Pain, either physical or emotional, is very important in life. Pain is one of life’s best teachers and helps you to evolve if you learn to endure and watch it. Where pleasure is superficial, grief can be intense and deep. A day or week of fun can whiz by in a moment, but an hour of agony seems like living your whole life through it. A week of fun can’t teach us what an hour of intense suffering can. This is the beauty of pain…

Pain can bring our focus to the single point of its origin, whether physical or emotional. Pain has a true meditative nature since it doesn’t allow our mind to deviate in other directions easily. If someone has hurt you emotionally, your whole thought-process gets focused on that person. If you have a toothache, your whole physical and emotional awareness gets consumed by it.

When people say that they have emerged stronger after sufferings, they mean it. To run away from paroxysms or making them a big issue or by leaning on every available shoulder to cry, is a sign of weaklings. If one realises the importance of such moments, one can use them for deep contemplation and spiritual evolution.

Experiencing and watching the sufferings in a detached manner is the first step towards spiritual awakening. A life without experiencing pain is unseasoned and brittle and can fall apart even with a subtle unpleasant jerk. Someone who has weathered the storms of pain, watching and enduring them, becomes mature and indomitable in the truest sense.

There is no escape from pain since it’s an integral part of life. If we don’t know how to cope with it, we shall always dread it. The more we refuse to confront it, the more unbearable it becomes. The best way to deal with it is to accept it and watch it as a witness. When one evolves spiritually, one learns to accept both pain and pleasure dispassionately.

Spiritual sadhakas go through the process of experiencing pain by walking on fire, sleeping on beds of nails, standing on one leg for life, piercing their bodies with tridents, flogging and bleeding themselves and even getting crucified like Jesus Christ. The real motive is to watch and experience the pain in a detached manner.

It’s only through contemplation and practices that we can develop a spiritual attitude. Reading and listening to spiritual discourses do give guidance and show us a path, but we need to live in the spiritual awareness on a daily basis.

We sometimes read or hear someone saying that to understand pain, one should feel that one is in the body and not the body. But such knowledge will stay confined as information only till one starts realising: “Yes I am consciousness. I am not the body. I am living in this body. This body is not my permanent abode. I was present even before this body was born. I will be present even when this body will be destroyed.”

Such meditative contemplations help us advance on the spiritual path. A stage comes when we are not much affected even when life brings us face-to-face with the most difficult situations. If we realise that nothing is permanent, including the most painful current situation, a totally different kind of awareness descends to help us emerge unscathed through the worst tribulations.

By Dr Dinesh Sharma

Noticing
In your imagination, see the air going in and out of your nose. Notice the breath going in. Notice the breath going out. And notice the little transition point between the ingoing and outgoing breath. Keep your awareness focused on your breath. Let the thoughts come and go. If you notice feelings in your body, just let them go. Notice the thoughts, let them go and come back to your breath. Let the thoughts go, like leaves floating on a stream. Thoughts! Let them come and go and bring your awareness back to your breath – deeper, deeper, quieter. Follow the breath carefully. Follow the breath, the moment of turning – the out breath, the moment of turning. The silence in the room – notice it. Come back to the breath. The breath is the focal point. It is the primary object. The rest of the universe comes and goes. Problems come into the mind. Notice them. Bring your awareness back to the breath. Stay right in this place, in this moment, in the now.

This is a first method of meditation that you can use in order to become aware of who you are. You can do it anytime, anywhere! You don’t need beads, you don’t need ashrams, you just need your breath!

Letting Go
Focus your attention in the middle of your chest. Now, just as if you had two nostrils attached to your chest, breathe as if you were breathing in and out the middle of your chest. Let your nose breathe in or out the oxygen and imagine that your chest is simultaneously breathing in a very soft, very delicate mist. Breathe in… breathe out… When you breathe in, imagine the mist pouring through your body. Let it pour up into your head – into your arms, into your torso, into your legs and, when you breath out now, breath out all the heaviness – all of the tightness, all of the guardedness, all of the disappointment, all of the pain and then, once again, fill the breath with this very, very soft mist – letting it wash through you, just as if it were a “drain cleaner”, cleaning through all the tubes. When it dislodges something – a sadness or fear – just breathe it out. Breathe deeply and then, once you have loosened some of the stuff that holds you back from knowing who you are, you can, in this moment, then become like a director of energy and take in this fine mist and breath it out and send it towards those beings who suffer, whether their suffering be physical, psychological or spiritual. Just as if you were surrounding them with a loving space that says “do what you must do, but know that I am here with you”. Use the power of your own thoughts and the openness of your heart to give love to all beings. You can get it so that every in breath is a blessing you receive and every out breath is a blessing you transmit…

With this exercise, follow your breath to quieten your mind. Breathing in and breathing out of the heart to deepen your receiving of love and developing deep compassion, you become an environment of quiet – of love, of presence. Have compassion for yourself, allow yourself to be beautiful and all else will follow.

By Wendy Sheppard
Article first published, Complete Yoga, October Issue, 1991

Breathing in rhythmic formations will help you to concentrate and gain control of the breath and hence, control of the mind

In most cases of so-called “normal breathing”, the breathing action is concentrated in the upper part of the chest. There is no conscious attempt to use the diaphragm in drawing more air into the lungs. Shallow breathing gives inadequate scope for the inhaled oxygen to permeate and recharge the venous blood.

The yoga diaphragmatic breath, or the Complete Breath, which involves the movement of the abdomen, corrects this fault. The following simple exercise will give you a clear idea of what the Complete Breath is:

Lying down comfortably, raise the legs by placing a cushion underneath them, and rest your hands, finger tips touching, into the hollow section below the rib cage.

Breathing through the nostrils, inhale steadily, first filling the lower part of the lungs. This is accomplished by bringing into play the diaphragm, which, by ascending, exerts a gentle pressure on the abdominal organs, pushing forward the front walls of the abdomen. You will experience it as the finger tips part slightly and the abdomen becomes “dome shaped”. The wave of expansion now spreads upwards to embrace the chest as the intercostal muscles contract and the rib cage expands right around the front, sides and back, filling the middle part of the lungs. Lastly, the higher portion of the lungs, are filled by the expansion of the upper chest or clavicular area. Here you will feel the shoulders pushing back gently, towards the floor. In this final movement, the lower part of the abdomen is drawn in. Retain the breath for a few seconds. Exhale slowly, holding the chest in a firm position and drawing in the abdomen slightly, lifting it upwards, as the air leaves the lungs, and the chest area starts to relax.

It may appear that this breath consists of three distinct movements. This, however, in not correct – the inhalation is continuous, resembling a “wave-like” action. Practise will soon overcome the tendency to divide the breath into three jerky movements. Try and concentrate on deep, slow breathing.

In yoga, we concentrate on exercises which open and expand the chest cavity, encouraging greater intake of oxygen and the ability to retain the breath.

The below two exercises, develop awareness of rhythm and timing:

1. The Square Breath/ Samavritta Pranayama
Here all four phases of breathing namely: inhalation, retention of breath, exhalation and retention of exhalation are included in a rhythmic form.

Lye down in your relaxed position as before:

-        Breath in to a count of 5

-        Retain your breath for a count of 5

-        Exhale for a count of 5

-        Remain without breath for a count of 5

Repeat this breathing cycle for 5 minutes

2. The Interrupted Breath/ Viloma Pranayama

Lye down in a relaxed position:

-        Breathe in for a count of 6

-        Exhale partially for a count of 3

-        Pause for 2 counts

-        Exhale fully for a count of 3

Repeat this breathing cycle for 5 minutes

Breathing in rhythmic formations will help you to concentrate and gain control of the breath and hence, control of the mind. Very few of us pay five minutes attention to our breathing unless illness or some emergency gives it prominence. In this way, we can learn from the ancient yogis who taught that “one who controls breath, controls life itself”.

By Jenny Pengelly
Article first published in Complete Yoga, 1992, Volume 2

State One: A state of deep relaxation. Very commonly these days the term yoga-nidra is used for the processes/exercises preparatory to yoga-nidra. These are often also being taught by many teachers in a fragmentary manner.

There are many different such preparations in complete sets, each exercise fitting at a certain place in the sequence in the set.

During these practices the brain produces alpha waves which in higher exercises then verge on theta.

These higher exercises may also be used for self-healing.

State Two: An interim state between One and Three. Used for creativity, invention, ‘receiving’ decisions and solutions to problems, composing lectures and research papers and poetry and constitutions or minutely detailed action plans and such other purposes. Here the brain produces theta sometimes verging onto delta.

State Three: The preparations taught in State One lead to the true yoga-nidra, entry into abhava-pratyaya, cognition of negation (Yoga-sutra 1.10) in a cave in the heart centre.

This may require an advanced teacher initially leading the aspirant into this depth. Swami Rama of the Himalayas recommends that one not remain in this state more then ten minutes at a time.

During this state the brain may initially produce theta and then, in depth, go into delta waves. Here the yogi is in deep non-REM sleep, so far as the brain wave activity shows, but is aware of his surroundings.

State Four : This is not limited to a ten minute experience. It is the kind of sleep that yogis sleep even up to three and half hours. Here the mind simultaneously remains at two levels: (I) One layer of the mind in sleep in the ordinary sense of the word, and (II) a deeper layer of the mind remaining in conscious a-japa japa and meditation which, here, is awareness of the person-wide awareness of kundalini. Some yogis take half of their sleep in the common sense of the word and the other half in this level of yoga-nidra. Here one may alternate between theta and delta.

One who practices such sleep may remain looking younger than his/her years.

Only when the Sates One and Three are fully mastered, one will learn to glide into the State Four.

Turiya : When States Three and Four have been mastered, one is at the gates of turiya (pure consciousness) and may slide into it.  Then, not earlier, yoga-nidra becomes turiya, the two becoming indistinguishable; brain waves become a flat rate.

By Swami Veda Bharati

Everything that exists is energy. The human body is one of the best examples of a highly evolved energy system.  Philosophers, mystics and yogis describe the subtle, and not so subtle, energies of our natural environment and our own bodies.  What is remarkable is that when dynamic energies converge in nature they form spinning circular patterns.  Look at how a Category Five tornado with its spinning energy twisting at three hundred miles per hour can lift a frame house off its foundation.

Like nature, the human body has its own subtle energy system. There are several words that describe the energy that runs through the body, including chi and prana.  Both these translate as “energy “or “life-force”.  We all have this life force energy; and how our life unfolds affects our life force energy.

The flow of prana through a network of power centers, paths and energy fields within and around the physical body are referred to as our energetic anatomy.  Put more simply, our energy body.  Some people call this your “aura.”  Whatever the terminology, your energy body is a three-dimensional field that moves from inside your physical body and emanates outward.

Chakra is a Sanskrit word, which translates as “wheel.”  Chakras are considered to be power centers that both take in and distribute energy. Chakras are miniature versions of a hurricane. They are spinning energy centers.

Your energetic anatomy contains three types of charkras:

• Major chakras 3 to 4 inches in diameter
• Minor chakras 1 to 2 inches in diameter
• Mini chakras less than 1 inch in diameter

Although most yogic texts refer to seven major chakras, there are actually 11 major chakras and innumerable smaller ones. You might envision chakra energy as emanating from the center of your body and moving outward.

Chakras differ in size and activity from one person to another.  They can change based upon what is happening in your life physically, psychologically and spiritually. Chakras both take up and collect energy, and transform and pass on this energy. The unimpeded flow of energy through our body and our chakras determines our state of health, and mental and spiritual balance.  Energy has an incredible intelligence and affinity to heal.  One of the major blocks of the free flowing movement of energy is our mind.  Specifically, our ego, which builds and holds onto stories that impede the flow of energy in the chakras.

Each chakra is associated with a physical area of the body, and often specific organs. Lower chakras are associated with fundamental emotions and basic survival needs. The finer energies and frequencies of the upper chakras correspond to higher mental and spiritual functions.

Crown (Sahasrara)
Location: Top of the head
Higher Self. Southwest position on a compass. Relates to the pituitary gland that controls the entire hormone system. Is associated with knowledge, understanding and connection to the universe. Energy moves into our body directly at this charka.

Brow (Ajna)
Location: Forehead
Ether Element.  Southeast position on a compass.  Above the center of the eyes and inside the head. Linked to the pineal gland related to activity and rest and directs our intuition and imagination. Ether, space and hearing. INFINITY as mantra.

Throat (Vishuddha)
Location: Throat
Air Element. Center of a compass.  Tied into thyroid gland, related to our metabolic rate and mineral levels. It manifests communication.

Heart (Anahata)
Location: Center of chest
Relationships.  North position on a compass.  Relates to the thymus gland for growth and immune systems. Directly related to love and relationships. HARMONY as mantra.

Solar Plexus (Manipura)
Location: Just above naval
Fire Element. South position on a compass.  Ties to the complex of nerves connected here and touches adrenal glands and pancreas. Relates to personal energy. It is a major area for holding anxiety and issues. This area of our body transforms food into nutrients and waste.  Contentment is a mantra.

Sacral (Svadistana)
Location: Slightly below naval
Water Element.  West position on a compass.  It is associated with our creativity, emotions, sensuality and reproduction.

Base (Muladhara)
Location: Base of spine
Earth Element. East position on compass.  Located at the base of our spine, it grounds us and impacts our personal survival instinct.  Our sense of smell is connected to the earth.

Chakras Create and Sustain Health
One chakra is not better than another.  They are equally significant and all play a role in our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health.   The energy of your chakras is constantly in motion.  Your chakra energy is different today than it was yesterday.  Different now than it was an hour ago.  In terms of health, your physical body can perform at optimum health when all of your chakras are balanced and energized.  Energy moves freely both horizontally, in and out from each chakra, and vertically, up and down through your body.

Mental and physical disease is caused by a blockage of energy. Balancing the chakras, working with the energy of the chakras, is one way to maintain health.  It also prevents you from getting stuck in the repetitive stories that create stress, disharmony and illness.

Notice, for example, how the second chakra, the sacral, is identified as the chakra of water.  The seat of emotions and reproduction.  Here, and in the solar plexus, is where emotions and transformative energies focus and move.  When you experience a strong emotion it is not uncommon to literally feel the physical impact of the emotion in the area of your body where the Solar Plexus is located.  This is undoubtedly where the expression “I have a gut feeling” comes from.

Exercise, Muscles and Prana
We engage in exercise because it makes us feel good.  Exercise balances and energises chakras.  Right after a workout you can feel the energy flowing in your body.  Your mind is bright and you feel alive.  Your body is a fantastic vehicle to help you ground into the present moment.  Your muscles provide one gateway to your energy body.   Your body contains 650-odd muscles that make up almost half your total body weight.  The biggest one is your gluteus maximus.  The use of muscle opens the channels of your subtle energy, which balances the chakras.

Because it opens the deep connective tissues that surround your joints, the practice of yoga allows energy to move into places that are normally stagnant, even during exercise.  It also opens the energetic pathways of the meridian system.  Prana stimulates and tones your joints and these deep connective tissues as energy blocks are removed.  A flood of prana into previously clogged areas improves your nervous system.  You become calm and focused, which helps tremendously if you want to remain silent and present.

When you exercise it is the opening of your subtle energy body that creates euphoria.  You ignite the subtle energy body by activating muscles at their core.  Once prana flows freely you can learn how to move and respond to life based upon the natural direction and intuition that prana provides.

How to Balance and Energise Your Chakras
Massage therapists open your muscles to release toxins and balance your chakras.  They energetically and physically adjust and open your body to help energy move freely. Aromatherapy and smudging can clear and balance chakras.  Crystal bowls, Tibetan singing bowls, gongs and didgeridoo all produce sounds and tones that stream into your body and open your chakras for healing, balancing and meditation.  This is also true of mantras.  The power of mantra is in the healing aspect of the sound which goes directly into your body.  You can see by these examples that the energy of your chakras can be balanced by using  a variety of techniques.  Exercise, massage, sound.  They use energy to move energy.

It is important to balance your chakras before you energise them.  Balancing, cleaning and purification of chakras opens them up so your physical body can be receptive to spiritual energy.  Imagine your body has a water hose that runs down your spine.  If any part of the hose is blocked the water is not going to move through.  It is going to get stuck somewhere.  The entire hose, all the chakras, need to be clean before you turn on the water.

What can you do when you are sitting in front of a computer screen, or riding the subway, and you know that your energy is not balanced?  You don’t have a Tibetan singing bowl handy and your massage isn’t scheduled for another week.  Fortunately, there is one energy process that you have access to all the time: this is your breath.

Your breath represents a miraculous system.  Of all the bodily functions we have, breathing is the most important.  Think about it.  You can survive without food for as long as four weeks.  You can survive without water for four to ten days.   But you can die within three minutes if you can’t breathe.

You do not have to think to breath.  In the middle of the night your body is going to continue to breathe without asking permission.  You can also control your breathing.  You can change the rate of your breathing.  You can breathe deeply or shallowly.  You can breathe in one nostril and out the other.  You can hold your breath.

Your Breath Can Balance Your Chakras
All of creation is a manifestation of the interaction of polarity.  The interaction of yin and yang, male and female. Every person has male and female attributes. The unification of the positive and negative elements within us, the male and female, creates balance.  That is why the practice of Hatha yoga is designed to bring balance between these two forces within your body.  HA refers to the right nostril; and THA refers to the left nostril.

For thousands of years yogis have studied, experimented and learned how to use breath as a medium to balance chakras and steady the mental fluctuations of our mind.  Indeed, the purpose of all forms and aspects of yoga is to quiet the fluctuations of your mind.  This harmonizes mind, body and spirit.  Your own breath can be a vehicle for this harmony in the system of pranayama.  Remember, prana means energy, and ayama means control.  Pranayama is the control of energy with breathing.

In addition to life supporting oxygen, with each breath in you absorb all of the positive energy of the Air Element.  This energy can be used to clean, balance and energize your chakras.   The vital energy and oxygen move not only into your lungs; but rapidly reach the blood, organs, tissues, nerves and cells.

It is not a mistake that you have two nostrils.  The breath that moves through your right nostril represents the Sun.  The right nostril breath connects with the left side of your brain. The breath that moves through your left nostril represents the Moon.  The breathing of your left nostril connects with the right side of your brain.

Running down the center of your spine is an energy channel known as the Sushumna.  Starting at the base of your spine and snaking up around this central channel are two side channels.  These channels, called the Ida Nadi and Pingala Nadi, intersect and cross each other at every chakra all the way up to the Ajna chakra, your Third Eye.

The Ida Nadi represents the feminine, ying energy of your body. It carries cooling, meditative, feminine energy.  The Ida Nadi ends in your left nostril.  The Pingala Nadi represents the masculine, yang energy of your body.  It carries warming, active, masculine energy and ends in your right nostril.

You can open and balance your chakras when energy flows through the sushumna. This occurs when Ida and Pingala are in balance.  As prana flows through the sushumna it activates each chakra.  This helps bring energy and health to that physical area of the body, and the organs connected to the chakra. It also brings balance to the emotions related to each chakra.  In this state of balance you can achieve meditative awareness.

Alternate nostril breathing is one way to bring balance into your breath and harmony to your chakras, mind, body and spirit.  It connects and energizes the two hemispheres of your brain.  This balance extends to your chakras.  It calms your mind.  It allows energy to move freely through your body, which empowers your body to use it’s natural healing abilities.

You may notice that when you are in a state of balance and harmony it is reflected in your breathing.  You are in balance when your breath is calm, steady and flows easily. You are out of balance when your breathing is uneven, rapid or congested.  The many moods that you have during the course of a day are reflected and connected to the variations in your breathing patterns.

In conclusion, you can use all of your yoga practices – asana, pranayama, meditation – as vehicles for balancing the chakras, which will help you maintain balance in life and in health.

By Bill Eager

About the Author
Bill Eager is the author of the new book Thrive Inside: Secrets of Spiritual Masters, Gurus and Shamans which is available on Amazon.com.  Bill is a certified yoga instructor, yoga nidra facilitator and Reiki healer.  He leads workshops about yoga and yogic techniques around the world.

With “mani” meaning “jewel” and “pura” meaning “city”, Manipura literally translates as “city of jewels”. Sitting at the solar plexus or “place of the sun”, Manipura chakra, as such, contains the precious jewels to those qualities of clarity, personal power, bliss, self-assurance, knowledge and transformation

In the minds of many, yoga is associated primarily with physical exercise and strange contortions of the body, but really yoga includes the science of the body as well as an understanding of the energy levels that govern the body’s functions, a study of mind and higher states of consciousness as well as a whole philosophy to the nature and structure of the universe. No small study task! But the framework provided by the symbols of the chakras gives practitioners the ability to grasp what is happening during the evolution of consciousness first hand.

Within each of the chakras can be seen, in condensed form, the relationship between certain aspects of the physical world, the energy system, the mind and higher consciousness. For example, the third chakra, Manipura, sees aggression, assertiveness, fire, heat, digestion, assimilation and active metabolism intermix in a way that cuts across our separate concepts of what is physical, what is physiological and what is psychological. It is obvious that each of the chakras is vast in its significance and rich in meaning. The chakras are spiritual centres tuned to the cosmos found within the physical body. At the centre of this consciousness is purusha or self.

Manipura chakra is situated between the twelfth thoracic vertebra and the first lumbar vertebra, at the level of the navel. Its sense function is sight and the element associated with this chakra is fire, the field of power. Manipura is in that area of the body referred to as “the solar plexus”. It can best be described as the “internal sun” produced by the oxidation or burning of food. Unlike plants that can take their energy directly from the sun, man must produce his/her own energy. We take the energy trapped in plant matter and release it through the chemical processes of digestion. This creates the “inner flame” or fire, that provides the energy of maintaining life.

When this inner flame is properly regulated, it allows you to be healthy and to have consistent energy levels. If it is improperly regulated, it can lead to various digestive problems such as peptic ulcers, diabetes, eating disorders, hypoglycaemia and nervous disorders. If the flame is excessive and poorly centred, you will find you are irritable, hot tempered and red-faced.

The energy or drive on this level is to measure, control, categorise and quantify – to be scientific. A lot of people need this energy for stability, but it can also lead to inflexibility. The colour of Manipura chakra is yellow, the colour that feeds and gives clarity to the mind. While practising asana and during visualisation, directing yellow to this area will help you better understand your thoughts.

The ego operates on every level of consciousness but it is strongest at the Manipura level because Manipura is the seat of the intellect. Most thinking happens in the stomach, as unflattering as this may sound. The ego’s main function is to separate, and our separative egos perceive themselves by insisting that everything is “out there”.

The lesson of Manipura is therefore dealing with ego and power. Too little fire results in powerlessness; too much results in aggression and greed. But fire qualities are also seen as truth finding. They symbolise the acquiring of skill in all endeavours, the recognition of errors and, after these truths have been established, the guarding and transmitting of wisdom.

Functioning in balance, fire warms and enlightens the world. Fire also represents light, which allows us to see things. Manipura’s sense function is sight, but also encompasses “second sight” as in knowledge and wisdom.

Asanas for Manipura Chakra
Physically, the third chakra is associated with the pancreas (seat of sweetness), the solar plexus (place of fire), the spleen (seat of worry), the liver (seat of anger) and the gall bladder (seat of envy). As we work through a chain of asanas, we release negative emotions from their organ of origin and this helps to purify the physical sheath and balance the mental sheath. Pranayama also plays an important role and Kapalabhati or “breath of fire” is the best method of fanning the inner flames and creating heat in this area. The twisting asanas are most beneficial, including Parivrtta Janu Sirsana (Revolved Head-Knee Pose). Sun Salutation (Surya Namaskar) is also a good exercise sequence for this chakra. Both back and forward bends are wonderful for toning up and clearing this chakra too

Manipura Chakra
Position: The solar plexus – rooted between the
twelfth thoracic vertebra and first lumbar vertebra
Colour: Yellow
Sound: Ram
Centre: Intellect, ego, emotions, will and
power, change
Gland/organ: Pancreas, digestive system, liver,
spleen, stomach and small intestine
Sense: Sight

By Arlene Francois

Peace to all beings, whether near or far
Known or unknown, real or imaginary
Visible or invisible, born or yet to be born
May all beings, be well and happy
And free from fear

Peace to all beings
Within and beyond the imagination
In the world of ideas, in the world of memories
And in the world of dreams
May all beings be well and happy
And free from fear

Peace in all elements
Of earth, air, fire and water
Fulfiled in space
Peace

Peace in all the universes
From the smallest cells in our bodies
To the greatest galaxies in space
Peace
And light rising

Peace to all beings
Within each being here
To those beings that have been in the past
And to those beings that are yet to be in the future
May all beings, within each being here
Be well and happy
And free from fear

Buddhist Prayer

I am the New Year.
I am an unspoiled page in your book of time

I am your opportunity to practise
what you have learnt about life in the last twelve months.
All that you have sought and didn’t find is hidden in me,
waiting for you to search it out with more determination.
All the good that you tried for and didn’t achieve is mine to
grant you when you have fewer conflicting desires.
All that you dreamed about and didn’t care to do, all that
you hoped but did not will, all the faith that you claimed
but did not have – these slumber silently, waiting to
be awakened by the touch of a strong purpose.
I am your opportunity to renew your
commitment to start afresh –
I am the New Year.

Anonymous

Japa is the meditative repetition of a mantra or name of God.

Understanding the Mind

Mind is a shakti kshetra, a field of energy, an energy field like all other energy fields. It is the most subtle energy field in the universe. Mind is the link between consciousness and the physical personality. It is the link between consciousness of purusha, and prana and annamaya and all other forms of prakriti or matter. It is through the mind that one goes beyond annamaya, beyond pranamaya, through manas, buddhi, chitta, and ahamkara and then reaching atman, or purusha.

Mind is the subtlest energy field in the Universe and has the highest frequency vibration of all the energy fields.

If you want to understand meditation, you need to understand the nature of mind, the nature of antahkarana, the inner instrument which consists of manas, active mind; buddhi, the faculty of wisdom, chitta, the entire mind field in which also the samskaras, vasanas, karmashaya are located. Ahamkara, that by which we identify our being, that ‘I am this’ or ‘I am that’.

I repeat that in order to understand meditation, it is absolutely necessary to understand the nature of the mind. What mind is, how mind functions and what we do with the mind through our kriyas, practices of meditation. Mind – I repeat – is a shaktikshetra, an energy field, which has the highest frequency vibration of all the energy fields in the universe. Ajiram, javishtham; the most agile and the speediest.

Mind has no size and no form of its own, no fixed form of its own. It takes the form of whatever is presented to it by way of the senses or by way of samskaras and vasanas. Mind is vast and deep, like an ocean. The mind fills the entire universe. Your mind is a wave in the mind-ocean of the universe. Your mind is a wave in the vast ocean of the mind of the universe.

Understanding the practices of meditation requires understanding the different levels and layers of the mind:

• At surface level – Active in the Kshipta (disturbed state; opposite of one-pointed), Mudha (state of stupefaction) and Vikshipta (distracted from meditative state) states
• At deeper level – Ekagra (one-pointed) and Nirodha (fully controlled) states

Mind is many levels, many layers. At each level, at each layer, it operates and functions differently. At the surface level that you experience, it is active in the kshipta, mudha and vikshipta states. From there you have to rise or dive deep into the ekagra and nirodhah states. If you understand the mind, you understand all your impulses, all your desires, all your wishes, dreams, wakeful states, sleep state. You will understand memory. How to remember, how to memorize sacred texts or how to remember anything else. And if you understand different layers, different levels of the energy field called the mind, you understand different kriyas, practices of meditation. Because the kriyas, the practices of meditation are in different layers and levels of the energy field of the mind. If you understand these layers and levels of the mind, you will understand how knowledge comes to you. Knowledge that you introduce from outside and the knowledge that comes to the yogi and the rishi from inside the chaitanya, the consciousness. When you understand this system – all the levels of mind – you will know how to memorise things, you will know how to receive knowledge from within, as a shakshatkara, as a realisation, from chaitanya, from the consciousness principle.

Mind operates differently at each level and layer; you will know how to receive knowledge from within

Process of Japa

1. Annamaya (physical), Pranamaya (organic), Manomaya (emotional/mental), Vijnanamaya (intellectual/discriminative), and Anandamaya (blissful) koshas (sheath) are all interlinked
2. States of annamaya and pranamaya are being fed into mind at all times
3. Any kind of tension – physical body or prana (life force) body,  gets transmitted into the mind
4. Learn prayatna shaithilya (relaxation of effort ) to settle your mind in your japa. Remember any jerk in breath jerks the mind

You cannot understand the process of japa without understanding different layers of the mind. Many of our sadhakas, practitioners, are still doing their japa by moving the tongue. One of the purposes of khechari is to tuck the tongue away so that you are not doing the shallow japa, of words of the mantra.

Your japa begins when your mantra becomes pure thought in the mind. Now understand that your annamaya kosha, pranamaya kosha, manomaya kosha, vijnanamaya kosha, anandamaya kosha are all interlinked. And the states of your annamaya and pranamaya (physical body and prana body) the states of these are all the time being fed into your mind, so that if your body, neuromuscalature, nerves and muscles, are tense, they are sending tension messages into the mind.  Mind is becoming tense and mind is then travelling to all different areas of thoughts, memories, and experiences.

Part of the reason that your mind does not settle in your japa is because you have not yet learned prayatna shaithilya, relaxation of effort. Your body is still tense. As a result of the tension in the body your breath is jerky, which experience of jerkiness of the breath is also fed back into the mind and the mind becomes jerky and travels around in jerks, all over the world.

Relaxation of effort (prayatna shaithilya) is a MUST for japa; practice khechari mudra to avoid moving tongue whilst doing japa

To do one mala of a mantra in shorter time:

1. Learn to relax muscles and nerves as taught in the Yogi Parampara (tradition, lineage)
2. Slow your breath and make it dirgha (long), sukshma (subtle), nairantarya (continuous) and without virama (pause)
3. Let mantra thought come like a wave and become pure thought in the mind

So for japa, this relaxation of effort is important. A smooth, gentle flow of the breath is important. For which you have to train yourself. Train yourself to abhyasa, which many of our sadhakas are not doing. So the japa remains at a shallow level. Some people take 45 minutes to do one mala of Gayatri. Some take 25 minutes, some take 15 minutes, some take 7 minutes and some fortunate ones can do it in a much shorter time.

This, taking the time, has nothing to do with moving your tongue fast or slow, because you have already placed your tongue away in khechari mudra (placing the tongue above the soft palate and into the nasal cavity). If you want to do your one mala of Gayatri in shorter period of time, then first you have to learn to relax your muscles and nerves by the methods that are taught in the yogi parampara, in the yoga tradition. You have to learn to slow your breath down and make it dirgha shuksma, long and subtle, within nairantarya, without interruption, without virama, without a pause. When you accomplish this and your mantra has become pure thought in the mind, that is only the beginning of japa.

Breath is to be long, subtle, without interruption and pause; this is the beginning of japa

To deepen your japa:

1. Increase the duration of mantra thought coming like a wave
2. Let the thought not turn into words on the tongue
3. Let the thought not be interrupted by other thoughts
4. Understand the mind – nature, layers and levels
5. When you get deep into the layers of the mind field, the Mantreshvaras (lords of mantras) send their grace into your meditation

How long can you keep that mantra thought coming like a wave of the same mantra thought, without other thoughts interrupting?

Condition one: Without the thought turning into words on the tongue.
Condition number two: Without the thought being interrupted by other thoughts. That is the way you deepen your japa, you make your japa subtle and deep.

Now please understand the next step. By understanding the same thing I have said about the nature of the mind. Mind is an energy field with many layers, like the waves of the electric current. Your thoughts are one form, your thoughts including mantra thought, are one form of the wave of the electric energy field of the mind. The word ‘electric’ here is used only as an example, as an analogy. It can be an example of magnetic field or electronic field. Mind is not electricity, mind is not magnetic field, and mind is not electronic field. Mind is a different kind of field, separate from all of these.

Now I repeat again. This mind field has many levels, many layers. Deep like a universal ocean. Let that sink into your understanding. When you begin to go deep into the layers of the mind field the Mantreshvaras, the Lords of mantras, who govern the mantra field, the mind field in the universe, send their grace, their anugraha, into your meditation. This is a secret known only to very advanced yogis.

Make japa deep and subtle; by the anugraha (grace) of the Lords of Mantras, the japa will deepen

Journey in japa

• Doing the Japa at the shallow layer of mind as a conscious thought
• As mind’s vibrations become more ajiram (agile, free of decay) and javishtham (speediest, most high frequency), the brain waves slow down
• At each deeper layer the mantra becomes a faster vibration; a high frequency
• As you take your japa into yet deeper layers of the mind you will do more japa in shorter period of time; rather you will not do
• After much abhyasa (practice), finally you reach a point where mauna (silence); where the knowledge is received wordlessly
• The wordless knowledge is received as the knowledge of the Vedas was received

What does it mean for the japa to go deep?
It means that you are first doing the japa at the shallow layer of the mind, as a conscious thought. As a start of the japa practice, you are doing your japa at a shallow level of the conscious mind. Let me explain next principle, about the nature of the mind, as it has been understood by the yogis. Not from books, but from their own experience of going into these layers and levels of the mind. At each level or layer of the mind, the vibration, the sphuranam, the spandanam, is higher frequency. That is, it is faster. There is another principle, which I will mention here only incidentally. As the mind’s vibration becomes more and more ajiram and javishtham, more and more agile and higher frequency, the brain waves slow down.

Practical lesson

How to reduce the time taken for doing long mantras?

We will practice with the mantra – ‘Akhanda-mandalakaram vyaptam yena characaram, tat-padam darsitam yena tasmai sri-gurave namah’

1. Bring your attention to yourself, your asana, your posture, your back,  all in perfect order
2. Relax all parts of your body
3. Bring your mind’s attention to your breathing, observe your breath and establish diaphragmatic breathing
4. Feel the flow of breaths in your nostrils
5. Establish khechari mudra, the tongue lock with your mantra
6. Continue to feel the slow, smooth, gentle breaths, without a break, sound, jerk in your nostrils
7. Let there be no break in the flow of your mantra thought, with your breaths
8. Merge your left and right nostril-breaths into the sushumna stream
9. Let the mantra continue, feeling the stream of energy on the sushumna path from the nasagra
10. Following the sushumna path, go into your mind. Ignore the breath flow
11. Let only the mantra thought arise. Same wave. Not word by word, but the complete mantra thought all at once
12. The same way that the entire mantra is coming as a single wave, remember  just ‘Akhanda-mandalakaram’.
13. Let that become the wave, the entire pada, the entire quarter/order, all at once. Remember, remember, and remember
14. Remember ‘vyaptam yena characaram’, the entire pada, the entire quarter as a single thought
15. Remember ‘tat-padam darhsitam yena’. No words, only the thought
16. Remember ‘tasmai sri-gurave namah’. No words, only the thought
17. Remember the entire half of the verse ‘Akhanda-mandalakaram vyaptam yena characaram’ . Think that as a thought over and over, without a break, the same wave
18. Remember ‘tat-padam darsitam yena tasmai sri-gurave namah’
19. Let the entire ‘Akhanda-mandalakaram’, complete mantra, be remembered as a thought in the mind. The entire thought, like a wave
20. Having completed the desired number of japa, come back to your personal diksha-mantra. Same wave, as a thought flashing, thought flashing
21. Come to the sushumna breath, with the same mantra thought
22. Keeping the mantra in the mind, by usual procedure, open your eyes

A blockage would mean that you got tensed, have broken your breaths and brought the mantra to your tongue

So we come to the most important point of learning the japa practice. You have to take your japa into deeper and yet deeper layers of the mind. At each deeper layer the mantra becomes a faster vibration, a high frequency. There must be prayatna shaitiliya, relaxation of effort, at all levels of the practice of yoga.

I would suggest that whenever people start the practice of a special mantra, or a purushcharana during the periods of silence at home, they listen to this explanation about mind, mantra and japa. As you will learn to take your japa into deeper and yet deeper layers of the mind, energy field, not only you will do more japa in shorter period of time….I correct myself: you will not do. More japa will happen in shorter period of time. Not only that will happen, but then, slowly, after much abhyasa, you will learn to go to yet deeper layer and yet deeper layer where finally you reach a point where mauna, silence prevails; where words do not come; where the knowledge is received wordlessly. The wordless knowledge is received as the knowledge of the Vedas was received. This is your journey in japa.

By Swami Veda Bharati

Understanding Archetypes and the Roles of Personality

The Yoga Vasistha is a book that presents the possibility for instant awakening. Yes, instant. But that is the easy part; the “awakening” part is a bit more tricky. And why is that? Because, before we wake up we need to want to wake up. And who wants to awaken? Do you? And from what?

No yoga practice has any meaning whatsoever, and therefore any value, unless you realise one simple thing – we are prisoners bound by invisible chains. And what is it that binds us? Our minds, and the mesmerising power of our personalities.

To realise, that “I am a prisoner of ‘my’ mind”, can be a strange sensation. How can it be my mind, if the mind does what it wants, when it wants, and all I do is follow its instructions? Or haven’t you noticed?

When you realise “I am a prisoner of mind” then maybe yoga can have real value for you. In fact, that is when yoga practice will reveal its power and its beauty. That is what it was designed for – freedom from mental activity, not just health, as some yoga teachers state. Ironically, freedom from mental activity is health. Until you realise that, you are just chasing your own tail. If you happen to be driven by mental compulsions (as we are) you remain bound even to “your” yoga practice.

In terms of brain neurology, the thing that can free the attention from the “mental prison” of our minds like nothing else can is vichara (dynamic, fluid and focused noticing). Vichara is at the core of yoga practice, together with a deep realisation of how mental activity creates the illusion of “you”, by means of ever-changing self images. Mental activity traps the attention in the lower chakras, defining our individuality.

To discover this secret, close your eyes and observe what is actually going on right now. What do you notice? Can you discern that as you are sitting there, right now, some “person” has arisen within your field of awareness? Perhaps it is a younger or older “you”, or maybe a person the same age as your body.

But then, have you noticed that at other times, perhaps when a cop pulls you over at a roadblock, or when you are having some problem with your bank, or when someone let you down, a different “person” appears within the field of awareness? Equally, when you feel close to someone or feel inspired, yet another “person”, with altogether different qualities and abilities arises. Now if these different versions of “you” keep on arising and disappearing, can they be real? They certainly are not permanent.

All these imaginary “persons” arise all the time, one after the other. Sometimes when you least want them to. The question is, have you noticed?

If you observe, you will notice that these imaginary self images rule our lives. Very often they result in insecurity and concern about the future or awakened regrets and longings from the past. Great actors have made a career out of it, and we truly enjoy the performance.

What Vasistha urges Rama to do, and by extension all of us, is to notice that these imaginary parts or sub-personality aspects of our self image – some call them archetypes – arise within a pristine space of awareness. In fact, the more desirable or frightening they are, the more they imprison the awareness – it’s the emotions that grip the attention.

The main effect of their arising is that the pure awareness in which they arise becomes forgetful of its own nature. As this happens, the misplaced sense of what is real becomes entrenched. In this way we miss the point that it is the consciousness, which is unchanging and timeless, and that the changing self images arise within it. Right now as you read this, the truth is covered up, the inner spaciousness is filled with images, the inner silence is replaced with noise, the attention gets dragged away and forced into the play of a life story.

When the truth of being is lost, the symptoms are distress, fear, a closed heart, uncomfortable breathing, cynicism, a tough exterior – each one of us has our favourites. This is the absence of yoga.

Vasistha says notice that, and reclaim your true identity. Your personality arises in you!

From thinking and believing that you are “this man” or “that woman” notice what you really are. You are the pure consciousness in which all the sub-personalities arise and that is not individualised at all.

In death, deep sleep and true meditation, all the versions of who you think you are collapse, and what remains is all that there was in the first place – this is liberation. If they all arise again, demanding fulfilment, that is what we call rebirth. Simple.

To frequently surrender or give up the urge of their arising, while in the waking state, is spiritual practice. This is the true value of bowing and surrendering to the ever-present awareness. This frequent noticing and surrendering, releasing and offering to the divine consciousness, the variations of “me”, leads to the realisation of the existence of the ever-free consciousness, which is the permanent true being of all.

To notice the appearing and disappearing – the impermanence – of all the mental images of self is their undoing. This noticing is called vichara. The prize is enlightenment, and the price is our personality’s importance. As the first increases the second decreases, in a flash of realisation. Just like that, like a bolt from the blue, when it’s clear it’s clear. No amount of physical effort can bring this about, just insight.

Salutations to that reality (Sat), in which all the elements and all the animate and inanimate beings shine as if they have an independent existence, and in which they exist for a time and into which they merge.
Salutations to that consciousness (Chit), which is the source of the apparently distinct threefold divisions of knower, knowledge, and known; seer, sight, and seen; doer, doing and deed.
Salutations to that bliss absolute (the ocean of bliss) (Ananda), which is the life of all beings whose happiness and unfolding are derived from the shower of spray from that ocean of bliss.

By Panos Lazanas