Tapasya

Tapasya

Tapasya is intense meditation (ie yoga)

In the subtle regions there is a region of red light which is the region of tapasya, associated with Shankar. In the most intense stage of tapasya, the seed stage, your head and heart fill with orange/red light and, even with your eyes open, that is all you see.

In Hindusim, Tapasya is often taken to mean "austerity": it comes from the sanskrit 'tapas' - warmth, heat, potential power... the heat generated by ascetic practices.. This ties in with Shankar, who is shown naked with a snake spiraled around him (symbolising the kundalini energy, or alternately knowledge - certainly spiritual mastery of some sort) - Shankar as the very symbol of yogic asceticism - true wisdom removes all body consciousness (the opposite of the Adam and Eve Tree of Knowledge.

The experience of the seed stage (the most intense form of tapasya) is of being burned in the spiritual fire.