by maadivinebody | Feb 24, 2025 | Deeper Body Practices - Inner Practices
In life, we always need to have a referral point. Only when we are fully united with the divine, and I guess most of us, or all of us, are quite far away from that reality, we need to have a referral point. Actually, we always have a referral point, either unconscious or habitual, or borrowed from others, or society. But the beauty is to make this referral point conscious and to choose a referral point that is closest to one’s deepest aspiration, free, vast, high and pure. For all those who really want to progress in deeper body work, the yoga and its practice, alone needs to be the referral point.
This yoga sadhana cannot be something static. This is not something that we do for 20 or 60 minutes a day, and then squander our energies in random ways. It’s about the way we live our life. It’s about the way we work. In our deeper body work sadhana, the practice of the deeper body yoga or the yoga of the cells alone needs to be the referral point. And what would that mean? It would mean that we should be primarily thinking about this, reading about this, concentrating on something not clear yet, for example ‘What is subtle body?’ or ‘how to practice condensing and expansion of subtle matter’ or ‘ how to wait within our body to receive Delight pure’. Unfortunately for many of us our referral points are scattered here and there around some agendas at work, interactions with close family members, interactions with others and the like. We need to have one or a few deep, larger and all-encompassing reference point/s and in all the works, interactions and activities we do in our life, this reference point should be active and living. Now when we take the yogic sadhana of substance or cells of our body, many of us may feel that we are still getting only kinder-garden experiences and capacity to do the practice. Well still with resonance, joy and faith we can make this the very centre of our life and work and the rest follows by Grace. The beauty of this body-centred yogic sadhana is that this also leads to a clearer mind, purer and stronger vital and a calm capacity to creatively manifest.
Reflect how are you interacting with others. What are you doing? How and in what manner are you doing these? How are you working? While at a practical level, each area of your life will have its goals. So at the relationship level, we’ll have goals. At the work level, we’ll have some goals like, make money or make this product sell or get a new customer and stuff like that. That is great. These should be there. But the underlying secret or mystical referral point always should be present in a conscious and living way no matter what we are doing on the outside.
There are two ways to look at it. One is that no matter what we are doing on the outside we should be with our reference point. In case of deeper body work lovers, this would mean that they are in practice most of the time of the day. To do the practice is why they are living, breathing and working. They want to be skilled and excelling at work. They want to nurture loving relationships. And the basis of all this needs to be the reference point of conscious practice, running as a background all the time. The second option is even more powerful. We create work opportunities and relationship interactions governed by the needs of our reference point and in the case of deeper body work lovers, governed by the dictates of the sadhana as it unfolds with aspiration, daily practice and Grace.
Now while a major portion of our sadhana is to surrender or wait with practice for the Divine’s Grace and decent, we need to have faith in an integral victory like a white peacock. This is not a victory for a ego efforts. But this is a faith in victory in the practice itself that will certainly unfold over time in its fuller perfection and ease.
For this we need to go into the minute details of how we need to do things. In all that we do we need to look at, how do we do these things that at the practical level there is expertise, goodness and progress building up. However our inner eye at an underlying level, should look at every interaction, work and activity as a phenomenal opportunity to do our sadhana – to honour your reference point, to do the deeper body work and to do the yoga.
Keep a gentle reflection what should I do in my external life or how should I relate? How should I work? How should I act so that it gives me the maximum time, maximum capacity to be able to do this sadhana? One tendency we need to be careful about is we should not allow laziness, tamas, to set in or a tendency for a less work or action. Less or more work there should be no preference. There should be no preference for less work. There should be no preference for overwork. What comes and what is needed is all taken as part of the sadhana to live the reference point or do the deeper work well.
Action:
We hope that post reading this article you move to its actions too:
1. Choose and clarify your reference point
2. Hold it and be in practice of it throughout day
3. When you forget and you will a 1000 times, always start back the practice a 1000 times with the fullest love and aspiration as if you are beginning for the first time ever.
by maadivinebody | Feb 20, 2025 | Deeper Body Practices - Inner Practices
Our lips and its inner substance seems to be carrying something precious that we can bring into deeper body work and healing. Long back there was a practitioner who used to do body work but had a challenge of getting distracted by thoughts. One day when she was in practice, the deeper body work was going on very good and she said in-between that she was getting distracted due to thoughts. There was a sudden intuition where the attention was brought to her lips. This intuition happened twice or thrice. And then she was told to bring her attention to her lips and connect her lips to her mind region, and leave it open to the Vastness above head. In a few minutes she became very calm and reported that the noise in her mind became calm and she accessed silence. All she did was to move her awareness and breath within her lips and kept it connected to her mind and also above her head. We have tested this practice in several retreats of ours and the same experience has been unfolding for many.
Before we explore more into this aspect of our lip and its healing for our body, let us examine the act of kissing. The lips have an inner substance. The act of giving a kiss is very different from the act of kissing as a sexual interchange. A kiss offered to a child, spouse, family member or a friend can actually be healing. The substance present within lips seems to have this capacity. For a kiss to be healing it should be done in a non-stimulative manner. When we deeply study the movement of a kiss, it is a master condensing and letting go movement. When we kiss there is a natural condensing of substance in both the giver and receiver. Then there is a natural let go which is an expansion of inner substance both for the giver and receiver. This kiss offered need not be with touch alone. Even a flying kiss or even a close connect with another human, without any physical contact has this aspect of a condensation subtle touch and a let go or expansion movement.
Let us take this insight and explore inner healing with our own lips. We can connect to the substance of matter within our lip. We can do this with our eyes closed or open and feel into the mass and soft substance within the lip. We can do our regular practices like be with our natural breath or connect our lips to the Divine or Consciousness above our head. With the substance of our lip and movement of condensation and expansion we can kiss each part of our body and its substance from head to toe. This can be done with eyes closed and eyes open.
Let us give an experiential description again. We keep our awareness within our lips. We can be with our breath and connect the lips to Consciousness above head. We should be feeling the inner substance of our lips. This will often open up a sense of joy or a feeling of light or subtle substance within our lips. Now from or with our lips we focus say on our head region. It is almost like with our lips we touch the substance of our head and kiss it. This will be like condensing the subtle substance of our head – not the physical actual head but the inner matter of head with is more pliable. We then let go but our lips is still in contact with our head. The letting go is natural expansion. We can do this once or twice and then travel through all parts of our body in this manner.
The same practice we have been doing with our awareness before. We take our awareness to different parts of our body. We condense and let go the part and connect the part of our body to Qualities present above our head. The same we are doing with our lips now. It is the substance of our lips which is doing the process for each part of our body. The lips seems to have some unique advantages. The substance within our lip can sense very deeply into substance of other parts, condense and expand and heal deep tissues. So we can kiss our inner substance of all parts of our body with the substance of our lips. Also the substance of our lips does not absorb entanglements. It seems to be able to be untouched more naturally, especially when we keep our lips linked to Divine above during this Sadhana.
Doing this process with our lips also seems to be giving a heightened sensing. For example when the lips are working on a pain area on our right shoulder blade, soon the pathway of pain can clearly show up. For example you may see a interlinkage to a specific point inside a jaw bone or tooth and which extends to a point in the right ear. We can gently allow our lips to continue the practice in the path shown until the point in the right ear.
Each part of our body that we are working on with our lips, it is good to keep that part of the body relaxed and soft. This helps the process to unfold beautifully.
A lips that is constantly chanting a chosen mantra or the primordial sound AUM has a greater capacity to heal in this manner.
You can also kiss the subtle substance of Divine Masters in a very humble and sacred way. Thus in a state of intimate union with our Divine or Divine Master, we receive Their sacred subtle substance within us, as much as Grace bestows upon us and as much as our body has the capacity to receive.
Keeping our lips with a mantra, offered to Divine above and connecting to each and every cell of our body and condensing and expanding it and connecting each cell to Divine above is this Sadhana process that is unfolding.
by maadivinebody | Feb 18, 2025 | Deeper Body Practices - Inner Practices
“Your faith in the sound body needs to be far higher than your individual experiences.”
This line emerged as a practice in one of our Substance of Love workshop session. Let’s explore this deeper.
With our awareness, breath and consciousness when we are doing a practice there could be at least these three phenomenon that are present.
There is something that will be happening in our inner experience. Let us take inner experiences as layer 1. Our inner experience includes our thoughts, emotions, sensations, memory imprints and the like. Through our practice something could get triggered in our inner experience. It could be positive or negative. If people are only focussing here they make errors in discernment of their practice. For example due to a good practice (say someone is chanting within their body) some limiting dark energy gets released from within, they could get scared and stop the practice. This is a great opportunity for healing or transformation lost.
This brings us to another layer of experience. When we truly practice, something opens up like a higher vibration or state of being. Let us take this as layer 2. For example we could experience wave like consciousness around us, or connection to vastness or a state of peace and silence, or an automatic state of joy / bliss or an heightened sense of calmness / aliveness / alertness and the like. We may experience this within us or around us or above us or below our feet. Another example of layer 2 is going and sitting near Samadhi, or Matrimandir or walking in a pure & beautiful space in nature. In all these cases if we truly connect to the Master or Nature or Divine then layer 2 is enhanced within us or around us or above us or below us. Or for example you are chanting or reading Lalita Sahasranama, a profound invocation of the many qualities of the Divine Goddess. If we read or chant it mechanically nothing happens. But if we connect to the names, sounds and almost become united with the chant, a certain state of Presence forms even in the room where we are doing the practice. All these are examples of layer 2.
When we do our inner practices layer 2 is what we need to focus on to detect if we are opening up to something good. If our point of reference is reactions of layer 1 which is our individual experience, it could lead to confusions. For example let us say we feel some wave like vast and floating feeling all around us. This is an example of layer 2. However it could be new to us or through associative memory it could trigger some images internally and we could be filled with fear. This fearful inner experience (layer 1) of fear is a reaction to a beautiful experience unfolding in layer 2. We perhaps are not used to it or may not have the capacity to bear it. Once we are able to discern our layer 2 and we sense something good unfolding then we can relax and open the very same inner experience which is shrinking to the quality or state or vibration of vast and floating waves and allow for transformation. Now if we have developed right understanding or capacity to hold these experiences then our inner experience would also be a state of gladness for a beautiful state unfolding in layer 2.
Layer 2 is actually impersonal. It is in the domain of universal, cosmic or Divine. An extension of Layer 1 will be the inter-subjective space. This is the space of how our inner experiences interfaces with others and triggers and gets triggered by others. This too we take it as an extension of our inner experience. Layer 2 is truly the domain of Higher or Divine Consciousness acting on us. When we do our inner practice and layer 2 builds up and we connect it to our layer 1, it leads to individual healing or transformation.
But yet in body work we need to learn to go beyond our individual experiences and personal healing.
The layer 3 is a domain within our body, but free and beneath our individual and inter-subjective experiences. For example it is the pure substance at the depth of every cell. In a way of speaking it is Pure vibrations of layer 2 (higher consciousness) that lives as layer 3 within our body. This pure substance is self-lit, radiant, joyful and is love.
With this background let us enter into an exploration of Sound. The domain of sounds exists everywhere in layer 1,2 and 3.
Let us take a part of a quote from the Page 224 of the book Sri Saundarya Lahari by Swami Satyasangananda Saraswati:
“According to the agamas, Shakti in her purest form before mingling with matter has nine manifestations, which are the atma of the universe, as they percolate into each and every form of creation. The nine manifestations are: i) matrika, the energy residing in sound, ii) kula, lineage, iii) nama, form, iv) jnana, knowledge, v) chitta, individual consciousness, vi) nada, the varying frequencies of sound, vii) bindu, nucleus, viii) kaala, time, and ix) jiva or atman, the self who enjoys.”
Opening to the Grace, Love, Force and Light of the Shakti is layer 2. She exists. We open ourselves humbly, in a receptive posture. Now if we take the first aspect of matrika alone for this exploration, there is a Higher Energy that resides in sound that enters into matter and our body and being. This is happening in each moment, in the present. We may not be aware. With faith as we may not have ‘heard’ or received Her, we bow down to Her as sound. All our sound practices like ‘AUM’, which is a primordial sound is in a way a part of this. Now we can chant AUM within us and it would land within our inner experiences. If we can concentrate on the sound vibration of AUM and repeat it within us it supports in the healing of our inner experiences. The same AUM can be chanted within the substance of our body and its depths. Now if we can consciously repeat this sound, its vibration and presence starts to stand on its own. The AUM is an ancient chant which has deep rooted higher aspiration, light and will to unite with Higher. If we keep repeating AUM consciously whenever we remember, hopefully we will come to a time when it is chanting on its own. We see this example in Mother’s Agenda where Her Cells were chanting Her mantra 24/7. The word ‘sound body’ has been coined to indicate a body’s substance with is filled with a primordial sound, bija mantra or another mantra that is rising within oneself with joy. Such a body can hold higher vibrations within in a steady state and by progressing offering of our individual experiences to the Influence of these sound vibrations combined with New Consciousness (present as layer 2) coming from Above, can be a body that is on the path to evolve into the next stage of human.
Now the sound vibration chant can be done within our individual experiences which provides personal healing or it can be chanted beneath our individual experiences. We can do it by aiming our focus beneath our individual experiences of thoughts, feelings and emotions. The experience of beneath our individual experiences, could be felt as space within our body or outside or as pure substance untouched by any of our history of experiences. Both this space and pure substance is in the domain of impersonal or universal, but felt as US. The individual sensations may not be here within this space or pure substance. However we can easily see the self-light or experience the self-joy or love that is there. The sound vibration can be chanted in this beyond individual experiences’ space or substance (layer 3). This builds a more firmer and more stable presence of Higher Qualities to be present within our depths and would cast their influence then on our individual experiences. This is what we are referring as a sound body.
Now in the beginning we may not be aware of the impersonal potent space or pure substance beneath our history of personal experiences. So when we do body work we may be focussed largely on clearing our individual experiences. This is great but this alone is not enough. We need to go to the Source. Here we are doing this through sound. So faith helps. Faith in Sound as Sakthi Herself. Faith that there is a layer pure beneath our personal experiences. Faith in our inner practice that even though we don’t know how to, we can still aim our awareness beneath our individual experiences and chant the AUM or bija mantras. And faith that Grace and Love will guide our path.
by maadivinebody | Feb 7, 2025 | Deeper Body Practices - Inner Practices
We first prepared our awareness within our body. We took our inner awareness to touch the substance of our body. We did very subtle practice to ensure we had a felt inner connection of touch of our awareness with our body’s substance. We then worked subtly with our inner eye. We detected points / cells in our body where the awareness was ‘seeing’ or pointing into a problem or just the past of the body. We invoked a faith or certainty as sacred feeling that this substance has the Divine within or that this substance itself is Divine. We learnt to rotate our inner awareness very tiny, so that the eye of awareness sees some light or joy or goodness that is self-forming within body. We did it in specific points / cells. We also started to practice doing this in 100s or 1000s of points simultaneously within body.
We then connected to one or more fears – from that of lizards to death. We located this fear as a sensation within and around our body. Some examples are a cringing sensation, tightening grip, a colour, a energy field and the like. Then we filled these multitude sensations within and around our body of fear with our conscious awareness offered to Divine Above and we filled these sensations with our breath. We kept filling at few points and then simultaneously at multiple sensations of fear. By itself we waited to see what shifts in the sensation because they are getting filled with our conscious breath and awareness. Then slowly we connected the sensation to a sensation within Divine or a Divine Master. And we also connected the sensation to the light or joy that is self-forming in the substance of our body.
This is a tiny subtle practice that can be done as a meditation or as and when fear grips us during our daily activities or we can take it as a main sadhana and run it through the whole day.
Practice date: 7.2.2025 | 35 minutes
Facilitator : Arul Dev
To access a 35 minute practice session click here
Find a quite time and do the practice alongside the guidelines.
by maadivinebody | Jan 27, 2025 | Deeper Body Practices - Inner Practices
One of the most known ancient method of Trataka is keeping our attention on a flame lit and waiting till the flame appears as a singular flow and our mind is more steady. This works even better if we can connect to the soft core of the flame and if we can keep our awareness and attention soft, steady and loving.
The same process we can extend to a Divine Master whom we love. Let us say for example we really adore and love The Mother, Sri Aurobindo or Ramalinga Adigalar (Vallalar). This process can be done physically if we are sitting in their samadhi. We can also do it with our inner gaze and vision and actually connecting to an inner image or presence of them. We can place our attention humble and gentle with no agenda upon Them. We just want to be intimately in Their presence. We can place our glance on a part of Their body like feet, heart or Their hair. We can keep our attention on them till our inner gaze is filled with Their presence or sight. Then slowly we can move to the practice of ‘knowledge by identity’. We can place our glance or even our breath within Their presence or image or subtle body. We will now feel Their presence, see Their subtle body and experience Their presence in a direct and tangible way – as much as we love Them and aspire to connect with them and as much as They Grace Their subtle body, consciousness and presence to us. We just remain like this for as long as we want or forever we can stay united with Them and live our life.
We can slowly now move into the practice of Consecration or Loving Conscious Offering. Keeping our inner gaze and inner felt sense humbly linked to the Divine Master or within Them we can progressively go within our mind and offer its substance and thoughts to Their influence. We can go within our emotions, sensations, feelings and energy and offer it to Them so that our life energy bears Their vibrations. We can go within our body and its subtle substance and keep offering each cell, its core, its vibrations and all that is flowing within our body to the Divine Master’s vibration, consciousness or subtle substance.
