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With Supreme Love and Devotion, and with Great Respect, I welcome you with all my heart. Welcome to Supreme Meditation and The Spanda School of Yoga Science. My name is Acharya Kedar or Kedaracharyaji and I lead many of the Supreme Meditation programs and weekend meditation retreats.
Before I begin with this introduction, I'd like to share something with you. Because most people who think of a path such as ours begin to conjure up a long list of dont's that they need to abide by before they can even get started. And this is not really the case.
On the Supreme Meditation path we are not opposed to any religion, sect or code of ethics. We are not opposed to the earning of money or monetary wealth that is earned honestly and ethically, some of which is then used in the moral duty of serving the common good or spiritual uplift of humanity.
We are not opposed to the pursuit of work and the necessary time spent in doing so, for we acknowledge that all jobs belong to God and all must engage in some work, as such work is [art of God's sacred law for our existence here. We also know that work, even in the workplace, that is performed selflessly to please God is the best form of work and benefits all involved.
Ours is a path of Grace. We rely on Grace for our entire spiritual and living sustenance. In this, our science of transformation, this Grace is most readily available and dispensed through the living master who is the embodiment and bestower of that Grace. We acknowledge that, in this Kali Yuga age, this age where so many important values have been destroyed, no permanent, lasting spiritual attainment can be fulfilled without Grace and this Grace comes from a Master.
Our Faith and attainment on this path is fulfilled by turning away from the pleasure and pain found in the pursuit of worldliness. Therefore, ours is a path where worldliness is surrendered to the most valuable experience and state of our own joy, our own peace, our own sweet Bliss, an experience that we seek constantly, and in all our activities. To accomplish this, we also follow the Master's command to keep good company.
We do not condemn the disciplined enjoyment of or interaction with people, places and things. However, we warn against being carried away by such interactions.
On our path we know, from our inner experience and the highest state of Consciousness that we observe being reflected in the living master. We know that happiness, peace, joy and love are not attained through the pursuit of people, places and things. They are only attained by pursuing the Bliss of the inner Self that brings supreme content by calming and silencing the restless mind.
Ours is a path of purity, light and supreme love.
We live in a fast-paced world filled with responsibilities and struggles. Our lives are filled with pressure and stress and our mental attitude and emotional experience reflect this fact. In our own ignorance, we make a habit of looking for happiness, peace, joy and content where they are not. Inside you there is an ocean of peace and happiness and a well of strength that never runs dry. To experience it, all you have to do is go to that place inside yourself where this power exists naturally.
The means to accomplish this is Meditation. But not just any type of Meditation. Supreme Meditation ® is The Science of Transformation, a particular approach to meditation guided by a Siddha Master to enable you to experience your Natural, Free State of Being at all times. We offer a time-honored approach to whole life transformation that integrates our Supreme Meditation with the teachings and practices of Shaivism, and the teachings and practices of Bhagawan Nityananda of Ganeshpuri, the master of our lineage. This supports a spiritual journey where students learn how to be in the world without being of the world, how to master all the energies of their lives in such a way that they experience, on a daily basis, that spiritual life and worldly life are not different and not opposed to each other.
Supreme Meditation is a path based on the science of transformation known as Shaivism, also known as Trika Shaivism or Kashmir Shaivism. Shaivism is not a religion. It is a time-honored, path that offers very practical teachings and practices for recognizing your highest Self and mastering all the energies of your life. Shaivism dates back to the pre-chalcolithic age, this is just before the beginning of the bronze age, and the teachings and spiritual practices have been passed along in an oral tradition from Master to Disciple for many centuries.
Shaivism is a very practical science that allows you to have a direct experience of God in the heart of your own consciousness. Shaivism teaches you to realize that this whole objective world in which you perform all your mundane activities is not separate from God Consciousness. You do not have to realize God by removing yourself from your worldly life and circumstances or daily interactions. God and the individual are one. To realize this is the essence of our teachings.
There is a wonderful little story told by Eknath Easwaran. A man was once asked his occupation. And he replied, "I'm a farmer," the man replied. "You don't look like a farmer," he was told. "How much land do you actually till?" The man responded, "A little more than 5 feet." "Oh? How many crops can you actually grow in a little more than 5 feet of land?" The man responded, "Oh! This is a different kind of soil. It is very special. The land I'm talking about is my body and mind. This is my field. My thoughts, mental conditioning, these are the seeds. And my good and bad karmas are the harvest."
In one of the greatest sacred texts of our time, the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna tells his disciple Arjuna that the body is the field. He also states that we are not the field that we till. Contained in your body, inside your mind, is a field of Consciousness; that which gives you the power to perceive. This power to perceive becomes your mind. Your mind is the bag of seeds that you plant in the fertile soil of your Consciousness.
So, you have this mental conditioning. With every notion, with every thought, you plant a seed in your field of Consciousness contained within your body. You plant all your desires, cravings, hopes, dreams, fantasies. You also plant your fears, emotions of all kinds, doubts, worries, frustrations and anxieties. The quality and quantity of your harvest depends on what you plant there and what kind of seed you cultivate in that bag of your mind.
Now. This may sound really simple, but you are not the field that you till. And yet, if someone asks you who you are, you would probably point to your body and say, "Well, this is me. My hair is black. I'm a little over five feet tall. I have a great tan." But the masters of our lineage, the holy beings would object.
In fact, the body is not you. The body is not who you are. It is your field, your little farm. And you are the farmer, the keeper of your little garden. And this is a very important understanding to imbibe. It is the premise, the starting point of our teachings and practices. Because, unless you know that you are not the farm, that you are not your little garden, how can you cultivate it?
A farmer cannot till his farm if he believes he's the soil. The only way a farmer can cultivate a farm is because he understands that he is the tiller of the soil. He is the keeper of the farm. So, in the same way, as long as you continue to identify with the field, the physical, chemical organism that is the body, and as long as you identify with the seeds, the thoughts, emotions, notions and desires that you plant, these will dictate your life. You can't properly till your farm, you can't properly cultivate your garden if you continue to believe that you are the garden.
In fact, you are much greater than you think you are. You are the keeper of that farm, the higher power that plants the seed in the Consciousness of your field. You are the witness to your mind. You already know this because you are able to watch your thoughts as they come and go. You know when you are thinking. Understanding this you can rise above the mere identification with your body/mind field to begin to experience how you can escape the tyranny of the restless mind, the tyranny of the senses, in order to master all the energies of your life.
In Supreme meditation, this is where we begin, by examining this higher power, the knower of that field, the one who is the keeper of the garden. Starting in this way makes it easy for you to begin to understand and to apply the principles and practices of Supreme Meditation.
Here we understand everything to be a conjoining of energies. Energy is required for you to think. You need energy to get up and go to work, to eat, to play, to concentrate. You even need energy to sleep. All of your bodily functions rely on energy, as well. Here in Supreme Meditation we understand and experience that there is one Supreme energy that is the foundation for all of the other energies that you rely on to exist. We refer to this energy as Supreme Shiva Consciousness or the Shakti of the Supreme, or just Divine Conscious energy. The distinction that we make is that this is a spiritual energy. It is actually the same energy you rely on to direct your senses outward. It's just that when the spiritual aspect of that energy is fully awakened and directed back inside to conjoin with this Supreme Shiva Consciousness, we then recognize the energy as spiritual energy.
In Supreme Meditation, contained in this spiritual energy are five powers. These five powers are expressed in our mundane world in five ways, both in the body of Divine Conscious Energy, and in its' contraction that takes the form of this world and all the activity in it. Using the principles and practices of our path, you can learn to recognize your experience of these five expressions in order to master all the energies of your life -- like the farmer who knows he is not his field but the keeper, the tiller of that field.
To learn more, I invite you to join us for one of our free public programs or webcasts and we look forward to meeting you and greeting you very soon.
With Supreme Love and Devotion, I welcome you again with all my heart.
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