Heartfulness Core Practices

Heartfulness Meditation

Choose a place where you can meditate without being distracted, preferably at the same place and same time daily. Turn off your phone and other devices. Sit with your back upright but not rigid.

Sit comfortably. Gently close your eyes.

If needed, take a couple of minutes to relax your body, using the Heartfulness Relaxation.

Turn your attention inward and take a moment to observe yourself.

Then, suppose that the source of divine light is already present within your heart, and that it is attracting you from within.

Gently relax into that feeling. If you find your awareness drifting to other thoughts, do not fight them and do not entertain them. Let them be, while simply reminding yourself that you are meditating on the source of divine light in the heart.

Allow yourself to become more and more absorbed within until you feel ready to come out of meditation.

Remain absorbed within this deep silence for as long as you want, until you feel ready to come out.

Heartfulness Cleaning

Do the cleaning practice at the end of your day’s work, preferably not close to bedtime. This process will rejuvenate you and purify your system of any accumulated heaviness. There are a few steps to the cleaning process, so in the beginning, it is best to practise them in the following sequence:

Sit in a comfortable position with the intention to remove all the impressions accumulated during the day.

Close your eyes and relax.

Imagine all the complexities and impurities are leaving your entire system.

Let them flow out from your back in the form of smoke, from the area between the tailbone (at the base of your spine) and the top of your head.

Remain alert during the entire process without brooding over the thoughts and feelings that arise. Try to remain a witness to your thoughts.

Gently accelerate this process with confidence and determination.

If your attention drifts and other thoughts come to mind, gently bring your focus back to the cleaning.

As the impressions are leaving from your back you will start to feel lightness within.

Continue this process for up to twenty to twenty-five minutes.

When you experience inner lightness, you can start the second part of the process.

Feel a current of purity coming from the Source entering your system from the front.

This current is flowing into your heart and throughout your system, saturating every particle.

You have now returned to a more balanced state. Every particle of your body is emanating lightness, purity, and simplicity.

Finish with the conviction that the cleaning has been completed effectively.

Feel immersed in the light in your heart, and let yourself become absorbed.

Remaining still and quiet, rest there for as long as you want, until you feel ready to come out.

Heartfulness Prayer

This is a prayer that is offered at bedtime, as a way of connecting to the Source before sleep. This may take around ten to fifteen minutes. It is also offered once before meditation in the morning.

Meditate for ten to fifteen minutes over its true meaning, feeling the words resonate in your heart rather than trying to analyse them. Let the meaning surface from within. Try to get lost in it. Go beyond the words and let the feeling come to you.

At bedtime, sit comfortably, gently close your eyes, and relax. Silently and slowly repeat the prayer:

O Master! Thou art the real goal of human life.
We are yet but slaves of wishes putting bar to our advancement.
Thou art the only God and Power to bring us up to that stage.

Now silently repeat these words a second time and go even deeper into this feeling. Allow yourself to get absorbed in the feeling beyond the words. Allow yourself to melt in this prayerfully meditative state as you go to sleep.

In the morning, reconnect yourself by silently offering this prayer once before you start the Heartfulness Meditation.

Heartfulness Additional Practices for Adepts

Point A Meditation

We meditate on point A to promote a feeling of universal brotherhood, leading to unity amongst all. This meditation is to be done before the bedtime prayer for no more than five to seven minutes.

For men: Fix your attention on Point A, with the thought that all the women and men of the world are your sisters and brothers. Hold your thought on this while you meditate on Point A, believing this to be true.  If practiced wholeheartedly you can see its effect immediately, and this effect will be permanent.

For women: Think that all divine gifts are available to you, and that all men and women of the world think they are brothers and sisters and your thought is one with theirs.

Point B Cleaning

This process is to be done when you wake in the morning, before your morning Meditation; again only for five to seven minutes.

Fix your attention on Point B and imagine that all impurities and heaviness are going out of Point B from the front of the body. Imagine that as this process is going on, the glow of the soul begins to appear from behind.

Prayerful Suggestions

including 9 p.m. Universal Payer

1. Everything surrounding us, the air particles, people, the birds, the trees … everything around us is deeply absorbed in Godly remembrance. All are in osmosis with the Source, and developing increased peacefulness and moderation.

2. Everyone is developing correct thinking, right understanding and an honest approach to life. They are attaining rightness in action and perfection in character.

3. Universal Prayer: Meditate for fifteen minutes, thinking that everyone is being filled with love and devotion and that real faith is growing stronger in them.

4. Everyone who has craving for the Ultimate is being attracted towards Sahaj Marg.

Emergency Cleaning

If something happens during the day that affects us deeply, do we wait until evening to do the Cleaning to remove the effect on our system? No, we remove it then and there.

Make a subtle suggestion: “What has affected me right now is going from the back in the form of smoke.” After a few minutes, when you are confident that the impression has gone, make a firm resolution that it has really gone. Perhaps it is not possible to close your eyes, because you are in class or in a meeting, but you can still clean for a few minutes.

Heartfulness The Ten Maxims

Maxim 1

Rise before dawn and offer your prayer and meditation at a fixed hour, preferably completing them before sunrise. Have a separate place and seat for meditation. As far as possible, develop the habit of sitting in one and the same pose. Give special attention to purity of body and mind.

Maxim 2

Begin your meditation with a prayer for spiritual elevation. Offer your prayer in such a way that the heart is filled with love.

Maxim 3

Fix your Goal, which should be complete oneness with God. Rest not till the ideal is achieved.

Maxim 4

Simplify your life so as to be identical with Nature.

Maxim 5

Always be truthful, accept miseries as coming from God for your own good and be thankful.

Maxim 6

Know all people as thy brethren and treat them as such.

Maxim 7

If you are feeling wronged by anyone, do not wish for revenge. Instead, think this comes from God and be grateful.

Maxim 8

Be happy to eat in constant Divine thought whatever you get, with due regard to honest and pious earnings.

Maxim 9

Mold your behavior and way of living to such a high order as to rouse a feeling of love and piety in others.

Maxim 10

At bedtime, feeling the presence of God, repent for any wrongs committed unintentionally. Beg forgiveness in a supplicant mood and prayerfully resolve not to allow repetition of the same.