Soul and the five elements

"The appearance changes and the form may disappear, but the spirit remains because the life is in the spirit and flows from within its own inexhaustible source."

"Spirit substance can't be seen because it is vibrating faster than the speed of light. It appears not to be there. We might liken it to a spoked wheel." says Kenneth Meadows in Shamanic Spirit, p. 163.

According to Betty Eding in her book 'Embraced by the light', spirit is made of a shimmering material that looks like glass or white sugar. Isn't that what some call orbs! The two shimmering bodies of light that I met once, felt a bit bigger than what I have read about Orbs on the wikipedia.

Meadows further says that spirit is what connects and holds things together with its great bonding power. Spirit is made of love because it emanates from the source of Love! Love has a reality of its own so it can't be given. It is a spiritual reality because it is the true nature of pure spirit.

If the above is true then Guru Nanak's, the prophet of the heart, the founder of sikh religion; reference to 'The Truth' means 'Love'! Does then 'Satnam - True Name' means 'Love'? Is that why the majority of hymns in the Guru Granth Sahib are about Love for God? Is that why Nanak preferred singing hymns of Gods Love in musical notes because music generates the feelings, to simply learning yogic postures in a mechanical fashion. Yogic practices can help immencely if we have the true feeling of love and the yearning to meet the husband God.

For more info on Guru Nanak see http://www.dlshq.org/saints/gurunanak.htm

Guru nanak's biggest teaching was Prema Bhagati. Above all rituals, doctrines and yoga practices, Guru Nanak encouraged the people to simply love God and He shall reveal himself to you. Guru Nanak says all yogic practices are a waste of time, if you don't have the yearning to be one with your lover God. This comes to pure feeling. Feeling is generated in the heart. Guru Nanak said that no religion is better than the other, anyone who follows the essence of their religion, which is to develop love for God, can find God with God's grace.

Meadows says that Soul awareness is related to element of fire because Soul is our Body of Light. We receive warmth, pure feeling, radiance, illumination and enlightenment from the Soul.

"Mind awareness is the element of air. Mind is where the movement of though takes place. In this dimension we receive impressions, generate ideas and concepts and form opinions.

Physical awareness is the element of Water.

Spirit awareness is Earth element as earth is inertia, stillness that grounds and harmonizes. Earth experience is essential for the cultivation of the spirit."

If the above is true, then the baptism ceremony that involves water - like in Sikhism and Christianity, is to get the physical body ready, by cleansing it, to understand and be able to nurture the energy of the spirit and soul. We already have the air overworking. We need to calm down the air to give a chance for the earth to illuminate the fire.

If everything is made of five elements, then the fifth element ether must be the nothingness within us and it must be cold.

The meditation experience will prove to you that when you start deep meditation first the body produces excess heat. This heat purifies the body and fixes the blockages of stress and disease created by negative thoughts in the nadis and muscles. When you feel tingling/ itching in any specific part of the body, don't be distracted from meditation, simply pay attention to your breath and focus on another part of the body. You will feel the energy moving in your body. as soon as this energy makes way to move forward from the troubled spot, the itching will go away by itself. This way the body gets cleansed more and more with regular meditation.

Once the body is cleansed with the heat, it will start to cool down.You will feel very cold during the meditation. You might feel cool air just above your head. My sister is at a stage where the heads gets too cold upto her ears.

Soul is the body of light that responds to the pure feeling. If you sincerely wish to experience / know / see this energy; this intelligent energy will reveal itself to you. Deeper the desire, more intense will be the experience. As the intensity of the feeling changes each day, so does the experience. For this miracle beyond words to happen, the body must be perfectly still like a rock and yet as light as air. Tao philosophy mentions the importance of both beingness and nothingness. A cup is being for a reason, so that it can hold nothingness inside it. If the cup can't hold nothingness, it has no purpose. Same way our body must be ready to hold the nothingness before the soul can reveal itself and can peacefully sit in its own home in the heart where the pure feeling is generated.

Temple or Gurdwara etiquette.

When you visit a temple, usually you hear someone singing with harmonium and table. Sometimes there are bells, chimta and chain as well. Regular temple visitors go there as a social outing - to show off your clothes, to hear some music and to get fed for free and to have a chat with the community members. More importantly, its time to please God and getting materialistic wishes fulfilled by donating a few dollars to the temple.

While this is all fun and at the same time provides a chance that you might actually hear and understand something accidentally that might change your life, that is a very low goal. Gurbani (Guru's word) calls such actions the actions of a manmukh (a materialistic person who is not seeking spirituality.

The proper reason to visit temple is to seek spiritual life. After bowing to the Guru, the way to sit in the temple is this -

Sit on the floor by crossing your legs.
Make sure your backbone is straight
Close your eyes
Listen to music initially, then start observing your breath.
Shabad / hymn is giving a message and music is there to generate the feeling
While regulating breath, pay attention to the main message and generate that feeling of Birha / feeling that you want to meet the creator - your father / mother/ husband / lover.
Get so involved in your secret talk with God/ creator by feeling that the singing goes in the background.
Slowly after 10 or more minutes, you will not be breathing consciously as you are now focused on either a point on your body, between the eyes, heart or the top of the head.
Just be an observer and long for something to happen, but do not expect anything specific.
Today might be your lucky day and you might experience something spiritual. If you do experience even a glipms of that, you will try meditating in this way overtime, as you will know the pleasure and joy that meditation brings that no money or relationship can bring.

My sister's opening of the 10th Gate and Saint Kabir's account

My sister rung me to ask about her latest experience. Last week, during her meditation she became very scared when she felt the sensation that her head was wide open and anything could come in through this door. Then she heard a very loud noise as if the roof of her house fell apart. She was so scared that her eyes opened straightaway.

I reminded her of Saint Kabir's account of this experience -

During the conversation she told me that before the above experience she was experiencing the feeling "I am God, I am truth, whatever I speak is truth." and she was astonished how come she didn't know this all through her life.

I can't believe she said all this. She doesn't read all the stuff about other religions that I read. She wouldn't have a clue that Jesus as well as Hindu practitioners do "I am" meditation. Guru Nanak and Kabir only do "Tuhin Tuhin - you God are the absolute" not "I am". Although fundamentally there is no difference as we believe that everything is one God. So by that definition there is no separate You and I. But from language perspective - we Sikhs are never preached "I AM" and yet my sister so innocently told me what she experienced. I am so proud of her.

I encouraged her to either change the focus from 10th gate (Dasam Dawar) to 3rd eye or Solar Plexus. But she wanted to continue with gently pushing the 10th gate with her outgoing breath. She was just worried that anything could come in (may be evil?). So I encouraged her to pray to the Guru to be with her and help her throught this journey. I also told her not to worry about anything else, that from where the light of God will enter and she will become one with it. I reminded her what Guru Nanak has written about the experience when God invited him to his house and Nanaks explanation in Japji Sabib about the millions of musical instruments playing and singers singing Lords praises there. According to Guru Nanak, the experience was so mesmerising that he forgot to wish / ask for anything - Dhadi ko mangan chit na awai.
I also reminded her about the gurbani lines - Charan Na Chado Sareer Tal Jaai - I will not leave Lords feet even if my pysical body is taken away from me. Our Granthi told me that sometimes people get stuck at this stage as they feeling that they will die. I encouraged my sister to not worry about her physical body as nothing wrong will happen to it. She should just focus on her goal of meeting the One God. May God give her the strength to enjoy her experience with God without fear of loosing her life. I would so love to meet her after such experience.