Yoga Meditation: Pouring Emptiness into the Body

be knowingly this aware empty openness and whatever appears in your experience whatever thought feeling bodily sensation sight sand texture etc appears see that it appears see and feel that it appears in this openness see and feel that whatever appears in this aware openness is a modulation of this aware openness just as waves are only a movement of water so all thought sensation and perception is only a vibration of consciousness a vibration of this aware openness just as the only substance present in a wave is water sunny so the only substance present in experience is the knowing of it the awareness of it awareness itself all experience is a modulation of our infinite self-aware being you now although this is I know clear to many of us intellectually and when I say intellectually I don't mean that in a disparaging sense I don't mean to I don't mean to imply that intellectual understanding is not based on really experience it it is but at the same time it takes time for our genuine experiential understanding to really permeate the entire realm of our experience in particular the way we feel the body and perceive the world this a story that some of you have heard before about the Zen master who was asked on his deathbed how is everything for you now and he said everything is fine but my body is having a hard time keeping up this recognition that everything is fine his understanding was clear he knew from genuine experience that he was the open empty sky of awareness and all experience was like so many clouds floating in that empty sky and yet at the same time this acknowledgment that the way he felt his body still hadn't quite caught up with his genuine understanding and for this reason on these retreats we as as the days go on we begin to pay more and more attention to the experience of the body and the world that is the way we feel the body and perceive the world in an attempt to align the way we fill the body and perceive the world with our genuine understanding up until now our exploration of experience has proceeded proceeded along very rational lines a process that Atma Nanda krishna menon called higher reasoning what he meant by higher recently was a lines of reason that proceeded directly from experience rather than the lines of reasoning that are based on conceptual thought based on beliefs rather than experience but our feelings are not susceptible to rational thought feelings of being located in and as the body out live enlightenment enlightenment which is just the exotic name for the recognition of our ever-present unlimited being doesn't put an end to feelings in the body feelings of being a temporary finite located separate self and it is for this reason that there is so often a discrepancy between our genuine understanding and what we feel even after years of sincere spiritual practice our behavior and reactions from time to time betray the presence of a separate self still lurking in the system in spite of our profound and genuine understanding so in recognition of this some spiritual traditions have developed a series of non rational explorations of the body and these are these have been elaborated precisely for this reason in order to align our felt understanding our felt experience with our understanding in the pedantic tradition these this approach was not really elaborated it was elaborated more in the tantric traditions in the Botanic traditions there was more emphasis placed on the returning to the source self-inquiry surrendering to God either more emphasis on the transcendental aspect of our true nature that in the tantric traditions there was as it were as they say in Zen their return to the marketplace or return to objective experience the way we feel the body the way we perceive the world in an attempt to allow our transcendental experience to permeate every aspect of our felt and lived experience I refer to this approaches yoga meditation and reason I use that term is Clank can't think of a better name for it it is the original yoga the essence of yoga which which is which means a way to experience the body in line with our understanding that I am infinite consciousness what we know of as yoga today mostly a stretching of the body is a perversion of the original yoga it is yoga that has been appropriated by the separate self in an attempt to make the separate self more supple and more agile and more beautiful and more youthful and healthier etc nothing wrong with that but it is a far cry from the essence of yoga which is this attempt to permeate the body with the light of infinite consciousness it's in the Christian tradition is called the Transfiguration the Transfiguration of the way we feel the body in line with our understanding so don't expect me to be too rational when we are exploring this approach to the body go to the experience of the head make sure that you are referring only to your direct current experience you are a newborn infant you have no knowledge of a past you have no idea that you have been born as a body into the world your eyes are still closed and suddenly in the mint in the middle of this openness that you are a vibration has appeared a sensation has appeared which in a few years time thought will label my head but the sensation doesn't come with that label attached it is just an unnameable sensation feel that this vibration is appearing in this empty aware openness you are the empty aware openness in which this vibration is appearing and this vibration seems to have a a density to it in contrast to the emptiness of the space all around it now visualize and then feel that at the top of this vibration there is a little opening until opening at the top of the sensation called my head and imagine that you take a bucket and you fill it full of the emptiness all around the sensation and you begin to pour this emptiness into the hole at the top of the head you pour very very slowly and this emptiness seeps into the sensation through this hole at the top first visualize it then drop the visualization and just feel it feel this emptiness pouring slowly like clear viscous honey feel it's all done with your feeling imagination you feel that this emptiness seeps into the sensation and dissolving the density that it comes in contact with so feel that this emptiness seeps down from the top of the head to the region all around the eyes and behind the eyes this is a region of the head which is rich in me feelings a place where I the seer lives and just behind the eyes you let the emptiness slowly seep into the density behind the eyes saturating the density with its emptiness dissolving the density with its emptiness now that it that the emptiness slowly percolate into the middle of the sensation the place where I the thinker lives one of the main residences of the separate self all that we actually find there in our experience is a vibration a sensation this sensation is just mimicking the presence of a separate self allow this emptiness to flush the separate self out of its hiding place in the center of the head allow the density there to be permeated and saturated by this emptiness you feel that the emptiness trickles down through the sensation through this the density in the nose area where I the one that smells lives permeating it with its emptiness feel that the back of the head is being filled up with emptiness this emptiness seeps down into the mouth area the place where I the taster lips you feel that the head is filling up with emptiness the emptiness begins to flow into the throat area you another favorite residents of the separate self the emptiness seeks seeps into the back of the neck and slowly percolates into the shoulders you have this sensation that emptiness is pouring into the body saturating the body it trickles down into the heart area the main residence of the separate self I the feelin I the one that is lonely I the one that am hurt ie the one that failed I the one that is unlovable I the one that is afraid could very slowly take special care to allow this transparent emptiness to trickle gently into all these little places where these feelings reside all these little vibrations or sensations that mimic the presence of a separate self first visualize and then feel the visualization is just an aid to feeling the important thing is the feeling / to visualize then feel that this empty net emptiness colonizes the density of the sensation permeates the density of the sensation as it goes dissolving the density into itself the whole heart area is filled up with emptiness and the emptiness continues to flow downwards into the belly area place where those unnameable feelings reside feel that the whole the density of the cavity of the belly area is progressively permeated and saturated with this liquid emptiness you feel that this liquid emptiness continues to flow downwards and fill up the pelvic and genital area dissolving many tensions or residues then feel but this emptiness continues to flow down into the legs filling up the hips and the thighs and the knees and the calves flowing into our feet and toes overflowing into our arms and elbows and wrists and hands feel that the body is full of emptiness there are no thoughts in the body there are no feelings in the body there is no self in the body it's just a gentle vibration pervaded by emptiness and when you feel that the sensation is full of emptiness the sensation of the body the entire sensation of the body is full event in us you we begin to feel that the emptiness begins to seep out of the pores in the skin you imagine the skin like a piece of muslin made mostly of empty holes and this liquid emptiness begins to seep out in all directions over the entire surface of the skin so this emptiness is pouring into the body and seeping out of it in all directions into the space into the empty space all around you and as the emptiness pours through the body dissolving the residues of separation it takes these residues and it displaces them in the space all around the body like silt being carried by a river this river of emptiness washes through the body solving residues of feeling and tension seeping through the surface of the skin pouring out into the space all around emptiness on the inside emptiness on the outside all that remained the so-called body is this transparent vibration like a piece of muslin hanging on a washing line undulating in the breeze all that remained of a solid dense body is this vibration this quivering vibration saturated in emptiness pervaded by emptiness floating weightlessly in emptiness now cease doing anything just let experience be as it is these yoga meditations are a little bit like theme scales and arpeggios and studies the two musician practices the benefits of them are not always immediately discernible the benefits appear later on when we're playing music in the same way we may find that when we're talking with friends during a meal or walking in the countryside in the afternoons that we suddenly find us as relieved of the feeling of being located in and as this dense solid body but that we are this vast openness in which the entire landscape is appearing and out of which the landscape is made that is the experience of beauty everything in pairs in me everything is made of myself when talking with a friend during a meal the same experience is felt as love thank you

Channel: Rupert Spira

Views: 245,960

Rating: 4.8215432 out of 5

Keywords: Rupert Spira, Meditation, Non-Duality, Ramana Maharshi, Atmananda Krishna Menon, Advaita, Non Duality, Awareness, Consciousness, Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta, Zen, Sufism, Francis Lucille, Jean Klein, Krishnamurti, Chan Buddhism, Shankaracharya, awareness

Id: IZ8N0wk-VtM

Length: 44min 31sec (2671 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 24 2015