Progressing along in my yog sadhana, my mind started to awaken to truths that though they may have been around, were special to me as they unfolded to me, personally. Short one liners would appear in the minds lake along with their realisation. The whole process is like the blooming of a thought bud into a full flower realisation. A process that I enjoy thoroughly as it still continues.

Finding it pompous to post them as “jyoti” kahats – jyoti says or quotes by me 🙄 – I found an ingenious way to deflect them to my studio nomenclature, a nom de plume if you may. They have been posted on social media as they emerge but here I bring them together in a bouquet for those who may want to feel the fragrance, as I do when i reflect upon them. They are to be enjoyed at leisure and I keep coming back to them as new understandings unfold and may add more or refresh the existing from time to time. The reader may find their own understandings from them as they are pretty self-explanatory too.

I begin not in sequence but with my signature theme of Kurma- the turtle. Since childhood I had a passion for collecting suns and turtle figurines and they both figure in my studio logo, mostly online! The symbolism for both are many and I am not going into that here.

Copyright for the images used in the following notes is dedicated to the world wide web from where I sourced them unabashedly taking care, as much as I could, that there were no issues but I guessed if they are not marked in some way, it was okay, if not we will find out I’m sure. The content is all mine and as always readers are cautioned to use their own discretions to agree or not.

मंथन स्वाध्याय और गुरूकृपा द्वारा आत्मिक स्पर्श

With inner churning, introspection and grace of the guru, the light touch of the divine is experienced on the soul.
As we step on to and progress on our chosen spiritual path a time comes when emotions and the mind are churned by positive and negative passions; at that moment by self study and grace of the Guru, one gets a glimpse of the Inner Knowingness. During the churning as the inner toxins emerge the steady disciple by self study and the grace of the guru flips the negatives into positives and reclaims the innocence of sahaj and feels the touch of divine love.
The sadhak may then exclaim in wonder, as I did with an outpouring of love for the guru. “You are not this body of flesh and bones that sleeps decays and dies, you are immortal Consciousness!!” तुम देह नहीं नश्वर नासी, तुम अल्लख निरंजन अविनासी”, says Yogiraj Siddhanath, “I am spirit, I am truth, I am love divine, this body mind, a dream of mine.” The yogi practitioner through the churning sees the bridge that connects the human to the divine.

Provoke Thought

Positive agitation births, makes conducive the environment to birth pearls of wisdom. galaxies of infinite realisations. “A consolidated mind is a beautiful mind,” says my guru Yogiraj Siddhanath, a name you will hear repeated many times in all my writings. In spiritual practice a positive stimulation, initiated by the vivek buddhi, leads to rediscovering many truths for the sadhak. Often the popular belief is that meditation profferes a thoughtless state of calm. From personal experience I can say that the mind in a calm manner studies its experiences and as clarity improves nuggets of realisations rise to the fore to be further savoured. It is the very stillness of the mind that allows this steadfast speculation.
True Gurus encourage this quality in their disciples, two of my favorites from the past are Adi Shankaracharya and Kabir who had mastered this to an art. Yogiraj Siddhanath, my satguru often agitates the disciple in order that they don’t fall into a stupor of mindless devotion. “Feel with the mind,” he says, “and think with the heart.”

Clarity begins at Home

Home here of course refers to the self enmeshed in the body of flesh, emotions, mind and intellect. Clarity comes with an intense practice and the self awareness arising from it. Swadhyaya a sub tenet of yog sadhana helps immensely in this. Unless we can see clearly our own motives and agendas without bias through the layers of our mind and emotion, through our intellectually collected information, seeing the external circumstantial occurrences with clarity is near impossible, I have realised. This was the first one in the series and therefore please do excuse the similarity to the very common christian adage about charity!

A Little light can Overcome a Lot of Dark

While watching My Little Pony with my children way back in the 1980’s there was an episode in which the ‘evil’ person, a centaur, half horse half man, had a huge bag pulsating with evil energy which he let loose on the hapless ponies. Let me stop for a moment and say I have never been an advocate of symbolising all good things as white and all evil as black realising how it reflects on a society discriminating based on colour. So here the dark is an opposite of light as in a flame of a candle in a dark room. In fact in spiritual experiences whenever I have experienced light, it has been colourless brilliance. To continue, every time the evil centaur opened the bag of darkness he cried in a thunderous voice, “Behold the power of Darkness”, and the power accompanied with some loud drumbeats would overcome everything, the trees, the river, the lands. Then the ponies managed to get a power of their own. So next time whilst the power of darkness was doing its dance of doom, the little pony opened her small bag and out popped a little rainbow, very minuscule in size, in a small faint voice the pony said, “and behold the power of light.” My girls would gasp at this and feel oh what could this little spark do against the mighty darkness, but lo behold if the rainbow didn’t quickly within a flash drive the centaur, his bag of destruction and the darkness away. I also felt the lesson learnt by my girls then has stood the test of time for them. So this visual was exactly apt for the realisation.
The rainbow of light is encapsulated within our body in the form of our Chakras. The moment we unleash this through yogic practice the dark dis ease of the body (physical, emotional, mental, intellectual) is enlightened. Alternately, a small flame can drive away the pitch darkness in a room. The only act required is to light that spark.
*a note to clarify that in this instance light is used to denote awareness and dark for ignorance, that peace and love can have no colour and or can be all colours. (this was in the original post and I am leaving it here).

I Have No Interest in what Krishna, Buddha, Jesus or Nanak Said, I only know my Satguru has shot me like an arrow and there’s no turning back.



(Sat) Gurus and Divine Guides come from time to time to give direction to an evolving humanity. They come with messages current to that time and age fashioned to awaken and enlighten the contemporary seeker.

Discerning disciples connect with these enlightened beings in every lifetime. Rather than the tradition or schools from the past, these souls find the Spirit in a living Satguru and flow the fast track current. One pointed concentration with vivek and sat buddhi they are magnetically drawn towards the source that is here and now. Some sleeping ones are awakened by the Enlightened One with a swift kick. Thus these realisations become real and immediate for the disciple connected with the living master from life to life.

Yog is a Way of Enlivingness



Yog popularly addressed as yoga is a way of enlightened, enlivened living. It facilitates being present in the moment, the here and now, allowing at the same instance to view the past, present and future.
Daily life becomes a celebration, joyous and liberated. Dissolved completely, flowering into love one cannot but radiate that perfume. Undisturbed and unfettered by the turmoil without. The photograph is the soil of our forest ashram in Pune, where I was introduced to true yog and enlivened living by a Satguru.

kriyayog;antidote



Kriya Yoga is an antidote to the vagrancies of a truant mind, by practice of this a force surfaces that overrides archaic patterns of thoughts. The result is an unadulterated vision and immersion.
There is a whole blog I have written on this topic you can find it here.

Perceive the Possibility of Infinity



That moment in yogic practice when awareness opens up to the possibility of infinity. The individual on the threshold of the experience, the distilled mind already knowing of its reality… an exquisite vast moment in time indeed. On the threshold of knowing the merging but not yet merged…
An awesome awareness of the individual knowing the consciousness can extend beyond the borders of their physical body, extend beyond even the earth and the solar system, into this universe and many universe.

Do Not Leave Your Mind/Ego with Your Shoes



The mind, the ego is your sense of self which is transformed to the realisation of your Self. The calming of the fluctuations and turbulence of the mind is the basis of yog sadhana. if you have already achieved it you need not enter at all, if you haven’t, leaving it behind you become part of a herd.
I have once again written a detailed blog on this, you can read it here.

If the Mind is Strong it Leads the Pran, If the Pran is Strong it Leads the Mind



Yogiraj Siddhanath, my Satguru instructed as training for practice, “जहाँ चित्त वहां प्राण” meaning where the mind goes there the pran follows. Following his instructions I realised through practice that depending on whether the pran was stronger or the mind, the stronger leads.
I realised that the Pran has an intelligence that by nature leads inwards. the mind by nature leads outwards. The Pran by nature is non-violent, by training the pran through pranayam, the mind is easily led towards Dharana- concentration. Realisations are still coming in about this in practice daily. Updates will follow. The play of the pran and mind, those who taste know. You may like to read more about how to practice dharana here.

In The Ocean be the Drop; In the Drop be the Ocean




In the ultimate stage of yog sadhana, self and god realisation is accomplished when the individual consciousness merges into the universal consciousness; often referred to as the merging of the drop into the ocean; whether the drop absorbs the ocean into itself or the ocean effacing the final layer of separation absorbs the drop into itself, is the in the purview of personal experience. In this concept success is in the effacement of the ego drop and a becoming of the larger vaster consciousness.
For the yogi in action though- the karma yogi- active in the ocean of samsara the feat could be different. Here in fact the same yogi needs an awareness to not dissolve in the ocean or get carried away by the tsunami of action losing identity of individual awareness and becoming one of the crowd.
Maintaining vivek buddhi, the yogi is to navigate the ocean of samsara, the cyclic wheel of birth and rebirth. The karma yogi through informed intuitive action clears the karmic ledger accrued by past actions without creating new karma.
This thought came as I watched the streets swelling with protesters of BLM, having myself protested in agitations for farmer rights in India, I have a personal understanding of how the effect can take over the cause and how narratives can pull the actor into the role until losing sight of that steady inner spark of the spirit one starts to falter towards the ever changing outer glitter.
Adherence to yam and niyam, the first two tenets of yog affirms the yogi to interact with social injustices and discrepancies. In fact it is an inherent part of yog sadhana. To do that while maintaining an awareness on the inner climate of radiating love to all, even the ones perceived to be on the “other” and “opposite” side is the challenge that many can fail.


Learning from the texts of Dead Gurus is like warming your hands on a fire; learning from a Living Guru is like sitting on the Fire.

This early morning thought was a culmination of years of practice with a living Satguru, of numerous initiations by my satguru into evermore subtle, powerful and distilled practices to expand individual consciousness, a result also of many such lifetimes learning directly in the presence of living gurus and finding the path to the living guru in every lifetime.

It is a practice that i have been doing of sitting on a funeral pyre to burn my impurities which I later found was a technique give in the Vignyana Bhairav Tantra, the living satguru having unlocked this from the latent memory bank during an initiation at the ashram. The living satguru make seamless our lives one from the other so it’s like we wake up from one life into another and carry on from where we left off. Often Gurus and disciples move from lifetime to lifetime or disciples are guided to other living masters by the previous ‘dead’ ones. That has been my experience and realisation.

It is a great comfort to many to read scriptures, join organisations and take for themselves masters who have passed and left behind a legacy. The safety net of the qualities attributed to these gurus are not volatile and cannot change from pupil to pupil and that becomes a relief to many as they can manoeuvre placidly in these waters. While a living satguru tests the disciples constantly, keeping them in a high state of alertness so they don’t fall into familiar intellectual pitfalls.

Though many masters are able to communicate from beyond the veil, I personally feel a living Satguru can and is able to take direct action in the pupils evolution towards the spirit. While texts have to be interpreted and hidden nuances nurture an intellectual pursuit instead of a direct experience, however enjoyable that may be. The process can be very slow and take a long time to bring extraordinary effect.

A living satguru, however in an instant can burn the veil of acquired mindsets, flights of fancy and disproportionate ego of understanding, leaving the student disciple with a clarity beyond clear understanding.

Living Master Dead Letter, a conversation with my Satguru Yogiraj Siddhanath

Sanyas, a state not a stage

The varna ashram dharma qualifies sanyas as the fourth stage of life after brahmachrya, grihastha and vanaprastha. Yet sanyas is a state of being, to live steeped in divine consciousness. This state can be achieved and maintained in every stage of life, whether adolescence, householder or retiree. Living is a state of sa nyasa, understanding the body as divine, living in total inner and outer purity does not require an age to achieve, only an inner consciousness often carried over from past life.Mind you here purity is not another word for morality but an innocence of all vice and virtue.

वर्ण आश्रम धर्म ब्रह्मचर्य, गृहस्थ और वानप्रस्थ के बाद संन्यास को जीवन के चौथे चरण के रूप में योग्य बनाता है। फिर भी संन्यास ईश्वरीय चेतना में डूबे रहने की एक अवस्था है। इस अवस्था को जीवन के प्रत्येक चरण में प्राप्त किया जा सकता है और बनाए रखा जा सकता है, चाहे वह किशोरावस्था हो, गृहस्थ हो या सेवानिवृत्त। जीना संन्यास की स्थिति है, शरीर को दिव्य समझना, कुल आंतरिक और बाहरी पवित्रता में रहने के लिए उम्र की आवश्यकता नहीं होती है, केवल एक आंतरिक चेतना अक्सर पिछले जीवन से ली जाती है। ध्यान रखें कि शुद्धता नैतिकता के लिए दूसरा शब्द नहीं है लेकिन सभी दोषों और गुणों की एक मासूमियत II

That’s all in this segment. I will be revisiting and updating as new realisations come. You are welcome to share and subscribe if you want to read more. You will receive no unwanted mail or newsletters or nudges from moi. Too occupied in my own pathways for any of that. Cheers. Namaste.

This is a quick blog conceptualised and written at speed on a question that comes up time and again. It came up for discussion during one of my class and then took on a life of its own, as most things do with me. So here are my thoughts on it, anyone can as usual, form their own opinion about it.

The question started with why one should meditate and what makes them continue. I add these others as subsidiary concerns, what is the best technique, which teacher or Guru we should go to, how expensive are the courses and how long should we practice to become good at it, how flexible should I be for practicing etc etc etc.

Now I am going to replace some words in the above para and see what we get. Why should I play a sport, what is the best sport, which coach should I go to, how much investment is required for the equipment, how arduous is the practice, what level of physical fitness am I looking at etc etc etc.

Alternately, let us apply this to any other activity we want to indulge in, singing, dancing, cooking, playing an instrument…. Yes, that’s right you get the gist.

In all these activities is needed the same ingredients, training, commitment and a desire to learn, and this applies to meditation as well. Being meditation does not make it different, at least that’s my understanding from the experience of sharing a practice since over 21 years with various levels of practitioners, complete novice to adepts.

Modern usage has made meditation a mystical and esoteric field, almost as if one has to be esoteric and mystical to practice or teach it! Far from it, according to me.

“Practice the necessary means to achieve the necessary end,” I have heard my satguru Yogiraj Siddhanath repeat many a times. This practical approach is what endeared me to his teachings.

Having set that as a perimeter let us begin, feel free to replace the word meditation with any activity of your choice and vice versa.

The Choosing of the Game

The following modes are some of the ways in which, according to me, we are led to a practice, be it spiritual, a form of sport, an art or leisure activity.

Let us begin with a hereditary inclination, the sport is already in the DNA, you are a child prodigy. All you have to do is get a bit of training and the genes take over. Even you don’t know why you are so good at this activity. You sit and you melt into meditation, no effort, you are five years old; you play an instrument or sing like you have trained for years but you are only 10. You drive a ball, in tennis or golf or cricket and the body moves in tune, you are a pro and you have just started. People around you who have been training for years look at you with awe. In yogic terms we would call such souls past life practitioners, taking off from where they left off.

Then there is the family you are born into, your elders are musicians, you are trained from birth. Just by being around grown ups who ride, play polo or chess or tennis, billiards, carrom. The Bhagavad Geeta, sanskrit mantra chanting and their meaning, the Vedas and the Upanishads are part of a daily discussion; you learn all the various traditional rituals, what flowers to use for which deity, which of the Gods are angered by what, the chants for protection, for bringing luck in exams. Your education into meditation starts at birth, you may or may not take to it but the opportunity is there. You may love it or hate it, may move to another field or flow into the already prepared field.

Often parents want to live their life through their children or want them to do what they couldn’t do as kids, did not have the opportunity, nobody cared to teach them, whatever. Or they are pursuing a hobby and take you along. So here is a yoga teacher next door, a music academy, a paatu maami (music teachers, female) who comes home to teach. Sometimes you chafe at this but slowly you develop an interest and love for the teaching, the instrument or sport. Reluctance gives way to a fondness for it, you like sitting in silence, to watch your breath. While the same sport or practice may just leave others unaffected or unimpressed by the activity.

Influenced by friends we take up an activity as means for being with like minded people, we join a club, learn to play cards or alternately go for a yoga class. Same reason we try a meditation session because a friend recommended it.

Sometimes it’s a passing fad, a fashion statement of the day, like everyone is playing golf or doing yoga so maybe it is the ‘in’ thing to do. Trying a fad you sometimes get hooked to a practice.

It could also be a recommendation from a doctor or psychologist for mental and physical health reasons, start meditating to relieve tension, start walking or some milder physical activity.

In all the above scenarios, whatever motivated you, the fundamental requirement to carry on with the chosen sport or activity, you have to have an inner curiosity and interest. Only then are you able to sustain the practice. That is the basic common denominator, to want to explore the possibilities of the practice after choosing it.

In a short simple statement, as I understand, one can meditate only by choosing to, whatever the path that has led one here, one has to make the choice. Just like in any other sport, you choose to play

Investing in Equipment.

One of the primary concerns of people looking at starting a practice is how much it is going to cost. You can buy simple and start, most meditation centres, yoga studios, sports clubs have standard essentials to start practice with.

Remember there is cheaper equipment and very expensive, it’s for you to choose. And you don’t have to buy everything all at one time! Not having an expensive yoga mat or bolster, a state of the art racquet, surfboard or ski, is not going to take away from the pleasure of the activity.

In meditation all you need is a mat, which can be a shawl, a cushion or a used blanket from home.

Continuity in Training.

To start all you may require is intention and a keen desire, but it is continued commitment that starts to improve proficiency. A desire to come back again and again for training.

When we say we meditate it’s a popular term but what we are actually doing is practicing the art of concentration that leads us into meditation. In the yogic practice Dharana comes before Dhyan.

Dharana is exactly like the training put in for learning or excelling at any sport or hobby. If you want to ride that bike, surfboard or ski, if you want to hit that ball, you have to keep training. If you want to sing or play the sitar or violin, you have to go through the stages of training. Ditto with meditation, Dharana is the training of the mind, bringing it again and again to a point of concentration to enable it to flow into Dhyan, since that is what you signed up for.

“To ease disease of random mind, a remedy suitable we must find,” says Yogiraj in his poem. “A rythmic breathing tension free.” To achieve that state tools are given that may involve a vision, a sound, a repetitive chant, a pattern of breathing. To move into meditation the training in Dharana has to be put in. Some days practice will go well and some days not so well, but if you are keen to learn you will not give up. If you try to get on a bicycle twice and fall and give up you will never learn to ride it. The effort to put into meditate is as simple as this.

Once the basic skill is learnt then you start to enjoy the process. You have got on that bike, you are standing on the surfboard and now you can enjoy the breeze on your hair, you can see the view around you, you are no more concentrating on the angle of your body or placement of your hand. It becomes second nature to you, you are not constantly struggling. The training starts to become pleasurable and at every opportunity, at every moment of leisure from your chores you want to get back to it, you dream about it. You have learnt to swim, you are no more thinking of the stroke to stay afloat, you put your mind only to perfect it.

In meditation too, as the technique of Dharana that you have chosen takes root, the mind from a turbulent and unruly state will deepen into a still pool. You will start to experience moments of peace and stillness while you continue to perfect your concentration.

As in all other training some people will be better at this before others, depending on the fitness of the body or the mind that you already had to begin the training with.

And the most wonderful factor is you can start enjoying it before perfecting it!

Choosing A Coach.

In the marketplace of today, choices abound with instructors and gurus promoting their expertise. No more trolling the vast Himalayan ranges looking for a guru, which of course you can do if thats what you want to. Though believe me many of them can be found on the internet today, having students from all over the globe to help put them on the world map. Once you have decided what you want to invest your interest, time and money in, take a tour. Look at the options available, most schools give some free classes, you can start with those. If you have already been inducted into a practice, treat it like any training be at it with the help and guidance of your instructor or guru.

It is important to form a rapport with the teacher to have confidence and a feeling of trust. Some teachers are harsh, some are kind, see which nature suits you. Some students do well under what to others may seem an unduly hard trainer, so be wise and choose the one who will help you excel. The teacher should be able to inculcate a love for the practice and see to your progress. In any case if you feel in any way consistently threatened you should look for alternate options. A disgruntled and dissatisfied mind is not a tool easy to use for training. Remember you as student are in charge of your continued attendance in that class.

If the coach is bad for you, change the coach not the sport!! It would be foolish to give up something that is giving you peace and happiness for a spat with a teacher or a disagreement on views.

The veracity of the training is in the result accrued. If the practice is not bringing about the expected outcome, read transformation in the spiritual field; one has to check the training and check oneself. There is obviously a disconnect, some element missing. As a sportsperson you will look for specific tips, a more professional coach, a new mentor; as a sadhak search for the missing spark which will lead to the enlightenment, a satguru, a mantra, a breath!

I have tried to write this as a practical ready reckoner for seekers beginning a yog sadhana, without too many nuances. My more extensive blog on the Satguru, Gurus and Disciples you can read here.

Wishing you a wonderful journey of adventure on a path that has given me immense stillness and liberty.

Do feel free to write in any questions that may arise from it. I will be happy to answer them in my own style while hoping it helps in some way.