Yoga Meditation: Pouring Emptiness into the Body | Rupert Spira

Growing latest, aware, empty, openness and whatever appears in your experience. Whatever thought, feeling, bodily sensation, sight, sound, texture, etc. Whatever 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, 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. 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 imply that intellectual understanding is not based on real experience. 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. There's 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 acknowledgement that the way he felt his body still hadn't quite caught up with his genuine understanding. And for this reason on these retreats, 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 feel the body and perceive the world with our genuine understanding. Up until now our exploration of experience has proceeded along very rational lines. A process that Atmananda Krishnamenon called higher reasoning. What he meant by higher reasoning was lines of reason that proceed 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 outlive 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 behaviour 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 have been elaborated precisely for this reason, in order to align our felt understanding, our felt experience with our understanding. In the Vedantic tradition, this approach was not really elaborated. It was elaborated more in the Tantric traditions. In the Vedantic traditions, there was more emphasis placed on the returning to the Source, self-enquiry, surrendering to God. More emphasis on the transcendental aspect of our true nature. But in the Tantric traditions, there was, as they say in Zen, a return to the marketplace, a 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 approach as yoga meditation. The reason I use that term is because I can't think of a better name for it. It is the original yoga, the essence of yoga, 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 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 subtle, more agile, more beautiful, more youthful, healthier, etc. Nothing wrong with that. It is a far cry from the essence of yoga, which is this attempt to permeate the body with the light of infinite consciousness. In the Christian tradition it's 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 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 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. A little 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. It's all done with your feeling the imagination. Feel that this emptiness seeps into the sensation. Dissolving the density that it comes in contact with. 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. Just behind the eyes. Let the emptiness slowly seep into the density behind the eyes. Saturating the density with its emptiness. Dissolving the density with its emptiness. Now let 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. Feel that the emptiness trickles down through the sensation. Through 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, lives. Feel that the head is filling up with emptiness. The emptiness begins to flow into the throat area. Another favorite residence of the separate self. The emptiness 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 feeder. I, the one that is lonely. I, the one that am hurt. I, the one that failed. I, the one that is unlovable. I, the one that is afraid. Go 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. First visualize. Then feel that this 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. A place where those unnameable feelings reside. Feel that the whole density of the cavity of the belly area is progressively permeated and saturated with this liquid emptiness. Feel that this liquid emptiness continues to flow downwards and fill up the pelvic and genital area. Dissolving any tensions or residues there. Feel that 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 of emptiness, you begin to feel that the emptiness begins to seep out of the pores in the skin. 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. And as the emptiness pours through the body, dissolving the residues of separation, it takes these residues and it disperses them in the space all around the body, like silt being carried by a river. This river of emptiness washes through the body, dissolving 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 remains of the so-called body is this transparent vibration, like a piece of muslin hanging on a washing line, undulating in the breeze. All that remains 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 the scales and arpeggios and studies that a 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 ourselves 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 appears in me. Everything is made of myself. When talking with a friend during a meal, the same experience is felt as love.