Expect the unexpected

ELIZABETH DENLEY describes how Heartfulness Cleaning has evolved over time, a good reminder that it is a dynamic method that continues to unfold and bring new awareness and insight. Along with that also comes awe at the potential of the human mind.

After decades of practicing Heartfulness, you may think there is little more to discover, but I’m still filled with wonder whenever something unexpected and astounding emerges on this inner journey. It may be something I already know at a certain level, but then experience at a deeper level of consciousness and therefore with a deeper understanding. Those lightbulb moments are so joyful.

In January and early February this year, something new happened around the process of Cleaning, which is the detoxification practice done in the evening to remove the mental and emotional baggage and heaviness that has accumulated during the day.

When I first started Heartfulness, I was so impressed with the Cleaning that I would sit every evening for 30 minutes; it was better than any therapy session. Subconscious images, sounds, feelings, remembrances, and a growing awareness of how different strands of life were intertwined rose to the surface and left, effortlessly. Sometimes it meant emotional discomfort, but I wanted the limitations of the past to be gone, so discomfort was a small price to pay. I wanted to experience life beyond those limitations.

Every evening, during that practice, I felt a load shift, and I would write reams in my journal. Every week, when I had a meditation session with a trainer, I would feel a bigger load shift. Every time I joined the group meditations, I realized that layers of experience were being sifted and dislodged so as to reach the treasure at the center of my being. Dreams became pointers to impressions that were being cleaned from my system. Everything was working to remove the complexities. I remember the first time I sat for meditation with a thoughtless still mind, and realized that an enormous amount of inner work had been done in such a short time, for which there was deep gratitude.

Every evening, during that practice, 
I felt a load shift, and I would write reams in my journal. 
Every week, when I had a meditation session with a trainer, 
I would feel a bigger load shift. Every time I joined the group meditations, 
I realized that layers of experience were being sifted and
dislodged so as to reach the treasure at the center of my being.

As a scientist, it was an amazing experience to witness this inner work that went deeper than anything I had known in psychology or any other spiritual system. The resulting changes were life-transforming.

Over the weeks, the months, the years, and the decades, that intensity would wax and wane, like all natural processes and rhythms. At times Cleaning required less intensity, less duration, because there was space and stillness. Then the intensity would increase for as long as needed. Over time, the process of Cleaning became less forceful, subtler, and it felt light and effortless. Then, this year something different happened.

In the second half of January, I noticed I was sitting for Cleaning like clockwork for at least 30 minutes most evenings. It wasn’t intended; more like someone else was the doer or natural processes were at play. Each session was intense and raw, a review of those periods of this life and past lives that had been buried, in lucid, vivid detail, sometimes visually like a movie, sometimes simply as memories, feelings, and emotions, and always with the same intensity without any filters and at great speed. Sometimes it was uncomfortable.

Looking back at those events, decisions made, and things that today seem so ludicrous and purposeless, my life appeared ridiculous, I appeared ridiculous. A life without a higher purpose appeared ridiculous. I remembered both wonderful and stupid things, but it was all without weight, a prelude. It was not negative, and at times I was smiling at the absurdity of it all. It was very liberating after the initial discomfort. There was nothing to hold onto, and nothing worth retaining. The identity, the ego, is just a tool to evolve, not what gives meaning to existence.

As a scientist, it was an amazing
experience to witness this inner work that
went deeper than anything I had known in
psychology or any other spiritual system. 

Deep philosophical thoughts about the purpose and flow of eternal existence, the meaning of various experiences, and the practice of Cleaning itself—of replacing human vibrations with divine vibrations—all happened at indeterminate speed during these Cleaning sessions. It was a complete reset, and felt as though the practice had been upgraded.

This occurred during the days leading up to a big event in our community, the celebration of the birth anniversary of Lalaji, the first Heartfulness Guru, from February 1 to 3. On each day, there were group meditations with Daaji, during which I experienced some of the same raw intensity and cleaning, but always the meditations plunged into nothingness and no being. It was a lighter state than I remember experiencing before. It was not beautiful, because it didn’t have qualities. There was no blissful intoxication, no profound awareness or insight, and nothing to attach to; yet in that there was a joy and freedom that cannot be described. It was a state so still, so clear, full of potential movement that subsided, re-emerged, subsided, re-emerged. The potential in nothing-ness was riveting.

Looking back, none of this awareness would have been possible without the intense preparation that happened in the days leading up to the event. The experience is still being absorbed a week after the celebration ended. Life has changed and words can’t describe that change. One thing I can say is that true awareness is only possible when it is not tethered, because only then is it universal and able to flow freely. Otherwise it is “colored,” attached to some pull or push. It may even be an evolutionary pull or push, something useful, like the love for a mother, the love for a Guru, the love for God. They are stepping stones, catalysts to take us where the divine current flows without weight, without pulls and pushes.

The simplest of practices keep
unfolding in unimaginable ways. 

Apart from the wonder of the experience itself, the last month has been a reminder that each Heartfulness practice continues to evolve into something deeper and more potent over time. The instructions remain the same, but it is done at a different level. And that sometimes happens in a leap, not always as a gradual change. Over the years, I have often said that Cleaning doesn’t happen the way it did earlier, but now that statement has taken on a whole new meaning.

I often pinch myself that life has led to such a profound and dynamic method for transformation. The simplest of practices keep unfolding in unimaginable ways.