The term yoga is, in the present day, used almost exclusively to refer to the yoga-asana, set of body postures that were employed by some ancient spiritual sects for the novice spiritual aspirants for their preliminary preparations well before the beginning of serious spiritual workouts like meditation.

The Sanskrit root of the term yoga, yuj means 'to unite'. The term yoga refers to the union of our individuated Consciousness with all-pervading universal Consciousness. In that process our body, mind and heart are involved, but the definition itself has nothing to do with our body, mind or heart; it deals with Consciousness therein.

A spiritual aspirant undergoes three critical phases of realization during the process of spiritual enlightenment. They are separation of Consciousness, expansion of Consciousness and merger of Consciousness.

As soon as he separates Consciousness from his mind, body and heart one by one internally (sequence is perfect: not body-mind-heart but mind-body-heart), his brain and eyes are so sensitized that he can actually see the universal Consciousness that is pervading this entire material universe.

The material universe normally visible to our eyes and brain can be classified into two categories. They are sentient living beings and insentient nonliving things. The former category includes plants, birds, animals and human beings. The latter category includes mountain, ocean, fire, atmospheric air, space, planet and star. All these sentient living beings and insentient nonliving things are pervaded, supported and controlled by the universal Consciousness.

When we see a tree with our dull eyes and brain, we just see a tree. That's what we are seeing right from birth. But if we see the same tree after internal separation of Consciousness from our mind, body and heart, then we'll see the whole tree as lively and vibrant one with its leaves and stalks standing out of their surrounding space distinctly and sharply. We'll see all persons and things of this world in a similar fashion. This whole world will become an extra full HD 3-D video.

This is due to the fact that our brain and eyes have now been trained to perceive this material universe along with the universal Consciousness pervading it. We haven't discovered anything new. Now only we are able to perceive this world as it is.

In the second phase of realization, Consciousness of the spiritual aspirant expands beyond the boundary of his body. The principles of ego, mind and intellect are merged into his Consciousness. Soon his brain and eyes become capable of perceiving the universal Self pervading the universal Consciousness. The universal Self provides the I-sense to all sentient living beings of this universe.

When we say 'I talk' or 'I think' or 'I desire', we refer to our Self in our Consciousness by the word 'I'. Our I-sense arises from our Self. Whatever we experience through our body, mind and heart are experienced only by means of our Consciousness. Our Self cannot experience anything except through our Consciousness.

Our Self is an integral part of universal Self, just as our Consciousness is an integral part of universal Consciousness. The universal Self is sanctioning and witnessing each and every one of experiences of our Self through our Consciousness. We can't experience anything that is not sanctioned by the universal Self. We can't experience anything that is not witnessed by the universal Self. Yes, there is no privacy for us - not only for the experience of our body but for our mind and heart as well. The universal Self is the 24x7 witness of our words, thoughts and desires.

In the final phase of realization Self of the spiritual aspirant in the expanded Consciousness is completely merged into the Source of Self. Soon his brain and eyes become capable of perceiving the universal Source that is immersing the universal Self pervading the universal Consciousness.

You don't actually see the universal Source as an Entity out there; you simply become an integral part of the universal Source. Your body, mind, heart, Consciousness and Self all become integral parts of the universal Source. It is like taking a full dip into the ocean - you are totally immersed in the Field of universal Source as are other beings and things of this universe; they just don't know it whereas you know it after enlightenment. There is no duality of subject and object; seer is the seen as well.

The universal Source is the fundamental spiritual Entity of this universe. From Him/Her/It the universal Self and the universal Consciousness arise. The material universe consisting of sentient living beings and insentient nonliving things, is created, pervaded, sustained, controlled and destroyed by this omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent spiritual Trinity.

An enlightened spiritual person is always capable of merging his Consciousness with all-pervading universal Consciousness to become one with the universal Self immersed in the universal Source. This does not mean that he assumes the nature (omniscience, omnipresence and omnipotence) or power (creation, sustenance and destruction) of universal Consciousness, universal Self or universal Source. It is a simple merger. You don't become the king simply by seating yourself in the throne of a king.

What is the fun in merging our Consciousness with universal Consciousness?

It triggers Divine Love to be generated in our body, mind and heart.

So what?

When our body, mind and heart are immersed in the Divine Love, Consciousness in our heart is discriminated from our heart.

The term yoga used in the context of this book refers to the merger of our identity with universal Consciousness. Yoga triggers Divine Love to be generated in our body, mind and heart.

Well, the technique works for enlightened spiritual persons - what is its use for us who are not even remotely connected with spirituality or enlightenment? We can simulate it to get the same result.

What is Divine Love?

Love is quite a mysterious term for the mankind. We seem to love a person or a thing today, and in a few days we happen to hate the same person or thing. That is because our love is based on some condition or reason. When the reason is no longer satisfied or when the condition is no longer maintained, our love for that person or thing dries up.

Unconditional love does not depend on condition or reason. It is constant. If all our love in our life towards all persons and things are conditional ones, how can we recognize unconditional love? You need not lose hope. You are expressing unconditional love towards a person daily. I am not kidding - see the mirror.

Your love for yourself is true unconditional love.

We normally identify ourselves with our body, mind and heart. So, we think our love for ourselves is directed towards our body, mind and heart. No, it is not directed towards our body, mind and heart. It is not directed towards our Consciousness too. It is not even directed towards our Self. But it is directed towards the Source of our Self - an Entity lurking beneath the Entity from where our I-sense arises. It is the fundamental spiritual Entity of this universe.

We are not talking about selfishness here. Selfishness is love for oneself in the presence of others and in preference to others. It is categorized under conditional love. But unconditional love is love for oneself in the absence of others and not in preference to others.

When an enlightened spiritual person internally separates and expands his Consciousness and merges It with universal Consciousness, he identifies himself with all living sentient beings and all nonliving insentient things of this universe. His unconditional love for himself has been expanded to include everyone and everything - this expanded unconditional love is what is known as Divine Love. Thus when he expresses Divine Love by means of yoga, his heart, mind and body are immersed in expanded unconditional love towards all persons, animals, insects, birds and plants.

When we want to find the solution to a problem using a specific software program that is written for solving such problems, what do we do? We give power supply to our computer; after the operating system is booted, we launch that program and feed the input. The program processes the data we fed and gives the required solution as the output.

We need not know how the program processed the data fed. We need not know how the operating system interacted with the program and the computer hardware. We need not know how the computer architecture supported the operating system and the program.

We only need to know how to give power supply to the hardware, how to launch the program in the environment of operating system and how to feed the input data to the program.

Similarly an enlightened spiritual person doesn't really know the technology of manifestation of what he desires, in the physical world. But he does know how to get the universal Consciousness manifest what he desires in the physical world. The universal Consciousness takes care of interaction with universal Self and universal Source in the spiritual universe on one hand and interaction with sentient living beings and insentient nonliving things of the material universe on the other hand.

He expands his Consciousness and gets it merged with universal Consciousness which triggers his body to be immersed in Divine Love towards all.

Then he gets his Consciousness merged with universal Self which triggers his mind to be immersed in Divine Love towards all.

And finally he gets his Consciousness merged with universal Source which triggers his heart to be immersed in Divine Love towards all.

Though we are unable to perceive any One of the universal Trinity unlike an enlightened spiritual person, it is quite possible for us to merge our identity with the universal Trinity by creating the state of Divine Love in our body, mind and heart. Now the big question is how we are going to simulate this Divine Love Yoga of enlightened spiritual person to create the state of Divine Love in our body, mind and heart.

The strategy of Divine Love Yoga method is to weaken our Intolerance, Anxiety and Malice by immersing our body, mind and heart in Divine Love respectively in order to discriminate our Consciousness from our heart.

We are not used to identify ourselves with anything existing beyond the physical boundary of our body. Anything outside my body is mine and not me. This conviction arises due to our identification of ourselves with our body right from our birth.

Of course, we can't feel our identity with some discrete thing out there which has nothing to do with our body; we can only project our mind onto it.

But it is possible for us, theoretically speaking, to perceive our identity with what is outside us provided it pervades our body as well. Specifically, we can feel our identity with wind sweeping us, sunlight immersing us, rain drenching us, and so on. However, in all these cases we'll have to resist our ego principle that is confining our Consciousness to our body in order to identify ourselves with what is outside the physical boundary of our body. So, it is practically possible to experience it only under certain conditions.

Now let us come to the practice of Divine Love Yoga. This is a very dynamic practice. You can do it by observation of roadside trees or buildings or vehicles or persons while you are moving, for example, while travelling, or, you can do it by observation of random traffic or moving persons while you are stationary. This yoga is to be practiced in three parts. Your eyes must be OPEN during the entire duration of yoga.

* First Part: Focus your attention on the individual moving entity one by one. It can be person or animal or tree or building or vehicle or other object. If your mind is busy thinking some thoughts, you'll lose your attention to the entity. Sporadic thoughts are okay. But never focus your attention to your thoughts. Don't try to suppress the thoughts with effort either. In either case your focus will shift to your mind. We don't want that. Just ignore your mind. It may take a minute or two for you to focus your attention at moving entities one by one, ignoring the thoughts of your mind.

* Second Part: After that, slowly withdraw your focus from the single moving entity and distribute your attention to all moving entities in front of you. You are trying to partially ignore your attention to the moving entities. Now your mind is likely to become active and generate thoughts. Continue to ignore the thoughts of mind. Again sporadic thoughts are okay. Don't try to suppress them. It may take a minute or two for you to partially withdraw your attention from the moving entities ignoring the thoughts of your mind.

* Third Part: Finally, completely withdraw your focus from the moving entities and distribute your attention to the whole space around you. Continue to ignore the thoughts of mind. Once again sporadic thoughts are okay. Don't try to suppress them. It may take a minute or two for you to distribute your attention to the whole space around you ignoring the thoughts of your mind. Once succeeded, continue to hold this state of being for about ten minutes. This is very similar to the state of Divine Love experienced by an enlightened spiritual person in his body, mind and heart. Only difference is that he will be experiencing it intensely and effortlessly whereas you'll have to put some effort and will be experiencing it very subtly.

Unlike Expanded Consciousness Meditation exercise, you may do this yoga as many times as you want in a day.

This practice of Divine Love Yoga will help you to discriminate your Consciousness in your heart from your heart and hence effortlessly control your desires of negativity in your family, social and professional transactions.

End of Chapter 9.