Page 119 - Liberal Exposition of Pranahuti Aided Meditation

STAGES OF PROGRESS
In the traditional systems we have got three centers below the heart level - the Muladhara, Swadhishtana and Manipura. They deal with the physical, vital planes of our being, pranic and vital planes of our being and enough literature has been written on that. Rev. SriRamchandraji Maharaj makes a very very significant deviation in his system by starting the progress only from the heart. He is just not bothered about the remaining portions and he says that the movement has to be done in the heart.
If you understand a bit, you are not a slave of the body, you are not a slave of the sense organs, you are not a slave of your prana, but, you are a slave of your ideas about the body, you are a slave of ideas about your prana, you are a slave of your ideas about the vitality. It is these ideas that are affecting us, this is unique to the human plane. Animals have got all these three but then they do not have a mentation, we are the only people. So he gives us the credit of starting the sadhana from the heart and doesn’t bother us about the lower centers that are there which, every civilized person, educated person, a moral person would have anyway got out of reasonably and is trying to get out of it, that is what motivated you to come here.
The diversion of the flow that is there to the upper portion, is generally experienced very early in this system by people. Those who are sensitive are very very clear about it, the less sensitive they are perhaps not all that clear but anyway they acknowledge the vibrations. If you concentrate or apply your mind on the vibrations, you will have only the Omkara nada. That is the first condition of ajapa that you will be having.
Ajapa is not an unconscious repetition of a mantra that we have learnt as tradition teaches us but is an automatic sound that we hear in the heart first, in the upper portion of the heart. Rev. SriRamchandraji Maharaj goes to the extent of saying that, that is the fundamental index to note whether a man has moved to the upper plane, that is a parameter given for us to watch. This can be watched by your own experience. In the very first instance we say that we feel the vibrations, some people feel something of a heat, something of a sound, some push here and there, these are all the various ways in which it is experienced and that is the experience of ajapa.