Meditation
Two things to say to yourself, in the first person and the present tense, because that is the form they work in. They take about a minute each.
They are not affirmations in the sense of talking yourself into something. The claim underneath them is that these are not achievements and not a list to work through, but what is there when nothing is in the way.
I am
I am a pure soul. I am a peaceful soul. I am a loving soul. I am a joyful soul. I am a blissful soul. I am a powerful soul. I am a knowledgeful soul.
Said slowly, one line at a time, with a pause after each. Most mornings one of the seven will not be true, and noticing which one is the useful part — it is a reading, not a performance.
Said this way, they are also a description of the one I remember when I say them, in whom they are complete. The lines are mine in part. The remembering is what fills them.
I am powerful
The eight powers are what those qualities look like under pressure.
- To withdraw — to step back, become detached, and return.
- To pack up — to bring a thing to an end, and let go of thought that is going nowhere.
- To accommodate — to make space for the presence, ideas and needs of others.
- To discern — to recognise what is true and what is false, and to see clearly.
- To judge — to assess choices and act on them wisely, on partial information.
- To face — to meet a challenge or a truth and stay with it rather than leave.
- To co-operate — to give your time, attention and whatever you know to work with others.
- To tolerate — to remain steady without being disturbed by what is happening.
The right power at the right time, in the right situation. In practice you need one of the eight on any given day, not all of them, and knowing which one is most of the work.
Two words, and why they are these ones
The tradition calls the fourth power discrimination, in the older sense of telling one thing from another. That word has moved, so these pages say discern.
And The Inward Singularity calls the third the power to adjust, picturing it as a river going round a boulder rather than as making room for a person. Both are ordinary English for the same thing: taking what is in front of you as it is, and not spending yourself on wishing it were otherwise.
Where this comes from
This is Raja Yoga as taught by the Brahma Kumaris, which I have practised for over ten years — as a practitioner, not a teacher. It is a personal interpretation and not an official publication of theirs. Every error in it is mine.
You do not have to take any of it up. Whether the power to tolerate is an original quality of the soul or a trainable disposition of a nervous system makes no difference to how it is built: either way it is built by occasions, and it cannot be installed in an emergency.
The same page is at the back of the books, where it is named rather than insisted on. The Inward Singularity is the long argument for why any of this matters.
If you want the teaching itself rather than my reading of it, go to the people who teach it. The Brahma Kumaris run an introductory Raja Yoga course. They give it freely and ask nothing in return.
Om Shanti
I am a peaceful soul.