Gratitude & Tension Release: Practice Resources
Gratitude Practice: Explanation and Guided Practice with Abhaya
Tension Release: Explanation and Guided Practice with Satyam
Written Guidance on Swami Rudrananda’s Tension Release and Gratitude Practice by Faith Stone in her Book, Rudi and the Green Apple: CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD
Swami Rudrananda Satsang
On the Necessity of Incorporating Tension Release Practice into your Meditation Routine
Subtitles Are Provided, just click on the CC option at the bottom of the screen.
TRANSCRIPT OF SATSANG:
Rudi: And if you work any day, and you have an incredible experience, or you're going through a tremendous shock, and you don't do this negative psychic tension exercise, then you're a horse's ass. Because you work from one level to another, you rip it apart, you tear it apart, you suffer with it, you go through all this agony, and all of this gets torn loose. And it's like millions of molecules and you don't do anything and then you pay the price. Four days later this thing becomes solid again, it becomes exactly what it was. There is no such thing as growth without breaking down in the growth, the byproduct-- it should be growth which has been suggested, and allows the breaking down of energy and chemistry so that you can wash out of yourself just as after you eat food. You wash out the poisons, you psychically wash out through any creative process, the unassimilated energy so that you grow back in a different way-- you are changing human being. without ridding yourself of some of your chemistry consciously every day you will never change. Your mind will be fanciful and you'll have illusions, but you will not be a human being undergoing a creative and spiritual change. And this is essential. It's absolutely essential that you understand that your spiritual work is nothing unless your chemistry is consciously breaking down and admitting part of it's changing quality and its structure. Is there anyone that doesn't understand? If you sit here being ignorant, that's fine, but if you don't raise your hand and stay stupid, then you really don't deserve anything in this life. You have to really within yourself-- Yes.
Student's Question: If your life is going through alot of changes rapidly, and creating alot of tension, how can you deal with that tension?
Rudi: Firstly, tension is very strong energy, right? It's very strong energy, so if you (takes a deep breath) breathe deeper, right, and you draw the tension inside--It's just like chewing food right you'll have the sucking the life energy out of the tension, what you can't suck out, you drop out a couple of times a day, right? So you're eating food, right, digesting inside what you can of this food and then you're getting rid of the by-product. It's the only way you can grow consciously is by eating in the tensions of your day and then allowing what you can't eat to wash out so that your life becomes compact and becomes strong, and you really are structuring inside...
Another Perspective on Gratitude: The Practice of Contentment
Excerpts from Sri ShambhavAnanda’s book, Spiritual Practice, on the topic of Gratitude, with a small excerpt at the end on tension release:
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD Excerpts as PDF
From the Book, Spiritual Practice, By Sri ShambhavAnanda:
P.180
Babaji: It’s a big universe, everyone, so get to work. Don’t be small people. Have a big heart!
I saw on the science channel that research has shown that two of the key ingredients that bring about a long life, health, and a sense of wellbeing are gratitude and sangha. They didn’t actually say “sangha.” They said, “.... being in a close-knit group of people who support one another.” They did this research over 30 years ago. People who had this support lived longer, even if they had serious diseases. They lived longer than people who didn’t have this type of support, who basically were grumpy about everything.
People are seldom grateful for anything. They get something and then they want more. Mostly they want things. The research I mentioned says it’s a proven fact that being wealthy and having lots of things does not guarantee happiness, a long life, or good health. The researchers showed that people who had diabetes and heart disease, and also practiced gratitude and lived in a close-knit group, lived 10 years more than healthier people who didn’t have that kind of life- style. I think it’s important that every day you find something to be grateful for. If you never make that effort to be grateful and to offer it up, then you will get dry as a bone. You will find no joy and no nectar in your life.
Rudi taught a gratitude exercise up at Big Indian. He said that after you are through with your meditation practice, you should sit for a few moments, then take a breath into your heart chakra, and from that place inside try to generate and feel gratitude. Think of seven or eight things that you can actually generate gratitude for regarding your life, plus your spiritual practice and the opportunity to grow. He said you should allow this gratitude to build and build in your heart chakra until it becomes a very strong force. (You should do this even if nothing is going the way you want it to.) Then you let this feeling of gratitude rise out the top of your head and go out into the uni- verse. He said that if you have done it correctly by putting some real intent behind it, after a moment or two you will feel a return of en- ergy coming into the crown chakra and filling your heart with nectar. It is similar to an ointment or a salve that soothes away tension, pain, and emotional turmoil.
In my own life, there have been times when everything in my world was totally falling apart. There were things that I had created and things that I had wanted or thought I needed, and they kept slipping away. I used my practice to deeply surrender, release, and let them go. Our attachment to things being the way we want them, or not being the way we don’t want them, is the source of much of our tension. Medically speaking, strong emotional tension releases all sorts of chemicals in your body that bring about aging and disease. I also know that if you work hard at finding gratitude, your life will become richer.
P. 36
Babaji: I understand the feeling, but whenever I feel a little disconnected,
I always go inside, and I feel perfectly content. If we become de- pendent and overly attached to a person, place, or thing, then that becomes an obscuration that prevents us from discovering our true nature. Going inward and having a spiritual sensitivity and a spiritual connectedness makes us feel more connected to everyone, whether they are physically with us or not. Even when I am alone I never feel alone--even when I want to be alone. That is the other end of the spectrum!
P.171
Babaji: I’ve found that the better we become at the spiritual side of our lives, the more the world flows for us. We have less anxiety, less pressure, and less doership. You might feel very productive when you write a big long list and then do everything on it. However, completing lists doesn’t do much for your inner life. I have found over the years that being in the present is a very positive way to live. Right now I am sitting here looking at all of you, and I’m right here. Being in the present reveals such depth and such content that it makes my life extremely rich. I am not caught up in regrets about the past or worries about the future. It is much better not to drag the baggage of the past around with us. Nor do we want to bury our present in our fears about the future.
P.184
Q. With Guru Purnima coming up, how can we best celebrate our connection with you and show our appreciation more deeply?
Babaji: Practice! Guru Purnima is similar to Father’s Day or Mother’s Day, where you think of those people with love in your heart, and a little gratitude. A little gratitude goes a long way. Usually, when we’re young, we rebel against our parents and wonder why they torture us? But as we grow older we have more respect and sympathy for our parents, especially when we have children.
We celebrate Guru Purnima by giving back a little, that is, by feeling gratitude for the opportunity to grow and by giving our love. Then we offer it up. It is a very positive action. In a way I celebrate Guru Purnima every day! I always look at Rudi and Baba Muktananda and think, “Oh, God. Thanks so much!” The things that they put me through were not always pleasant. But they really served my growth. It is rare in this world to have the opportunity to do spiritual practice. Just think of the billions of people out there who don’t have jobs or food. They are ducking bombs and bullets, and their spiritual life is “kill the other guy.” To have the opportunity to study meditation and something of a higher nature is incredibly good karma. To throw that away is prob- ably the greatest damage you can do to yourself.
A Few words on Tension Release:
p.149
Q. After I got back home from visiting my family, I was wiped out. I did manage to work well with them when I was there—and now I have crashed.
Babaji: You just broke down some tensions that are part of your family karma. Our relationships with our families are always a test of our growth, as is sangha. These people who are close to us in our lives, who see us a certain way, and who put the most demands on us, are easily able to drag us back into their existence, their prejudices, and their unconsciousness. Working with them is always a test. You can’t reject it and run away from it, because that won’t do you any good. What you did working with your family tensions to get above them was to drill through twenty tons of coal, and you blasted the coal into pieces. Now you have to flush them out.
You have to understand that there is a lot of debris floating around in you after a strong experience like that. Therefore, you have to ask really deeply in your heart to release all your negative psychic ten- sions. You will feel chunks of this stuff release, the heat will subside, you will find that you can breathe again, and you will also feel a little lighter.