Meditation Practice

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V. Breathing Sensations (Become aware of sensations in various parts of your

body)

 

Become aware of the air as it comes in and goes out through your nostrils. Do

not concentrate on the air as it enters in lungs, but limit awareness to

nostrils breath. Do not control your breathing. Don't attempt to deepen it. It

is not breathing exercise, but breathing awareness. Whenever you are distracted,

return with vigour to your task to enable you to make you aware of each breath.

Continue this exercise for ten to fifteen minutes. This exercise may be

difficult for some of you in comparison to previous exercises; but it is most

rewarding in sharpening awareness, bringing calmness and relaxation. HOWEVER, in

attempting breathing awareness DO NOT tense your muscles. Determination must not

be confounded with nervous tension. You may be distracted at the beginning but

you must keep returning again and again to the awareness of your breathing the

mere effort involved in doing this-will bring beneficial effects that you will

gradually notice.

 

After developing some proficiency in this exercise move on to somewhat difficult

and more effective variant:

 

a) Become aware of the sensation of the air passing through your nostrils. Feel

its touch-in which part of the nostrils you feel the touch of the air while

inhaling .... and in what part of the nostrils you feel the touch of the air

while exhaling .......

 

b) Become aware of the warmth or coldness of the air .... its coldness when it

comes in, and its warmth when it goes out.

 

c) Also be aware of quantity of air that passes through one nostril is greater

than the amount that passes through other .....

 

d) Be sensitive and alert to the slightest, lightest touch while inhaling and

exhaling .... STAY with this awareness for ten to fifteen minutes. In case you

put in more time, you will get better results. But DO NOT stay on breathing

awareness alone for many hours over a period of more than two or three days.

Although this exercise brings you great peace and a sense of depth and fullness

that delights you but prolonged concentration on breathing is likely to produce

hallucinations or to draw out material from the unconscious that you may not be

able to control.

 

AWARENESS AND CONTEMPLATION AND PRAYER

 

Prayer means a communication with God that is carried on mainly through the use

of words and images and thoughts. Contemplation means a communication with God

that makes a minimal use of words, images and concepts altogether. The exercise

of awareness of body sensations or breathing can be termed as communication with

God. Many mystics tell us that, in addition to the mind and heart with which we

ordinarily communicate with God, we are endowed with a mystical mind and

mystical heart, a faculty which makes it possible for us to know God directly,

to grasp and INTUIT Him in His very being-apart from all thoughts, concepts and

images.

 

Ordinarily all our contact with God is indirect-through images and concepts. To

be able to grasp Him beyond these thoughts and images is the privilege of this

faculty-a mystical heart. In most of us this Heart lies dormant and undeveloped.

If it is awakened, it would be straining towards God and, given a chance, would

impel the whole of our being towards Him. Hence, it needs to be developed, it

needs to have the dross that surrounds it removed so that it can be attracted

towards the ETERNAL MAGNET. To be near or discover Eternal Magnet, one is to

find means of silencing the mind. And to silence the mind is an extremely

difficult task. How hard it is to keep the mind away from thinking, which is

producing thoughts in a never-ending stream. But it is also said that one thorn

is removed by another. So you can be wise to use one thought to rid yourself of

all the other thoughts that crowd into your mind. One thought, one image, one

phrase or sentence or word that your mind can be made to fasten on. For to

consciously attempt to keep the mind in a thoughtless state, in a void, is to

attempt the impossible. The mind must have something to occupy it. The seemingly

disconcerting conclusion is that concentration on your breathing or body

sensations is very good contemplation. The awareness exercises lead to a

deepening of the prayer experiences. Now is the time to expose yourself to the

Divine Sun in SILENCE.

 

to be continued...