Jagat

One of the great good fortunes I had in my life was to get the association of Swami Veda Bharati. Two things he taught me come to mind this morning:   The actual meditation takes place on the outward breath. So lengthen the outward breath." And, "It is one thing to meditate in a secluded place, but can you maintain that same meditative state at the main crossroads of the Rishikesh bazaar?" What fortune that I have a place in the Dham where I can sit in silence and contemplate the name of the Lord. At the same time, I do have occasional contretemps which challenge my equilibrium and pretensions to saintliness. May love and peace rule our hearts and minds. Jai Radhe. For those wishing more information about breathing and meditation, you can look here for more information ). In short, the sequence of learning goes through the following steps: (1) abdominal breathing through the nose; put an end to mouth and chest breathing; even when chanting japa, mouth breathing s...

There is, of course, much more to the story, but we will leave it for here and I will conclude by giving a summary of the contents of my first lecture on Yoga-taraṅgiṇī . The GS course in yoga starts with a lesson in anatomy. This is something that needs to be learned as the beginning of the yoga journey inwards begins with an internal inspection of the physical body, which especially in later Nath Yoga texts is seen as the microcosm, where everything found in the universe can be found. The later Nath Yoga texts like Siddha-siddhänta-paddhati take this quite seriously and have a series of meditations on these correspondences. Nowadays research into yoga by the empirical method is being given increasing favor, and this means that the yogis' understanding of the body as viewed from within is not given anything more than arcane importance, without much scientific or objective value. But thousands of years of investigation through practice should not be minimized or discounted. Su...

There has been a heat wave in most of Northern India with new record temperatures being set for May. The papers announced 46C the other day and two deaths attributed to the weather in Mathura district. I will be honest and tell you that other than buying fruit and vegetables in the evening, I have not been out of the house at all. I am enjoying my bhajan and writing so much that I find it hard to leave my station. Just now I was thinking, though, that Vikram yoga probably has it wrong with their heat it up and sweat it up yoga. I won't criticize because I really don't know who it's for or what it is attempting to accomplish. But as the heat sinks deeper and deeper into the days, it comes to me that Vikram is right about this: yoga was indeed born in the heat. Most of the Western people who come to India come in the cool season and run away when the weather starts to bear down. Those who stay are hiding behind fans and coolers and A/C if you can afford it...

In the last two posts I spoke about meditation and sitting. I added a link at the end of the sitting post to another older one that had the same subject but gave a little more detail about the different meditation sitting postures, which you can check out. Now I must continue this little discourse with a few words about breathing. As I may already have said, the elaboration of prāṇāyāma in haṭha-yoga is not directly connected to the aṣṭāṅga-yoga system. Any attempts to introduce this elaboration of breathing exercises into the aṣṭāṅga - or rāja-yoga process of meditation is not of great interest to us, though a knowledge thereof may have some beneficial aspects in the service of meditation and general physical health. Physical health as taught by haṭha-yoga is entirely intended to serve the purpose of mental control and single-pointedness on the object of concentration. Breath actually serves as an intermediate point of concentration and a vehicle for channeling the mind towar...