| In the traditional systems we have got three centers below the heart level - the Muladhara, Swadhishtana and Manipura. They deal with the physical, vital planes of our being, pranic and vital planes of our being and enough literature has been written on that. Rev. SriRamchandraji Maharaj makes a very very significant deviation in his system by starting the progress only from the heart. He is just not bothered about the remaining portions and he says that the movement has to be done in the heart. If you understand a bit, you are not a slave of the body, you are not a slave of the sense organs, you are not a slave of your prana, but, you are a slave of your ideas about the body, you are a slave of ideas about your prana, you are a slave of your ideas about the vitality. It is these ideas that are affecting us, this is unique to the human plane. Animals have got all these three but then they do not have a mentation, we are the only people. So he gives us the credit of starting the sadhana from the heart and doesn't bother us about the lower centers that are there which, every civilized person, educated person, a moral person would have anyway got out of reasonably and is trying to get out of it, that is what motivated you to come here. The diversion of the flow that is there to the upper portion, is generally experienced very early in this system by people. Those who are sensitive are very very clear about it, the less sensitive they are perhaps not all that clear but anyway they acknowledge the vibrations. If you concentrate or apply your mind on the vibrations, you will have only the Omkara nada. That is the first condition of ajapa that you will be having. Ajapa is not an unconscious repetition of a mantra that we have learnt as tradition teaches us but is an automatic sound that we hear in the heart first, in the upper portion of the heart. Rev. SriRamchandraji Maharaj goes to the extent of saying that, that is the fundamental index to note whether a man has moved to the upper plane, that is a parameter given for us to watch. This can be watched by your own experience. In the very first instance we say that we feel the vibrations, some people feel something of a heat, something of a sound, some push here and there, these are all the various ways in which it is experienced and that is the experience of ajapa. The L to U is the first transition that should happen i.e. you must find your mental vrittis not going to the animal and the baser levels and as far as possible plying at human level. Why I am using the word as far as possible? We are all grihastas, we are committed to household life and we would like to lead a life which is useful to society in which we are born, we have got to contribute as expressions of the Divine for the better feeling about the presence of God; we have got to do that. We must enable others, as the 9th commandment says, to feel that piety and love towards God. Our behaviour should be such and that is possible only when you live as far as possible at the upper level. Does this happen to you or not is the question and we have given you the answer it does happen, but more depends upon your own attempt. Something is done, it is like hatching - the egg must have life then hatching gives it the heat and then you have got a chick. Neither the hen by itself nor the egg by itself can do anything by itself; nothing will come out of it. So this fomentation or the heat that is given is the Pranahuti aspect of it, and the other one is your own effort. There must be a life in you, an aspiration in you to become better than what you are. You can't throw the load on others nor can somebody think that he can make something out of you. Nobody can do anything with you unless you are willing for that. If this aspiration is maintained it will be good, but how to get that? I want to serve, but I am not able to. Now what happens is when you come to the knot 1 and 1a, located in the heart, they are twin points, they are knotted together and one is connected with the Viveka and another is connected with the Vairagya. Now at one stage we are taking about the grihasta life and simultaneously we are talking about the Vairagya. It may appear a bit odd, it is not odd. What we are trying to do here is, instead of a negative attitude towards the world and say that I shun it, we are asking you to develop a positive attitude towards the whole thing and then love God and His expression. So our attachment instead of being to our people in the sense of exclusively our own people, we are asking you to develop that attachment to the Divinity. The famous illusion theory is there where you have got one line and you think that's a big line put a bigger line by its side then this becomes smaller. That's how we develop the Viveka. So the bigger thing to which we get attached is the Divinity, the smaller thing which we would like to get less attached are the problems of life. Problems of life are personal and unique perhaps to each person according to his samskaras and there is no point in comparing that aspect of it and there can be no bodhayanti parasparam on that, except as to how you are able to solve a particular problem, somebody may share, if at all there is some similarity but each is unique to itself and no comparisons subsist. So we come to a position that bondages which we have chosen by which I mean apart from your own birth which is your choice. I will not digress there but then other things - your friends are your making, your wife is your making, your children are your making - these attachments are your own, nobody else has thrust them on you. Since these attachments are there, you get to know later that somebody has behaved or misbehaved, he has lived upto your expectations or anticipations or he has not, then you get a feeling of conflict, feeling of disappointment, all these things are there in life, each one is disillusioned after sometime. Slowly the friends drop off, surely new friends crop up just to fill up the gap but then you come to know that there is no other friend, finally you come to a stage there is only one friend and that is God. You try to pray, you try to pour out yourself before Him in your own prayer room, you definitely say this. There is no other friend with whom you can confide. There are many occasions when the husbands cannot talk to their wives and the wives cannot talk to their husbands freely. They would like to but they cannot. The same position is there between the son and the father, daughter and the father or the mother, between brothers, between sisters. Barriers are there; these barriers are basically things which push us to understand that these are all transient. Nothing is permanent, there is only one thing that is permanent and that is the feeling of the presence that there is somebody inside my heart who hears me, you try to develop intimacy with Him. That is the Viveka then the Vairagya, these are the two centers, these develop but then nobody gets stabilized there. People go to the smashan - all wise, when they come back, perhaps one or two among them keep the wisdom of the transiency of the world and life. The remaining are lost either with their buffaloes or donkeys or men or horses or cars whatever it is. It requires a Kabir to maintain the serenity, composure, the balance while going to the smashan and coming back from it. That is the example given by Rev. SriRamchandraji Maharaj. Now, you would like to be that, how can I do that? Here comes, because of the flow of thought from your lower portion to the upper portion what happens is, there is some vibration in the knot 1 itself which naturally happens. If it does not happen, in this system you are assisted by the transmitted power of the trainer to move to that level and from then onwards move towards next knot. Once you are stabilized at the Viveka and the Vairagya level reasonably, not totally, because if you get total Vairagya then the chances are you will not continue with grihasta ashram. There is a peculiar method in this system that a person is allowed to move on to the higher plane of consciousness though his experience in the lower plane is less. This is similar to our system of education where a person who gets perhaps about 40% or 50% marks is promoted to the next class asking him to learn the remaining portion of the 50% later because that is anyway cover
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