Meditation and brilliant light

Today, I spent half an hour at lunch meditating in a park on the property where I work.  I was sitting on this cloudy day and did the Hong Sau exercise, for roughly 20min.  At some point, there was a strong pull to the point between my eyes... so strong, it felt like a magnet... I was just there.  Like I was locked there in place.

Then, came this really bright light, like a super white glow that flooded my mental vision.  It was so shocking, that I was jarred forward with fear.  I got scared because it was so unusual for me. Then i remembered this is what is taught by Paramhansa Yogananda.  That the light is the energy/light of the Christ Center or Ajna Chakra. 

I also made sure the sun hadn't come out and been the source of the light.  Sure enough, the sky was still cloudy.  It was so bright. 

I calmed myself and got back to that same sensation and saw a more yellowish light this time, again I opened my eyes and verified the sun wasn't out... again I got back to the same point and meditated on the glow.  It wasn't as strong of a sensation this time.

I think I somehow unconsciously lowered the experience to something I could tolerate.

4-22 Sunday Service

Today was a fantastic teaching by a visiting teacher.  Padma from the South Bay Ananda Ashram came by to deliver the message.

The message was very important for me to hear.  So many things were discussed.

Lately I've had a lot of frustration and stress at my job.  I've ended up using habits and crutches to deal with the stress, or in some situations I've vented inapropriately on others.

In this Sunday sermon, Padma talked about:

• Our goal is to conquer the ego
• A way to conquer the ego is to "Love God" to put God into everything we do... an exercise example was to include God in all thoughts and decisions throughout the day, "Lord God, which way should I drive to work," and so forth.  By doing so, we begin to bring God into our daily activities
• Devotion to God and others
• A sign of Ego, is when we get angry.  Anger is egoic, because it is about our identificaiton with the body.  When we get angry we should stop and think about it... why did I get angry? what triggered it.  Often it will be aspects that upset us, that we ourselves need to work on.

Building a good defense

http://www.aikidonotes.com/2012/04/redirecting-force-off-mat.html
The above article was written by me, regarding a life application of spiritualizing Aikido to daily life.  The problem I was mentioning, was that of being compelled to do something we don't want to do.

In Aikido we don't use force to combat force, but instead redirect force.  Which is what the article is about.  What the article there doesn't go into, is how to grow spiritually, to diminish the problem in the first place.

There are many practices that take us out of our self (or extend our selves) to get our attention in a larger view.  This nullifies the Ego... Desires... Anger...

Things such as:
Asana Yoga
Bhakti Yoga
Gyana Yoga
Meditation
Mudra's for various problems (such as the Mahamudra for handing unwanted desires)
and so forth.

It's not just enough to have a method of fighting a problem, one must also have a technique of expansion... to find a path to God.  By doing this, the internal problems and desires will slowly subside.

Kriya Yoga

I'm getting closer to taking the Kriya Initiation.  I just finished the last two assignments for my preparation into Kriya. 

I do know there are things I need to work on.  I need to spend more time in meditation.  Typically, I'm getting only one meditation session in a day and some days, none at all.  That's terrible.  My goal is at least a hour of meditation a day.  But realistically, I'm only getting about 30min or so. 

I'm also noticing some changes in my behavior.  I dont know if it's old age, but lately, I'm getting more frustrated with people.  I find myself at the job, snapping at people, and having less ability to control my frustrations to things that upset me. 

In reading Paramhansa's work, I came across a reference where he acknowledged the benefits of Martial Arts.  I have a feeling such training would benefit me in my own mental discipline.  So I took up Aikido recently. 

As such I have a separate blog about Aikido at www.aikidonotes.com

The space between

Today at the Ananda LA Ashram, I was meditating and asking Divine Mother to show herself to me.  In that meditative moment I had this feeling that the Divine was in the space between each of us. 

At first I thought it just a mental notion I came up with, but as I meditated on it... I realized it had some deeper meaning.

The space between us, is outside our ego boundaries.  The ego is the self identified with the body.  Once we step out of that element, and into the external space between us and others, we are no longer part of the ego. 

If others do the same, then on that level, we become united.  Our true or higher natures are all outside the little self... which makes us all united.

Finally, if God is in this space, then we all are on some level connected with the Divine.