Serenity and Inner Peace with the M.B.A.

M.B.A – The Mind, Body, Atma-Connection and Integration

Have you ever wondered how to stay calm in the midst of everything? Spiritual teachers talk a lot about serenity, feeling at peace and being joyful no matter what happens.

This following article gives you one perspective of how to approach, see and feel into the question of peace and serenity. I want to share some aspects that I found to be true in my life.

One of the spiritual teachers, Sathya Sai Baba used the term M.B.A., Mind, Body, Atma, to remind us, that body, mind and Atma (other terms are Soul and Higher Self) form one unit¹. Yoga provides tools to integrate body, mind, emotions, intellect and soul.

Whenever you feel disconnected, have negative feelings or a spinning mind, it is because you are disconnected from your Higher Self. The personality is thinking thoughts that are not in harmony with the broader perspective of the Higher Self².

Qualities of Atma, the Higher Self

Your Higher Self is always in peace and happy. It is the highest wisdom of yourself, it sees the whole picture and wants the best for you and everyone. In my experience the instant key to serenity and joy is to connect with your Higher Self. Here you find some beautiful descriptions of Atma:

The body is bound to perish sooner or later but the Indweller has neither birth nor death. The Indweller has no attachment whatsoever and is the eternal witness. Truly speaking, the Indweller who is in the form of Atma, is verily the Creator Himself. (Telugu Poem³).

Atma: The real Self, one’s divinity, God, the substance of everything, the unseen basis, the spark of God within. The Aathma is unchanging and immortal⁴. Inner Reality, Soul, End of the I-illusion, Self-remembrance, the Sun of Suns, the Effulgence of Effulgences, the Supreme Light, the Self-effulgent, unconquerable, indestructible, unlimited, the Existence-Knowledge-Bliss-wave of the ocean that is God⁵

Where does the Atma come from, the Higher Self?

Western spirituality also talks of the Atma, or the Soul. Think of the Creator as  the all pervading consciousness. He wanted to become aware of Himself so that He could experience love between Him and Him. He created billions and billions of divine sparks. Each of them has it’s own consciousness. These primal divine sparks are called monads, or over-souls. From them emanated further divine sparks, or consciousnesses, the Souls: the Higher Selves.  Each Higher Self then again created individual souls (with a small s), also called the personalities or selves:

Creator/Source/God ? Monad/Over-Soul ? Higher Self /Soul/Atma) ? Individual soul/personality

The Creator gave every divine spark free will. The consciousnesses wanted to experience everything and grow. So they explored denser and denser forms and part of the play was to forget their divine source in order to experience density more profoundly⁶.

Each human being covers his Higher Self with 5 sheaths. They are the food sheath (physical body), the pranic sheath (energy and emotions), the mental sheath (thought patterns and the lower mind), the wisdom sheath (the Buddhi, the Light, the inner Intelligence) and the bliss sheath (feeling of Bliss).

Yoga provides tools to transform, harmonize and balance each of them. The intention is that you can turn your full attention towards your Higher Self and towards the Creator. This in turn provides you with the energy and serenity to be in this world, engage in it fully, perform good deeds while being happy and joyful. It is not about to flee this world here. It is about drawing the divine qualities that are present in everyone into your daily life and to live it more fully.

Serenity and Inner Peace with the Connection to your Higher Self

There is so much more to write about how our universe came into being and what implications this brings about for human beings. For the subject of serenity and inner peace I just want to point out that the perspective of the Higher Self is the one, that goes directly back to the Creator. From a human perspective we never see the whole picture. However, the Divine Spark in us, does.

Some ways to approach inner peace and serenity are:

• View the things as Source views them. From the perspective of the Source everything is perfect. God is Love, so nothing in His creation can be other than love (including you).
• If this is a step too far in this moment or in general, you can talk to your Higher Self, which has so much more information than you have with your personality. You can ask questions like: “What can I learn from this situation?”, “Where is here an opportunity for me to grow?”, “What would God do in my place?”.
• You can surrender to your Higher Self or to Source and ask it to think, feel and act through you. When you remember the beautiful definitions at the beginning of the article of Atma, the Higher Self, remember, that the Higher Self is part of you, you are the human being and your Higher Self at the same time. Each attribute that describes Atma also applies to you.  Once you connect to these wonderful qualities, they fill your whole being and you also embody them.
• Sathya Sai Baba gave another wonderful practice in his speeches: Infuse your M.B.A. with Divine Love. Care for your body, perform good deeds, think good thoughts, focus on good feelings and be your watcher, the Atma. Then the integration of mind, body and atma (Soul) leads to the desired equanimity in life. You are able to be unattached to joy or sorrow, cold or warm and transcend duality (duality is the feeling to be separate from the Creator and His Creation).

Here you find practices to connect with your Higher Self:

• Knowing that you have the divine spark inside you and that you co-create your reality, you visualize the solution with strong positive feelings. If you don’t know the solution yet, you can still affirm: “Thank you, that I know the answer, thank you, thank you, thank you.” and be so grateful!
• Sit down in meditation for 20 minutes, pose your question to God/The Source/your Higher Self, ask for a solution and let go. After 20 minutes get up and go about your day. Either you received already insights during your meditation or they will come later. It can also be, that suddenly a situation becomes clear and life tells you the answer to your question.
• You are Atma, the Watcher, so watch the situation, that you feel unhappy with, as an unconcerned witness. Yes, it is there, but you are unimpressed by it. Just watch, but remain rather dis-interested.
• Turn your attention completely away from the thing that bothers you. Focus on everything else that makes you happy and engage completely in the things, thoughts, emotions and subjects that make you happy and where you feel in the flow of life. The other things will adjust as well. It has to match up with your vibration according to the Law of Attraction.
• Find the thought, that feels better for you in this situation at that moment and follow this new, better feeling thought through. This is also from the Esther and Jerry Hicks, who wrote the books about the Law of Attraction and how to first bring about harmony between you (your personality, that is in a unhappy vibration at first) and You (the Higher Self, which is always happy). The different vibrations in personality and Higher Self cause the negative emotions. Positive feelings indicate that you are thinking thoughts, that are true to your Higher Self, too.
• Ask God to act through you. Sir Isaac Tigrett always refers to this beautiful prayer. You can pray it several times a day: “Dear God, please think through me, please feel through me, please act through me, please breathe through me, and please love through me. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
• Spend time with your Higher Self just for the joy of it. Be in the joyful feeling of feeling your connection to yourself. This can be in your thoughts and feelings during your day and while you are performing your daily activities, in meditation or simply when you allow yourself some quiet alone-time. Just go into your heart and feel the connection.