Awareness vs. Mind

A key element of practice is learning to tune into the psychic body with awareness, not the mind. —Ācārya Amrita Devi.

Our practice of Kuṇḍalinī Sādhana fuels that inner vital force so that it can rise through the central channel and connect back to its ever-present Source, the Heart of Consciousness. God created us out of the absolute abundance and joy of His very being, and it is through opening our heart and directing our energy into the central channel (the suṣumṇa) that we contact that fullness. Kuṇḍalinī is the essence of our heart, and it connects us back to God’s Heart.

When we tune in to the psychic body, we are using our awareness, our capacity to feel, to reach into a deeper part of ourselves. The mind can never find the openness of consciousness from which to connect to the central channel. We must therefore learn to feel our heart and the energy of openness, and then use that to move past our body, breath, tensions, contractions, and resistance.

If we use a finger to touch something, we are using the tactile capacities of the senses to touch and feel. All of our meditations, including Rudi’s double-beath, cultivate the ability to feel what we can’t touch from the mind. Unfortunately, most people try to do exactly that, and it does not work.

The Golden Rod

The central channel is a living column of light sent down by God Himself. Travel that blissful pathway from your heart back to His. Our individuated life is an extraordinary gift. When God’s grace calls forth a longing in us to realize the truth of that statement, we begin to do our inner work. We discover that the pathway from our heart to God’s heart is in the central channel.

The Tantraloka speaks of “the golden rod.” This is a reference to the subtlest channel of the suṣumṇa, which connects individuality into universality. The building of the golden rod requires refining our capacity to be in contact with the four dimensions of the suṣumṇa, each one nested within the next. The golden rod itself is known in our practice as the Divine Thread, the pure streak of light that connects us back to God.

Daily meditation is critical in establishing this connection. That’s when we pull our awareness out of the body, mind, emotions, drama, and psychology, and put it into our heart. This is like opening the cover of a well and dropping a rock down to the bottom. We gather the energy of externality — everything outside of our heart — and internalize it, bringing our life force down to the base of the central channel so that it can rise back up and bring us our liberation.

To deeply feel inside we have to draw the energy of the mind into the heart. We are not suppressing or killing our thoughts, but simply internalizing that insistent chatter by attaching our awareness to our breath. This is not about huffing and puffing. Our awareness must be absorbed with that breath, so that it moves inside and touches the psychic body. Spend whatever time is needed to take your mind and stick it in your heart. Doing that is expressing the value of the infinite possibility that is being offered to you.

Have an Extraordinary Life!

Our commitment to sādhana means that our life wraps around our spiritual practice and not the other way around. People try to structure their sādhana around their daily life and if there is no time left to meditate, they just shrug. Then, suddenly, twenty years have passed, and they realize they have not practiced in depth.

Rudi once said something that left a lasting impression on me: “The only thing I can promise you is an extraordinary life.” He was not talking about money or anything else we might possess but expressing that we can have an extraordinary life if we choose to have it — and that means living in all dimensions of life without one aspect distracting from another. The distinctive understanding of nondual practices is that you can have everything in life, as long as you cultivate the one thing that you take with you at the end, which is your heart.

We all have our individual challenges, but our willingness to believe that our life circumstances do not allow us to meditate is a major obstacle to growth. Use the demands of your life as energy, as fuel to open you deeper. If you use it as an excuse, you’re saying, I don’t have time to be free. Life should not consume us; we should consume life.

Life is very short. Do not let it pass by without truly knowing the preciousness of its purpose, which is the discovery of the highest, pure freedom of consciousness within you. Use your awareness to connect to and penetrate into the śakti that is your pathway back to God. This is the essence of Kuṇḍalinī Sādhana.