{"id":903,"date":"2016-06-04T16:47:53","date_gmt":"2016-06-04T23:47:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/meditationretreat.org\/?p=903"},"modified":"2017-01-18T12:46:43","modified_gmt":"2017-01-18T20:46:43","slug":"sweet-seclusion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meditationretreat.org\/sweet-seclusion\/","title":{"rendered":"Sweet Seclusion"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Paramhansa Yogananda, on whose teachings the Ananda Meditation Retreat is based, says:\u00a0 \u201cThe week should be allotted to work, amusement, and spiritual culture\u2014five days for money making, one day for rest and amusement, and one day for introspection and inner realization.\u201d\u00a0 There probably isn\u2019t too much question about working:\u00a0 most of us don\u2019t have much choice about it.\u00a0 Rest and amusement are often too easy for us to seek out. The third area is where we may lack experience and definition:\u00a0 introspection and inner realization.<\/p>\n

Ah, sweet seclusion!\u00a0 If you\u2019ve never tried it\u2014well, you must and the sooner the better!
\nMost likely, you\u2019ll find it so enjoyable that you\u2019ll soon be trying to take a day of seclusion more often, perhaps even one day a week, once a month, or even longer seclusions once or twice a year.\u00a0 Here are some suggestions that might help you to have a better time of your seclusion.<\/p>\n

Try to find a place, even if it\u2019s just a room, where you can be completely alone all day. Your own home may be fine, but householders often have problems secluding at home. Try to get the rest of the family to leave or to at least agree to give you as much privacy as possible for the day.\u00a0 Better yet, get out of your familiar environment, where there may be a strong temptation to get back into old routines, habits, or thought patterns. Go somewhere away from home. The Meditation Retreat or The Expanding Light Retreat both a part of Ananda Village near Nevada City, California, certainly are two of the best places to consider.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t eat a heavy meal the night before a seclusion day; this will help your next morning\u2019s meditation immensely.\u00a0 Try to meditate deeply the night before, then go to sleep affirming:\u00a0 \u201cTomorrow is my day to be alone with God!\u201d<\/p>\n

Get up early!\u00a0 Sleeping late will make you sluggish all day\u2014and, besides, you\u2019ll miss the coming of the dawn, the loveliest and often quietest time of the day.<\/p>\n

Energize\u2014outside if at all possible.\u00a0 Go slowly and stay very conscious of how you are doing the exercises.\u00a0 Do some yoga postures.\u00a0 Take time to do them carefully, gracefully, meditatively, in the Ananda Yoga way.\u00a0 If you are not used to doing yoga on your own, use a guided Ananda Yoga routine on an audio or video tape.\u00a0 Be adventurous and pick out some postures from the Ananda Course in Self Realization (14 Steps) or Ananda Yoga for Higher Awareness, that you rarely or never practice and give them a try too.\u00a0 Here is your chance to really enjoy them; you\u2019ve probably been too rushed to do them correctly\u2014if at all\u2014during your busy work week.<\/p>\n

Now for a long, deep meditation with no time barriers whatever.\u00a0 How glorious to know you can meditate for as long as you can sustain the energy.\u00a0 Do the techniques longer than usual, with your mind deeply absorbed in what you are doing.\u00a0 Do more kriyas and\/or higher kriyas than usual, too.\u00a0 End with healing prayers\u2014sending healing vibrations to individuals, to the world, and to yourself, too.\u00a0 Try bridging the gap between meditation and the rest of your day by practicing an affirmation, reading one of Yogananda\u2019s prayers or poem, listening to some of Swami Kriyananda\u2019s inspiring music, going for a walking meditation in the beauties of nature, or having a little ceremony or ritual of some sort for yourself.<\/p>\n

A seclusion day is perfect for fasting and keeping complete silence, or breaking your silence only for prayers or chanting (even then, try chanting softly, staying very inward).\u00a0 If total fasting is too much for you (drink plenty of water, please!), you might try fresh fruit and vegetables only or fresh juices all day. Whatever you eat, eat lightly, gratefully, slowly and consciously! Don\u2019t forget the other kinds of diets and fasts that Yogananda recommends his article, \u201cThe Divine Magnetic Diet:\u201d the wisdom diet, the courage diet, and of course, a worry fast.<\/p>\n

Most people find it much easier to fast if they keep silence at the same time.\u00a0 While keeping silence try to avoid even eye contact with anyone\u2014no note writing either.\u00a0 Just SILENCE.\u00a0 You\u2019ll find your energy begins to build as the time goes by.\u00a0 All the energy that gushes out of your mouth and eyes all day, every day, hoard it up and direct it towards God and toward longer, deeper meditations.\u00a0 It truly works!\u00a0 As Yogananda says:\u00a0 \u201cSilence is the altar of spirit.\u201d\u00a0 After several days of complete silence, you will probably find a greater sense of inner peace and joy within you that you have ever known.<\/p>\n

Perhaps your seclusion time can be a time of internal and external cleansing as well.\u00a0 Take a mild herbal laxative one evening or an enema in the morning.\u00a0 Have a long soak in your bathtub, or at least have a good long scrub in the shower.\u00a0 Take a swim if the weather\u2019s nice and you happen to know of a fairly private place to swim.\u00a0 Take a sun bath, too, consciously pulling in those healing rays (be careful of going too long with this\u2014perhaps avoiding the more dangerous times in the middle of the day).\u00a0 Do some of Yogananda\u2019s heliotropic methods of self-healing.<\/p>\n

\"\"Today may be the day to do all those yoga exercises or techniques that you keep intending to do, but just don\u2019t take the time for:\u00a0 the special mudras, bandhas, or pranayams.\u00a0 Other things to do:\u00a0 practice your chants, letting God flow through your voice.\u00a0 Take one chant and chant it for a long, long time.\u00a0 Learn a new chant.\u00a0 Learn one of Swami\u2019s songs. Sing along with a tape like \u201cSome of My Favorites\u201d or any of the Ananda music and chanting tapes. Chant AUM at each chakra, using the appropriate musical notes.\u00a0 Make music, chanting, japa, and the power of vibration an important part of a seclusion.<\/p>\n

Write in your journal.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t have one, use this time of seclusion to start one.\u00a0 If you only keep a brief daily spiritual diary, have another journal for expanding journal writing\u2014and write, write, write!\u00a0 You\u2019ll be amazed at how many problems you can solve by listing them and then asking Divine Mother to help you list all kinds of solutions.\u00a0 Subject such as Why are my meditations so blah? or why don\u2019t I get along with so-and-so?\u00a0 Have a sort of intensive planning session with yourself, on paper.<\/p>\n

Write letters of spiritual encouragement; there are surely many folks you know who are in great need of such a letter.\u00a0 Write poetry, but try to make it introspective and God-centered.\u00a0 Draw or paint, but only with a focus on God.<\/p>\n

And study!\u00a0 this should be a part of every seclusion.\u00a0 For example, take one of the lessons from Raja Yoga (14 Steps) and read it slowly, reflecting on every sentence. Take notes. Make outlines.\u00a0 Pretend you\u2019re going to have a pop quiz tomorrow, or that you have to teach a class in whatever you\u2019ve chosen to study.\u00a0 Or listen to one of Swami Kriyananda\u2019s talk tapes or perhaps even transcribe it word for word, or at least make some good notes.<\/p>\n

Read other inspirational works, lives of saints or biographies of other Godly persons.\u00a0 But please, not light or trashy novels today, no sci-fi, detective or romance novels.\u00a0 And no People Magazine or the San Francisco Chronicle.\u00a0 Remember that this is your time to grow closer to God, and there\u2019s plenty of material of higher consciousness to read and study without falling into those other traps.\u00a0 And, of course, no movies, TV, radio, or non-spiritual music. The idea is to keep the consciousness high; avoid these distractions like the plague!<\/p>\n

Do you like to run? Fine! But try to find a place where you won\u2019t see anybody, at least anybody who might want to talk to you.\u00a0 Take a long walk (ditto about the places you go while walking).\u00a0 In fact, do a walking meditation.<\/p>\n

At twilight have another nice, long sadhana\u2014perhaps outside, if the weather will allow.\u00a0 Try a three hour meditation with breaks every hour for chanting or stretching. Go even longer if you feel you can, or work up to longer meditations as you are able to take longer times of seclusion. End your day with a prayer of thanksgiving for the joy that comes from spending a day alone with the Friend of Friends.<\/p>\n

Certainly your time of seclusion will seem to end too soon, all the better to whet your appetite for the next time.\u00a0 Sweet, sweet seclusion!\u00a0 \u201cSolitude is the price of greatness,\u201d Yogananda said. Seek it out and God bless you as you do.<\/p>\n

In divine friendship always,
\nSavitri<\/p>\n

P. S. I wrote this little article on one of my seclusion days in 1980, not too long after I had first started taking regular seclusions. Now, many years later, I am still just as enthusiastic about them, if not more so.\u00a0 I now know, without any shadow of a doubt, that times of seclusion are essential to one\u2019s ability to persevere on a lifetime spiritual quest to final freedom in God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paramhansa Yogananda, on whose teachings the Ananda Meditation Retreat is based, says:\u00a0 \u201cThe week should be allotted to work, amusement, and spiritual culture\u2014five days for money making, one day for rest and amusement, and one day for introspection and inner realization.\u201d\u00a0 There probably isn\u2019t too much question about working:\u00a0 most of us don\u2019t have much choice about it.\u00a0 Rest and\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","post-excerpt","no-post-thumbnail"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meditationretreat.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/meditationretreat.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/meditationretreat.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meditationretreat.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meditationretreat.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/meditationretreat.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meditationretreat.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meditationretreat.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meditationretreat.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}