DHYAN FOUNDATION

The word Shiv consists of 'shav', which is a dead body and 'i', which is Shakti – the force which runs creation. This force needs a vehicle or a body to manifest into, so shav becomes Shiv and a child is born. The night of Shivratri has the power to give birth to your thoughts. It is a night of birth, a night of merger; a night of creation, a night of manifestation and a night of thought fulfilment and the one who can give you this experience of Shiv is your Guru. Being born in the land of Bharat, I have grown up hearing stories of Shiv and Shakti; I was told that Shivratri is a night of marriage of Shiv to Shakti, an auspicious and potent night. I would see elders in the family keeping a fast, making offerings, singing prayers to Shivji…for me Shivratri meant a holiday from school. I could not see the sense in celebrating an event that occurred centuries and maybe millennia ago. For me, Shiv and Shakti were protagonists of a puranic story, I was ob...

Mata Parvati was the daughter of a great king. When she chose to marry Lord Shiva, her parents objected and ridiculed her decision. They asked her why she would want to stay at Mount Kailash where there is nothing but snow, instead of marrying a man owning a huge kingdom and a palace. To this, she replied that all of these are temporary. When her parents didn’t believe her, she gave them a glimpse of their future. They were shocked to see that their lavish palace was nowhere to be seen, it didn’t exist. That is when they understood what their daughter was saying. That is when they got the gyan. Everything that is a part of the physical world—the body, property, relatives, friends and riches—is unreal and will leave us one day. It is only when you are able to access Shiva that this gyan flows and you get the darshan of what is real. The path leading to Shiva, however, is not easy. Sadhaks, who choose to tread this path, need to possess traits like Shiva—tapasya, vairag...

यह सृष्टि 16 तत्वों से निर्मित है। पहले पांच तत्व, पृथ्वी, जल, अग्नि, वायु और आकाश, पृथ्वी लोक से संबंधित हैं। छठा तत्व ‘शिव तत्व’ है जिसका संबंध आज्ञा चक्र से है तथा वह माथे के केंद्र में स्थित है। विशुद्धि और आज्ञा चक्र के बीच में 11 तत्व हैं किंतु फिर भी शिव तत्व को छठा तत्व कहा जाता है क्योंकि शिव आदि, अनादि, अनंत, अखण्ड हैं जो बुद्धि की समझ से परे हैं। सारे तत्व उसी में निहित हैं।  एक सामान्य मनुष्य का मस्तिष्क 7 से 8 प्रतिशत की क्षमता पर कार्य करता है जो कि भौतिक दुनिया के अनुभवों के लिए पर्याप्त है किंतु शिव तत्व का अनुभव करने के लिए उच्च इंद्रियों की जागृति आवश्यक है। शरीर में तीन प्रकार की ग्रन्थियां होती हैं, ब्रह्म ग्रंथि, विष्णु ग्रंथि तथा रूद्र ग्रंथि। ब्रह्म ग्रंथि तथा विष्णु ग्रंथि खोलना अपेक्षाकृत सरल है किन्तु रूद्र ग्रंथि को खोलना बहुत कठिन है।  इसके खुले बिना शेष 11 तत्वों का अनुभव नहीं हो सकता।  16 तत्वों के अनुभव के बाद ही शिव और शक्ति का संयोजन होता है और शिव तत्व की प्राप्ति होती है। शिव तत्व का उद्देश्य केवल मोक्ष है और शिव दर्श...

Yogi Ashwini's article in Pioneer on Sunday, 31 August Sunday, 31 August 2014 | Yogi Ashwini | in  Agenda As every phenomenon in nature serves a purpose, there is purpose behind two people coming together. The union of two forces is always for creation, says  Yogi Ashwini We all know the importance of ‘balance’ in creation. Everything in the universe is in its place because of balance. Similarly, all the forces of the nature, higher or lower, have to be in balance all the time for the sustenance of the creation. The smaller forces are nothing but a microscopic representation of the higher forces of universe. The Ardhanareshwar form of Lord Shiva represents the union of Mata Parvati and Lord Shiva or union of Purush and Prakriti, both are two different aspects of nature but come together to form a perfect harmonious balance between two complementary forces. Ardhanareshwar form to aid various purposes of nature represents complete union, a complete whole. They ar...

Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Creation follows a cyclical pattern consisting of opposites. The darkest of nights leads to the brightest of days. When these opposites diverge, it is called destruction and when they converge it is called birth. The night of Shivratri is a night of birth. It is a night of merger, a night of Creation, a night of manifestation and a night of thought fulfilment. The word Shiva consists of shav, which is a dead body and i, which is shakti — the force which runs creation. This force needs a vehicle or a body to manifest into, so shav becomes shiv and a child is born. Similarly the night of Shivratri has the power to give birth to your thoughts. On the night of Shivratri, the ability of mantras (incantations) increases by many times and effects generated far exceed several months of mantra sadhana combined. Mantra has to initiated by a guru which will give you the experience of the essence of Shiva, provided your guru is free from the...

Close your eyes. You will open yourself to a vast limitless expanse—the chittakash. Here yogis and sadhaks manifest the unmanifested in deep states of dhyan. How does one experience a limitless expanse between a closed eyelid and the eyeball? It is the first experience of Shiva, which was everything and yet nothing. He is the sum total of opposites—creation being bipolar. Add up the opposites, and the result is zero. Shiva is both purna and shunya. In the higher reaches of Himalayas  sit sadhus in silence, wearing nothing. Yet people from afar undertake arduous journeys  to seek  fulfilment of their desires. How can one, who seemingly has nothing, grant something to those who seemingly have everything, and are unable to acquire? The answer lies in consciousness and the experience of Shiva tatva; of infinity. The higher the level of consciousness rises, the closer he/she is to accessing the infinite, and the greater his/her ability to manifest the ph...

When we read the Puranas or the Upanishads, we find descriptions of great scientific advancements; stories of people with paranormal abilities and direct interactions with Gods. When we consider monuments left behind by the ancients, we see amazing engineering feats and advanced architectural knowledge. Most modern day discoveries already exist in our ancient texts. Ancient Indians were proficient in geometry, grammar, physics, medicine and spiritual quest. Panini introduced grammar to the world for the first time in a complete manner. Literary masterpieces like Kalidasa’s Shakuntala and Kena Upanishad inspired legendary works such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust. Religious studies scholar Huston Smith while asserting the supremacy of Vedic sciences over modern astronomy says, “While the West was still thinking, perhaps of 6,000 years old Universe, India was already envisioning ages and eons and galaxies as numerous as the sands of the Ganges.” The Germa...

This was nearly 15 years ago, we were travelling to the higher reaches of Badrinath and on the way back we went into a restaurant just outside the temple. We asked for some cow milk and told the owner to be doubly sure that it was cow milk and not powdered milk; he assured us and went into the kitchen. We waited for 10 minutes and then I decided to take a look in the kitchen. Inside to my surprise, I saw him boiling water and adding powdered milk to it! On confronting, he cheekily replied, “Now where do I get cows here?” I told him that if you people won’t send your cows to the butchers then you would have them and your character would be devik and not asuric, for this is what you people have become. How can you fool people at the dham of Vishnu? Another time on my visit to Kedarnath, I found families thronging the shrine in a picnic and holiday mood, filmi songs blaring and card parties galore. Inside the dharamshalas surrounding the shrine, people dressed as Shiva waving their tr...

Yogi Ashwini clears a few misconceptions about the purpose of the kundalini.   Artistic depictions of chakras and tantric triangles are often based on wild imagination, rather than fact. When you ask some of the artists for more details, they often hit a wall. But you ask someone who meditates on them regularly, you get a better response. Yogi Ashwini of the Dhyan Foundation clarified, “The triangles in the images depict energies. The downward triangle represents Shakti. The upward one represents Shiva. They can be of different colours in different places. The guru of a tantric practitioner will give each student different images to meditate on, like the Shri Yantra, because everyone is different. So their requirements are different. And these triangles are not imagined ones. They really do exist, and can be visible through meditation. They correspond to the different chakras, (dynamos in the etheric body).” He added, “The journey towards consciou...

The sun rises every morning and sets every evening; water evaporates and comes back to us as rain. If you look at creation around you, everything to do with it is a cycle. Nothing is permanent and there is no such thing as destruction. Einstein retold us what the Vedas have been saying for thousands of years — that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, it only changes form. Just because the day is over and the sun has set does not mean that the day will not come again. The darkest of nights leads to the brightest of days. Creation consists of opposites, to make a whole. When these opposites diverge it is called destruction and when they converge it is called birth.  The night of Shivratri is a night of birth. It is a night of merger, a night of creation, a night of manifestation and a night of thought fulfillment. The word shiva consists of shav, which is a dead body and i, which is shakti — the force which runs creation. This force needs a vehicle or a body to manife...