Fascinating Experience During the Yoga Class

My dear friends and colleagues

During the past yoga year I have enjoyed a series of spiritual experiences that for me have been very special as intensity, mystery and beauty. I feel a humble desire to share some of these with you and by doing so to offer a modest something in return for what was given to me and perhaps to encourage you to also share some of your beautiful experiences that you might have had this year…

One such fascinating experience has taken place on a Monday evening, during the yoga class, immediately after the Easter break, when we have had an “all-years” course held at Hammersmith. The class was given by our colleague Body and it had started with a brief speech about the meaning of Easter and the intention that we should aim to focus our attention at the level of the heart, and aim to remain centred at this level throughout the class.

Shortly after the warming up exercises have started, following the instructions received above and being focused at the level of the heart, I have felt a very fine, soft subtle vibration, so fine it was almost like a gentle touch of a butterfly wing, like this butterfly was alive and has awaken in my chest, and with a very soft stir, it has instantly filled me up with a deep state of unconditional compassion and boundless love… I have felt as my entire being has opened wide from deep within my heart and was pounding out towards the world with a craving desire of pure existence… the feeling I was experiencing was breathtaking and what followed was spiralling out in a magical world of bliss. My inner being seemed to have expanded, beyond the class, the church, beyond the street, beyond the limits of the Earth and beyond anything I have ever imagined, becoming gigantic and swallowing everything within. I have started to feel that I am gigantic, completely and truly one with the Universe. The external universe, as I have known it was included entirely in my being. When we have then realised the first asana, Padahastasana, I felt that my Muladhara chakra was colossal and immersed entirely in a state of unity with the Maha-Muladhara chakra. It wasn’t the normal process of attention and gradual attuning I knew. My mind was suspended and I was suddenly realising the magic Unity between the microcosm and the Macrocosm. Like you would dissolve something totally and there is nothing there any longer to make the separation, I was dissolved. I have felt how my base chakra was never anything else but an integral part of Maha-Muladhara chakra, there was no separation line, it was One and it was gigantic. I felt how the Macrocosm and the microcosm are magically united in an unquestionable unity, and the separation has never existed and in reality it does not exist. This astonishing blissful state of UNITY with the Universe has continued, at different intensities and levels in my being, and in my consciousness throughout the entire class…as the attention was commuting with each asana I was becoming aware that my entire being was cosmic. My Anahata chakra was one with MahaAnahata chakra, Vishuddha chakra was one with MahaVishuddha chakra and so on…I have magically felt my chakras pulsating one by one as they were the power centres of the Universe, with no other separate identity from these. My body felt huge as it was the embodiment of the entire manifestation. I was no longer a separate individuality, there was no outer and inner…but only One continuous Divine UNITY.

I felt dissolved and immersed in pure light, being that light, being alive and having no limits or boundaries. In that state of “cosmic organism” I felt free, untouchable and eternal, giving birth to life and absorbing it back into myself…I was the essence and the power of life itself, I was entirely pulsating with a continuous fine movement, although I had no shape, I was the conscience, the move and the stillness beyond…The total state of Unity, bliss and freedom felt it’s synonym with pure existence…however the intensity and size of the full inner event that I experienced then remains beyond words…

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The second experience is a more recent one and it took place again on a Monday. That morning when I woke up and I did the consecration for the entire day I have felt as a response a huge emotion rushing throughout my being, and the thought that I will be meeting someone I love deeply has appeared into my mind. It was a soft intuition that the meeting will be that evening at the yoga class and my heart was pounding with an intense emotion of expectancy, joy, and love merging into one.
 
The kind of emotion that one would experience when they are due to go on a first date, or meet their lover after a long separation, a dear friend, a sister or a brother that you haven’t seen for many years. For more or less the entire day I felt that I was to participate in a surreal meeting that evening.
 
I have arrived late for the class that Monday, yet the feeling of meeting my beloved was continuing to raise my heart beat…I entered the class and I saw Raphael sitting at the front of the room, I also felt a huge presence as the one I was due to meet was already there in the room, my heart was pounding faster and I felt an immense joy and gratefulness for that presence as well as a great impulse to immediately kneel, which I did.

As I kneeled down my eyes and entire being felt drawn and absorbed towards the front left side of the room, somewhat beyond Raphael’s body and the Shambala Yantra and looking in that direction I saw the outline of an enormous breathtaking and colossal being standing gloriously alive and triumphant there. The image was vivid, celestial and extraordinary and as I was looking speechless and overwhelmed I heard Raphael’s voice saying “The Cosmic Power Tripura Bhairavi…” as almost one would say in a surreal divine synchronicity when introducing someone…I felt elated with joy and almost screamed like a child. Raphael was teaching a lesson about my beloved, the Cosmic Power Tripura Bhairavi. From all the Great Cosmic Powers I have always felt a particular attraction and abandonment in front of Tripura Bhairavi… that evening I felt embraced, loved and blessed by God as I was adoring one of my sublime friends, sister, mother, being that I deeply love…it was a true celestial, sacred and bewildering meeting for my soul…
 
Throughout the course, the Cosmic Power Tripura Bhairavi has continued to bless the entire class with her Grace and presence and as to increase my state of delight even further, I have suddenly realised that I was able to hear very clearly at the subtle level all the bija mantras for all the power centres in my body. This was a tremendous Grace for me, and I would like to say that with the exception of the bija mantra for Ajna chakra, with which I have practiced a 49 days tapas, for all the other bija mantras I have never ever heard them anywhere near as clear and as perfect as I was hearing them now. The sounds were perfectly clear, pure, the letters distinct and flowing into each other, much like a bell was making the sound and the reverberation was particularly powerful and crystal like clear. These sounds were appearing very clear and truly distinctive the moment I was entering into each of the asana. That evening I have felt as I was a sacred musical instrument, like a piano and each power centre, each chakra in my being was a different key, each key was clearly emitting a different sound and shortly after my the entire being become a symphony of harmonious and beautiful simultaneous sounds. They were all very pure sounds that were coming in me, from me and through me. Each sound through its purity seemed to cleanse my being at all levels and mysteriously I had the intuition that the sounds of the bija mantras were linked to the origins of the creation. It felt as there was no longer a body there, but only a magic resonating “piano”, a mystical musical instrument that was attuned at transmitting the Symphony of God through it. And it was doing so in a state of conscious elated happiness. I was participating to a sublime and delicate inner reality filled with sound, mystery and beauty.

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As a conclusion of this letter I feel that is perhaps important to say this and for all of us to know and remember: these realities exist continuously for all the human beings. They are not perceived through some merits of few gifted people, but they are entirely accessible here and now to all and each of us, more so through the Yoga practice. God bestows His Grace continuously and unconditionally and depends on each of us to perceive it openly, to purify our bodies and especially our minds and become aware of his presence. And for all of us at this Yoga course, our Spiritual Guide, Grieg is always here throughout this journey of discovering who we truly are…it depends on us to have the right attitude of openness, tremendous crave and raw curiosity for the spiritual world…very much like the attention, curiosity, abandonment and total focus children seem to have for anything they encounter when they play and learn.

I would like to thank God the Father for the Grace he endlessly bestows upon me and Our Spiritual Guide, Grieg for unconditional love and presence through which he continuously awakes me to the wonderful and sacred world of spiritual realities.

With love,
I.