If you had dived deeper in your psyche and given creative, enlightened direction to your imaginations, you might have been another Ravindranath Tagore.

The Practical Aspect of Dhyan Yoga (Translation of a discourse of Revered Pandit Shriram Sharma Acharya)

(Post 9)

(http://literature.awgp.org/akhandjyoti/2003/Sept_Oct/PracticalAspectDhyanYoga/)

The "Karma-Yoga" is the yoga of the body - that means, this yoga pertains to the worldly domains of your life and your deeds. One who meditates upon light in the navel region cannot sit idle. He will always be busy in good actions.

There are three streams of yoga - karma-yoga, gyan-yoga and bhakti-yoga.
I have asked you to inculcate the practice of all these yogas through the medium of light.

Whenever the light of divinity will descend upon a person, it will inspire karma-yoga in his physical being, in his conduct. Then the person will become more duty-bound; work will be worship for him.

The deeds of worship, service, social welfare, and the actions pertaining to transactions of responsibilities, adoption of moral ideals, etc., fall under karma-yoga. These teach us that when our body absorbs the light (of pran), we should become hardworking, our every action should be devoted to selfless duty.

It conveys that  one who meditates upon light should not be lethargic, lazy or dishonest. One who eats and earns without being sincere to his work is equivalent to a thief in my view.

The Practical Aspect of Dhyan Yoga (Translation of a discourse of Revered Pandit Shriram Sharma Acharya)

(Post 8)

(http://literature.awgp.org/akhandjyoti/2003/Sept_Oct/PracticalAspectDhyanYoga/)

 Karma Yoga taught through Dhyan Yoga:

In the first step of this practice of dhyan yoga, you should imagine and try to feel as though the glow of sunlight is being absorbed by your navel. It means that the spark of pran should enter your physical body from the navel and flow in every vein, every artery and every cell.

Why from the navel?

Because this is the connecting point of the umbilical cord between the mother and the fetus and is therefore regarded as the energy center of the body.

As the vital elements from your mother's body, that enabled your healthy birth, used to enter your body from the navel, the light (strength) of God is also induced in it through the same center. When this light will be infused in your body, your bones, your blood, your flesh, all will shine. By this illumination I mean, it will induce energy, enthusiasm, alacrity, courage, commitment to responsibilities, industriousness, zeal for hard work, motivation for altruist service, and love and joy for selfless fulfillment of duties. These qualities will help you accomplish your karma-yoga.

The Practical Aspect of Dhyan Yoga (Translation of a discourse of Revered Pandit Shriram Sharma Acharya)

(Post 7)

(http://literature.awgp.org/akhandjyoti/2003/Sept_Oct/PracticalAspectDhyanYoga/)

When I talk of meditation upon light, I don't mean the physical light as some of you might interpret.

Here it means the divine light, or the sublime glow of pure knowledge.

It is not the physical illumination; rather it is the radiance of spirituality and true knowledge.

We pray "Tamaso Ma Jyotirgamaya" -
O Lord! Take us from the darkness towards light; here again, we mean - from ignorance to knowledge.

In spirituality, the word "light" is always used in the context of enlightenment, pure knowledge. (This is what should be understood of it in this discourse).

We were talking of meditating upon the sunlight. So, where should we imagine its presence?
In the special kind of dhyan yoga that I have been teaching you this year, I ask you to meditate upon sunlight focused successively at three points - the navel, the heart and the brain (especially the deeper core inside and above the center of the forehead).

These three regions contain the sublime nuclei of power for our three bodies - the physical, the subtle and the astral body.

All these points should be enlightened (in our imagination and inner experience during this practice of dhyan yoga); the brilliance of sunlight should enter all the three bodies.

What does it imply?
It implies the inherent philosophy and practical aspects of the three principal yogas.

The Practical Aspect of Dhyan Yoga (Translation of a discourse of Revered Pandit Shriram Sharma Acharya)

(Post 6)

(http://literature.awgp.org/akhandjyoti/2003/Sept_Oct/PracticalAspectDhyanYoga/)

The soul and God are also basically the same except for the fact that the former is expressed within a limited identity (confined to the individual self) whereas the latter is unbounded, infinite. One is manifested in a tiny domain, while the other is gigantic, unlimited. One is bounded by the thraldoms of maya, while the other is absolutely free. This is the only difference between us and The Divine.

This difference is there because of the mist of ignorance covering up the resplendence of our inner self that keeps us cut off from our eternal origin. If we refine and illumine ourselves (by the purifying radiance of virtues and righteous knowledge) we can attain our soul-reality and also God-awareness.

This is why (during the dhyan yoga) we meditate upon light, focus our attention upon the inner self, upon the sublime roots of our being, and its ultimate goal.

(You may now ask) "So Guruji! Is this why you train us to meditate upon the rising Sun?"
Yes my children! The brilliance of rising sun is a symbol of divine light. You may feel its radiance in your mind during this meditation, or may get a reflection of Goddess Gayatri. It doesn't matter if instead of sunlight you experience the deity's image or some divine reflection. That only shows the degree of progress of your dhyan.