What Kind of Yoga and Meditation Leads to Gaining Enlightenment in This Life?

by Vijay Kumar

Every process of Yoga... neigh meditation that frees us from the clutches of attachment... bondage or Moha, whatever we may call it... Is the right process on the path of gaining Enlightenment.

Are Yoga and Meditation two different words with different meanings? No, the truth is not so... we need to understand that it is the path of yoga which shall lead us to gaining Enlightenment within this life. And what does yoga itself mean? The word yoga has been derived from the Hindi root yog and which in Hindi means synthesizing two things. In Hindi two plus two equal four... and the effort of our soul (the atman within) to merge with the super soul (the Parmatman, the Almighty God) is known as yoga.

Yoga in other words is the effort of every soul to merge with the Almighty God at the earliest. And for this to be achieved we need to follow a routine of yogic exercises and also meditate (perform yoga) on the Almighty God. This process of meditation can be best understood once we are able to understand the meaning of Meditation. Meditation in Hindi means yoga. Never otherwise or vice versa!

To be able to rightly perform Yoga (Meditation) we need to concentrate on the basic belief of life and that is... the basic building block of the total Cosmos is an atom. A cluster of atoms grouped together are called as molecules and a cluster of molecules is what the whole complex Cosmos comprises of. Truly speaking... the whole Cosmos is built up of clusters of atoms and molecules and there is nothing solid in the whole Cosmos. Everything in the Cosmos has a gaseous formation... a form of energy. As we have seen in the Star Trek serial during the deportation of human beings from one place to another... they get transformed into pure energy for a temporal phase.

This is the only vital truth of life we cannot get away with... seeing from the senses point of view... things appear to be gaseous and also solids but in the cosmic domain it is only the gaseous formation which holds good. Once we are clear with this issue in respect of every human being and every living being (Jiva as we call it in Hinduism) living on mother earth being gaseous formations... we need to understand that it is only after having gained control of the senses and the mind shall we be able to transcend the earthly plane and be able to truly visualize whatever was pictured in the telly serial Star Trek.

Performing Yoga (Meditation) is the process which enables us to cut across the shackles of the senses and the mind and to be able to come free of the senses and the mind... one needs to perform yoga (meditation) in a manner that the dross within our soul (atman) reduces at a faster pace. The complete dross having removed... one would have gained absolute control over the senses and the mind! This is the stage of Nirvikalpa Samadhi as we know it in Hinduism. The stage of Nothingness... it is when the senses and the mind have lost their entity and the purified soul engages itself in one to one dialogue with the Almighty God, the super soul.

Now... the question arises is how-to perform the Meditation (Yoga as we call it in Hinduism). And the meditation can best be performed by lying in Shavasana pose (the death pose) and following the path of Neti (not this... not this). And by doing this what are we trying to achieve? Is it possible to gain Enlightenment by this process? Yes! It is a foolproof process which shall gain us Enlightenment in the end.

What is the Shavasana pose? In yogic exercises the Shavasana pose carries the most importance for one on the path of gaining Enlightenment. It is this process of Shavasana in which one can lie down in the death pose and concentrate on the process of breathing. While lying down in the Shavasana pose as we gradually realize the ultimate truth of life that it is not the body which is inhaling the requisite essentiality (the pure air) but it is our soul (the real self within) the body which needs the pure oxygen... the body tends to lose its meaning.

We become more and more aware of the real truth within us and that truth is our soul (atman) which resides within our body. Slowly one more fundamental of life shall dawn upon us and that it... it is not the body which has taken the soul but it is vice versa which is the absolute truth. As we realize that our existence as a body is merely a covering... a garment for our real self... our Soul (Atman) within us... we would ultimately come to the conclusion that why not retain our true real self alone. What of the body then? Is it to be discarded? And if the body is discarded... the manifest self of us... our existence in this world would die!

Proceeding on the path of spirituality through logical conclusions as in the dialogues of Plato... cutting one untruth after another leads us towards higher planes of spirituality. Becoming freer from the clutches of the senses... we find a gradual change within our personality. The ultimate truth having dawned upon us that the present body is merely a garment for the inner real self of us... our desire of gaining Enlightenment within this life becomes stronger.

What is Neti? The path of Neti as practiced and followed by Maharishi Ramana! While lying down in the Shavasana pose is it not worthwhile to concentrate on the existence of God. We have come to a conclusion earlier that everything is gaseous in nature and what then? We would slowly realize that the only existence in this gaseous formation is of different souls and the Karta, Parmatman (as we call it in Hinduism) the Almighty God himself. There is nothing else apart from the souls, the Almighty God, the ether which comprises of the vast Cosmos.

Now if we desire to gain Enlightenment in this life... then we have to negate the existence of everything in our physical manifested world. The process of Neti (not this... Not this) is the process of negation as practiced and advocated by Maharishi Ramana... the one and the only path to cut across the shackles of the senses and the mind. It is only following the path of Neti while lying down in Shavasana pose that I realized God one-day. Having traversed the path... I can with hundred percent certainties say that the Shavasana pose and the process of Neti is the best form of Meditation one can ever imagine of.

Summarizing all... I can only quote of whatever I have personally experienced... I have nothing more to say!

May God bless all those on the path of Enlightenment!

About The Author: Vijay Kumar... The Man who Realized God in 1993 explains role Yoga and Meditation play on path to Enlightenment. subscribe free Newsletter "Spiritual Secrets Unveiled" - Explore hidden cosmic truths- more here http://www.godrealized.com (© Copyright 2005)