By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

I never dreamed I would live this long, but here I am, still going strong. It’s from yoga, of course, especially from receiving Shaktipat 50 years ago.

Baba always said that the effects of Shaktipat are unerring. Keep doing your best in life while meditating every day and you will attain Self-Realization. The best part is that, in every meditation, every day, you get a taste of enlightenment. Baba’s mantra makes this happen. This is why I share it with you.

Each enlightenment-moment leaves an imprint in your mind and heart. They add up. Guaranteed. It’s Baba’s guarantee. And I have benefitted from it personally.

One of Baba’s swamis shared a conversation with a new meditator who wanted to know if he should change his lifestyle. The swami reassured him that all he had to do was meditate every day.

Getting more specific, the man asked, “I can eat meat? I can have my brandy snifter every evening? I don’t have to give up my girlfriend, that my wife doesn’t know about?” The swami gulped and said, “All you have to do is meditate every day.”

A year later, a woman came to say thank you to the same swami. She said, “My husband has been meditating every day. He has given up meat and his daily brandy. And he gave up the girlfriend he thought I didn’t know about. Thank you.”

Yes, you will change. I did. And I am so grateful. Because all those external pursuits had never made me happy, not even when I practiced them more intensely. Meditation filled me from the inside, freeing me from the desire for the things that had never actually worked.

Best of all, Kundalini dissolved all my gripes and complaints about life. Shaktipat awakens the energy of Consciousness to arise within, uplifting you in her pathway from tail-to-top. I rock-n-rolled through my meditations for years, with Kundalini moving me into classical yoga poses. I learned anatomy from the inside-out as deep tensions were melted away.

The transformation in my body was only part of it, for each tight area had its related mental-and-emotional tensions. As they dissolved, I outgrew my past. While I still loved the people who had raised and trained me, I was no longer limited to their ideas of who I was or what I could do.

Baba described it this way:

Once a disciple’s spiritual energy has been awakened by the Guru and he begins to meditate, the unresolved impressions of past actions, or spiritual debts, are reduced and the seeker’s future automatically brightens.

Two types of impressions dissolve, karmas and vasanas. Karmas are the yet-to-come consequences of your prior actions, which balance out your deeds from many lifetimes. Now you don’t have to live through events to complete your karmas. They resolve in your meditations.

Vasanas are the mental-and-emotional patterns you have so carefully installed through repetitive thoughts and the strategies you’ve been using to get through life. For example, if you always speed up when a traffic signal turns yellow, you’re going to end up in an accident. Or if you eat when you’re sad, you’re going to end up with some health problems. Worse, you’ll be sad a lot of the time.

When these patterns dissolve, you see life differently. It’s like your peripheral vision has expanded. More light is coming in through your eyes. Better yet, your inner light shines brighter, more of the time.

How do I know?  I took my own advice. I have been doing more yoga for decades!