Tapasya as Heat
In this meditation we build the heat of Tapasya through mantra repetition. Each time you bring your awareness back to the mantra, the flame grows brighter.
In this meditation we cultivate the heat of awareness by counting down from 60 to zero with a few stops along the way, slowing down our counting, counting with our breath, and eventually arriving at the ability to watch our breath with a higher degree of focus and sensitivity.
Tapasya: The Heat of Transformation
The element of time sometimes leads us to think that Tapasya is boring, just repeating a mantra over and over for a ‘long time’, equating it with a dull state. The yogic tradition has a very different perspective on this word, and it’s anything but dull, it’s actually extremely bright! At the root of the word Tapasya, spiritual work, is ‘tapas’, which in Sanskrit can be translated to meaning heat. So Tapasya, spiritual work/discipline, in Sanskrit is synonymous with the the fire of transformation itself— That’s just how important this concept is for yogis, it’s the actual fuel of growth.
Shiva Nataraja dances in a circle of fire to symbolize the power of transformation that is always possible for us through our practice. This level of work takes focus, this depth of focus creates heat, and this kind of heat generates transformation. If you heat water, it boils and becomes steam, it changes it’s state of being. If you heat tension, it also boils and releases energy. This is the physics of growth. This heat can be felt in our daily practice. For example: What does it take to keep your mind on a mantra? Work, and how when you do it, how does that work feel? I bet you heat up! They go hand in hand. As Babaji teaches in his book Spiritual Practice, “We are able to create such a tremendous flow and heat that we are performing a massive purification. There were times that physically I was so hot in winter weather that I would wear a tee shirt because I was burning up so much stuff from deep inside” (77). Tapasya is not a dull state, far from it, is a dynamic and vibrant state, a glowing state.