Extract of the book Listening to the Stars
“Explain to me the yoga part,” said Ferhelin.
The Master Yogi asked her to sit for awhile. They found a place on the bank of the river and sat down on some large rocks.
“Let me give you an overview of this. Everything in Raja-Yoga is inter-connected. The knowledge is the base, but there are other practices that I would like to mention. In Raja-Yoga meditation, there are three different types of attitudes. The first relates to your attitude toward and with yourself. It is an interior peace experience, experimenting with relaxation and feeling the interior light. It is an experience that can be summed up in the phrase “Om Shanti”. “Om” means to be conscious, the soul, the spirit and “Shanti” means peace. In this state of meditation, you live the experience. ‘I am a conscious being and my nature is peace. I am peace. I am light.’ In other words, this is what you experience on this first level.”
Ferhelin attempted to follow the words of the Master, experiencing as a being of light and peace.
An angelical state
On the second level of practice, it is encountering the angelical experience. It is denoted by Avyakti1, that is an experience on another dimension of light, like that which exists in the angelical world, where everything is light or a luminous energy and includes the experience of double-light4. It is luminous and without weight.
The seedling stage
“The third level is deeper and requires greater dedication; it is the Parandham or Nirvana experience. It is another dimension of light, golden-red in color, and in this, you experience your original form, as if you were a seedling of light. It can be understood as if it were our original home. To experience this stage, also called the seedling stage, you can imagine yourself as a star of light, shining in an ocean of light, and you can initiate an encounter with God. You, in your form as a shining star, floating and brilliant, swimming in and ocean of light, bathed in the light of the Source of all things, the qualities, God. It is as if you were bathing in the Sun, on a spiritual level.”
Ferhelin attempted to feel herself in that world of light, holding herself silent for a time.
“Good, I think that we should now go to the cabins. Do you agree, asked the Master Yogi.
They had drunk fresh water and eaten some fruit that they had brought with them, but the Master felt that it was time that they returned.
“How long are you going to be staying here,” asked the Master.
“Until the day after tomorrow,” said Ferhelin.
“I will leave tomorrow afternoon,” he said, answering her question.
Ferhelin said nothing, and then commented, “Well. Tomorrow morning early we could walk together again. What do you think?”
“Yes,” he answered while they walked toward the bridge.
Some minutes later they began to climb up the trail that they had descended earlier that morning.
Upon reaching the cabins, they said goodbye and went their separate ways.
They didn’t see each other again that day.
Being complete
In the early morning before dawn, Ferhelin drank her tea sitting before the fireplace. She had been awakened by lightening and thunder and decided to go to the dining hall.
Listening to the falling rain, she reflected about her first experiences in the Rockies. In her mind she received a visit from Fernando Pessoa. “To be complete, be whole, nothing in you can be exaggerated or excluded.” “How grand are the poets, translating life into words,” she thought.
The magnitude of awareness that she had reached during those first days in the Rockies transcended the knowledge that she so dearly loved and to which she had dedicated her life to in those years of study.
She felt as if she had experienced moments of partnership with life. She felt called to see life from a new perspective, to perceive new fragrances that life was presenting to her.
The sound of the rain that she so loved, was the background music of those moments in the deep of the night.
That sound was a manifestation of a partnership that became a moment that could not be violated. She felt sitting there alone, in complete harmony.
She looked over the notes that she had made the nights before. To study and learn were habits that could not be set aside. The fireplace reflected the light that came from the flames. It was only her second day in the Rockies.
The bright flashes of the lightening invaded the dining hall through the windows. The thunder, the lightening and the flames of the fireplace constituted a natural orchestra of sound and light.
She pictured the mountain, with the trees and the rocks participating in the concert of nature.
Her tea was almost finished. It was time to return to her cabin and sleep again so that she could awake and accompany the Master Yogi in another walk through the region.
The rain appeared to be ending.
“I will go to sleep,” decided Ferhelin. She thought about the hotels in which she had stayed, the places and their facilities, in which the accommodations were considered modern. “Rarely have I ever felt such a partnership with life, even in a cabin this rustic,” she thought as she walked back to her cabin.
This text is an extract of the Book: Listening to the Stars – Wisdom in the Canadian Rockies
Author: Herbert Santos
Publisher: Trafford Publishing
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