Some years ago we were completing the work on Swami Kriyananda’s dome at Ananda Village, the initial building of what has evolved over time into Crystal Hermitage. Although the interior of the dome still needed work to transform it from a building site into a home, Swamiji was eager to move in.

To speed up the process, he rounded up a group of us after meditation one morning and asked if we would like to help him paint the interior walls. Did we ever! It was always a joy to spend whatever time we could with him.

By the time we all assembled at the dome, it was about ten o’clock in the morning. Swamiji worked alongside us, and we painted steadily and silently until noon. Then he suggested that we take a break for meditation and lunch, and reconvene at two o’clock.

When I returned after the break, I was asked to paint the wooden beams of the large hexagonal picture window which overlooks the Sierra National Forest. Because the wood was rough, it was a difficult task. Standing on a stepladder, I had to concentrate on every inch and apply multiple layers of paint to get an even coverage.

The more I painted, the more I became absorbed in the process, and lost all track of time. As I forgot myself in the task at hand, there grew a sense of joy, and of oneness with a greater reality.

After what seemed like a few hours, Swamiji, looking around and seeing that the painting of the dome was done, said, “Well, everybody, thanks for all your help. It’s time to call it a day.” I looked at the clock, and it was three o’clock the next morning! Unaware of time’s passing, we had happily painted through the night without any fatigue.

Swamiji gave us a great blessing through that experience: He showed us how concentration, when held in a carrier wave of uplifted consciousness, turns into a sense of joyful absorption and expansion of awareness.

In his classic ashtanga yoga (eightfold path), Patanjali wrote that the path to enlightenment embraces eight stages. The sixth of these, dharana, can be described as concentration, or fixed inner awareness. The seventh is dhyana,meaning meditation or, more properly, absorption.

Our mind becomes absorbed in the object of our concentration. If we concentrate on our faults, we strengthen those faults. By concentrating instead on positive qualities, we ourselves become more positive. And by concentrating on the inner light, or upon any divine reality, we gradually take on the qualities of that inner reality.

The eighth and last stage of the eightfold path is samadhi, or oneness. Swami Kriyananda has written: “Once the grip of ego has really been broken, and one discovers that he is that light, there is nothing to prevent him from expanding his consciousness to infinity.”

In whatever you do, whether in the company of others or alone, and especially in meditation, give it your fixed awareness. That will lead you to absorption, and eventually to oneness with all that is. It’s not that hard!

With joy in our Guru’s teachings,

Nayaswami Devi

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