But from all the descriptions I have read and heard, it should be something more concrete. Since I can’t feel the divine presence, when I concentrate – I try to concentrate on the thought that Mother and Sri Aurobindo are seated in my heart.
Similarly, when I concentrate above the head: (Firstly, I don’t really know how to concentrate above the head; I am able to concentrate only on top of my head) I can’t feel any Peace descending – I feel a tension at that point – like some small heavy object is placed there. Very quickly, my muscles tense up, and I keep trying to relax them.
Rarely, if I continue this for long, I experience something filling my head upto my hands – which I clutch tightly. It feels like a balloon is trying to expand, but I still feel very rigid. Very often I experience headaches on the sides of my temples, which worsen if I try to concentrate above the head.
Should I continue trying these?
I do practice calling the mother’s name, or “Om Anandamayi Chaitanyamayi Satyamayi Parame,” but I cannot persist for long with intensity from the heart as you described.
The Divine Presence is known through identity and its attendant results. The sense of the false and limited I, the constructed ego-self in which we live with all its attendant results of like and dislike, I-ness and My-ness, fall off. That does not mean we don’t know the difference between ourselves and others. But the old habit of associating them with our outer circumstances of birth, language, custom, etc. falls off. Each is seen as a unique facet of the Divine in different degrees of self-disclosure. Hence attraction and repulsion, love and hate, and with it the sense of competition, jealousy, strife all pass away. A universal Love, a universal Peace and Joy independent of outer conditions begins to grow, at first not secure but later constant and completely independent of all circumstances. The fear of death completely passes away since one has the sense of immortality, the feeling of having lived always. The doors of an inner intuitive knowledge open and with it a sort of practical mastery over our nature and the world nature. This of course is the last step and many do not care about it. But the deep inmost Peace and Joy, a vast universal Love, freedom from fear and grief and the sense of being at home everywhere since one feels the same Divine Presence in all and everywhere, are some of the unmistakable signs of being in contact with the Divine Presence.
One may have visions and voices sometimes on the way if the subtle senses open and there is an occult predilection towards these things. But this is not mandatory and can be sometimes misleading as well.
Headache is generally due to some kind of resistance to the opening. Don’t strain. Continue to concentrate quietly with the help of The Mother’s Name and Her image. The resistances will melt away before the growing devotion and concentration upon Her.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
