Jan 2021 note on my meditation approach and experience - no visions, just worship of great divine power, and experience of unchanging awareness, joy, peace and love

Minor update on 29th March 2022

Readers may want to read my related post: Have become regular in divine awareness meditation; Meditation affirmation-and-helper statements that I use now in March 2022 and that I used in the past (May 2019),  https://ravisiyer.blogspot.com/2019/05/hope-to-get-back-to-divine-awareness.html .

Given below are messages (slightly edited) I had shared in the past with some persons privately about a Jan. 2021 meditation session that I had. At that time, I was very hesitant about sharing it publicly. Now I feel I should share them publicly as it may be of interest to some readers with whom I have not privately shared them earlier.

Note that at that time, I was **not** keen about having out of body experiences or rising above body consciousness. Now after my recent health emergencies, I am keen on exploring spiritual practices that help a person rise above body consciousness through intense sadhana. 

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18th Jan. 2021

Note that I view Shirdi Sai Baba and Sathya Sai Baba as Avatars but it is OK with me if you do not view them (or any one of them) as Avatars - no issue at all.

Given below is a diary note on my meditation session today where I brought in worship of glorious power of God including power that brought forth glorious Avatars.

Note that sometimes I work or am viewing/reading something late at night and so get up late in the morning. So I do not have a steady early morning meditation practice, as of now at least.

Around 4.30 AM to 4.40 AM:

Initial period required handling some issues of some insect-type bite and fixing some water dripping issue in nearby washbasin and generally getting comfortable in my plastic-chair seated comfortable pose.

Helper statements during meditation session from around 4.40 AM to 5.30 AM:

I am the awareness. 

[I was able to focus on my awareness after initial five to ten minutes as I was settling into the meditation. In other words, I had got into a deeper awareness state in my meditation session after this period.]

This essence of my being (awareness) is part of the power (Parabrahma) that has created the universe and sustains it. This power is all-powerful (omnipotent), all-knowing (omniscient) and present everywhere (omnipresent). [Note that this is a belief of mine based on Hindu scripture.]

This power created the glorious Avatars (with divine superpowers) including Narahari (Narasimha), Vaman, Rama, Krishna, Shirdi Sai and Sathya Sai. [I got into adoration and worship of this power.] 

I (my divine essence of awareness which is part of Parabrahma) am love. I am peace. I am joy (ananda). [These affirmations led to me feeling loving, peaceful and joyful.]

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I had the pleasant feeling of Kundalini rising a few times from the pit of my abdomen (or base of my spine) to higher levels, at one time coming up to heart level.

Overall it was a very joyful and deeply peaceful session.

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Let me add something about Christian faith which I greatly respect and revere.

As a Hindu, I view Lord Jesus Christ as an Avatar.

I view the Holy Spirit of Christianity to be similar to Parabrahma I have mentioned above.

But I also view that Jesus Christ (known in Indian languages as Yesu Masiya or Isa Masiha which is closer to languages of the area where Jesus Christ lived and preached) as one of the ways to God, and not the only way to God. This is a view that is not in line with core Christian theology of many Christian denominations. But I am not too concerned about that - I do not let that come in the way of my adoration and worship of Lord Jesus Christ as a divine figure.

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21st Jan. 2021

A follow-on message to my meditation approach and experience message:

One of the reasons why I shared this message with a few interested persons is that I wanted to convey that meditation need not be about great visions and out-of-body experiences, which surely some psychic people have. Going by teachers like our beloved Lord Sathya Sai Baba as well as others like Ramana Maharishi and Nisargadatta Maharaj, the fundamental spiritual quest and goal is to shed our mistaken identity with the mind-body (dehaabhimana) and identify and associate with our inner awareness (I-ness or consciousness), which is the Atma, and know that it is eternal, unchanging and our real identity. We also feel the great peace that staying at that awareness level provides us.

Now Hindu scripture tells us, and Sathya Sai teaches us, that our Atma is not only eternal, unchanging and ever-peaceful but also divine and loving (Swami would refer to us as Divyaswarupulara and Premaswarupulaara in his public discourses) as part of divine Parabrahma/Paramaatma which is pure love and also omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient.

From what I recall, in his public discourses, Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba would not talk much about out-of-body experiences attained through sadhana or some psychic powers gained through sadhana - he would instead talk of prashaanti, prema, jnaana (real knowledge of self) and ananda attained by such sadhana. In other words, as a spiritual teacher, Bhagavan taught us to focus on goals of prashaanti, prema, jnaana, ananda etc. rather than acquiring some psychic out-of-body experiences or attaining any siddhis like mind-reading. Though if such experiences/siddhis do come on their own, it is fine. Key point is that one should not have any desire/attachment towards them.

And so I felt me sharing this meditation message with a few interested people may be good.

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I had private exchanges prior to above note on meditation. I have given below a slightly edited version of my part of the exchanges.

Written around 26th Oct. 2020

About my (first) meditative experience of unchanging awareness sometime in or around 2009/2010:

I felt that I have changed over the years **prior** to my meditation experience which was preceded by many years (decades actually) of reading and contemplation about inner reality.

But once I had that meditative experience, my understanding changed based on my direct experience.

Now Sathya Sai had said this (about awareness) many times in his discourses and writings but I had not experienced it and so I could not fully relate to it. But once I had that meditative experience, it changed for me.

With that preamble, what was that meditative experience?

I was able to experience an inner level of being which was just awareness - **unchanging awareness**.

When I was at that level, which I am able to access even today after some amount of meditation and so I should also say, when I am at that level, I felt / feel as if this awareness has been with me all through my life!!! And it has **NOT CHANGED** one little bit.

What has changed is my body and my mind; my mind-body complex.

But at that **awareness* level that I reached, and can still reach, with meditation, I *temporarily** did NOT identify with my body or my mind, and instead identified only with the awareness which just does not change.

I further understood how it is the awareness that is something that I simply cannot deny or simply cannot detach from my being. I can, in meditation, mentally get disassociated with my body and mind (as long as body is not in pain, in which case I do not have the ability as of now to disassociate from the body then as the pain forces me to be at body level) and be at that awareness level.

But I can never detach myself / my self/ my being from that awareness!!!

I then got a much better understanding of the Neti Neti contemplation method which I now understand as keep on rejecting whatever you find that you can disassociate from and so really are not, and then you will come to a core of your being which you cannot reject and that is your reality.

I understand that to be the Atma , the Self, that is written in spiritual literature including in what Ramana Maharshi has taught.

But I have never had an expansion of consciousness/awareness experience where I experience myself in others and others in myself, which some mystics have experienced and written about.

Further when I am in bodily pain (e.g. even a simple toothache) or am mentally very disturbed, I find it difficult to detach myself from body-mind complex then. So my meditation ability is quite limited, as of now. Mystics who are accomplished meditators can even leave the body and so not experience anything that the body experiences like pain. I am nowhere close to such ability in my meditation.

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Written around 1st Nov. 2020

Proceeding further on writing about my (first) meditation experience of unchanging awareness sometime in or around 2009/2010:

The unchanging awareness/consciousness experience led me to very firmly believe in the teaching/revelations of Hindu scripture which have been reinforced by Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, that it is only the body that dies, and that the Atma (awareness/consciousness) never dies (but mind or parts of it, may move to next birth).

While I generally have not had much fear of death ever since I got used to living alone from sometime in 2003, after this experience of unchanging awareness (Atma), I have lost fear of death. I firmly believe that my awareness will not die and that is my reality. The standard contemporary metaphor that teachers about reincarnation use for death is that it is like removing a shirt one is wearing, and the new birth is like wearing a new shirt! I can now fully relate to that, and have strong belief that that is indeed how death and re-birth are like (but I don't know for sure as I have not had any out-of-body experience which some mystics claim to have had, and I cannot see my past births).

However, I still would like to avoid bodily pain and suffering. So my spiritual level is quite limited in that it is only death that I am not afraid of, but I would certainly want to avoid pain and other bodily suffering. I do not have the ability (as of now) to go into a meditative trance such that I am beyond bodily pain and suffering - I have not yet reached such a level in my meditation.

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Associated Facebook post: https://www.facebook.com/ravi.s.iyer.7/posts/3339648726251681 , has comment exchanges.