Newly Discovered Tips for Meditators Who Want the Monkey to Mind

Newly Discovered Tips for Meditators:

I should add: "newly discovered" for me! I stumbled upon some things I'd like to share. (Even if, there's nothing new under the sun of wisdom.)

1. One's heart rate needs to be slowed before the monkey can relax. A very simple breathing exercise will help: breathe through the nose using a long slow and smooth breath. Let the exhalation be slightly longer than inhalation. Let the breath flow continuously without pauses at the top of inhalation or at the bottom of the exhalation. Of course, there are numerous traditional pranayamas to use also but you do need to know how to use them properly. The most important clue for the success of pranayama is the quieting of the heart and slowing of the breath rate. Some techniques produce a sensation of coolness; others, of warmth. But if your heart is beating faster after the exercise than it was before, then you'd better let that one go or learn how and when to use it correctly!

I have learned that controlling the heart is more than just mechanics. Conscious intention and awareness are very important. Try this exercise: when calm and with eyes closed, "intuit" the experience of breathlessness! Look up and open your mouth with a soft, one-second intake of breath. Hold that pose and feel the heart. You can also stop and calmly fix your gaze on any object with your mouth slightly open and your eyes "wide" (see number 3 below).

When meditating, try to feel, intuit or imagine space in the body. Our body is 99.999% space (scientists tell us). Then expand that awareness out and around you further and further. Notice if your heart rate drops!

2. Try relaxing the tongue during meditation. Let it relax and slide gently and just slightly back into the mouth. It may help to open your mouth just slightly. The tongue is what we talk with. Even mental self-talk can stimulate the nerves in the tongue into readiness to speak! As the tongue, so the mind. As the mind, so the tongue.) [Of course, the gold standard is to place the tongue into Khechari mudra. but that's another and a longer story.]

3. Position of the eyes. No doubt readers of this article already know to position your eyes upward, gazing gently through the point between the eyebrows. In the yoga tradition, this is called Shambhavi mudra. This alone helps greatly with quieting the self-talk. Implied in the experience of Shambhavi mudra is a little-known effect: dilation of the eyes. Try this little trick for dilating the eyes. Lift your gaze with open eyes. Hold your arms out at eye level with the index finger on each hand pointing to the ceiling. Slowly move your arms apart from each other to the furthest points where your eyes can still see both upraised fingers. Notice if this doesn't quiet the mind instantly. After you find this gazing position, close your eyes and begin your meditation as usual. (You may have to do this several times during meditation or for a few days or weeks to have it become natural. P.S. The eyes should never "cross.") 

Why does this work? My understanding goes something like this: the analytical mind tends to keep the narrative going when we are looking at ONE thing. But the feeling or observing part of the mind overrides the analytical brain when simultaneously viewing two or more objects. (A picture, being worth a thousand words! Two pictures, two thousand!) 

In the practice of the Hong Sau technique, we are given the instruction to keep the gaze upraised behind closed eyes while feeling the breath flowing up and down in the nostrils. These two focal points constitute TWO objects being observed simultaneously. While this is true, the dilation technique I think is more sustainable, especially for new meditators. 

Try the dilation method (without necessarily using the arms) even during the day (probably NOT when driving a car) and see if you don't experience an instant quieting of heart and mind, and relaxation throughout the muscles! This can be done simply by becoming aware of what is at the edges of your peripheral vision when looking at any one point in front of you, especially with eyes slightly raised.

4. Re-think the Ajna chakra (6th chakra) at the medulla. We are taught that the spiritual eye (point between the eyebrows) is but a reflection of the 6th chakra which is located at the medulla oblongata at the base of the brain (and in the back of the head). For this purpose, let's exclude the crown chakra (the Sahasrara) viewing it as not being a chakra but, being instead, the transcendent consciousness of the soul (which, let's face it, is somewhat aloof). 

Therefore, experiment with viewing the medulla as the final chakra at the top of the spine. Focus your attention during meditation in the medulla with the idea that it is from the medulla that you are gazing up and forward to the point between the eyebrows. Visualize this, as I do, as the "theatre of the soul" gazing up at the screen where the inner light may appear.

A new technique I learned for feeling the position of the medulla goes like this: sit up straight in meditative posture. While keeping your head level, rotate your head side to side (not too far to either side) back and forth four or five times. Imagine that the head remains centered, rotating to the left, back to center, and to the right in a continuous motion seated on a small post, the thickness of your thumb and located just inside the back of the head above the neck. The area that you feel from this exercise you may consider to be the medulla oblongata (the seat of the ajna chakra).

Therefore, during meditation, center your attention in the medulla. This will help keep your head level (chin level). Too many meditators tilt their head back (lifting the chin) while straining to place their energy at the point between the eyebrows. See if this re-focusing of your attention at the medulla helps ground your meditation, keeping you in the conscious mind even while your upward gaze indicates that you are receptive to the superconscious mind. Too often we focus so intently upon the forehead that our head tilts up and we get "disconnected" from the rest of the body and the other chakras. The result is that we are tempted to mentally drift away or maybe the monkey mind feels free to leap about and do cartwheels and handstands on the stage of our attention. 

Another way to express the effect of the head tilted upwards at the chin, is that this "pinches" the medulla (Ajna) chakra and chokes off our connection with especially the heart. The heart holds one of the keys to quieting the monkey mind. When the heart is calm and at rest, so follows the mind. Think of one of those perennially contented souls one meets here and there. No surfeit of mental agitation have we!

Refocusing your awareness to the medulla will require some practice and reorientation. Ultimately it really isn't a change from making the spiritual eye your focus but it is, in fact, more natural since the ego is said to be centered in the medulla. Until the ego is lifted up out of itself, moving naturally forward to the spiritual eye, the ego is the one practising meditation!


5. The tingles! A sign to look for as you go deeper in meditation (as your heart rate decreases), is a tingling sensation on the surface of the body (the skin). Perhaps your hands, resting on your thighs, begin to feel heavy, even warm. Perhaps your upper body has an energy or tingling feeling all around. Or, perhaps your lower lip feels different (as if the blood is draining away from it). It is no coincidence that yogis often meditate without a shirt. The shirt, by touching the body, interferes with the awareness of this sensation. 


In its initial stages, we actually feel MORE sensitive (just as when you have sunburn or a rash you may not want to wear a shirt). As prana is drawn into the center of the body, certain sensations result. They are somewhat similar to falling asleep except that we can't notice them because we are "falling" asleep! These can include becoming suddenly aware of tension or aches and pains. Other symptoms might include sudden itching, tickling in the throat or nose, yawning or swallowing compulsively (though these also have other sources for their appearance). 

But the "tingles" is a sign to you that you are internalizing your awareness and the prana is following your attention inward. Put another way, these sensations are not problematic but natural. However, this doesn't mean every meditator will or must experience these sensations.


Well, that's it for now. Try some of these and let me know what you think. Just remember that we are all a bit different. Not every technique works the same for every meditator. 

Inhale, exhale, "stop, look, and listen!" (Here comes the train of peace gliding soundlessly down the tracks of your mind.)

Swami Hrimananda, the
Not (yet) wandering sadhu

Meditation: A Point of Singularity

There are innumerable ways of describing or defining the state of consciousness offered to us as the goal of meditation. From stress relief to enlightenment to cosmic consciousness, the terminology alone is rich with implication and promise. Modern medicine and Buddhist-inspired mindfulness suggest a state of mind set free from the negative effects of stress and resting calmly in the peace within.

Just as the process of maturity is an ever-expanding continuum of awareness, inner strength and acceptance, so meditation opens up a mind whose vista is potentially ever-new, ever-expanding, and ever-increasing in self-awareness, knowledge, empathy and wisdom.

There are also numerous meditation techniques: too numerous to attempt a list here. As a life-long meditator and teacher of meditation I feel safe and confident in affirming and corroborating the tenet that real meditation begins when our thoughts are still (and the body is relaxed, if alert). Techniques can medically, emotionally, and psychically greatly aid in bringing our mind and body to POINT OF SINGULARITY. It is the true beginning point of the adventure of meditation.

Let me state, first, however, that it would be a false expectation to imagine that the beginning point presupposes the onset of satori, samadhi, or any other "mind-blowing" experience. Rather, it resembles achieving calmness in the midst of an intense emotional crises. Calmness, in such cases, is simply the necessary beginning point for figuring out what to do next.

It's like being on a quest and being instructed to go to quiet place in the forest and sit until you receive the next instruction. The instruction may, or may not, come while sitting there. It may come after you've gone home. It may arrive in an email or phone call. Meditation, like work, starts with showing up. Showing up starts not with exercises, chanting, or other meditation techniques, but with being clear as a crystal, ready to receive the next instruction, when, and if, it comes. (This can happen in the midst of meditation exercises, too, at which point it is generally advised to discontinue the technique in favor of the experience!)

As sleep rests the body and nervous system, meditation clears the psyche of emotional and mental static (after first relaxing the body). This is my point: a point of singularity. The second aphorism in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali defines the state of yoga as a state where all reactive mental and emotional processes have ceased.

In fairness to Patanjali and the depth of meaning contained in this most important of all (the nearly) two hundred aphorisms, he is referring to BOTH the beginning AND the end point (goal) meditation. By contrast, I am referring in this article only to the beginning point. But, they are, of course, related and inextricably linked: the first being the prerequisite for the second.

When I hear the phrase "chop wood and carry water" I image a person doing something "perfectly" mundane with a "perfectly" clear and settled mind and a body so relaxed that only those movements and muscles needed for the task are engaged (not unlike true yoga posture-asana).

This is a good intuitive image for a "point of singularity." The only difference is that I am referring to it occurring in meditation, not in daily action. (This can flow naturally from it being practiced and experienced in meditation.)

Philosophers and sages down the ages have referred to the duality of creation: male & female; reason & feeling; objective & subjective; heat & cold; and so on. It is axiomatic that the uniting of the two is at least the symbol of enlightenment or some other desirable state of mind or being.

Think of a point of singularity as a point where the mind, subjective and self-aware, replete with feeling merges with the object of contemplation. You cannot literally merge with a candle flame by staring at it. But by focusing your inward awareness (usually with eyes closed) on the awareness of the self being aware, you most certainly can

Few meditators are subtle enough and settled enough in their minds to do this, however. Hence the plethora of techniques such as watching the breath, feeling the movements of subtle energy in the body, or visualizing the guru, a deity, or an abstract image or concept (light, joy, spiritual color, sacred sound, etc.) A well known technique is observe oneself observing and mentally ask "Who am I?" "Who is observing whom?"

Moses asked the burning bush, "Who are you?" Is not the burning bush the flame of our self-awareness, burning bright within us, especially in meditation? The flame answered saying, "I AM THAT I AM!" Does not the Self within answer us, wordlessly, at times?

Sometimes in my use of various "kriya" techniques based on energy currents (prana), I imagine that the energy is erasing all memory of name, form, past, personality, desires and tendencies. In this way, with each movement of prana, I am clearing and cleaning the pathways of energy so that no one remains but pure energy and self-awareness.

As I begin my meditation, I invoke the living presence of my guru-preceptor, Paramhansa Yogananda, or one (or all) of those in his line of gurus, to assist me on the subtle level or energy or consciousness in the task of ego-clearing transcendence. When I feel I am ready to settle in and past my technique(s), I might then gaze clearly and steadily into the "Spiritual I" at the point between the eyebrows to see who and what might be there: I AM THAT I AM. Go beyond words and images and BE.

Is this not the "only begotten son of God" sent to redeem us from the captivity of ego? Is this not the living Christ, or Krishna consciousness: the watcher, the observer, the witness?

This is where the me confronts the I of God. When this is successful, I can stand and "chop wood and carry water."

Blessings to I THAT AM YOU,

Nayaswami Hriman

Thoughts on a Christmas Eve

This year the sense of silence, of an inner peace — appropriate to the holy season of Christmas — resting and watching just behind meditation and outward activity has been very tangible for me. Oddly, or so it may seem, it enhances, not detracts from my engagement in activities and connection with others even as this Presence witnesses all.

It has been a wonderful gift and I wish it for all who seek it, especially through daily meditation. Perhaps years of meditation have yielded fruits too subtle for me to notice or too slow to ripen in the chill of my own restlessness, but I am grateful for the deepening peace and wisdom that seems to be arriving like Christmas presents in the mail!

I believe that millions of people feel some measure of stillness and reverence at Christmas. Years ago at Ananda Village I used to love to get up very early and meditate on Christmas morning before our two small children would be up to see what Santa brought them. I drank in that blessed comfort and joy that hovers, like the Star of Bethlehem, over us.


What matter to us, today, if the events described in the New Testament are factual or only allegorical? At this distance in time and space, there is no difference for us. Do we not have, or at least sense, a message for the ages in this simple, beloved tale?


A dark cold night under the starry skies is the symbol of meditation. For only in the darkness behind closed eyes and in the darkness of withdrawal from outward activity can our divine nature be born. Jesus, though heralded as a King and, later as an adult, offered world dominion by Satan, was born in a lowly manger, an empty stable. So, too, can our inner divine soul-child only be born and first made manifest in the humble, quiet heart.


Shepherds keep watch over their sheep. Shepherds, then, are our conscious thoughts and conscious mind. Good shepherds watch protectively over the sheep of the subconscious body-temple, habits, duties, and outward activities. Shepherds who guard their flocks at night are those souls who remain vigilant in the night of temptations and whenever subconscious habits, predispositions and other pre or post-natal tendencies threaten to overcome their good intentions. Good shepherds also remain awake to await the angelic, intuitive promptings of their soul, through prayer and meditation. Thus the angels of intuition urge the shepherds to seek the Christ child in the quiet “stable” of inner silence.


The holy family is a symbol for the Trinity. In the story of Jesus’ birth, Joseph is not the biological father of Jesus. This symbolizes and reflects the truth that God the Father remains untouched by and uninvolved in the daily housework of the creation that he initiated. Mary, the mother of Jesus, is the sacred consort, the pure virgin, mother of creation, the Holy Ghost, out of whom all creation is manifested even as she, like the Father, is untouched or undefiled by creation's myriad manifestations, whether good or evil. In her womb, which is to say, at the heart of every living thing and every moving atom, is the silent Intelligence and Bliss which is the only reflection of the Son of the Father which is beyond creation.


Paramhansa Yogananda explained this complex concept of the Trinity in this simple analogy to the nuclear family. The son of God is "only begotten" because this indwelling Christ consciousness ("Kutastha Chaitanya" in Sanskrit) is the only reflection , or echo, within creation of the Infinite Spirit beyond all vibratory creation. "God so loved the world," the Bible says, "that he gave his only begotten Son." This means that God (the Father) implanted the seed of his Bliss-Intelligence in the heart of everything.


Indeed, yogis explain that God did not merely “make” the universe, He BECAME the universe through the agency of vibration first of thought, then energy, and finally form. All vibration moves from a center of rest in opposite directions. This illustrates how all things created only appear to be real, are always in motion, producing sound and light, always polarized (or neutral), and always in an infinity of oppositional states. This becoming is also the means by which God’s one nature becomes triune.


Manifested aspects of this seed of divinity, the only begotten son of God who is this Christ child, include intelligence, free will, reason, the power of procreation, creativity in all its forms, desire (the impulse to create for love, for joy), healing power, and all that we hold dear (and tend to misuse!). A tree expresses this intelligence by doing "tree" things. Cows don't write books but do cow-like activities. (smile) And so on!


Jesus — the Christ, or Anointed One — was one with the Father in that as a soul existing through countless incarnations he achieved final Oneness with the Father in some distant past life. Re-born as a perfected soul in a human body he, being incarnate, came as the universal Christ Intelligence in human form. No human form can circumscribe or limit this universal Intelligence but the soul of Jesus remained united with it. The difference between Jesus and you or I is one of degree, not kind. For most of us and creation, that only begotten son is yet to be born, or at least has not become fully realized.


The three Wise Men come from the east because the east of the body is in the center of the forehead, at the point between the eyebrows. It is here, in meditation, that the light of wisdom, of the spiritual (third) eye, appears and, in time, guides us to the promised land of the Father (Bliss), or put differently, to the humble stable of the cosmic heart wherein the Christ child is born.


Yogis teach that in meditation we can only reach the level of consciousness of the Christ Intelligence within us and then in all creation by FIRST communing with the Mother, the Holy Ghost, the primal or first vibratory manifestation of God. Thus we ascend back to Infinity through the Trinity by "reverse engineering" or by retracing the stages of creation: first we achieve Oneness WITH creation; then Oneness with the CONSCIOUSNESS (Christ Intelligence) of creation, and then finally with the Bliss of the Father beyond the creation.


Communion WITH the creation takes place by meditating upon the Sacred Word, or Aum (or Amen, Amin, or Ahunavar--all names for the same Vibratory experience of the Holy Ghost, or Divine Mother). This is experienced within ourselves in meditation and, in time and with depth, expanding outward into all creation.


Getting back to those three Wise men, then, we have another case of THREE. Three, in this instance, is not the Trinity of God, but our own, triune nature: a reflection of the Godhead Trinity. Our triune nature consists of our intelligence, our feelings, and our actions. Students of yoga know these as the paths of Gyana Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, and Karma Yoga. Our souls, encased in the three bodies of causal (thought), astral (energy/feeling), and physical (action), are three primary modalities or ways of relating both to the world around us and to the divine, higher realities as we ascend toward the Infinite state which, when we achieve it, is One and transcendent of these three states. The three planes of existence are macro-cosmic reflections of our triune nature which, in both instances, encloses and obscures our soul nature which remains pure and untouched by its ego and bodily mis-identities.


Thus the meaning of the Wise Men is that our triple nature should be offered up to and into a higher wisdom. Our intelligence should seek and give the gold of silence ("speech is silver; silence is golden") and thus go beyond the endless ramifications of reason and the intellect. By direct, intuitive perception born of mental stillness we begin to have "eyes that see," and "ears that hear."


Our feeling nature brings the frankincense of pure devotion, converting the emotional roller coaster of material and ego-affirming desires into the fragrance of love for God. Our active nature utilizes the bitter herb of self-discipline and self-control to entomb, or cauterize, the destructive habits of over-indulgence and identification with sense pleasures and harmful actions born of bodily identification.

As more of an aside: In the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda, he said that the three wise men were from India and were previous incarnations of his three direct teachers: Swami Sri Yukteswar, Lahiri Mahasaya, and the incomparable Babaji. The specific importance of this revelation is that Jesus was recognized as an avatar by fellow avatars and that there existed a special connection between east and west.

The star which the three wise men saw in the east and followed is, in its turn, a symbol of the spiritual eye seen at the point between the eyebrows. Its two concentric circles of gold and blue (visible in the construction of our physical eyes as the white, iris, and pupil) encircle a white, five-pointed star. The gold and blue circles represent, respectively, the astral and causal spheres as successive stages of creation through which we must ascend in reverse order. Meditation upon the spiritual eye is part of the process of ascension and becomes the yogis guide.


Evil King Herod is the ego, or the satanic force, which seeks to kill the child of our soul's first awakening. One place that the story seems to me to stumble in its symbolism is the flight to Egypt. To the Israelites, Egypt symbolized materialism and ego identity from which the great master Moses once freed them. In scriptural allegories such as India's Mahabharata, Jesus' parable of the prodigal son, Dante's Paradise Lost and many others, the journey to the foreign land symbolizes the soul's fall from grace. This comes often at the onset of adulthood.


In the birth of Jesus story, however, the flight to Egypt is an effort to preserve the newly born spiritual awakening. Two alternative explanations occur to me: one, it might be that Egypt symbolized retreat to the metaphysical mysteries for which it had once been a custodian in ancient times. Two, perhaps Egypt was to have symbolized the desert which is often used to indicate the wilderness of inner silence. Thus the new-born Christ Consciousness is nurtured and protected from delusion (Herod) in the inner silence.


We have here, then, in this beautiful story an ageless allegory for life. It is this truth, and not tradition or mere sentiment that empowers the nativity story with ever-new vitality from year to year and generation to generation. For such reasons Christmas may, and indeed ought to, be celebrated by all seekers of eternal truth and lovers of God. Christmas symbolizes a universal truth, a timeless story, and an eternal promise. The power inherent in the art of storytelling that is based on deep spiritual truths is that people of all ages and temperaments, educated or illiterate, can be uplifted by them and naturally experience and express a fellow feeling of universal love.

For more on this deep subject, I direct your attention to Swami Kriyananda’s inspired and potent exposition of these metaphysical truths taught by Paramhansa Yogananda in his book, “Revelations of Christ,” available at an East West Bookshop near you (www.eastwestbookshop.com or through the publisher www.crystalclarity.com.