To achieve happiness is a timeless goal for all the creatures of God. Since we have notion that anything pleasant or pleasurable to the senses would lead to happiness, our mind craves for such experiences. But, there are several shortcomings in seeking happiness this way.
1. Senses always require some external object in order to convey an experience. This spells “dependence”.
2. Experience of sense gratification is only temporary.
3. If an experience is pleasurable, the senses demand more of the same experience, leading to a constant state of wanting.
Yoga deals with searching for lasting, sense-free happiness and knowledge. Entire manifest Creation is a cause and effect hierarchy matrix in which our senses and mind are at the effect its source has to be free from the five senses, ascend this hierarchy and move towards the cause end.
To achieve real happiness, we need to find a force in this hierarchy which is superior to the mind so that we could hand over the mind along with all its disturbing contents to it. This superior force is our own prana shakti. It is prana shakti that decided and caused our body and also mind to take form and shape in the womb. It caused the first heartbeat and also our first breath and will continue so till death. The self-intelligent shakti in Nature, which gives shape, form and mind, to the foetus, becomes dormant at birth as shakti has finished work till that point. Yogis named this dormant shakti as Kundalini shakti.
After birth, as per the Law of Cause and Effect or Karma, the average person has to live out some or all of past karma in this lifespan. A person is hence born with a certain constitution, driven by subtle energy centres or chakras which are preset. If, after having completed the task of creation or birth, had shakti not become dormant, she would have commenced her return journey towards Pure consciousness and in effect, having to work through that person, would have rebalanced the Chakra presets by means of causing various corrective kriyas, thus bypassing the need to actually live out the karma.
Most yoga practices directly or indirectly aim at balancing these energy chakras wilfully. You need to find out which one is suitable for you as every individual is constitutionally different, is at a different stage of evolution in terms of the journey towards the Absolute. For this, one has to do is to sit relaxed and simply surrender one’s will to the awakened Kundalini shakti and be calm witness as prana shakti works out various corrective kriyas.
As a preparatory practice for Siddha Maha Yoga, A M Kulkarni advises that one should begin by learning to hand over the mind, at least for a few minutes everyday, to this Mother Prana Shakti manifesting in all of us as breath.
The aspirant could make a start as outlined below:
1. Sit in a comfortable position, keeping the body loose and relaxed.
2. Close the eyes and become a calm witness to your natural breathing.
3. As soon as the eyes are closed, feel a current or a wave rising from the base of the spine to the top of the brain.
4. Practise this for five minutes or more.
Done regularly, the preparatory practice will result in many positive changes. It will also kindle one’s wish to obtain grace from the right guide on this path. From then on, during daily sadhana, the awakened prana shakti will cause to remove all the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual imbalances within the sadhaka.
Be Happy – adopt Yoga. It can bring about mental peace and positive changes in your life.