Signs of Spiritual Progress — 2
Yesterday, I spoke about some of the outer signs of progress — there were others, desire to have non-veg food, alcoholic drinks, chewing tobacco — all habits inimical for spiritual progress fell away one by one. Chewing tobacco was the toughest one as I kept giving it up and kept continuing. This happened thrice — the third time I got severe boils in my mouth which prevented me from opening my mouth and thus I had difficulty in speaking and eating. After three days I recovered and after that I completely stopped as the message from Swamiji to his errant child was loud and clear — stop or else!
I had started feeling the vibrations pretty early — maybe something to do with my previous birth. In 2015, in Rajkot Swamiji had told five of us that we had done a lot of penance in our previous birth, so, maybe because of that I started feeling the vibrations very early, right from day 1 in fact. The vibrations start inside the skin layer on the scalp and move downwards in circular motions, if they go below the vishuddhi chakra then my eyes shut and I meditation just happens. Vibrations on the chakras can be felt — literally like the heart is beating in the chakra, the experiences are difficult to describe in words.
While attending shibirs the vibrations come in waves as they wash the body from the base of the spine upwards to the scalp. One begins to get fragrances of rose, sandalwood, jasmine and some which are absolutely unearthly and divine. You start seeing divine signs in the sky — in the cloud formations — it could be Om or trishul or the image of some deity.
While meditating your pulse really goes down, as I run the marathon, I am used to wearing a Garmin sports watch which gives all the readings. During meditation the pulse goes down to the mid-forties. The breathing really slows down and the mind becomes blank — very few thoughts and sometimes complete blank, a void, after the eyes open one feels that it has just been a few minutes but more than an hour has gone by. Once while travelling with Swamiji, a discussion on what one sees during meditation was going on — I mentioned I do not see anything, it is like I am in a dark benevolent tunnel, and he responded — I too don’t see anything. I shut up after that, as I did not know what to say!
There are some experiences which are very intense and beyond description, some have been given in the book ‘Grace at Every Step — My Spiritual Journey with Samarpan’, which is available on Amazon.
