Embark on a journey into the depths of spiritual awakening with our enlightening conversation with spiritual teacher, Maitreyi Ma. Dive deep into episode 242 of Exploring the Mystical Side of Life as we touch upon the profound experiences that shape personal transformation and a deeper connection to the divine.

Join us as Maitreyi Ma shares her mystical journey and the transformative power of meditation. Let her experiences inspire you to uncover your divine essence and navigate life’s challenges with grace.

Here are three key takeaways from this insightful episode:

🔹 The Power of Divine Presence: Discover how Maitreyi Ma’s inner connection to ‘Baba’, a divine guide, transformed her life. Learn how such divine connections can fill your heart with love and compassion, offering a sense of justice and guidance that transcends human understanding.

🔹 Deepening Through Meditation: Explore how meditative practices can harmonize the mind and body, guiding you from daily mundane thoughts to a profound state of unity with the Infinite. Uncover the potential of meditation to bring peace, deep love, or simply a sense of connectedness tailored to your unique path.

🔹 Transformation Through Inner Connection: Understand the transformative impact of keeping company with the Divine. Whether through moments of awe in nature, meaningful connections with loved ones, or periods of quiet reflection, these experiences can offer profound healing and a deeper sense of purpose and meaning in life.

Delve into these themes and more as we journey through Maetreyii Ma’s experiences, understand the role of spiritual practices, and reflect on our innate connection to the divine. Don’t miss the heartfelt message from Baba, which could be the guiding light you need on your path to self-discovery and spiritual awakening.

Tune in to this episode and let Maitreyi Ma’s wisdom inspire and transform your spiritual journey.

 

Transcript:

Maitreyi Ma:
Through meditative practices in a yogic tradition, I really came to a connection to divine source, and that appeared for me as an inner guru who I call Baba, who actually gave me the name Baba.

Announcer: Welcome to Exploring the Mystical Side of Life with your host, Linda Lang.

Linda Lang:
Hi. This is Linda Lang from www.ThoughtChange.com. We are Exploring the Mystical Side of Life once again this week. If you enjoy our conversations, remember to subscribe, share with a friend. Today, we are talking transformation and the nature of consciousness. We have spiritual teacher, Maetreyii Ma, here with us today. Welcome.

Maitreyi Ma:
Thank you. It’s good to be here with you.

Linda Lang:
Maeytreyii Ma, you have had a most interesting spiritual path opening up to mysticism and stepping into being a teacher. Can you share a little bit about what your journey’s been like?

Maitreyi Ma:
Yeah. My journey really started out, I think, as a child with with the connections with nature and with connection… I felt a divine presence near me. When I was maybe 11 or 12, I began to feel this divine presence near me. And that began my spiritual journey with just… I think what really happened is I felt this presence, and I felt such deep love that that was the being I wanted to be near. And, I felt it was a connection from the past even though I grew up outside of Chicago in a culture that never heard of reincarnation. But I felt that this was someone I had known, and I felt so deep love for this divine presence that I felt. And that began my spiritual path and a search, a search for God that ended in my teens with a, I think, a discouragement with that, searching in churches.

And then my path opened up through psychedelics to the unitary nature of consciousness and the divine presence and then moved on to meditation. And through meditative practices in a yogic tradition, I really came to a connection to divine source. And that appeared for me as an inner guru, who I call Baba, who actually gave me the name Baba when I was in my early twenties. And that divine presence has been with me all my life ever since.

Linda Lang:
Now was Baba the same divine presence you felt as a younger child?

Maitreyi Ma:
You know, now I think… when I was a young child, I thought it was Jesus because that’s the only figure of that nature that I’d ever heard of. And, but then when Baba came to me, I think it was the same presence. I think that was when I first… but that… at that time when I was a child, there was this presence but there was no communication. There was just a sense of a divine being. And then when I was in my twenties, through meditation, when I began my meditation practices, Baba came to me at that point through meditation. And that’s when I first began to experience guiding me, talking to me, and it was a series of mystical experiences. Every word that was said, there was a period where every word that was said was like the drop of perfect compassion, the drop of perfect love into my mind, the drop of perfect justice into my mind.

It was like the facets of a jewel of these divine qualities just dropping, and each one would be so powerful. And the presence of this being was, the love was, something that human love seems like black and white compared to color. It it’s just so intense and powerful. And that just, I think, it would take anyone’s heart, actually. Took my heart, but I think it would take anyone’s heart.

Linda Lang:
Now I find it amazing that you describe it as a drop of compassion or love or justice, I think you said was the third one, right? Yeah. I’ve had an experience like that too where I had a drop that was, you know, interdimensional I’m going to say, because it’s like inside you, but you’re not in you. It’s like… it’s, it’s totally undescribable, and that drop carried so much information and wisdom and presence. These little drops are such incredible nuggets, and it appears like that for not just one person.

Maitreyi Ma:
Yes. Exactly. Divine presence is there all the time for everyone. It’s it’s just a matter of making the connection. And meditative practices for me have been a way of deepening into that connection. They’ve really allowed me to explore the depths of of spiritual connectedness and to feel that unitary consciousness. Because it’s not just ideas. It’s not thoughts in the mind.

This drop, and I know it was for you too, this this drop, for me, it came in words. Like, a word that was the embodiment of perfect justice, but that’s the way I receive things. But it was a drop of the qualities and consciousness of divine being. And there have been many times in many ways that that’s come from me, and I really feel that it’s there for everyone. It’s a, it’s kind of like a gently falling rain, and we hold an umbrella of ego up. And when we take down that umbrella, even just for a moment, then that, we feel it. And how we feel it can really vary from person to person. When I experimented with psychedelics, I felt it as the divine unity of whole being.

You know? Looking at a leaf, my mind will go out into the molecular and into the, into the cosmos until there was just (whew)… into the One, right? You know? And then when Baba came to me, it came in this bhakti yoga relationship to the divine. But that divine presence that I felt, and that I have fel,t that I still continue to feel, as a Christ-like figure of Baba, who I met as a physical guru in India. Also, a very magical figure. I have really come to understand as I’ve deepened in my own journey that Baba is a doorway as if that is a figure, a presence that stands in front of infinity.

And that’s why I call my new book Into the Heart of the Infinite because I feel that it’s a journey into the heart of that infinite being, and that infinite presence is a nondual existence. And the bhakti, this is the beauty of bhakti yoga, and it’s a natural occurrence that you feel there is a form, whether it’s Christ, Mother Mary, Kuan Yin, whatever that presence, whatever form that presence takes. Behind that kind of exquisite divine presence is the One, the one unitary whole of being that permeates everything, both manifest and unmanifest. Every blade of grass, every leaf on a tree, every person you meet, every animal, all is held within that. The manifestation in this world of divine being, whether it recognizes it or knows it or not. And each one of us is a manifestation of that. But we forget. We get caught up in the body, mind, senses, and intellect and experience, and we forget. We forget our nature.

Linda Lang:
I’d like to talk for a moment about the role that meditation has for us to awaken that knowingness and that connection that is already there. It’s just that we’re too busy to notice. Right?

Maitreyi Ma:
And meditation, when meditation is on divine being, divine presence, whether you’re meditating on a, on a god presence or a, or a deity or a guru or whether you’re meditating on a sound or whether you’re meditating on the quietude of presence. The meditation is a way of syncing the mind, usually harmonizing with the breath because the breath is so connected to the mind. Syncing the mind beyond the daily sort of beta. You know, if you go to the different levels of brainwave when you meditate, you come out of that beta everyday thinking, interacting in the world, and you go into alpha, which is a deep relaxed state. But then if you’re having a deep meditation, you go beyond that into theta, which is a very deep, connected state. And then in deep, deep meditation, you go into delta, which is what we produce in deep sleep. So it’s bringing the conscious mind through the subconscious into the unconscious, into the state that we are asleep in, but we tap in. I have a feeling that when we tap in, we produce those delta waves in deep sleep, and perhaps we’re tapping into that unitary consciousness in deep sleep. It’s deep.

We don’t remember it. But when you bring the conscious mind in meditation down, down, down into that deep sleep state, which is samadhi, it’s called samadhi in yoga, and that means absorption, absorption into the infinite. When you absorb in the god-self, in the Infinite, there are all sorts of physical benefits and mental benefits, but the real benefit is that you consciously dissolve. You let go of your conscious idea of who you are, all your beliefs, all your ideas, and you melt into and become that one wholeness. You let go. You melt into.

Unlike things that we do in the world where we seek something out, we acquire it. Right? And that’s how we get what we want. We acquire it. We acquire food. We acquire a new car. We acquire whatever it is we want. In meditation, the process really is not acquiring because the ego can’t hold the Infinite. The idea of small self, me as a person who lives in this body, can’t hold the Infinite. So the only thing we can do is let go. Let go of ideas of self.

Let go of beliefs. Let go of thinking. Let go of everything and just feel into, relax into Infinite Being. And in that process of letting go, of surrendering all your ideas and beliefs about yourself to Infinite Being, when you do that in meditation through the deep silence… It’s not through ideas. It’s through the deep silence. It’s through the love of your heart. Deep meditation has a lot to do with the love of your heart and being connected to the love of your heart.

And it’s our way of moving past the thoughts in the mind because the thoughts are an external level of your being, really. Your awareness, your intelligence can, intelligent awareness can sink into feeling. Feeling the bliss of divine connection, feeling the depths of being. And that’s the that’s the the potential of meditation. But it’s important to do a meditation practice that can bring you there and then to have a regular practice. It is a practice, meditation practice, to deepen into the states of consciousness.

Linda Lang:
It does seem like a formidable task to unplug from our waking consciousness to get to that state of bliss.

Maitreyi Ma:
It’s a practice and, you know, we’re all different. Some people begin meditation, and they have profound experiences. Of course, they may take years to get back to that profound experience, or it may just be that it opens up for them. You know? Or it may be that that doesn’t open up, but you feel a peace and a quiet and a relaxation when you when you meditate. And as you deepen into that, you find your connection. And sometimes, for some people, that connection is just deep peace. For others, it’s divine love. My path has been…

It’s been that divine love, feeling that Presence and that heartfelt love. It comes in different ways for different people. We’re all different. But that connectedness is moving into the depths of your own being because in your own nature, in the nature of All That Is, is the Infinite. The one eternal nature of being is your deepest nature. Whether you’re the worst person in the world, it’s still your deepest nature. But you can be out of touch with that nature in your life here in this plane of existence.

Linda Lang:
So when we plug into the divine, and however that unfolds for us, how does that actually begin to transform us and our expression in the world?

Maitreyi Ma:
Well, I kind of like to compare it to… you know, they say the company you keep forms your character and how you are. And, when you keep company with Divine Presence in the depths of meditation, when you keep company with your soul, it transforms who you are. And there’s all kinds of scientific studies now about how meditation improves you in so many, many ways, improves your concentration, improves your, improves your telomeres so that you live longer. Right? It improves so much.

But there’s a connection between living in the world and meditating that is, they both go together. If your life is out of balance, if you’re not living a dharmic life, if you will, if you’re not living a life of centered life, then likely it’s harder to meditate and go into deeper states of consciousness. If you transform your life in the world, then it’s easier to deepen in meditation. If you deepen in meditation, it transforms your life and the world.

So they go together. It’s not instant, but they go together. And that’s why yoga has formed the principles of yama and niyama and the eightfold path, which are qualities to develop while being in the world, such as, truthfulness. That doesn’t mean just telling the truth to others, but telling the truth to yourself, having authenticity. Right? And, ahimsa, nonviolence, doing no harm to intentionally to other living beings. If you live by that principle, it deepens you. It deepens your relationship to life. You gain a a respect for life.

You gain a connection to life that deepens you in meditation. Meditation helps you also to perceive the divinity and all that is, and to have a love for life, an honor of life. I want to say that the deep states that I’m talking about where you feel connected to the Divine, they don’t just occur in meditation. And even if you have a deep, deep meditation practice, they may occur for you when you’re not meditating. They may occur that you’re just sitting and, looking out over a beautiful vista nature, and you feel that “aaah,” you know? And there’s that moment where you just melt into it. And then the awe and the ah, you just you melt into it. And whether you’re a meditator or not, those experiences happen for people.

Or you’re with a loved one, and you look into the eyes of your loved one, and there’s that moment where everything disappears. And you are just so connected. Right? Those moments are your connection to the Infinite. Those moments are your connection to the Divine. The divinity is everywhere, and we connect in many different ways. But meditation practice allows you to increase your ability to make those connections. Make those connections consciously by meditating and increasing your neuro pathways, if you will, that take you down into spirit. But it’s there for everyone and and all those special moments in life where you let go.

Linda Lang:
Can you talk a little bit about our human condition right now? All the suffering in the world, and how separate that seems from our divinity and the grace of the divine.

Maitreyi Ma:
There’s a lot of suffering right now, but, certainly, if you look at human history, there’s been a lot of times of great suffering in the world. It’s not unique to now, and there could be more. We don’t know where it’s going. I do believe that we’re in a process of transformation, not only personally, but culturally, planetary transformation. Humanity is in a process of transformation, and the guidance I get is that a bright light casts a dark shadow. And as the light goes brighter, the shadow grows smaller. But at first, the shadow is brighter, more distinct and large. And I think we’re in a process of an energetic transformation.

Some people like to think of it as a transformation of ages, from one age to another. However you hold it, I do believe there’s a collective transformation that we’re going through. And sometimes the the thing about transformation, it’s different than simple change. In a transformative process, whether it’s personal, cultural, or global, a transformation process requires the deconstruction of what has been in order to reconstruct at a newer, higher level, or a new level of being. So when we have personal transformation, oftentimes, we have trauma in our life. Something terrible happens, something really difficult, and our world kind of falls apart on us. And then we’re challenged to bring that back together. And that happens in spiritual transformation also, as we as we move through the depths of consciousness.

The spiritual path is not just a, you know, a path of roses. It’s, it’s got its thorns and it’s hard spots because we have to face those issues, doubts, fears, sorrows, pain that we face, and find ourselves in a process of deconstruction sometimes, which allows us the opportunity of reconstruction at a, at a deeper, more profound level of being. And that’s true in society also, and we go through cycles of this. There have been times when we’re really changing in the world, and I think we’re in one of those times of change. They say, may you live in interesting times? I think we live in interesting times.

Linda Lang:
Be careful what you ask for. I think too that often it’s our attachment to those things that makes the transformation even more challenging.

Maitreyi Ma:
We have attachment to our physical well-being, and it gets hard.

Linda Lang:
So what do you think about depression, anxiety, and the emotional pain that so many people are going through? Is that a wake up call from their soul?

Maitreyi Ma:
You know, divine grace comes in many forms, and sometimes it comes in a form that lets us know we’re not, we’re not on the right path. And in our culture, there are 2 things that really, I think, contribute to mass depression and anxiety. Our lives are very unstable. Our rooted, grounded village-thing that we are used to for 40,000 years of human development is very disturbed. Our family systems are disturbed. So, naturally, we’re more fearful. You know? For many of us, anxiety comes up, and sorrow and depression come. Now they can be biological in our body, but they can also you know… there’s a biology part of it, but there’s also the call of our soul.

Everyone needs meaning. We need meaning. We need purpose. We need dharma. We need our direction towards the One. And when we’re off from that, we lose our way, and we don’t have a sense of greatness in our life, a sense of purpose, a sense of going forward. We become discouraged. We become depressed.

We can get afraid when everything seems so unstable, and it is that infinite relationship we have that is the real shelter in the storm. And a lot of times, the storms are just out there. They’re inside of us in all these painful emotions. And aligning ourselves in terms of how we are in our lives, finding our deep purpose, finding our connection to the Divine. These are things that actually, according to research, extend life, extend happiness, bring us out of a lot of the sorrow and the difficulty. I think there is a biological level to some things also that becomes biological, and we do have to work with our biology as well. But there is really the deep need of meaning and purpose in everyone’s life. And I think in modern life, sometimes that’s just hard to find.

And, also, like I did, a lot of people, their inner life and their outer life are not the same. So who you are within isn’t dynamically reflected in your outer life. That leads to depression. But the ultimate healing is connected to your dharma, your connection to the great and to your personal dharma, your expression of your inner person out in the world with purpose and meaning.

Linda Lang:
It’s been an absolute joy to have you here with us today. Where can we send people who want to know more about your work?

Maitreyi Ma:
They can go to my website, which is: www.yougama.info.

Linda Lang:
And your book again for us?

Maitreyi Ma:
Ma book is Into the Heart of the Infinite, A Spiritual Memoir of an Extraordinary Mystical Journey, and that that’s my spiritual transformation process. You know, I wrote this book because I feel that sometimes when we read about other people’s journeys, it helps us to resonate with our own journey, and it can help us in our, in our own connection. And that’s my hope that this book can do this for people.

Linda Lang:
Maetreyii Ma, is there any message that Baba would like to share with us today?

Maitreyi Ma:
Let’s see.

Every person is an embodiment of the Infinite. Whether you are doing great things in the world or just something small. Whether you consider yourself worthy or you depreciate yourself. Whether you are sad, afraid, confident, or fearful, you are the child of the Great. And deep within you, that One is closer and close. That One is always with you. You are never alone or helpless. That One that guides the stars in the heavens, that has formed All That Is, is your closest, your nearest, and dearest. Always with you. Remember this and find your deep Source within you in the Infinite Essence of Being.

Linda Lang:
Beautiful. Beautiful. Thank you again for being my guest.

Maitreyi Ma:
It’s wonderful to be here with you.

Linda Lang:
And thank you for listening to this week’s edition of Exploring the Mystical Side of Life. You will find all of our conversations on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, on Spotify. Come visit me at www.ThoughtChange.com. Pick up your copy of Learning to Listen, and let’s start that path to really connecting with our inner wisdom and our own divinity. That’s it for this week. We’ll see you again next time. Bye for now.