Day Twenty Nine: Meditate on an Awakened Heart

Besides the positive support of our teachers and friends on the spiritual path, we are blessed with the examples of enlightenment in the lives of the saints and sages of all times. Through contemplating the minds and consciousness of such illumined souls, we can purify our own minds. One who is awakened, whose mind is purified, is free from the sway of desire. He or she is dispassionate, established in equanimity, and free from the pull of restlessness caused by the ego. When we contemplate what that state of mind is like and meditate upon it, it has a powerful purifying effect upon us. This practice is one of several ways recommended in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra to calm the mental field and overcome the obstacles to superconscious meditation:

1.37 (the mental field can be calmed) by meditating on the heart of an illumined soul that is free from passion.

We immerse ourselves in the awareness of how it might be to experience an awakened heart (spiritually realized consciousness) until there is the direct experience of that consciousness within ourselves.

The steps of this practice are:

1. Begin with a few moments of meditation.
2. Bring to mind an awakened or enlightened person. See an image of them in your mind’s eye.
3. Feel as if you are sitting with him or her, and imagine what it would be like to be influenced by their consciousness and presence.
4. Reflect on the quality of their conscious awareness. Feel as if you are experiencing it directly and allow that feeling to impact your own state of mind and heart.
   
5. Feel that their consciousness and your consciousness are one; their heart and your heart are one.
   
6. Rest for a moment in knowing that this awakened consciousness is your own true nature.
   
7. Agree within yourself to let this light of truth, this light of love, guide your thoughts, speech and actions.

We can also cultivate this higher consciousness in times of activity where discernment is needed by taking a moment to enter the silence, remember the enlightened one, and inwardly ask how such a free soul would approach the situation before us. What would their natural response be? What might they say or do? Then we can consider this choice for ourselves.


Think About It: When His Holiness the Dalai Lama appeared before 5,000 people at Sanford Fieldhouse to hear him speak about happiness, he first removed his shoes and arranged himself slowly in a cross-legged position in the oversized crimson leather chair that was made for the occasion. Despite the audience's palpable eagerness for words of wisdom, he quipped that the chair was so comfortable he'd like to "sit without talk." But talk he did, in an engaging and straightforward way; about how inner peace, compassion, and truth are necessary for happiness. He implored his audience to "please think more about those inner values."He said, "We pay too much concern to material things and neglect our inner resources." –posted on dalailama.com

Be Inspired: I am often asked what it was like to be with Paramahansa Yogananda…When I was with him, and at all other times when I attuned my mind and consciousness with his, which he frequently advised me to do, my mind was calm; I felt secure and peaceful; my awareness was tranquil and clear; I was more Self- and God-conscious.
–Roy Eugene Davis, from Paramahansa Yogananda As I Knew Him