Meditation Practice - V

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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.