The following is an excerpt from my new book:
Memoirs of a Rennaissance Man:
Purifying the Mind, Body, and Spirit…and the 40 Days That Follow…
An Aspirant’s Account
The Grace of Shuniya
The crisp Texas weather continues. During my practice today I consciously brought my awareness to the state of Shuniya (shoo-nee- yuh). In essence, this is where we bring our mind to a place of “zero”. In Kundalini Yoga, the goal of Shuniya is to assist you in improving your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being and health, enhancing your self-esteem and self-confidence and enabling you to develop healthy and fulfilling relationships with yourself, others, nature and the transcendental aspect of the Divine.
What does “zero” or “nothing” mean? I’ve had many people ask me how it’s possible to essentially have the mind be blank. Shuniya describes a state of awareness in which the mind is brought to complete stillness, perfect harmony, neutrality, and peaceful calm. It is a state of emptiness, where no positive or negative is assigned to things: there is no good or bad, there is no trying, no searching, no desire, no wanting. We are simply witnessing our thoughts.
I firmly believe that when Jesus talked about being the “witness” he wasn’t talking about going out and converting others to the Christian faith. Instead, he was talking about the yogic practice of emptying the mind of judgement or pre-conceived ideas and simply be the “watcher”. When we eliminate the idea of “right” and “wrong”, “good” or “bad”, “better” or “worse”, we acknowledge that everything is of God and is all part of the Divine Plan. This allows us the space of “trust” in all that is, thereby creating peace within. Many of us say we trust in God, but how many of us truly put it into practice? How many of us give thanks to God no matter what our perception of a situation is?
God is the Ultimate Lens. God knows the plan, sees the Divine Matrix, and continues to Create the perfect atmosphere for us to remember that we are One with the Divine Source.
From the state of “shuniya” things can simply unfold, without you having to “try” or “do” anything. You just create the required empty space and then watch how things happen while they unfold.
This is the state we try to reach through Kundalini Yoga and Meditation. Learning to develop this internal quiet offers numerous and profound benefits, such as awakening the body’s innate self-healing potential and facilitating self-knowledge and self-transformation. Shuniya allow us the dedicated space to help us uncoil our own potential, so we can experience for ourselves that nothing has to come from the outside: all is in us, we are the storehouse of your totality.
The Sanskrit word “yoga” comes from the word “to yoke”, which means “to join together”, “to unite”, “to unify”. Yoga is the union of the individual’s consciousness with the infinite consciousness. Viewing yoga only as a physical exercise system for vitality and health does not do it justice, and neither does seeing it solely as a psychological system that develops the potential of the psyche.
Essentially, yoga is a relationship, a union, of body, mind and soul; of self (the individual consciousness) and Self (the Universal Consciousness). It is not a religion, it is a spiritual discipline of self-actualization and self-realization, of awareness unfolding. Apart from bringing many physical and mental benefits, it also takes you on a journey of finding your inner self. It is you relating to your spirit, your essence, your higher self, in the most personal inner relationship. In Kundalini Yoga this is called “Sat Nam: Truth is my Identity”.
Each morning as I practice, I ask my Highest Self and Universal Consciousness what it is that I should write each day. What ideas would I like to share with the world that have so greatly benefitted me? Today, it came back to me: Discuss shuniya.
As this thought was dropped into my consciousness, I looked up at the tree that was right in front of me during my practice. As my consciousness searched for God in the world, I saw the tree’s branches move ever so slightly as a mild breeze drifted across our backyard.
“This is God,” I thought. For everyone who ever asked why God doesn’t present Herself in physical form, I would say, She does, every day; every moment; every second the presence of the Divine is with us. We simply have to sit still enough to notice. This is shuniya. This is stillness. This is zero. By creating the space in our heart and our mind without the clutter of the day-to-day we rediscover God. Could there be
Sat Nam!
To purchase Memoirs of a Renaissance Man, click the link below. Ebook and paperback available.