Alexandria Baker
CSOCS 3452 Yoga: Theory, Culture,
and Practice
Laura Douglass
22 October 2012
Inner Space, Cambridge, MA: The Journey of the Soul
On
October 17th I visited the Inner Space Meditation Center and Gallery
in Cambridge, Massachusetts to attend a guided meditation session as well as
participate in a discussion titled “The Journey of the Soul”. The Inner Space
Meditation Center and Gallery is a brand new facility in Harvard Square that
opened on September 22nd of this year.
Inner Space is
part of the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual Organization. Brahma Kumaris began
in a part of colonial India, Hyderabad, Sindh as a ‘university’ called “Om
Mandali”. At the time Om Mandali was very small and consisted of a small group
of men, women, and children living in the surrounding area. An expansion of
this group occurred after a wealthy elitist in the community, Dada Lekhraj’s
began having a series of visions about the body of knowledge, the nature of the
soul, god, and time in 1936. These
visions inspired others in the community and created a following of Om
Mandali’s practice. A year after becoming established, Om Mandali moved from
Hyderabad to Karachi. For about fourteen years, a group of almost 400 followers
lived in a ‘self-sufficient’ community and dedicated their life to ‘spiritual
study, meditation and self-transformation’. In 1950 Om Mandali moved to Mount
Abu, a place that was known for its ancient heritage in ‘spiritual rejuvenation
and empowerment’. After a few years in this location the university moved to
their now permanent world headquarters, Madhuban which means “Forest of Honey’.
In 1952, Dada Lekhraj decided that it was time to share his visions and
knowledge of self-healing and meditation with the rest of India. He sent a few
young women members on ‘service’ and their goal was to establish new study
centers for Raja Yoga practice.
Eventually this practice gained wide spread popularity and now has
countless centers dedicated to Raja Yoga practice worldwide.
Brahma Kumaris
strives towards development at the individual level, and acknowledges the
‘goodness’ of all people. Their purpose is to bring light to ones inner
strengths and values through the practice of meditation. They are committed to
bring about ‘spiritual growth and personal transformation’. The practice
believes that spiritual growth and personal transformation is key for creating
a peaceful and fair world. Brahma Kumaris centers are dedicated to helping
individuals become their best possible self through positive energy and
enlightened personal values. The driving force and backbone to these ideals is
Raja Yoga.
Raja meaning
‘king’ and yoga meaning ‘communication’ is the connection between the ‘self’
and the ‘higher power’ or ‘god’. Raja Yoga is not considered physical exercise
but rather a mental exercise to achieve an enlightened soul and to break the
barrier between the mind and body. Raja Yoga is meant to connect the mind
directly to the ‘supreme source’ of spiritual power. This connection creates a
‘peaceful personality, a strong mind and therefore a healthy body’. The difference
between Raja Yoga and traditional Yoga is that Yoga exercises ‘focuses the mind
on the body’. Most types of Yoga connect human-to-human where as Raja Yoga
connects physical beings with the supreme source or higher power.
Raja Yoga focuses
entirely on the human ‘soul’. The soul is thought to have three parts within
it: mind, intellect, and subconscious, all are interconnected to create a
whole. The mind creates ‘thoughts’ and the intellect takes these thoughts and evaluates
them to decide weather or not to take action. The subconscious then takes these
ideas and experiences created from the thoughts and permanently records them;
this creates individual personality traits. There are many positive benefits of
Raja Yoga that can improve an individuals overall personality and ‘soul’. Raja
Yoga is meant to relieve stress and anxiety as well as create an over all sense
of well-being. One can become more clear and focused which helps an individual
discover their negative habits and allows one to correct them. This would then
help improve personal relationships with others allowing for an enlightened
self. Some benefits such as the feeling
of peace and calmness can happen right away during practice. In order to make
this experience consistent, Raja Yoga needs to be practiced regularly (BKWSU).
When I walked into
Inner Space a middle-aged Caucasian women sitting at the front desk greeted me
in a whispered voice. I told her I was here for the guided meditation and
discussion; she then guided me through the lobby toward the back of the room. I
was shocked at how modern and updated the facility was compared to the messy
and crowded shops that were next to the studio on the outside. The floors were
spotless, pale hard wood and the walls were covered with stainless steel book
displays filled with numerous soul searching books written by students that
participate in the Brahma Kumaris program. I followed her up short set of
stairs and entered a small room with dimmed lighting. On each side of the room there
were a few cushioned chairs lined up, and in the front of the room was a
section of hard wood floor just like the lobby. Above the hard wood flooring
was a large painting of mixed orange and pink hues with no definite shape. The
woman from the lobby left the room and I took my seat in one of the chairs.
There were three other people in the room, two students, a young Caucasian
women and a middle aged Caucasian man as well as the teacher, an older aged
Caucasian woman, all of which were wearing casual clothing.
As the meditation
practice began the instructor introduced herself as Rita Cleary, a student of
Raja Yoga for the past twenty three years. Rita is currently the co-coordinator
of The Learning Center for Peace in Watertown, Massachusetts. She began the
practice by turning on music; it was a soft tribal sound with drums and flutes.
Rita asked that we keep our eyes open during the practice so we are able to
make peace with our surroundings and face the people, situations, and
challenges we deal with from day to day. All she asked us to do during the
session was to take deep breaths and relax our body. Unlike other meditation
sessions I have participated in, I was not told to perform any exercises,
chanting or abnormal breathing. She then told us relax our thoughts and release
the negativity from our minds. I normally become very distracted during
meditation due to the chanting and movement. I often find myself thinking
aimlessly, the silence and stillness allowed me to forget all of my concerns
and proceed to have a moment of inner peace and tranquility. While the moment
was fleeting, I feel as if I had an out of body experience. I had never felt
anything like this before. It was as if my thoughts and my body were entirely separate
and I had absolutely nothing circulating in my thoughts. When coming out of
this experience I felt happy and at ease for no apparent reason. I go though my
life constantly stressed and filled with anxiety and for a small moment that
all seemed to disappear. After some time of silence we were asked to go back
into the lobby to participate in the discussion.
In the lobby there
were now rows of chairs in a semi circle surrounding one chair in the corner.
There were several new people that filled a majority of the chairs that were
not in the previous meditation session. Most appeared to be Caucasian, middle
aged individuals, both men and women dressed casually as well. Rita took her
place and re introduced her self to the new group of people. She began by
describing herself as a ‘seeker’ previous to beginning her practice, trying to
find inner peace and happiness through shopping. Material items only provided a
fleeting feeling of happiness for her. Through the practice of Raja Yoga, she
was able to find an inner calmness and purpose.
Rita began the discussion
by telling a story called: ‘The Journey of the Soul’. Souls once lived in a
world of peace and nirvana in silence and absolute stillness. These souls were
tiny points of living light that had no gender and were the children of the
‘supreme soul’. Each soul had a sparkle of its own, but the ‘supreme soul’ had
the greatest sparkle of them all. The souls began to leave the silence and
enter the ‘playground of souls’. After several months go by, the souls began to
take into a body and co-exist in the physical world. The physical world was
filled with nature and in pristine condition. They were the rulers of self and
lived up to one hundred and fifty years old. When they got old they would shed
their physical bodies like snakes but would not feel sadness because they knew
they would continue on in a new physical body. As the souls went through the physical death and birth their
wholeness would weaken and they would forget their previous lives and live much
shorter lives. One land and one language became many and fear, anger, and
sorrow replaced happiness, peace and tranquility. They became the human body
and forgot entirely about the soul within. The ‘heaven on earth’ soon became a
‘hell on earth’. At one point we thought of ourselves as souls and now have
come to view ourselves as physical bodies. The ‘supreme soul’ heard the cries
from the young souls and soon a few of the ancient souls would reawaken and
remember who they were and who they belonged to. We had come onto this earth at the highest possible stage of
evolution and had decayed to the lowest level.
The Journey of the
Soul allowed me to view human life in a completely different perspective then I
ever have before. I have always contemplated an ‘after life’ and have wondered
if such thing exists. I could never understand what happens to a person after
their physical body dies. It never would make sense to me that your thoughts
and feelings would disappear once your body had passed on. It is probable that
our ‘soul’s recycle the physical
body they were once in and wipe clean all memories from their past physical
life.
I
think the Raja Yoga meditation practice permitted myself to come in contact
with true being. The feeling of inner peace and happiness is what most people
strive for and I was able to do so for a slight moment in the silence of the
meditation. I believe a person is
truly happy and enlightened when they do not have a fear of death. It is
inspiring when an individual is a true believer of a life after death and are
able to see something worth while past their physical life on earth. We have a
choice to live in a world of negativity or work toward the highest level of
consciousness. Now that I have come in slight contact with what I believe
enlightenment feels like, I intend to work toward finding my inner soul and
work toward living an enlightened lifestyle.
Works Cited
Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual Organization. 2012. Retrieved
on October 19, 2012. (http://www.bkwsu.org)
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