Over a span of 3 days, Shweta Rajurkar guided us to explore different meditative practices and tools to be able to claim and embody our innate quality of integral fearlessness. The workshop commenced during the auspicious festival of Navratri. With gratitude to the Goddess, the session began by seeking the divine blessings to help us conquer all that is pulling us down as we invoke and aspire to leap towards the realms of the  Higher Divine.

The process was step by step and included many simple, small as well as deep and immersive reflections. The participants were able to dive within themselves with dual and threefold awareness, which swiftly moved into its higher capacities as we engaged in the guided meditations.

Personal fear and ‘Dual awareness’ practice:

You connect intuitively to any part of the body which is drawing your attention and at the same time also be aware of the event which brought that fear in you the first time.

When you let the whole incident rise in your memory while being totally connected to the body, you sincerely question yourself whether there is some kind of enjoyment that lurks behind this fear that we feel.

It's like when you go to Essel world or engage in some water sport which is adventurous in nature, you love the thrill, the goosebumps, butterflies in the stomach, the shivering, etc. which is part of that ongoing experience. It makes you feel that “this is fearful but still I am enjoying it!”. Similarly, when you go deep within yourself, you will see that what you experience as fear has some enjoyment that lurks behind it and wants you to just keep clinging to it. It gives you a feeling of instant awakening and aliveness.

Collective fear and ‘Threefold awareness’ practice 

• Connect your individual fear to something that also holds your collective experience of fear.
• Anchoring your awareness in the body, while you are connecting to that experience of fear from your individual as well as collective point of view, you also observe your breath.
• As you go deep within and ask yourself when was it that there was a force from the collective to respond to that fear, you understand that the fear that you feel first touches or intrudes is into the pranic (Vital) body.
• Your vital being lets the fear enter within and slowly spread and settle as a memory of the body.
• However, there is a silent layer of ‘luminous light’, which is constantly present in some corner of our body where this fear either cannot reach and even if it reaches there or it comes in its presence, it just melts down.
• When you intuitively bring yourself in connection with that self-illumined presence within, slowly you will feel that you are coming to the side of Truth which stands above all the pulls and pushes from our lower vibrations.
• Bringing all the fear-based sensations and feelings at the level of your navel horizontally with your inner hand, you sincerely pluck them all and bring them forth in the outer atmosphere.
• Connect this process to your Master or Guru as if inwardly you are making this your offering to the highest Truth.
• As you open your eyes, let your gaze fall on the photograph or image that you connect very concretely as a source of Divine.
• Light the lamp or candle in front of you and without any reservation, offer all that you have collected and gathered from the outside atmosphere to the Divine Light, the Truth Light, the Grace Light. To receive divine courage, our consent is highly essential.

The second day of the workshop began by connecting to a quote by the Mother. 

“When someone has decided to consecrate his life to the seeking for the Divine, if he is  sincere, that is to say, if the resolution is sincere and carried out sincerely, there is  absolutely nothing to fear, because all that happens or will happen to him will lead him  by the shortest way to this realisation.

That is the response of the Grace. People believe that the Grace means making  everything smooth for all your life. It is not true.

The Grace works for the realisation of your aspiration and everything is arranged to gain  the most prompt, the quickest realisation - so there is nothing to fear.” - The Mother 

(CWM 15: 180-181)

The meditation practice to release the experience of something that has become a trauma, a habit in the body, was indeed empowering. We practised connecting to our body and becoming aware of any sensation that reveals fear in a particular part and then, to open it and offer it to the Divine above.

It was a very simple practice for our ego-self to understand that there is no need for us to hold on to our personal experiences and fears. We just need to have faith deep within, not only in the heart and mind but also in the body. Whenever we see any flashes of the memory that bring in uneasiness to the body, we can concretely establish our connection with the Divine and remain secured.

Sharing another quote by the Mother, Shweta Rajurkar requested the participants to let the words of the Mother touch their whole body to be able to receive this force through Her words.

“Once you enter the path of Yoga you must get rid of all fears — the fears of your mind,  the fears of your vital, the fears of your body which are lodged in its very cells. One of  the uses of the blows and knocks you receive on the path of Yoga is to rid you of all  fear. The causes of your fears leap on you again and again, until you can stand before  them free and indifferent, untouched and pure. One has a fear of the sea, another the  fear of fire. The latter will find, it may be, that he has to face conflagration after  conflagration till he is so trained that not a cell of his body quivers. That of which you  have horror comes repeatedly till the horror is gone. One who seeks the transformation  and is a follower of the Path, must become through and through fearless, not to be  touched or shaken by anything whatever in any part of his nature.”

- The Mother

(CWM 03: 57)

We explored an empowering practice to go deeper towards fearlessness.

• With our awareness above on the Divine, with each in-breath, as if we are bringing the cells of that part of the body where we feel fear, closer to each other as though they are hugging (condensing) each other.
• With each out-breath, we slowly release these cells and simultaneously connect them to the Divine above.
• Each time that you connect to the cells of that part of the body, tell the cells there that “it is not your job to hold the fear. Your real, truthful and highest job is to hold the Divine Grace, Divine Light and Divine Love”

With consistent practice, when we let the cells of our body parts comprehend and accept this process, it really helps to release something that has taken over the body. Slowly, we see a huge shift in our being. We feel more settled, calm and confident in all the different aspects of our life, in our relationships, in our work, in our learning, in our receptivity.

The Mother’s answer to one of Her disciple’s questions.

Q: When one sees an illness coming, how can one stop it?

Mother: “Ah! First of all, you must not want it and nothing in the body must want it. You must have a very strong will not to be ill.

“This is the first condition. 

“The second condition is to call the light, a light of equilibrium, a light of peace, quietude and balance, and to push it into all the cells of the body, enjoining them not to be afraid, because that again is another condition.

“First, not to want to be ill, and then not to be afraid of illness. You must neither attract it nor tremble. You must not want illness at all. But you must not because of fear not want it; you must not be afraid; you must have a calm certitude and a complete trust in the  power of the Grace to shelter you from everything, and then think of something else, not  be concerned about this any longer. When you have done these two things, refusing the  illness with all your will and infusing a confidence which completely eliminates the fear  in the cells of the body, and then busying yourself with something else, not thinking any  longer about the illness, forgetting that it exists... there, if you know how to do that, you  may even be in contact with people who have contagious diseases, and yet you do not  catch them.”

- The Mother

(CWM 07: 142-143)

With this quote in our mind and our heart, the participants were guided to be very vigilant and open to feel and acknowledge the ‘will’ of the body.

• In some corner of our body lies a powerful, sincere will to open and connect only to the Divine.
• This ‘Will’ holds the capacity to reject all the vibrations of illness in the cells.
• Feeling connected to this part, we request all the other cells to turn to this part, which holds an immense unshakeable ‘Will’.
• Connecting and opening the whole body to the vastness above, vertically as well as horizontally, we put a chant or a mantra that is most close to our heart such as ‘Om’ or ‘Om Ma’.
• With each conscious ascending breath, moving upward, touching the vastness above, chant this mantra ‘om’, with each out-breath it can be an ‘Om’ again or ‘Ma’ or ‘Shanti’.
• Let the whole body and the cells of the body participate to develop a concrete will in this very body
• Vigilantly recheck and refuse all the suggestions of those parts which are still rigid and resisting. We only connect our entire body to the Divine above.

The last day of the workshop was an immersive session full of deep insights and tools to move towards a fearless body sufficiently anchored in the Divine Grace, Force and Light.

The next practice that we explored was focused on connecting to the Divine vastness vertically as well as horizontally to create a Rakhsha Kawach around us.

As much as the Divine Light and Grace is pouring from above, it is also holding us from below. Vertically it's a direct connection, where we continuously offer all our fears and unconscious thoughts to the Divine Grace and Light. Horizontally connecting to the Divine would mean bringing that Divine force and energy into our interactions with other humans. During an emotional or mental exchange with another human, if the consciousness is not sufficiently anchored in the Divine, we usually have a slippery absorption.

Taking our awareness gently in the depth of the silent zone of our heart to meet our psychic being (our own inner guide), we put our sincere prayer to the Divine above to be free of any desire for adventure or lower vibrations through the means of fear.

• With awareness of our normal breath, with each in-breath we let our awareness ascend to the top of our head and connect to the vastness spread above the head all over horizontally.
• With each out-breath, we take a plunge inside the body moving downwards towards our feet and slowly a little bit deeper below the feet to connect to the vastness of the earth.
• As above, so below. With a few conscious breaths, we develop this faith and trust that we are connecting to the Divine shield of protection, the Rakhsha Kawach.

Just like pranayam is a form of subtle practice in yoga, similarly mudras (hand gestures) are also a science of yoga.

We explored the Soham mudra wherein-

• We sit comfortably with our backs upright .and think of a fear we really want to eradicate out of our system.
• Creating the Soham mudra as shown in the figure above, we become aware of our natural breathing.
• Each time we inhale deeply, we chant OM seven times. After chanting is over, we exhale through the mouth, and close the mouth while simultaneously pushing the stomach inwards.
• We hold it in like that as long as it is absolutely comfortable for us and connect inwardly to all our negative thoughts, and fears. We gather them together (condensing the whole body).
• Then we relax, breathe in and open our hands, releasing the mudra and offering them all to the Divine above, while exhaling through the mouth again.

The participants then contemplated on a reply by the Mother to the question-How to overcome the fear of death?

“We come now to the most terrible battle of all, the physical battle which is fought in the  body; for it goes on without respite or truce. It begins at birth and can end only with the  defeat of one of the two combatants: *the force of transformation and the force of  disintegration. I say at birth, for in fact the two movements are in conflict from the very  moment one comes into the world, although the conflict becomes conscious and

deliberate only much later. For every indisposition, every illness, every malformation,  even accidents, are the result of the action of the force of disintegration, just as growth,  harmonious development, resistance to attack, recovery from illness, every return to the  normal functioning, every progressive improvement, are due to the action of the force of  transformation. Later on, with the development of the consciousness, when the fight  becomes deliberate, it changes into a frantic race between the two opposite and rival  movements, a race to see which one will reach its goal first, transformation or death.  This means a ceaseless effort, a constant concentration to call down the regenerating  force and to increase the receptivity of the cells to this force, to fight step by step, from  point to point against the devastating action of the forces of destruction and decline, to  tear out of its grasp everything that is capable of responding to the ascending urge, to  enlighten, purify and stabilize. It is an obscure and obstinate struggle, most often  without any apparent result or any external sign of the partial victories that have been  won and are ever uncertain — for the work that has been done always seems to need  to be redone; each step forward is most often made at the cost of a setback elsewhere  and what has been done one day can be undone the next. Indeed, the victory can be sure and lasting only when it is total. And all that takes time, much time, and the years pass by inexorably, increasing the strength of the adverse forces.

All this time the consciousness stands like a sentinel in a trench: you must hold on, hold on at all costs, without a quiver of fear or a slackening of vigilance, keeping an  unshakeable faith in the mission to be accomplished and in the help from above which  inspires and sustains you. For the victory will go to the most enduring.”  - The Mother

(CWM 12: 86-87)

Amongst the force of transformation and the force of disintegration, we are demanded to constantly call down the force of transformation.

The final practice was simple yet immersive in nature where we shifted our awareness to the back and the spine of the body with focus on developing a ‘will’ with all the conviction to simultaneously call the force of transformation and reject the force of degeneration.

• With each incoming and outgoing breath, observe the movement of your back. There is a gentle subtle movement of expansion and contraction. There are many forces and vibrations that enter through this region where we are mostly unconscious.
• Take a few more seconds to become aware of the rhythmic movements of expansion and contraction in the back.
• Observing the gentle subtle movement of expansion and contraction in the back, with each exhalation, we connect to our tailbone.
• Taking our awareness above the top of our head, we connect to the Divine qualities above, and receive some portion of that Divine vastness into the cells of the spine.
• With the attitude of surrender, we hand over all the fears whether known or unknown to the Divine below. This practice prepares the body to be receptive to this force of transformation.

Finally, the session ended with Shweta Rajurkar reminding us that the Mother says that death is just a habit. What we are aiming for is to break the cycle and pattern of this habit. As we connect and call upon the force of transformation, let us put this intention in the body to neither fear death nor desire death at any moment of life. 

“In order to be able to conquer death and win immortality, one must neither fear death nor desire it.”

-The Mother 

“The target at which we are aiming is immortality. And of all the habits, death is surely the most obstinate.”

-The Mother

Feedback

“Yes, it did help me. I could feel light and more calm through the practices.”

It was very warm and comfortable.”

“I felt enveloped with divine love and protection.”

Yes. These three days, i was feeling a very good atmosphere. After the first session i had a thought of surrendering (till now i have not surrendered the fear to Mother) my fear from my birth till now (whatever triggers me) and i did the surrender to Mother and i felt calm in my body.

“The sessions made Mother and Sri Aurobindo's presence and protection deeper and stronger within.”

“The three days were like a meditation.”

[Addressing fear issues]

“Yes, very much. I haven’t discussed with anyone nor am I ready to consult any doctor. I was praying to the Mother for the cure and this workshop helped me a lot.”