The life-force, the prana that animates us is carried on the breath, and this life-force emerges directly out of the fabric of Ishvara, infinite consciousness, and arises inside the breath of every living thing. Infinite truth arising within us, as us, with every breath.

Twenty-one thousand breaths every day—if every breath is conscious, you can unleash unimaginable spiritual force within yourself. That is the training. To consciously draw the awakening principle into yourself with every breath, to feel it capture the form of your very being, infusing the dynamic of truth into every cell. The gravity that arises from this tells you that you have found the thread of the truth within your self.

This dynamic is largely based on the complexity of the human form. Part of the struggle we face in becoming fully awakened human beings lies in our capacity to master our form. The more that is awakened within us, the wider the span of possibilities becomes, and the more responsibility we have for mastering our full range of capabilities as human beings.

The dynamic of awakening is not restricted by a specific philosophy or system of belief; it is like a force of nature. This is something one comes to understand only as the inner mystery begins to reveal itself layer by layer, going through one level after another, each more subtle than the previous.

As you relax deeper and deeper, as the stillness of heart and mind and spirit sinks farther and farther into your system, you will become aware of a force drawing you within. Starting as the smallest of threads, it will become a torrent. You must attune yourself to this presence and let it pull you in; it will take you to a place deep within yourself. In this way, everything happens.

The immediate antidote to arrogance is humility. Humility is one of the greatest tools of dharma, the great Tai Chi; you are listening to what the great light is saying and aligning yourself with that, without presupposition, without agenda. This listening and sensitivity unveils the presence of truth in any situation. By aligning with the infinite light of creation to the depths that you can observe it, you serve it, and you will find that all situations and circumstances will naturally unfold through and around you, annihilating all false agendas of the personal will.

Samadhi, to put it simply, is the conscious passing through the membrane between life and death. This is the final aim of the entire science of yoga and meditation—the conscious merging of individual identity with the infinite.

The content of each life is a constant renegotiation of these qualities. Every single quality from every single life doesn't reincarnate into the next given life. At the moment of birth there is an arrangement made between the creator and the conditioned soul. What qualities are going to be brought to bear?

Oftentimes when you regard the qualities of your life they will actually be a balanced list of strengths and weaknesses - areas of incumbent strength and areas of newly applied challenges that will bring about new strengths but are presently undeveloped. You need the basic strengths as your foundation, but although you may be very good at some things, there are other qualities that haven't been convincingly cultivated and need to be included in the mix.

If you're acting one way on the outside and you have all these secret desires on the inside, those secret desires will not be secret at the time of death, they will have their play. The idea of spiritual training in life is facing this condition with very clear eyes. That's what's implicit in spiritual training. You can see this in people who have gone through enough incarnations that they have begun to spot the pattern, and are interested in an alternative.

This is something very difficult for everyone to get, especially Westerners, because they are so linear minded. You cannot see the path because you are the path itself. It's as if you were trying to see your own eyeball; it can’t be done. You can see it in a mirror, but that's only a reflection. What you see of the path is just its reflection—the drama of your life as it unfolds.

One of the first movements of attention whereby a human being is characterized as being a yogi is when, by discrimination, intelligence, and insight, the primary focus of the attention is shifted away from the operation of the senses to the internal seat of consciousness. The yogi seeks to take control of all the dynamics of their behavior and life force. When they seek to dampen desire-based action, they are simply seeking to allow the surface of the water to settle and clear so they can turn their attention within.

Samadhi, to put it simply, is the conscious passing through the membrane between life and death. This is the final aim of the entire science of yoga and meditation—the conscious merging of individual identity with the infinite.

There are many stages of attention within both of these states, but what is fundamentally taking place is the contact of the individual identity with the universal identity, the substance of the infinite creation. The drop of water is dropped into the ocean; the totality of the ocean is in the drop, and the totality of the drop is in the ocean. The platform of identity moves from a point of individual and separate self to the utterly merged and commingled Self.

This is something that occurs naturally at the event we call death. The dropping of the shell of individual self—the body, life force, and mental formation—leads to a revelation of totality and utter independence. This experience is so profound, so dramatic that for the unprepared mind—one unconditioned by yoga, meditation, and the conditions of Samadhi—it simply goes white noise at the end of each life as the mind collapses in the face of totality.

As you turn away from the external phantasmagoria of the dream, a resonance with this fellowship emerges out of your very being. And within this fellowship something utterly profound occurs—the descent of grace. We use the word grace because it is a gift. It is not something you’ve earned, it is undeserved favor. And this gift of grace is made available to you within yourself, as a part of your being. The essence of this gift kindles the spiritual force of awakening within you, changing you at the deepest level of being, at the deepest level of spirit.