heart of consciousness: kundalini.. sadhana

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1 heart of consciousness: - - kundalini.. sadhana Sadhana is the search for ourselves inside the heart of God and the discovery of God inside our own heart. I first met my guru, Swami Rudrananda, on October 10, That moment was so powerful and transformative that it has continued to fuel my own sādhana and teaching up to this day. Rudi initiated me as a teacher in our lineage (his guru was Bhagavan Nityananda) on May 10, 1972, and I have been blessed and grateful to be a carrier of that lineage ever since. Over these past forty-six years, I have attempted to continuously refine the teachings that I received, and to articulate them in a manner that would be accessible to anyone who wishes to grow spiritually. In the past few years I have worked, in conjunction with the ācāryas that I have initiated as lineage carriers, to create a comprehensive framework, a manual for liberation, in which to elucidate my teachings. In order to do so, I have reached into the nondual wisdom teachings of ancient India in order better express my own experience and sādhana. As a result, I have created a yearlong program that will allow this sophisticated framework to be explored. I am very pleased to now offer this program, Heart of Consciousness: Kuṇḍalinī Sādhana, to my students and to the public at large. The following pages provide an overview describing the program, while the Matrix for Sādhana and the Means to Liberation expresses its scope and its depth. I invite you to look at this program for spiritual growth and to join if it resonates with you. Swami Khecaranatha The term Heart of Consciousness describes that pure, undivided Supreme Consciousness that is at once our innermost selves as well as our source, and that we discover and access through our own individual heart and our own consciousness. Sādhana is the expansion of heart, the expansion of our individual consciousness, leading to the direct recognition that we are simply that Pure Consciousness. Kuṇḍalinī Sādhana describes the practices that we do in order to have that recognition to first feel our heart, to merge with God s heart, and then to live as God s heart. You can think of the matrix as the waft and weave of the fabric of sādhana, the fabric of the journey to liberation. You ll see that the aspects or categories of the matrix on the left side correlate with what are called the upāyas, the means, across the right. Āṇavopāya is the path of effort, śāktopāya is the path of energy, and śāmbhavopāya is the path of awareness. I have translated that into a simple formula : āṇavopāya = opening your heart; śāktopāya = surrendering to the śakti, the energy that s created you and that sustains you; śāmbhavopāya = residing in the Heart of Consciousness.

2 Another way of articulating that matrix is this: Ignorance of our true Self is the cause of all suffering and endless transmigration, while the recognition and direct experience of our true identity is alone the cause of freedom from separation. As human beings, we experience suffering because we perceive and believe ourselves to be separate from our source, Divine Consciousness. Due to śaktipāta, the descent of grace, the longing for liberation springs forth from our own heart, igniting the search for ourselves in God s heart. Through Kuṇḍalinī Sādhana, the sādhana of the heart, we surrender to the śakti (the energy) pulsating within as the true agency of action. As we then come to reside in the Heart of consciousness, we recognize ourselves as Pure Consciousness. Our life is transformed into an expression of unconditional surrender, freedom, love, and joy. We come to our sādhana for many different reasons, or at least that s what we believe. Actually, the real reason we come to our sādhana, that is, we come to a place in ourselves that doesn t want to suffer anymore, is because of God s grace. Śaktipāta means the descent of grace. That grace awakens in us some small insight into our true nature. Some inner knowing is activated because Pure Consciousness, which is always present and always within us, begins to reveal itself. We experience the descent of grace as rain falling down on us, something that happens to us from outside ourselves. But in the highest sense, it is actually the rain rising up! The great eighth-century Shaivite master Abhinavagupta expresses this experience with exquisite eloquence: The supreme Lord and the contracted individual are just different names for one Consciousness in two different phases. Thus, although śaktipāta remains here an act of grace, it is in fact an act of gracing oneself, though its recipient is not in touch with his true nature and then may well experience it as coming from some higher source. In nondual understanding there is of course only one agent, whether in an expanded or contracted phase of being. Śiva s descent into individual form constitutes a contraction but not a relinquishment of His essential nature. While the sādhaka s ascension into Śiva is an expansion into the fullness of that nature, Śiva and the embodied being are the same nature but do not have the same degree of limitation or the same degree of awareness. The misunderstanding that we are separate from our true Self the experience of duality is the root cause of suffering. Our sādhana is the means by which we free ourselves from that fundamental misunderstanding and end all suffering. The ācāryas of Heart of Consciousness in front of Bhagavan Nityananada s Samadhi Shrine in Ganeshpuri, India on the day of their final initiation.

3 In the nondual tradition, of which our practice is a part, that experience of duality is often described as a veiling of the one undifferentiated reality. The three veils of duality are described most simply as: I am separate, I am different, and I am the doer. Each veil leads to the next. As soon as we approach life, as we all do, from the stance of I am separate, then automatically we re different. In other words, if I m separate from someone or something, I must be different from that person or thing. And if I m different, then I must be doing something different than they are. The upāyas, the means to spiritual liberation, represent the reversal of those veils because they directly correlate to them. For example, in the practices of āṇavopāya, the path of effort, we are freeing ourselves from the misunderstanding of doership, i.e., I am doing rather than this is God doing. And yes, he s doing as me. We re not rejecting the fact that we are individuals doing something, but we re attempting to understand that we are individuals walking around on two feet who are, in fact, God. If we can act without attachment or identification, then that whole sense of being the doer begins to dissolve. Further, we begin to understand ourselves as an individuated expression of Pure Consciousness and that we are not different from that, because Consciousness expresses itself as śakti, as energy. As we begin to come in contact with that energy through our sādhana, the sense of differentiation, of internal and external duality, diminishes. As we open our heart and develop the capacity to feel a flow in ourselves, to open the psychic body, to feel the chakras and the energy flowing through them, what we discover within that is the profoundly subtle, extraordinarily powerful energy that expresses itself as life, as multiplicity. This is śāktopāya, the path of energy. Once we begin to understand and recognize that life is not form, but rather the energy of life is manifesting as form, we begin to truly experience our own essence as that flow of śakti. And because we can come in contact with it, we can learn to surrender to it. In our meditation we can create the subtlety of consciousness to actually feel the different levels of that current within us. And we can surrender to that ascent of kuṇḍalinī, which is us, an individuated expression of the Divine. In surrendering to that śakti, the veil that I am different is consumed: I am not different; I am this śakti. And while there are other people in my life that appear to be different from me, they re not. They re just that same śakti. That multiplicity, which is the expression of the creative urge of Pure Consciousness, all arises within one field of unified awareness. And because we can begin to truly experience ourselves as not different from that śakti, we can also open our eyes and understand and interact with other threads of that consciousness those threads being other people. And we can even have a dynamic interchange with those people on an energetic level. In fact, every interchange we have with people is on an energetic level. It just depends on the degree of insight embedded within that energy. If we engage people from our mind or emotions, we have a limited perception and experience. If we engage people from an open heart, we have a profoundly different perspective. If we can establish and feel this incredible dynamic interchange, this flow of energy between us and other people, then from our heart we can feel another person s heart. That capacity to feel is that śakti, and it is a conscious energy. the journey to god, the journey in god, the journey as god

4 In establishing ourselves in that willingness and capacity to truly surrender to that śakti, an internal transformation takes place. From the yogic point of view, there is a purification of the suṣumṇa, the central channel. This occurs through the perpetual internalization of our own awareness within that channel of awareness, and discovering that it s simply Pure Consciousness. In that willingness and experience to surrender to that śakti, internally, we can also begin to surrender to that śakti in our life and allow that śakti to sculpt our life. At some point in our sādhana, we can truly surrender to that śakti and trust that the life that we have is a life of perfection, that the innermost depth of our own core is expressing itself in its perfection. And that whatever we don t have in our life, we don t need. What happens in that moment when we re truly surrendered to the śakti? There s no more struggle in life. There s no more fight. There s no more demand. Because we have established ourselves in that willingness, that capacity, that insight that our life is God s will expressing itself in all its perfection, we simply fall into Consciousness. What I mean by that is that our own sense of differentiation dissolves, revealing to us the most powerful veil of duality, the cause of all suffering: the experience of separation. When grace descends, it starts with a spark, an infinitesimally small light that some part of us can see. From that initial moment of grace, through our sādhana, through our capacity to cultivate that śakti within us, and through the ascent of kuṇḍalinī, there is also an expansion of consciousness, and that light unfolds and expands and reveals itself. That distant spark of light becomes radiant, the Light of Consciousness reflecting and illuminating our highest Self, which is Consciousness Itself. That final veil of duality, the veil of separation, disappears. We are that Consciousness. We are that pure awareness. And we come to reside in Consciousness, the bliss of our own existence. This is śāmbhavopāya. The matrix demonstates the means of individuation as it moves toward and merges into universality. Our sādhana is the expansion of our individual consciousness into universal Supreme Consciousness while alive. The Sanskrit term for that is jīvanmukti, which means freedom while alive and embodied. The upāyas are that process, the expansion of Śiva s own Consciousness within us while we re alive, in this body, walking around with our eyes wide open, for the simple purpose of living in the joy of that experience. remember every day what your life is about - it is about freedom, love, and joy. That is the reason for your existence, the cause of your existence. Living in that stillness and freedom is your Divine right. You can listen to a audio recording whereby Nathaji discusses the matrix in broad details.

5 1 Heart of Consciousness: Kuṇḍalinī Sādhana ~ The Triadic Path of Liberation ~ THE MATRIX OF SĀDHANA AND THE MEANS TO LIBERATION ~ DARŚANA ~ THE VIEW AND FOCUS OF KUṆḌALINĪ SĀDHANA ĀṆAVOPĀYA THE PATH OF EFFORT OPEN YOUR HEART ŚĀKTOPĀYA THE PATH OF ENERGY SURRENDER TO THE ŚAKTI ŚĀMBHAVOPĀYA THE PATH OF AWARENESS RESIDE IN CONSCIOUSNESS UPĀYAS ARE BOTH THE MEANS TO LIBERATION AND THE STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS (ŚIVA) EXPERIENCED WITHIN OURSELVES THE UNFOLDING OF THE HEART OF CONSCIOUSNESS ŚAKTIPĀTA: THE DESCENT OF GRACE ~ REVELATION THROUGH DIRECT EXPERIENCE ~ BREAKING THE VEILS OF DUALITY/CONCEALMENT ~ THE UNFOLDING OF ŚAKTI AND THE EXPANSION OF CONSCIOUSNESS ~ LIVING IN STILLNESS, SURRENDER, LOVE AND JOY THE PRACTICES OF KUṆḌALINĪ SĀDHANA SURRENDER AND STILLNESS INNER PRACTICES AND MEDITATIONS RECEIVING TRANSMISSION TEACHER-STUDENT RELATIONSHIP SELFLESS SERVICE STUDYING WISDOM TEACHINGS THE CONDUCT OF KUṆḌALINĪ SĀDHANA DIRECT EXPERIENCE OF ENERGY AND CONSCIOUSNESS THE ASCENT OF KUṆḌALINĪ IS THE EXPANSION OF INDIVIDUAL AWARENESS INTO UNIVERSAL AWARENESS AROUSAL OF KUṆḌALINĪ AWAKENING OF KUṆḌALINĪ LIBERATION OF KUṆḌALINĪ ĀṆAVOPĀYA ŚĀKTOPĀYA ŚĀMBHAVOPĀYA THE LETTING GO THAT FREES AWARENESS THE ASCENT OF KUṆḌALINĪ AND THE UNFOLDING OF INDIVIDUAL HEART INTO UNIVERSAL HEART THE TRANSMISSION OF ŚAKTI & CONSCIOUSNESS: ENERGIZING AND AWAKENING KUṆḌALINĪ THE ROLE OF THE TEACHER AND THE CANONS OF STUDENTSHIP OFFERING ONE S LIFE TO SERVING GOD THE BLESSINGS & REVELATIONS OF THE NONDUAL TRADITION LONGING BECOMES COMMITMENT, WHICH MATURES INTO SURRENDER CONSCIOUS CHOICE AND DISCIPLINED ACTION SELFLESS SERVICE MAKING LIFE CHOICES IN SUPPORT OF LIBERATION THE REALIZATION OF KUṆḌALINĪ SĀDHANA LIBERATION: DIRECT RECOGNITION OF OUR DIVINITY FREEDOM FROM THE VEILS OF DUALITY AND LIMITED IDENTITY FREEDOM FROM DOERSHIP SEPARATED INDENTITY: EGO FREEDOM FROM DIFFERENTIATION NON-SEPARATED IDENTITY: PURUṢA FREEDOM FROM SEPARATION IDENTITY OF ONENESS: GOD

6 Heart of Consciousness: Kuṇḍalinī Sādhana Date - Program Schedule - April 5-8 Berkeley Retreat April 16 Darśana: The Unfolding of the Heart of Consciousness Through Kuṇḍalinī Sādhana and The Means to Liberation Āṇavopāya: The Path of Individual Effort (An Overview) - Open Your Heart Monday Evening Session 7-9 PM The Practices and Conduct of Āṇavopāya: The Path of Individual Effort Monday Evening Sessions 7-9 PM. Each session includes invocation chant, guided meditation or śakti transmission, and discourse on the topic. April 30 May 14 June 4 June 18 July 5-8 Berkeley Retreat July 16 July 30 Aug 13 Aug 27 Oct Berkeley Retreat Surrender and Stillness Inner Practices and Meditations Receiving Transmission and Teacher-Student Relationship Selfless Service Śāktopāya: The Path of Energy - Surrender to the Śakti - The Practices and Conduct of of Śāktopāya Monday Evening Sessions 7-9 PM. Each session includes invocation chant, guided meditation or śakti transmission, and discourse on the topic. Surrender and Stillness Inner Practices and Meditations Receiving Transmission and Teacher-Student Relationship Selfless Service Śāmbhavopāya: The Path of Awareness - Reside In Consciousness - The Practices and Conduct of Śāmbhavopāya Monday Evening Sessions 7-9 PM. Each session includes invocation chant, guided meditation or śakti transmission, and discourse on the topic. Nov 11 Nov 26 Dec 3 Dec 17 Jan 17 - Feb 14, 2019 Surrender and Stillness Inner Practices and Meditations Receiving Transmission and Teacher-Student Relationship Selfless Service Pratibhā: The Consciousness of Being -A Four Week Immersion in Hawaii - (Participation Possible One to Four Weeks)

7 Heart of Consciousness: Kuṇḍalinī Sādhana PARTICIPATION IN EVENTS AND AUDIO RECORDINGS BERKELEY & HAWAII PROGRAM - BERKELEY RETREATS - MONDAY SESSIONS - HAWAII IMMERSION BERKELEY PROGRAM - BERKELEY RETREATS - MONDAY SESSIONS BERKELEY MONDAY NIGHT SESSIONS - MONDAY SESSIONS ONLY INCLUDES PARTICIPATION IN: Berkeley Retreats Hawaii Immersion * Plus Audio Recordings of above events. (Video may become available at some point) Workbook and PDF of Worksheets * Hawaii Immersion: Participation is possible for 1 to 4 weeks but requires attendance in at least one of the Berkeley retreats and approval of Swami Khecaranatha. Audios of Hawaii Immersion are available for anyone to purchase. See info below. Call the Office ( ) for Prices and Payment Plan Options INCLUDES PARTICIPATION IN: Berkeley Retreats Plus Audio Recordings of above events. (Video may become available at some point) Workbook and PDF of Worksheets Price: $1175 Price: $240 $975 for Three Berkeley Retreats (normally $375 each) $200 for Monday Night Sessions (discounted from $240) Payments: $525 Initial Payment Due by April 1 $325 Due by July 1 $325 Due by Oct 21 INCLUDES PARTICIPATION IN: Plus Audio Recordings of Monday Night Sessions (Video may become available at some point) Workbook and PDFs of Worksheets Full Payment Due by April 10 BERKELEY & HAWAII PROGRAMS AUDIO ONLY INCLUDES AUDIO AND HANDOUTS For: Berkeley Retreats Hawaii Immersion AUDIO ONLY OFFERINGS BERKELEY PROGRAM AUDIO ONLY INCLUDES AUDIO AND HANDOUTS For: Berkeley Retreats MONDAY NIGHT PROGRAM AUDIO ONLY INCLUDES AUDIO AND HANDOUTS For: Price: All Events $800 Price: Hawaii Immersion Only $300 Price: $500 Price: $175

8 SWAMI KHECARANATHA Swami Khecaranatha (Nathaji) teaches from his personal experience and revelations, as well as from the practices and knowledge he received from Swami Rudrananda and Bhagavan Nityananda. His study of the richness and wisdom of ancient scripture provides a means to articulate the teachings of his lineage within the larger context of these powerful nondual traditions while emphasizing the essence of his teaching, which is to empower students to discover their own innate divinity. Nathaji is an authentic master of Kuṇḍalinī Sādhana and śakti transmission with close to five decades of teaching experience. Kuṇḍalinī is the energy and essence of life, and Kuṇḍalinī Sādhana is the practice of becoming aware of that essence. As the kuṇḍalinī arrives at its destination of the sahasrāra, the energetic center known as the thousand-petaled lotus at the top of the head, we become fully aware of our total unity with the Divine. The ultimate intent of Kuṇḍalinī Sādhana is the blissful dissolution of dualistic consciousness into the experience and reality of the fundamental unity of all of life. Śaktipata means the descent of grace. It awakens within us the longing to know our true nature and propels us to finding a teacher. In many nondual traditions, śakti transmission is understood to be the highest form of spiritual initiation, providing students with direct access to the divine energy that dwells within them. The transmission of energy, an essential ingredient in the awakening of kuṇḍalinī, is transmitted by the teacher in four primary ways: look, touch, thought, and word. In our practice, the eyes-open class, or śakti transmission by look, is the principal method that allows for the direct transmission from teacher to student. Swami Khecaranatha emphasizes that the most important aspect of sādhana is one s own direct experience, and that all other elements of practice, including the relationship with a teacher, are only supports in bringing about the state of liberation that is every individual s divine birthright. The simplicity of Nathaji s teaching is best expressed in his core message: Open your heart, surrender to the śakti, reside in Consciousness. Nathaji lives in Berkeley, California. He is the author of five books: Depth Over Time, Heart of Recognition, Wearing God s Mala, Shiva s Trident, and The Divine Thread. More information about him, his books, teachings and community are available at HeartofC.org

9 some personal EXPERIENCEs I ve spent most of my whole life stuck in one speed. FAST. A life spent boiling and bubbling over with a long list of things to do. While desperately aching for something else, the best I could hope for was two to four days where I could slow things down. During this week s retreat you helped me discover that there was something even better than just slowing down. Beyond slow, beyond rest, there was the sweetness and simplicity and stillness. You explained on the first day of the retreat that we sit in meditation to find liberation and Infinite Consciousness. While it s often hard to describe the ineffable, this aptly describes what I felt on the last day of the retreat. These experiences showed me that there is more to life that I ever thought possible. CJ Liu Swami Khecaranatha, one of the foremost teachers of Kuṇḍalinī Sādhana, has dedicated his life to offering a rich environment for spiritual practice and growth. Through his teachings and practice, he demonstrates that life s true purpose is to live a life of perfect joy within one s own heart. I am deeply grateful for the direct contact with this lineage and for the profound transformation this practice and Nathaji s teachings have activated in my own life. Christine Sheridan I have attended Swami Khecaranatha s Heart of Consciousness immersions for two years and have benefited from this level of immersion tremendously. I grew up with my parents meditating in this same lineage, but this is a much more powerful experience. I highly recommend it and can t wait to do another immersion and week end retreat! Thank you, Nathaji. Tara Subkoff I hope they stop talking soon. I am trying to meditate!