Self-inquiry Meditation with Swami Shankarananda

The areas of life can be divided into: 1) Health 2) Career 3) Relationship 4) Spirituality (which underlies all of them).   1. Health/Body Bring your body into your awareness. Make the statement, ‘I give myself permission to hear the answers of the Self’. Divide the body into sections: the head and throat, the chest, the stomach, the genital region, the legs and feet, and the arms. Close your eyes and locate any feeling of physical disease or discomfort in the body. Make an A-Statement: ‘I feel sickness/pain in my head. I feel sickness/pain in my stomach.’ What do I need to do about this? Do I need to see a doctor or a practitioner? Do I need to take medicine or a remedy? Do I need to change my diet? Is the condition psychological? What is one step I can take to feel healthier? a) Should I walk more? b) Should I do yoga? c) Should I swim? d) Should I jog? e) Which exercise might give me more energy? f) Do I need to change my diet? g) Do I need to be more disciplined in my diet? h) What food should I stay away from? i) What food should I embrace? j) How can I accept and love my body more?   2. Career Bring your work, service or career into your awareness. Make the statement, ‘I give myself permission to hear the answers of the Self’. Where inside you does the block in your career seem to show up? - Is this block sadness, fear or anger? - Make an A-Statement. - Do I need to communicate something to someone? - Do I need to forgive someone at work? - Do I need to change my attitude? - Do I need advice or help in this area? - Do I need to take a break? - What is one step I can take to increase my creativity or interest at work? - Do I need to change jobs? - Does the block have to do with money? - Do I need to spend less? - Do I need to spend more?   3. Relationship/Family Bring your relationships and those you love into your awareness. Make the statement, ‘I give myself permission to hear the answers of the Self’. Where inside you does the block in your relationships seem to show up? - Do I need to forgive myself? - Do I need to forgive someone else? - Is there a conversation I need to have? - Make an A-Statement. - Am I carrying some of that person’s pain? - Do I need to speak lovingly to that person? - Do I need to change my attitude? - Do I need to give something up? - Do I need to accept something? - Do I need to give more love? - Do I need to spend more time with that person? - Do I need to love that person in my meditation?   4. Spirituality Bring your spiritual life into your awareness. Make the statement, ‘I give myself permission to hear the answers of the Self’. Am I growing spiritually or am I blocked? Where in my body does the block show up? What can I do to get rid of the block and to increase the Shakti? - Do I need to meditate more? - Do I need to be more authentic? - Do I need to let something go? - Do I need to accept something?

Say to yourself: Oh my mind, think positive thoughts. Think well of me. Think well of others. Notice the feeling tone that comes with each of these three statements. Click here to purchase Swamiji's book 'Self-Inquiry: Using Your Awareness to Unblock Your Life'.

Close your eyes and search for feelings or ideas within yourself. Is there joy inside (confidence, satisfaction, pleasure)? Is there love inside (gratitude)? Is there clarity or wisdom inside? Is there peace or contentment inside? Is there energy inside? Is there doership or ambition inside? In each case, locate where in the body the feeling is held. Click here to purchase Swamiji's book 'Self-Inquiry: Using Your Awareness to Unblock Your Life'.

The next time you feel depressed, unbalanced or contracted, turn your attention inside, become aware of the state of your inner world, and ask yourself, ‘Who is in here?’ or ‘Who have I let in?’ You will be surprised at what you understand from this simple inquiry. Hint: If there’s someone with whom you’re somewhat obsessed, or even thinking about a lot, it’s likely that they are ‘inside you’. You should remember, however, that sometimes this happens in the unconscious, and when you discover who is inside you, it comes as a revelation. Ask, ‘Is it my mother? My father?’ ‘My spouse?’ ‘The culture?’ ‘A false or limited “I”?’ ‘Some imagined person who views me critically?’ Once you find who it is you’ve let in—and you can also find how you have weakened yourself to enable them to come in—politely ask them to leave. Now call on the Self, God, Guru or Consciousness, and ask that your inner space be expanded and empowered.

You can proxy another person when that person’s feeling invades you or when you are a well-wisher of that person and you want to help them. In either of these cases, proxying has a magical effect. Since Consciousness is one, we can work with another’s feeling inside of ourselves and we can help another in this way and we also can decontaminate ourselves when we’ve been affected by another’s feeling. Use proxying. To proxy, you look at the feeling within you and you assume that it comes from the other person and you make statements, as you would for yourself. You begin with A-Statements. You say, ‘I’m X …’—X being the other person— ‘and I feel angry. I feel sad. I feel scared’. You can be specific and find their underlying statements. ‘I’m X, I feel unlovable. I’m X, I feel weak. I’m X, I feel like a failure.’ To help the other person, when you come to the end of the A-Statements, you can make B-Statements. ‘I’m X and I feel optimistic. I’m X, I am capable. I’m X, I love myself.’ You can go seamlessly into G-Statements. ‘I’m X and I am Shiva.' Click here to purchase Swamiji's book 'Self-Inquiry: Using Your Awareness to Unblock Your Life'.

This is a streamlined version of personal inquiry for adept meditators: Discover where you hold the most second force, and make A-Statements. Keeping in mind that any second force or tension you hold is based on some sort of wrong understanding, ask yourself, ‘What do I have to do to shift this feeling?" Click here to purchase Swamiji's book 'Self-Inquiry: Using Your Awareness to Unblock Your Life'.

Look within. Scan the four chakras for tension. Find where you hold the most tension or second force. Give yourself A-Statements until you are satisfied that you have accurately described the feeling. Give yourself B- and G-Statements until a shift occurs. Meditate. Click here to purchase Swamiji's book 'Self-Inquiry: Using Your Awareness to Unblock Your Life'.

Read the following G-Statements. They are either directly from the Shaivite scriptures or glossed from them. With each one, you should watch how they impact you. See if they are easy to accept or not, and notice where they affect you. Do they go into your heart, your third eye? Do they uplift you? See if any of them open up a doorway within you. In these G-Statements, ‘Shiva’ is synonymous with the Self, God, or universal Consciousness. Everything is Consciousness. Consciousness is the most healing and desirable thing. I am Shiva. Every thought and feeling, even my blocks, are Shiva. The way I think creates the experience of my life. This universe is drenched in love. I am the Lord of Matrika. There is absolutely no problem. All these people are Shiva in their own universe. Everything is perfect as it is. Whatever meditation I am having is Shiva. Click here to purchase Swamiji's book 'Self-Inquiry: Using Your Awareness to Unblock Your Life'.

Go inside. Say to yourself, ‘I feel …’—mad, sad, bad, scared or glad. It might be a mixture of things. You might feel a cocktail of emotions. Don’t worry or torment yourself about accuracy. Make an A-Statement in this moment: ‘I feel …’—let the word come to you, then fit it to the feeling and see if it seems true. Then make the A-Statement to yourself. Feel what it is like to make an A-Statement. Click here to purchase Swamiji's book 'Self-Inquiry: Using Your Awareness to Unblock Your Life'.

Sit down and look within. Whatever you experience, pleasant or unpleasant, is what is given. This is the meditation you are having. Shaivism says every thought, every feeling, even every contraction is Shiva. If you can make a verbal A-Statement, do so. If not, simply ‘be as you are’ in this existential moment. Say to yourself, ‘I am this form of Shiva’ or ‘I am Shiva in this form’ or ‘All this is Shiva’ or, as Popeye would say, ‘I yam what I yam’. Meditate with this awareness—your present experience is Shiva. As you do this, you honour your present experience. You do not reject it in favour of some imagined ‘better’ experience. You do not compare it with other possible meditations or with the meditation the person next to you is having. You simply have the meditation you are having, knowing that it is Shiva. At the beginning, your acceptance of your present state might be tainted by the hope that Shiva will reward you by taking it away and revealing something more profound. Gradually you let that thought go and settle into your present experience. As you relax into it, it will reveal your deeper nature to you. This method gives peace because it eliminates the phantom of the better meditation and the higher state we’re always seeking. ‘You can always have the meditation you are having’ is a meditative technique you can use forever. Click here to purchase Swamiji's book 'Self-Inquiry: Using Your Awareness to Unblock Your Life'.