I was always fascinated by the power of intensity exuded by the enlightened masters. If you notice everything they do, intensity is the underlying common thread. This was one quality which I deeply aspired to develop in me in 2010 but I didn’t have the know-how at that time.
I remembered one experience from my master, Paramahamsa Nithyananda (fondly known as Swamiji), he shared that “In my young age, in the temple where my yoga teacher, Yogiraj Yogananda Puri would teach me yoga, there were twenty to thirty pillars. He would make me climb every stone pillar and come down. And I had to use only one hand to climb the pillars and come down! I had to do this from sunrise to sunset! One day I asked him why he was making me climb all these pillars because I couldn’t find any books or sutras saying climbing pillars was a part of yoga! He revealed a great truth – any movement you make with intensity and intention becomes part of your bio-memory. For whatever purpose you bend your body or move your body, that memory and idea will become completely recorded in your body-mind. That engram (samskara) will start expressing in your body.”
It was a strong click for Swamiji that moment – Yoga is any movement done with a strong intensity. When you bend your body with intensity for some purpose, that purpose becomes part of your prarabdha – the energy with which you create your body every day out of the Hiranyagarbha (the cosmic womb), it is the space where you rest every night, the same darkness which you experience in deep sleep, the space where all memories are available. Patanjali says any thought which you put inside intensely becomes your bio-memory. When you fall asleep with a certain thought and the next morning when you wake up, you will pick up that kind of engram and live it.
From the 12th Yoga Sutra, Patanjali says “Relax from these patterns (5 modifications of the mind) through constant and intensive practice of unclutching”. Swamiji revealed that intensity is the master key to experience Yoga! This is the ultimate sutra for the whole yoga regardless of the forms of spiritual practice you do. Intensity itself can lead you to the ultimate enlightenment without any technique or support. Whatever may be the obstacle you are facing in your spiritual journey, all you need is this one truth: Abhayasa and Vairagya – intense constant practice. You don’t have to bother about what technique you are following, who is your master, who is your teacher, whether he is enlightened – nothing is required. All you need is the ONE thing – intense constant practice. For enlightenment, all you need is the intensity of practice because intensity is an independent intelligence, you will be guided to the right master, right teaching, right technique and right enlightenment experience.
How to practise intensity?
You can pick up any idea and intensely internalise it through constant remembrance. When you fall asleep, be filled with that idea. When you wake up, be filled with that idea. You will see, in ten days your mind gets tuned to that idea, your thinking gets tuned to that idea. You will attract the right kind of people and situations around you.
Let me share my very experience after having practised the truth from Upanishad as instructed by Swamiji since March. I realised that I could smell the fragrance of intensity after I aligned my being with authenticity to ‘Who I am’. The idea I hold for myself is that of ‘I am consciousness’ not this body-mind. My breathing pattern is one with the Cosmic breathing pattern. Every night before sleep, I remember this one idea and burn everything to ashes – any association I carry about this body-mind on this physical plane and return to the state of pure consciousness. After two months of practicing this one idea, every yoga practice is becoming an intense experience of feeling connection with Oneness itself. The intensity led me to discover the Science of breath (pranayama) from Swamiji’s earlier discourse which taught me how to stop the mind and experience the cosmic breathing pattern. Everything seems to fall in place by itself!
In essence, anything you do with intensity becomes Yoga. Intensity is the unfailing way to the ultimate experience. Namaste. 😀