Swami Muktananda, Meditate: Happiness Lies Within You, first ed. (South Fallsburg, NY: SYDA Foundation, 1999), p. 34.
Two days ago, I felt an incredible light entering my home. Under an inner impulse, I went outside to try to discover its source. I saw the brilliant sun setting quickly at the horizon. I also met neighbors who had gone outside with the same feeling. Everything was golden outside—the streets, the meadows, the houses—and the sky was the same colors as those in the illustration for Baba’s words. God’s presence was so tangible.
Afterward, with my mind imprinted with this golden moment, I reflected on Baba’s words in the fourth teaching from Meditate. When I meditate carefully, I strive to leave the house of the senses with the help of the mantra and my breath in order to enter my heart and admire its divine magnificence.
Rodez, France
When I received
shaktipat from Gurumayi, I began to see how misguided many of my former perceptions were. The instant that the Guru gave me the experience of the immense love of the universe, I realized that everything was love. Prior to that, I had thought that my purpose was to gain or build things. Yet I had learned, from studying science, that anything which can be built by humans eventually decays or dissolves.
After
shaktipat, as my
sadhana unfolded, I began to see that God, the Truth, was the all-pervasive, foundational reality from which everything is built. It was refreshing to understand that the Truth, the building block of everything, isn’t something temporary.
Now, I love to meditate and let all that is temporary dissolve, such as my thoughts, tensions, and eons of patterns. Baba’s teaching reminds me of the supreme importance of meditation.
Washington, United States
Many years ago, while participating in the
Pilgrimage to the Heart Retreat in Gurudev Siddha Peeth, I had an experience in meditation of all my walls coming down and my boundaries dropping away, and I felt myself being everywhere all at once.
As I reflect on it now, I understand I had experienced Baba’s teaching “…God is within you.”
In that meditation, it was as if the grip of a vice released from my head, and I finally came home, to a home that was more home than any I had ever known. It was utterly simple; all resistance dissolved, and I purely existed with no distractions, concepts, or labels.
With the current stresses and realities of my life, that experience seems a million miles away. Yet this unforgettable moment, which lasted only about five seconds, is etched in my being forever! It inspires me to continue my
sadhana and remain open to such an experience of grace once again.
West Vancouver, Canada
To be able to implement Baba's teaching today, I first had to reflect a lot. It became clear to me that when I want to achieve something, I feel that I don’t have it yet. On the other hand, I understood that my longing for God helps me to keep going and not give up in my sadhana. Then I realized that I was actually afraid of experiencing God in me.
After I sat down to meditate, I felt something inside me being released. I surrendered and opened myself to the grace of my Guru. First I felt love, then stillness, and then joy. I let myself enter into this experience and became aware that there is actually nothing to achieve—it is all already there! God is closer to me than my own breath!
Meditation now has a deeper meaning for me and has become a vehicle to help me fulfill my longing for God.
Unterlangenegg, Switzerland
“Meditate”—the theme of these teachings of Baba’s is itself meditative, and gives me a fresh perspective toward meditation. Now I'll meditate with this understanding, whose essence gives me a longing to meditate more.
This teaching provides me with a vehicle with which to travel within, holding the map of a clear, awakened vision. This is incredible medicine for a meditation lover like me.
Bhandara, India