Serious Sadhana (Spiritual Practice)

Shivabalayogi in London, around 1990.

From Nick Black in London:

I’ve been a meditator for 35 years, followed yogic spiritual practice very seriously and intently for a long, long time. But like many of my generation, I tended to fall for spiritual groups and leaders who in the end turned a little toxic. So I’ve gone my own way for some time. Being a journalist and writer, I kept a good eye out for all the minutiae of eastern spiritual movements, plus being a jyotish astrologer in my spare time. But for some strange reason, Shivabalayogi never appeared on the radar screen in all those years.

Earlier this year I completed an exhausting, very tiring nine-day recitation of the Devi Mahatyam/Chandi Path for Navarartri. Doing that is a bit like pulling teeth.  My mind, body and senses rebelled. Serious sadhana is a sort of give-away title for tapas, if you think about it. Little did I know what was to happen next! The very day after I’d finished it, the boon came: the Master appeared.

I kept having visions in meditation of a matted hair Yogi of beautiful aspect, leading me in meditation, encouraging to deepen practice . . . my meditations increased to an hour, to two hours, so that on weekends I’d manage five hours at a stretch all under the influence of the matted hair inner Yogi. He told me to put ash on my head and so I started doing that.

The experiences continue in full and delicate force and are unlike anything I’ve ever really known even after all this time on the yogic path. He is shimmering always, either as a sort of protective body casing or, this is hard to explain, twinkling in a miniature form in the sahasara crown chakra. Believe me I know the difference between fantasy and reality, and such experiences are just too overwhelming concrete to ignore.

Then a few weeks ago I was in a bookshop and came across a copy of Gen. Singh’s biography of Shivabalayogi (Spiritual Ministration, see http://www.handloom.org/Books_main.html) and you can probably guess what happened next! I realized this was the matted hair Yogi who had been visiting.  I’ve known lots of spiritual teachers and ways of being, but this was like a death and a birth. Death of all the clutter, the old me, the old ways of relating. Birth of something truly wonderful.

Shri Swamiji passes power to his devotees

to do tapas. Shri Swamiji is with a person

who completed five years of tapas.

What happened and happens is that the great Yogi revealed himself in astral form, took over my body in a very literal sense, and forcibly pulled my body and eyes to meditate with the attention on what Indian tradition calls the bhikruti, the third eye. No choice about it! I sit, “POW” comes the great Yogi, locks my body and mind and sight, and deep we go . . .

This is happening day in, day out. I’m in absolute bliss, hard to describe, just overwhelmed with gratitude and the reality of this sea-change in life.

It’s very strange that I missed him completely all these years. I can only say I wasn’t ready, that things happen at their own time and space, and that there is such an element of destiny. How can I love and revere this person whom I never met, and yet whom I have and who is with me so intimately.

The Shivabalayogi websites, the books, the You Tube videos are like nectar at present. There are some fantastic performances in the kirtans available for download. [http://www.handloom.org/Bhajans_Home.htm] I imagine, however, the bhava experiences raised some controversy. I can see how they could be manipulated. That’s a whole other thing happening… my hands and body get thrown into all sorts of positions when I watch Swamiji on You Tube or listen to the kirtans. I cannot thank you enough for putting all this out there. I’m in that odd stage where everything moves me to tears, it’s so profoundly beautiful.  So… thanks so much!

I’ve got a blog called Serious Sadhana, found on http://serioussadhana.blogspot.com/