Guided Meditation connecting Body, Mind, Emotions and Spirit
Ever heard of the yoga effect? If not then we need to look far more closely at what the word, the practice and the concept all mean. Humanity are functioning as half human beings while the rest of creation are being themselves one hundred percent. Yoga means union and if there are at least four parts to who we are being body, mind, emotions and spirit or soul, then we need to join the dots and become wholly and fully who we really are. Operating at half capacity is damaging the body, the sinew and the psyche. If connection is the answer for everything else then it is that way for us to. Learn to practice connection and the yoga effect of universal oneness that is needed for anything to operate properly, just as it was intended to do.
To fall into the loving embrace of the Yoga effect is to be connected within your entire inner being to all that is without. This divine connection transforms the myth of separation and moves us out of duality into the comfort of the loving arms of the Universal field. Yoga simply means divine union of everything, without any exclusions, and that state of union is available to everyone all the time.
Yoga is not only about standing on your head. Rather yoga teaches you how to listen to and hear your body in all its marvel and wonder and connect deeply to it. Graceful flow is the result, not only for body, but also for a mind which is habitually centered in yoga. As humans we are one complex being divided into 4 main segments or systems. These systems being body, mind, emotions and spirit. In this guided meditation we will move through these four parts of self connecting one energy or shakti to another. We will create a rainbow bridge from our root to our crown. From thought to no-thing.
We practice yoga and meditation to essentially dissolve our ego-identity and let go of the stories of the past the mind has created through habitual memories. Stress is of course the result of this process. Sadhguru reminds us that “the whole process of yoga is to take you from something that you know and take the next step into the unknown…yoga means to be in perfect tune. Your body, mind, and energy and the existence are in absolute harmony.”
The Four Segments of Self
THE BODY – To practice the Yoga Effect the body represents the senses and how we interact with the world. We can only interact with one, or all of our five senses through the physical body. There is no other language the body speaks alone. That is until we re-connect itself to all of itself from within.
THE MIND – Mind represents the second segment of ourselves that processes our senses into our memories, thoughts, feelings and ultimately our actions and life consequences. It links the outer worlds experiences into subjective thoughts and experiences through complex neural connections that wire and then fire on learned experience through memory most of the time.
EMOTIONS – Emotions represent the third segment of who we are. Unhealthy emotions of yesterday can easily unravel us today. Healthy emotions heal us and allow us to self regulate much faster than our minds could ever do. Good emotions create the miraculous and negative emotions that are not let go of create disorder and chaos.
SPIRITUALITY – Spirituality represents the forth segment of who we are. It is the most mysterious and perhaps misunderstood part of ourselves. It is the segment of self where we are able to transcend limitations and bonds that exist within us, elsewhere, and transform what doesn’t work for us into the miraculous.
The Meditation of yoga
As we prepare to mediate to experience the power of the yoga effect bring your attention to right now. Make yourself comfortable and close your eyes. Begin to be aware of your breath and just breathe calmly, deeply and slowly. Sit or lie still and keep your back and neck straight and not bent or curved, as we intentionally stop the mind chatter and let our parasympathetic response system which activates peace to take the lead. Find certainty and safety in the growing silence. With each breath allow yourself to become more relaxed. Allow the union of all aspects of you to allow yoga consciousness to start to arise as we bring all 4 main elements of the self together as we obliterate the physical boundaries that held them apart. Breathe slowly and deeply allowing yourself to become more and more relaxed. Gently repeat the Sanskrit mantra that reminds us to look for the lotus, or wisdom, in the flower of your consciousness.
The Lotus flower is regarded in many eastern religions, as a symbol of purity, enlightenment, self-regulation and rebirth which perfectly characterise the human condition: even when a lotus flowers roots are in the dirtiest waters, the Lotus produces the most beautiful flower.
Let’s use this wisdom as a centering mantra to guide us though our journey of connection today.
Repeat the mantra out loud or in your mind:
Om mani padme hum. Om mani padme hum.
Om mani padme hum. Om mani padme hum.
Om mani padme hum. Om mani padme hum.
THE BODY EFFECT
Now bring your attention to your breathe and how it flows in and out of the body. With each breath allow yourself to become more relaxed. The 5 Senses you have represent every kind of material physical awareness that we have in the temple of the body. If anything cannot be noticed by these five senses we are not able to feel its presence or recognise it. X-rays are flowing all around you, yet you have no senses to perceive them. So now relax and allow your body to settle in. Feel your bodies weight sink into your chair, bed or mat. Begin to feel your eyes let go all their work and let them rest.
Breathe deeply once and then regularly and naturally breathe. Let us examine:
Touch
Taste
Sound
See
Smell
Think about the sense of freedom you are experiencing right now. Freedom is experienced more and more as you move from dense states of your physicality to freer and more boundless and open states of your sacred self. Let the inhale of your next breath shoot tingles throughout your body as it easily becomes lighter and freer.
As your body connects to the mind you have begun the practice of mind yoga, which connects your physical boundary to the boundless dimensions of endless space and eternal time. As you start to raise your consciousness your yoga communicates its connectedness to you through how you are thinking and feeling in the present moment right now. The yoga of you connected to the yoga of all other things happens in serene silence, in a state that is above all things intellectual.
Out of the 7 chakras or energy disks you have in your being the body in this exercise represents our root and sacral chakras where the body has learned through memory and experience to disconnect intimate and deeper emotions from ourselves. But we can move up towards our more powerful solar plexus and heart chakras that represent to us renewed confidence in who we are that brings about the practice of self discipline in our lives. When we raise our esteem and efficacy, our energy is raised and so are our capabilities.
THE MIND EFFECT
Observe how thoughts come and go, how they ebb and flow. Witness thoughts, realize the thoughts are not you.
Shift attentions and allow this meditative yoga practice to quiet the mind. Our bodies benefit from movement and poses whilst our minds appreciate the stillness and silence the most.
Breath is not all we need to focus on right now. Now we can invite any and all memories and thoughts that come into awareness. Allow them all in for a few moments.
Say quietly, or say aloud. My thoughts are not me. Thoughts are passing by like paper ships. Thoughts are not me. They flow through me. I witness thinking and thoughts like I witness and observe a beautiful flower or cloud in the sky. I observe them but they are not me. They are thoughts rippling through the surface of my mind while l look at them from the stillness within me.
Our brains respond primitively and instinctually to stress by going into survival monkey or lizard mind. The wisdom traditions teach us that our un-regulated mind reacts instead of responding so let’s become like a great ocean that remains undisturbed by the turbulence above. Let the endless flow of automatic thoughts roll by like those ocean waves as you take back your power. Without any struggle let’s begin to detach from the minds story.
I see the mind is a means and not an end. I respond to all thoughts with calm and ease. I can let go of thoughts now as easily as skipping a stone across a lake. They gently flow away from me in all directions and I know I am safe, undisturbed, at my core.
Breathe deeply once and then regularly and naturally breathe normally. Your throat chakras can now glow deep blue as you begin to re-connect with your true self, the self without the trauma and limbic nightmares of our pasts that hijack our present moment realities.
Let us now go beyond the mind clutter and the talking and intellectualising as we move intuitively through ourselves and go deeper into the emotional realms of the true self. This moves us further from the physical dimensions we have already traversed into the beautiful purple coloured space of our third eye chakras where we can see clearly now that the pain has gone.
THE EMOTIONS EFFECT (*trigger warning on emotions, yet we still suggest if you can, to push through the exercise and heal).
Let us begin to quiet the mind so our souls can speak. Our emotions are thoughts in our minds linked to all of the sensations in the body. Some emotions connect us while other emotions disconnect us from ourselves and others. As we begin to let go of emotions in our limbic brains take your awareness back to your breathing as we prepare to let go with forgiveness to ourselves for hanging onto disconnecting emotions and not nurturing connecting emotions.
Let us first explore painful emotions. Healthy emotions heal us and allow us to self regulate much faster than our minds. Emotions are the short hand of our brains that we can use now to express ourselves as we are from our core values and characters. Allow yourself to imagine people or events you have had or interacted with in your life that were emotionally negative for you. Who comes to mind? Allow the images and the faces to rush past you as you notice some, more than others. What feelings do you experience? Where do you feel these emotions in your body? The simplest way to identify emotions is to listen to your body now. Where do you feel these emotions in your body? What name have you got for this emotion? Emotions hurt us and then heal us. They hurt because at the time they helped us cope with experiences and events that the mind could not. Today they can begin to heal us as we realise the experiences and events are gone, yet the emotion remains. Let us practice our emotions one more time.
Now we breathe and let go realising that thoughts are not who we are and emotions are from remembering what happened. Today the effect is entirely within you and you have the permission and the power to start to release it now. Breathe in new loving light and exhale old emotions encased in that powerful light that no longer serve you. Say to yourself today, painful emotions no longer serve me. Once more. painful emotions no longer serve me.
Use your awareness to look up in your imagination. Look up and see a bright white seagull flying past you and feel the perfect warmth of sun on your face. Now, what is the first happiest emotion that comes to mind?
Where do you feel it?
Liberate yourself and love yourself right now in the depth of the silence. Consciously breathe in and out and really try to feel a sense of the wonder and mystery that surrounds you now. Right now in the present moment. The place you are now and always will be.
Breathe deeply once and then regularly and naturally breathe.
Let your attention and energy shift further into your spiritual being. Your spiritual nature within that is beyond any feeling your body can sense, any thinking the mind can do, any feeling your body and mind can muster. Float into the boundless dimensions of your Sacred Self and become aware of the silence in your center. You have the power to self regulate any and all emotions that are messengers that we release as the process of life moves forward.
THE SPIRITUAL EFFECT
Let us bring our awareness to all things spiritual right now as we enter into the forth segment of Sacred Self. Here the crown Chakra is activated to reveal openminded connection to all things spiritual. Things that are beyond the bounds of matter.
What does silence feel like to you right now?
Our centering word now is – Loving Light. Now we can remember that yoga is a light which once lit will never dim. Yoga brings connection to God, self and other. All of self and all of other.
Bring your awareness to your soul. You don’t have to know exactly what it is or what it looks like, just bring your awareness as much as you can to the concept of your soul.
Use your imagination and let the place you’re in have a rooftop that becomes open through the power of your wondrous imagination. Through your meditation practice you have become light enough to float. Zoom out over your body to the top of the room, float upwards and look back at your house, your area that surrounds you as you rise upwards in imagination. Rise up enough to see the wild animals in the forests. See the blow from a whale in the deep blue sea, and the turtles that swim by along the ocean currents that look as if they are flying in their watery paradise. See the birds of the sky and greet them with wordless love and appreciation. Float higher still. Zoom out further and see the blue ball you’re lying on and notice all else whizzing and hurtling by at lightening speed.
Everything is safe and nothing is out of place in the cosmic dance you can see before you as blue meets the black and white of the Universe. You realise it is darkness lit by love. All in perfect natural order. There is so much bright white light around you. No one knows where the light comes from, but it comes. It just is in its is-ness. The big bang is still transforming and expanding just like you. It is all based and deeply rooted in light and love and connection. You and everything else now are connected in an eternal peace that passes all understanding. One day you will take this journey from body to the outer reaches for real once again and you will realise that you have been here before, so you will easily be able to be still and know the I Am and the is-ness of it all as it rests blissfully, beyond time and space. It rests like you do well above fear and separation in the comfort of truth and love and being.
Intuitively see your spiritual self as gentle, warm and white light emanating from within you.
The yoga effect of connection will vibrationally align you to be in tune to the life force of the Universe that made your body, mind and soul. It is an unlimited and omnipotent, loving and kind force that will hold you in perfect and blissful safely for all eternity. Your yoga obliterates boundaries because it takes you beyond the physical dimension. Your yoga union makes external things become an integral part of your internal experience.
THE DESTINATION EFFECT
As we end this journey of connecting aspect to aspect and segment to segment know that your job is to keep them all connected. We allow situations outside of ourselves to disconnect us and leave a fragmented self. This is the game of life. Yoga meditation daily to practice the yoga effect solves this problem with the ease of spiritual connection. Each time you practice it gets easier to connect the dots that are the sacred segments of yourself. Low to high. Small to big. You now can feel gratitude for the peace that is within you, the peace that surpasses all understanding as gratitude is your highest yoga. Use a shortened version of The Yoga effect as you improve the practice for yourself every day. Use this video once a month or moon cycle for reconnection.
Remembering the words of Patanjali it is important to remember, as you go about your day that when you experience the incredible benefits of the yoga effect that connects you to you. Speaking of the yoga effect Patanjali that compiled the yoga sutras said that “When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all of your thoughts break their bonds. Your mind transcends limitations; your consciousness expands in every direction; and you find yourself in a new, great and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive and you discover yourself to be a greater person than you ever dreamed yourself to be.”
Yoga is about the journey of synchronicity from body-matter to mind-chatter, to deep emotions that open the doorways to your soul. THIS IS THE YOGA WITHIN! Om mani padme hum which means praise to the Jewel in the Lotus. To me this is the same as the concept of Namaste. The Jewel in the middle of the lotus is your Sacred Self!
For more information on The Yoga Effect, Mark L Lockwood, or to do our course in transforming yourself, and your depression and stress and every other block, sign up for the course and get the book here.