From: Yogani
Date: Mon Apr 12, 2004 4:21pm

Q: Having read the question of the person who started to listen to the music in a different way, with more clarity, more depth, somehow I could relate to it. Today is my 10th day of meditation and in the evening as I was taking my walk I felt a different emotion. It wasn’t joy or ecstasy or an impulse of pleasure. It was something deeper …sublime… deep… like the memories of our childhood. Then for some time there was a lingering pain which gradually went away. Then the mind started to flow again with tremendous clarity and sharpness. I never had an experience like this and was extremely excited, and wanted to share this with someone. Are such reactions normal, should these be expected?

A: Thank you for writing and sharing.

It is a clear experience of pure bliss consciousness you describe in the early days of your meditation. Very beautiful. It can happen to anyone at any time along the path. It is normal. Then there can be obstructions moving out and it is not so clear, and that is normal too. That is how it goes. The light is still in there. Meditation brings us to stillness and there we can have such experiences in practices or afterward. When they do happen, it stands as evidence that there is something wonderful inside we can unfold through our daily spiritual practices.

Maybe we have clarity at the start, and then the clouds move through on their way out. Or maybe we are cloudy from the start and then the light shines through later, all at once sometimes, or bit by bit a little more each month. It can happen so many ways according to how obstructions are lodged in our nervous system and released. One thing is for sure, it will happen if we keep up our practices. In time the inner reality becomes clear and blissful like that all the time, and we accept it as normal life. Then when people ask us how we feel about all the darkness in the world, we can only say, “Darkness? What darkness? I don’t see any darkness. Only the divine light everywhere, with a passing shadow here and there.” Then we are filled with huge compassion for everyone and do all we can to help the light shine through and dissolve the lingering darkness. That is how this new age is unfolding. Everyone is helping everyone else. No one meditates only for themself. All meditation is for everyone’s enlightenment.

Of course it is very exciting when we have such a glimpse right at the beginning like you describe. Use it for motivation to stay regular in your practices. If you have some expectations in practices (normal at this stage), just continue to easily favor the mantra in meditation, your spinal breathing in pranayama, and so on. If we stick with the straight-forward procedures of practice we will continue to move ahead into more and more sublime feelings and clarity in our daily life.

We all have this destiny built into our nervous system. No one is an exception. It is just a matter of doing the house cleaning for as long as it takes to reveal the divine light of God always shining from inside. Our essential nature is pure bliss consciousness, beyond description. You have shown us today that it is true.

The guru is in you.