Self Enquiry and Love

11. Jnana Yoga/ Self-Inquiry - Non-Duality
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Self-inquiry has been a consistent practice for me over the years, and I’ve read a number of books by various authors who have influenced my understanding, including Yoganis. The essence of the highest teachings often seems to point to awareness watching awareness or abiding as “I Am,” or however else it is expressed in language. For the most part, my experience with self-inquiry up until this year has been great although quite dry when it comes to heart activation and love. This wasn’t an issue for me because I wasn’t looking to artificially introduce love just for the sake of feeling good. My interest has always been in understanding the nature of reality.

Earlier this year, however, I came across a book by a new author I hadn’t read before. In his account of self-inquiry, he mentioned that when he began involving his heart in the process, things seemed to move much more quickly.

So, I decided to experiment in my own practice. I remembered reading somewhere that love is the fragrance of truth, like the sweet scent that emanates from a rose. Instead of thinking I was artificially adding something to my inquiry, I tried to simply notice the love of being itself.
Like beingness loves to exist.

I would sit quietly and just be, occasionally reminding myself that beingness loves to exist. Before long, there was heart activation, and it felt like déjà vu—like I was remembering a state of love and joy I experienced as a child. I’ve continued this practice, with good results, It feels as though I’ve tapped into a well of love within myself, one that I don’t have to earn; I just need to be aware of it.

Now, I like to start my self-inquiry with this practice, and then may shift to variations like, “What is the experiencer?” or similar questions.

If anyone else has insights or experiences about how the heart can play a role in self-inquiry, I’d love to hear them. I feel like this is a new, component to my practice.

Warm regards,
Samuel

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Hi Sam,

I also experienced a breakthrough with self-inquiry practice when I began to include love directly in the inquiry. When I was around 24 years old I was taught a practice from the Buddhist tradition which involves directly cultivating love and sending it to people we know, or used to know in the past. The practice takes around 20 minutes to do and I would do this every day in order to cultivate love. I have included the practice as a guided practice in the AYP Self-Inquiry video course, at lesson 13 (week two).

This practice helped me to cultivate love towards others and also to cultivate forgiveness, both in terms of forgiving others who had accidentally harmed me in the past, and asking for forgiveness from people who I had accidentally harmed.

I also experienced later on what you are describing as the universe simply loving the fact that it exists, and bathing in this love as a practice. I talk about this practice on one of the AYP retreats two years ago and put the video on YouTube here:

In that video I do not mention love, but that is really a shortcoming. Truth, love and the Self are really all the same thing.

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Hello Samuel, such a nice sharing, nice to see and feel your practice maturing. I had a similar experience once I chose an ishta (Lord Shiva, because he was the gatekeeper) and became entranced by one particular image found online. I came to discover invoking that image at my solar center, my heart activates and radiates outwardly. Once a body is conductive, one’s attention has influence and flow follows attention. Continuing your self inquiry exploration can only lead to deeper insight on your road to liberation.

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Hey Tristan,

Great to hear from you!

I also learned about cultivating love and sending it to others from a Buddhist Zen sangha back in my hometown. Though I didn’t keep much from it, one phrase has stuck with me that i whisper daily: “May all beings be happy, may all beings be at peace.” What started as a phrase I said with intention has over time evolved into something that feels like it radiates from my whole being.

I’ve never really done it because I thought it would improve my practice, but simply because my heart called for it.

The first 10 years of my life i grew up as a Hare Krishna, so outward acts of devotion and love weren’t new to me. However, they weren’t really in my nature, and I think that led me to develop a bit of an aversion to it.

When I began meditating at 21, I was drawn to the logical, methodical nature of the practice. Still, I’ve heard Yogani say many times that the true fruition of these practices is the outpouring of divine love.

But love has always been something I’ve struggled to logically integrate into my practice in a way that helps me see the nature of reality more clearly. The heart can be a messy place at times, and not always a place of clarity, so I’ve often been unsure of how it relates to my practice.

As I’ve navigated through the vast ocean of spiritual teachings, I’ve felt the need to develop a skill for distinguishing what leads to self-development and what leads to self-realization. There’s nothing wrong with the former; I just wanted to be clear on what’s what and many times love got put into the self develpment basket.

Now, coming full circle, I’m naturally moving into a much more heart-centered practice, but I’m still curious about how it aids in realisation.

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Hello Michael,

I also feel a connection to Shiva—after all, he is the lord of yoga. I once traveled to Haridwar, India, during a massive festival dedicated to Shiva. There were hundreds of sadhus gathered by the river, smoking weed and chanting his name i had not seen a foreigner in weeks. I’ve never felt more out of place in my life! To blend in a bit, I ended up buying an ochre-colored Shiva t-shirt to show my appreciation. I think it helped… just a little! Haha. (The picture below is from Haridwar.)

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Thanks for sharing how conductivity can affect your devotion, this is very interesting.

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Hi Samuel,

The heart is really important in the whole process of self-realisation. It plays a part several times on the journey. Quite often the spiritual heart is involved right at the start of the spiritual journey in the form of a calling. Something leads us to take up the spiritual path in the first place. It is a kind of longing, or a call towards something higher. This is often a subtle movement within the heart chakra, as this chakra is related to spiritual desire and longing.

Then there is the actual opening of the heart chakra itself, which can be a bit of a roller-coaster ride! Emotions such as grief, despair and desperation can arise, as well as emotions such as pure love and intense spiritual longing. People can cry their eyes out for hours, and then laugh for hours! And the whole process can go on for weeks, or even months!

Then there is the knot at the heart, one of the three main granthis in the subtle neurobiology. This can also be an intense time for a spiritual practitioner. This can involve intense feelings of being separate from the divine and being lost without any hope. When the knot opens, unconditional love becomes manifest and kundalini is free to work on the purification of the higher centres. So, that is a major stage in the process of realisation.

Then finally, after kundalini reaches the crown, and purifies that centre, there is then a descent back down into the heart, as outpouring divine love. So, the end of the journey is as much about love, as it is about liberation. This pure love is our true nature, and it connects everything in the universe.

Interestingly, almost all of the AYP practices work to purify the heart chakra, even though this is not obvious at first glance. About half of the AYP asanas work to purify the heart chakra. Spinal Breathing Pranayama purifies the heart with every inhalation and every exhalation as prana follows the attention and the attention is moving through the heart chakra with every breath.

Deep Meditation purifies the heart chakra as the AYAM mantra purifies the sushumna nadi and that passes through the heart. The mudras and bandhas all work to purify the heart by creating a flow of prana from the lower centres up through the heart towards the higher centres. And Samyama practice starts with the sutra “love”, which will directly purify the heart.

So, introducing self-inquiry practices such as the “I am love” or “May all beings be happy, may all beings be at peace” affirmations, simply carries this opening of the heart into our self-inquiry practice time. And the loving kindness practice that I mentioned above is a major enhancement of this.

You may find lesson 220 useful, as Yogani talks about the heart in relation to the spiritual journey and also gives a practice for directly purifying the heart:

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Great response! thanks for taking the time appreciate it :pray::pray::pray:

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