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Very few people know how it feels to cry in bhakti, the euphoric tears of the few rare seconds one merges with the almighty source during meditation. The sense of relief and release from this vital body, the few moments one relates as a soul rather than the physical identity, the few moments one feels deeply the pricks of separation one has been living so far and the ecstasy of merging with the supreme, Param Atma. In meditations like these, one either doesn’t want to come back or awaken or cannot bear physically the ecstasy and hence is forced to come back. Now the question remains, come back to what? To Maya or reality? What do you call what we are living now, is this reality at all?
Yesterday was Mahashivratri, the night of potent energy to find the Shiva tattva, and I was blessed to experience few such moments of bliss. I am grateful to Sri Siva Premanandji, from whom I have learned a lot about Sri Vidya and Shiva Tattva. He was conducting a live stream session, guided chanting followed by small spans of silent meditation. And during this I felt it again, and I was so deeply in bliss that when he announced, please open your eyes, I just couldn’t get myself to do so. I didn’t want to come back, he joked to the audience in front of him (I was at home listening to the live stream) that few people don’t want to come back to the now reality, but please do. To tell you the truth that state felt more real than anything else, eyes closed, tears bursting down my cheeks, I could feel the lord holding my hands.
These are spiritual teasers for the soul, the divine poking at one’s subconscious soul ever so gently, nudging in the right direction. The few moments when the veil is lifted and we lose our earthly identity. When I was young, I would get flashes of awareness that I was not Pooja, I was not this identity and I would tell my mom that I can separate this identity and it was not the real me. I didn’t have the words to articulate nor the depth to understand what it really meant. My mother would patiently listen to me and I was just happy to be heard :-).
Why am I sharing all this? They say one should not talk about one’s spiritual experiences as most people will not understand. I am aware of this and the idea is not to make someone understand this exact experience or to gloat my spiritual tendencies, or to show superiority over others. It is sad that many people use this to flaunt and dominate others and this has made people doubt the authenticity of such an experience, calling it imagination and falsehood. My sincere effort is to let people know that an ordinary person can also experience this, and that everyone should try to meditate, should aspire either by chanting or sitting in silence or walking meditation anything that rings your bell and this is not restricted to a religion or a god, this is beyond. So when your soul calls don’t drown it in Netflix but indulge it in some meditation. I would love to hear your experiences.
At times, I have been asked to do spiritual practice on behalf of someone and pass them the blessings because we are related as family or friends, and it deeply hurts me, unless you are an infant or seriously ill, this is an unethical ask. God seeks the seeker and Maya Devi wraps up the pretender that is how it works. Most people get lost in clever arguments and get nothing out of conversations, try and stay away from them. It takes many births to be gifted a human body, and many blessings to get the gift of education and ability to perceive. We are more blessed than we realize.
Verse from Isha Upanishad
ॐ पूर्णमदः पूर्णमिदं पूर्णात्पुर्णमुदच्यते पूर्णश्य पूर्णमादाय पूर्णमेवावशिष्यते ॥ ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः ॥
Om Puurnnam-Adah Puurnnam-Idam Puurnnaat-Purnnam-Udacyate Puurnnashya Puurnnam-Aadaaya Puurnnam-Eva-Avashissyate || Om Shaantih Shaantih Shaantih ||
Meaning
“This is complete, that is complete, from completeness comes completeness, when completeness is added or subtracted, it still remains complete” – interpretation by Devadutta Patnaik, in his book My Gita.
We are all the seed that holds the entire tree within, after shedding the seed, the tree is not any lesser & still remains a tree. Our soul is the seed and universal consciousness is the tree. We all can choose the paths we want to walk back to this tree, the important thing is to start the journey.