Have you ever looked, really looked, without thinking, at the unopened coils of a tree-fern frond? If you give yourself time to absorb the shape and contours you find your attention becomes one with the plant. It’s so mathematically perfect and alive at the same time. You can almost feel the force of life that will gradually unfurl the coils as the fern grows.
As artists and writers we love to find examples in nature of what happens inside us when we enter the meditative state. So, drawing a tree-fern really appeals because we can relate the uncoiling of our own energy to the pattern of the fern’s growth. Spiritually, we are born from the light above, and in that light we can see our own true potential for the first time.
Several of us gathered in a friend’s garden in front of her tree-ferns and looked intently at the plants for some time until our attention became one with them. Then we examined runner bean seeds by separating the different parts to look at the primule and storage material and to search in vain for any image of the bean plant it would have become.
From that we closed our eyes and put attention on the base of the spine where the earth is represented in us and from where the wisdom and innocence needed for our growth into the true self come. Next the attention moved up the spine to the “seed” germinating within the sacrum bone and rising to meet the nurturing energy from the light above. With attention at the top of the head we watched the silence between the thoughts in the same way that we had observed the fern and the seed.
Afterwards, one lady who was new to meditation said that she had experienced a gap between her thoughts for the first time ever. So, we talked about the Kundalini as a mothering, nurturing energy expanding our creativity as we grow closer to our inner potential and about how to use this attention during such activities as drawing and writing. She was able to feel the Cool Breeze coming from the top of her head. We sat in meditation again for some time.
The next step was to write in silence and continuously for about ten minutes on the subject of “myself and my art”. All of us felt it was easier to write after being in meditation and that what we wrote was valuable for our growth in spirit as well as in art practice.
Finally we drew a self-portrait with the aid of hand-held mirrors, while focusing on the thought, “Am I what I see?” You may find this an interesting activity whether or not you are an artist.
Christine Driver
In the calm of Sahaja’s cave
You can discover the True One.
Sayeth Nanak, the True One loves the truthful.
Guru Nanak
Patanjali is the one who originally described the “asanas” that are used in today’s many forms of physical “Yoga”, also known as “Hatha Yoga”. Yoga simply means “mystical union” with the Divine (or whatever you want to call it). In western society today, Yoga is the practice of “asanas” and there is little talk of meditation, spirituality or God, which were the original purpose of the practice of asana exercises as described by Patanjali.
Max Lieberman
Austerity, the study of sacred texts, and the dedication of action to God constitute the discipline of Mystic Union (Yoga).
This discipline is practised for the purpose of acquiring fixity of mind on the Lord, free from all impurities and agitations, or on One’s Own Reality, and for attenuating the afflictions.
The five afflictions are ignorance, egoism, attachment, aversion, and the desire to cling to life.
Ignorance is the breeding place for all the others whether they are dormant or attenuated, partially overcome or fully operative.
Ignorance is taking the non-eternal for the eternal, the impure for the pure, evil for good and non-self as self.
Egoism is the identification of the power that knows with the instruments of knowing.
Attachment is that magnetic pattern which clusters in pleasure and pulls one towards such experience.
Aversion is the magnetic pattern which clusters in misery and pushes one from such experience.
Flowing by its own energy, established even in the wise and in the foolish, is the unending desire for life.
These patterns when subtle may be removed by developing their contraries.
Their active afflictions are to be destroyed by meditation.
From The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali – The Threads of Union
(written between 1700 and 2200 years ago)
“There are two selfs; the higher and the lower self.
The higher self is human spirit clothed with soul, made in the form of God.
The lower self is an illusion, and will pass away; the higher self is God in man, and will not pass away.
If you would ask me what to study I would say, yourselves; and when you will have studied them, and then would ask me what to study next, I would reply, yourselves.
He who knows well his lower self, knows the illusions of the world, knows of the things that pass away; and he who knows his higher self, knows God; knows well the things that cannot pass away.
Men seek salvation from an evil that they deem a living monster of the nether world. This evil is myth.
The only devil from which men must be redeemed is self, the lower self. If man would find his devil he must look within; his name is self.
If man would find his saviour he must look within; and when the demon self has been dethroned the saviour, Love, will be exulted to the throne of power.
The David of the light is Purity, who slays the strong Goliath of the dark, and seats the saviour, Love, upon the throne.”
Extract from the The Aquarian Gospel