Category: Meditation

The Principles of Practice

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“What style of yoga do you teach?” is a question I sometimes get asked. Most people don’t ask before attending class, it has to be said, but some do. We all have some preconceived idea about how yoga is done. I’ve listened to and heard about many stories that, in one form or other, beg questions about purpose, style and direction of yoga.

I was in an office of a financial services business some time ago and got talking to two men there about yoga. Both didn’t see any point in taking up the practice of yoga. One, in his mid-thirties, said he was so inflexible that there was no point attending a yoga class; he couldn’t even touch his toes. To prove the point he was a hopeless case, he attempted a standing forward bend. And he was right, with legs straight he could only manage to get his hands as far as his kneecaps. The case of the other, in his mid-fifties, was strikingly different to his younger colleague. Dressed in a pin-striped suit he made his point clear when he sat on a desk and proceeded to fold himself, shoes and all, effortlessly into the best padmāsana (lotus posture) I had ever seen. “I’m more than flexible enough” he told me. I tried to explain that the ability to touch one’s toes or fold one’s legs up really wasn’t the point of yoga, but they had already made up their minds, and that was the end of the conversation.

On another occasion, I heard about a lady who loved her yoga class a great deal. She regularly attended class, skipping very few of them, but always gave the quiet final phase of the class a miss. She developed a cat-like skill for padding out of class without making a sound. Sitting or lying still for 15 or so minutes was something she could not do. If she was doing ‘nothing’ her mind started to race uncontrollably. Looking after the mind was not her thing, at least not during a yoga class.

And, I have been in classes where yoga aficionados of many years’ experience, strong and flexible in their bodies, were not able to breath well whilst practising. Again, looking after the body is conceptually easy. But the breath? Who has heard of the idea of developing the breath and mind through yoga practice? Well it turns out, not as many as you would have thought.

Like it or not, yoga goes far beyond the physical exercise system that develops the well being, health, flexibility and strength of popular imagination. In fact, we should note well that one can successfully practise yoga without ever taking a single posture. That’s a hard idea to get across, but it is true: there are many ways of practising yoga. Notwithstanding this significant point, most of us find yogāsana (the practising of yoga poses) very enjoyable and indispensable. TKV Desikachar held the view that no matter how “beautifully we carry out an āsana, however flexible our body may be, if we do not achieve the integration of body, breath, and mind we can hardly claim that what we are doing is yoga” [1].

So how do we go about this integration of body, breath and mind in the yoga tradition of TKV Desikachar and his father, T Krishnamacharya? How is their yoga different from other yoga traditions?

Here are my choice of eight principles of yogāsana practice that seem to mark out their approach from other methods of yoga, which system of yoga is sometimes referred to as viniyoga. The word viniyoga means something like the proper application of yoga based on the situation and the person. That proper application is governed by many principles of practice. There is no way that I can list them all (partly because the list is long and because I actually don’t know them all), but here are my (current) top eight:

1. Nāma Rūpa Lakṣana:

Āsana is a big deal in the Western yoga world. It’s a fascinating area of study in its own right. Paul Harvey, a student of TKV Desikachar’s, suggests that if we want to understand āsana more deeply we might do well to explore the significance of a pose’s name (nāma), its form (rūpa) and its characteristics (lakṣana) [2].

It is true that different yoga lineages give different names to different poses and that new poses are being developed requiring new names. Postures can be named after animals, famous yogi-s, their shapes and so forth. For me, the way a pose’s name ends also tells us something important about it. Most end in the word āsana (posture), but others end with pīṭham, mudrā or karaṇī, and these indicate connections to how the pose interacts with prāṇa (‘life force’ goes some way to describing what prāṇa can mean).

Each āsana has an essential or ideal form (rūpa), which we try to get to know through practice. These days this is not so easy for various reasons, but it gives us a starting point from which to work.

Then there is the qualities (lakṣana) of each āsana and how they interact (positively or negatively) with each other, which influence how we feel at the end of a practice. For instance, strong back bends and twists should generally not follow one another in a regular practice, because they can cause injury [3]. So knowing something about these three aspects will help deepen our appreciation and experience of āsana and avoid hurting ourselves.

2. Vikṛti:

The rūpa (form) of an āsana should be adapted or modified to take account of the age, lifestyle and interests of the practitioner as well as the place and time of practice. How to adapt or modify āsana-s for the situation and the person performing them is an important principle of āsana practice. Over the years, I have heard many tales of yoga instructors encouraging their students to achieve the classical form of an āsana. I, myself, recall being a freshman in a yoga class (a long time ago now) when a newly qualified yoga instructor (whom I had only just met, and therefore didn’t know what I was capable of doing) put his hands on me and gently pushed me deeper into a pose. I wasn’t expecting this and neither was my body, which was already at the limits of a safe stretch.

Āsana-s have both a classical form and a functional one. If we obsess about achieving the classical form we overlook the way āsana-s help to develop, maintain or improve the functional efficiency of the body. In fact, of the two, function is always superior to form. Adaptation and modification of an āsana to facilitate access to the functional value of an āsana for the individual is vikṛti.

The relationship between form and function brings to mind this quirky story about a tailor and his client:

A man tries on a made-to-order suit in a shop just off Saville Row

Man: “I need this sleeve taken in, please, it’s two inches too long!”

Tailor: “I believe Sir will find that if he just bends his elbow like this, the sleeve pulls up nicely”

Man: “Oh yes, so it does. But now look at the collar. When I bend my elbow, the collar goes halfway up the back of my head!”

Tailor: “I would suggest Sir lifts his head up and back. Perfect!”

Man: “But now the left should is lower than the right one!”

Tailor: “No problem, Sir. Bend at the waist and lean over to the left. Now the shoulders are level!”

The man leaves the shop wearing the suit. He walks leaning to his left, with his right elbow crooked and sticking out, and his head held up and back. The only way he can walk is with quick, sharp, sudden movements; his gait very spasmodic and jerky. Just then two ladies notice him.

First lady: “Look at that poor crippled chap. I really feel for the poor guy!”

Second lady: “Yes, but his tailor must be a genius; that suit fits him perfectly!” [5]

We should not shoehorn the person to the āsana. We should always find ways to select and adapt yoga to the individual using a principles based approach rather than a prescriptive one.

3. Vinyāsa Krama:

Like ingredients in a well thought out meal, the components of a yoga practice must be carefully selected and arranged. There must be adequate preparatory and restorative phases to the design of a practice as well as a suitable goal, central idea or core of a practice. The phrase vinyāsa krama means something like ‘to place (-nyāsa) in special (vi-) steps (krama)’. ‘Any thing goes’ is definitely not the way in this yoga tradition. We should not approach yoga practice in a random way. That would be a form of madness like adding pickled herrings to chocolate cake and serving it as a starter in a three-course meal.

There should be a harmony to the way any practice comes together. It should be efficient in delivering the desired effects. We really don’t have all day to indulge our passion for yoga. So, for example, we need not faff about in order to practise paścimatānāsana (seated forward bend). An intelligent and efficient step-by-step plan of action need take just a few āsana-s to prepare for paścimatānāsana (of course, we are not limited to mastery of āsana as our goal) and then one or two to recover from it. For instance, we could start with uttanāsana, and follow that with adhomukha-śvānāsana, ūrdhva-prasṛta-pādāsana, and jānuśīrṣāsana (preparatory phase). We might now be ready for working with paścimatānāsana (core phase). After that we could finish with dvipāda-pīṭham and śavāsana (restorative phase) [9].

4. Pratikriyāsana:

Any āsana or short series of āsana-s used to dissipate ‘stress’ that may have accumulated during our practice and to restore balance to the body-breath-mind nexus is referred to as pratikriyāsana (counter posture). In the above sequencing example for paścimatānāsana, there were two counter poses: dvipāda-pīṭham and śavāsana. Sometimes I imagine that well conceived counter poses are a little like doing the washing up and putting away at the end of a meal. Not doing the clearing up makes preparing the next meal harder and eventually becomes impossible. Any demanding āsana will need pratikriyāsana and we should end a practice with restorative poses. We have to come back to a state of body and mind from which we can “comfortably resume our everyday activities without experiencing any harmful effects from out practice” [4].

The etymology of the word is interesting. “Prati” means counter or against, “kṛ” means to act or to do and “āsana”, as we already know, means posture or pose. If you ask people why they practise yoga you sometimes hear them explain that yoga acts as an antidote to life, restoring them to their true ‘normal’. In other words, the whole practice of yoga can be a counter pose to the hurly-burly of modern life for some. Yoga gives many of us respite from the stressful pandemonium of every day living.

5. Gatiśīla Sthitiśīla:

Āsana can be done dynamically (i.e. going in and out of a pose, gatiśīla) or statically (i.e. staying in a posture for a certain period of time, sthitiśīla). There are some exceptions to this rule of thumb: many inverted and some seated poses are just done statically. Of course, śavāsana (like-a-corpse pose) can only be done by staying in it. Unless you are in a horror movie, corpses don’t lie down then get up only to lie down again with the next breath.

Done dynamically, āsana prepares the body. Flexibility and strength develop by repeatedly going into and out of an āsana. The body accepts an āsana much more willingly and effectively using this process. We learn more quickly which āsana improves functional efficiency of the body and which don’t. The dynamic use of āsana slowly transforms the body by releasing existing and unhelpful patterns of tightness as well as dysfunctional patterns of movement. Repetition helps with circulation, especially moving prāṇa, and prepares the body for static work [6].

When we stay in a posture we get the chance to refine it. Prāṇa can be directed to where it needs to be.

6. Prāṇāpāna Dhāraṇā:

The breath is what joins body and mind. The practice of yoga is much diminished without the involvement of the breath. Desikachar makes the important point that “the correct linking of breath and movement is the basis for the whole āsana practice” [7]. The breath has many characteristics and properties. Two of these relate to what happens when the chest expands on inhalation (prāṇa) and what happens in the abdominal area on exhalation (apāna). The inhale nourishes and the exhale cleanses or purifies us. In yoga we try to lengthen and soften the breath beyond its normal habits. Haṭha yoga (sometimes referred to as kuṇḍalinī yoga) has a particular interest in working with prāṇa and apāna, which we could think of here as types of energy. Haṭha yoga suggests we manipulate these two energies to bring about positive transformation of body, breath and mind [10].

By concentrating (dhāraṇā) on and controlling our breathing during āsana practice we can remain more alert to what we are doing in the present moment and observe ourselves more closely, thus opening the doorway to greater skill in what we are doing during our practice. The breath helps us to be intelligent in our practice [11]. Treating the breath as a teacher can be a good attitude to have. Listen to what the breath has to teach us about our bodies and minds.

7. Bṛṃhaṇa and Laṅghana Kriyā:

The ideas of bṛṃhaṇa and laṅghana come to us via haṭha yoga and Āyurveda (the Indian system for living well / medicine). ‘Kriyā’ means effort or action.

We can connect āsana and breathing in many different ways. For instance, they can be arranged to give a feeling of expansion and openness (bṛṃhaṇa) or to give a feeling of lightness (laṅghana), in both senses of the word. It is relatively easy to feel something of these principles. Many back bends exhibit bṛṃhaṇa kriyā. Think about the Warrior I pose (vīrabhadrāsana) and its tendency to open, lift and energise us, to make us feel more confident. Forward bends, on the other hand, have a laṅghana kriyā or cleansing effect. When we take a seated forward bend, like paścimatānāsana, we might find it easier to let go of stress and tension; we can feel cleaner and more grounded [8].

8. Āgamā:

The yoga tradition passed down to us through TKV Desikachar stays close to reliable sources of yoga theory and practice (āgamā) and uses them judiciously. Yoga teachings are in constant flux, adapting to each generation, place and time. Without āgamā (and a competent teacher), we can lose our way.

There is a story that’s been passed down that T Krishnamacharya used to say that if the yoga technique being taught or practised is mentioned in the Yoga Sūtra-s then it is safe to call it yoga. This might be an apocryphal story, but it rings true. Of course, the Yoga Sūtra-s do not cover every aspect of yoga, so whatever you think you are doing under the banner of Yoga can still be an authentic yoga practice even if not listed in the YS. However, anchoring what one teaches or practises to one or more classical works on yoga is probably a good idea.

When it comes to āsana practice, the YS (YS II.46 – 49) gives us a three-fold analysis of āsana. We are given a definition of āsana, a methodology and a description of the results of practising āsana. A posture must have the quality of firmness and softness. A posture should be done by relaxation through appropriate effort and by meditating on the infinite while the body remains still. As a result of practising āsana one becomes more resilient to the pushes and pulls of existence [12].

9. Closing words

A whole new world opens up as soon as you choose to see yoga as more than a system of exercise. It becomes a way of looking at and experiencing the world in a more skillful and happy way. One can say that Yoga is what happens when body, breath and mind come together to do one thing. Yoga is multifaceted, integrated and holistic in nature. It touches all aspects of our being, which is just as well since we are far more than a body. Yoga is also about transformation and the principles of āsana practice sketched out above represent some of the tools that can help change things and help to differentiate it from other activities like dance and gymnastics.

Notes and references

[1] TKV Desikachar, 1995, The Heart of Yoga, p.23

[2] Paul Harvey maintains a treasure trove of material for anyone studying yoga at www.yogastudies.org. The list of principles of practice set out here are based on a list published by Mr Harvey on his website.

[3] There is an interesting article by William J Broad (5 January 2012, How Yoga can Wreck Your Body, The New York Times Magazine), which appears to reveal

[4] TKV Desikachar, 1995, The Heart of Yoga, p. 27

[5] Adapted from a joke which appears in Thomas Cathcart & Daniel Klein’s 2007 book, Plato and a Platypus walk into a Bar, p.70

[6] Steve Brandon, 2013, The vinyasa krama yoga practice manual, p.5

[7] TKV Desikachar, 1995, The Heart of Yoga, p.19

[8] TKV Desikachar, 1995, The Heart of Yoga, p.38f

[9] This sequence has been adapted from one given by Gary Kraftsow in his excellent 1999 book, Yoga for Wellness, p.29

[10] Kausthub Desikachar, 2016, The Haṭhayogapradīpika, p.41

[11] TKV Desikachar, 1995, The Heart of Yoga, p.22

[12] Bernard Bouanchaud, translated from the French by Rosemary Desneux, 1997, The Essence of Yoga: Reflections on the Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali, p. 131ff

Simple Meditation Practice

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I have learnt many things from my teachers over the years. For instance, do āsana (yoga postures) to understand what your body can and cannot do and in so practising discover the intelligence of your body and the wisdom to take care of it properly. Do prāāyāma (yoga’s gift of breath awareness and control) to discover the source of your vitality and a way to remove the veil that obscures your perception [1].

Yoga is most often seen as a way to improve bodily well-being. What is less obvious but far more important is that many types of Yoga focus a lot of attention on the mind: what it is, how it works and how it can be transformed. In a sense, yoga is about the mind. This is what my teachers have led me to understand. We experience absolutely everything through our minds. In fact, we live our entire lives through our minds. When we interact with others, we do so with our minds. Many of us don’t see this straight away. If I am honest with myself, I forget this most crucial bit of wisdom many times each day.

Even when we come to appreciate the central role our minds play in our lives, we don’t automatically notice that it is in want of training. I know we all went to school and learnt (and then mostly forgot) a great deal of useful things. This is not the sort of training I am really talking about. Let me put this another way by likening the mind to a musician. I taught myself to play the guitar, but my wife and children were taught to play their musical instruments by qualified music teachers. The difference between them and me is that I am stuck in a narrow range of musical techniques; I can’t read music; I don’t notice that I am out of tune, out of time, or in the wrong key; I don’t know how to play with other musicians and so on. They, on the other hand, don’t have these limitations and what they can do musically always impresses me.

I am suggesting that for most of us, the mind is a bit like a symphony orchestra and one that has been self-taught and lacks a conductor. The mind also thinks it’s the bee’s knees. This is mostly down to the fact that it can’t read minds. If it could see how other minds worked, what they sounded and felt like, I suspect it would get itself into shape. It would naturally then get that our minds determine our actions, and, if it is in lousy shape then can we be surprised at:

  • the noise it makes,
  • the mistakes it makes
  • the number of wrong decisions we have to live with
  • how it can annoy others and ourselves
  • its unskillful actions?

The good news is that it is never too late to get the orchestra into shape and to appoint a conductor. Even though the untrained mind is not self-aware and doesn’t know what it can do for us, this can be changed through meditative practice.

We can take to our mats to gain strength, greater flexibility and better physical co-ordination. We can reduce stress, anxiety and depression in much the same way. Come to think of it, cold-water swimming and walking briskly, among other activities, have similar benefits. To enhance the functional effectiveness of the mind, however, we need only commit to meditation and meditative practices.

‘One cannot underestimate the power of meditation’, explains TKV Desikachar [2], when it comes to training the mind to become the best it can. Our minds are all that we have to offer others. We should not forget that our minds have a power to hurt ourselves and others, emotionally and physically. They can even kill.

However, we can choose to offer minds to others that are friendly in the presence of happiness, compassionate in the presence of unhappiness, feel joy in the presence of virtue and are indifferent towards error [4]. Meditation is a key technique for reshaping the mind for a better cause.

I offer this simple meditative practice for you to try at home [3], and if you find it enjoyable and beneficial, then I would suggest you find a teacher to help you to deepen your self-awareness and your understanding of your mind. Maybe you already have a yoga teacher but s/he is only teaching you about the body and the breath. If this is the case, s/he may just be waiting for you to inquire about yoga’s rich tradition of meditation, so ask!

Try this out for size:

  1. Find a seat and sit comfortably with your back upright: slouching encourages sleep. In the East the preferred postures are cross-legged or kneeling ones, but meditation stools, zafus, yoga blocks and chairs all work a treat.
  2. Close your eyes, and let your breath settle. This will take two or three minutes.
  3. Become aware of your body and the sensations of sitting. Accept what you find as if you had chosen these sensations. In other words, don’t judge anything, just notice what you experience.
  4. Gradually turn your attention to your breathing and let your attention rest in the sensations of breathing.
  5. Return your attention to your breathing every time your mind wanders. Don’t let the wandering mind bother you. One thing you will come to know through regular meditative practice is that the mind will often hijack your attention with its thoughts and feelings. It’s so good at doing this that you will hardly notice that you have become lost in your thoughts. When you realise that your attention is not longer on the sensations that accompany breathing, just briefly notice what distracted you (or keeps distracting you) and return to your breath.
  6. Continue to practise in this way for between 10 and 30 minutes regularly each day. As you progress in your practice you may get to notice that when your attention is with your breath (or any other object you might later choose to focus on) your mind becomes quiet and clear. You may also notice that if your mind has unbridled access to your attention, it will convince you that it is in control of your life. That’s an important discovery to make.

All yoga practices should leave you feeling good in some way, but sometimes this doesn’t happen. If the above practice doesn’t agree with you then please don’t carry on with it. Discuss how the practice left you feeling with your teacher.

Notes

[1] Yoga Sūtra II.52

[2] Quotation is from In Search of Mind, 2001, Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram, p. 43

[3] This practice is in common circulation. However, I was reminded of it while reading Sam Harris’ 2014 book, Waking Up: searching for spirituality without religion

[4] Yoga Sūtra I.33, based on the translation by Bernard Bouanchaud as translated from the French by Rosemary Desneux which appears in Bouanchaud’s 1997 book, The Essence of Yoga. Bernard Bouanchaud was a student of TKV Desikachar’s.

Yoga meditation & how to do it

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Yoga is more than a system of exercise and relaxation. I do not think it would be unfair to describe yoga as a wisdom tradition that has, not the body, but the mind and its relationship with pure consciousness as a main concern. One of the principal texts on yoga is Patañjali’s Yogasūtra – some would argue it is the seminal text on Yoga. The Yogasūtra sets out how, through meditative practices, it is possible to attain the goal of yoga: the perfect ‘pacification, concentration and complete focus of the mind’s fluctuating activities’ – citta-vṛtti-nirodha [1] – which brings us knowledge of our inner most conscious self (purūṣa) [1a]. It has to be said that Patañjali’s manual for meditative practice is hard to understand for a variety of reasons, including its laconic style, which is rich in technical language, and its presumption that the reader already knows a lot about yoga and the other philosophical schools of Indian thought.

While yogāsana (the practice of yoga postures, often on a mat and these days in a classroom setting) is very popular in the West, yoga meditation or yoga mindfulness is less so. This is odd, because yoga is so obviously about meditation and mindfulness. Your regular yoga class, I would venture to say, does not have much time or space for sitting and meditating. Many yoga teachers I meet tell me that while they are keen to meditate they are far from comfortable with yoga as meditation. This is not surprising given the emphasis placed on mastering only postures by so many yoga teacher-training courses. My own experience is not so very different, although over my 20-years of yoga study and practice I find myself increasingly drawn to purer forms of meditative practice. The yoga classes I lead are meditative in nature, even the ones where yoga postures form the main activity, but I hesitate to describe myself as a meditation or yoga pundit! Nonetheless, I hope that I can make some meaningful suggestions to those of you wanting to have a go at meditating.

So, what is yoga meditation? I can’t give you the long answer to this question, but one short and probably imprecise answer is that (roughly speaking) by fixing or binding the mind onto one thing we can bring peace, stability and clarity to the mind and by meditating remove the interruptions (antarāya) to the goal of yoga described above [2]. There are many different Sanskrit words that could be used to mean ‘meditate’ or ‘contemplate’ and perhaps dhyāna is the most common. Dhyāna is ‘when awareness flows evenly toward the point of attention’ [3]. However, for the purposes of this article, I am going to avoid using dhyāna or other terms for meditation, because they have their own specialist meanings, albeit all fitting under the broad umbrella terms of contemplation or meditation. In English, the term ‘contemplate’ means something like ‘look attentively or thoughtfully for a long time’ and comes from Latin contemplat- ‘surveyed, observed’, from the verb contemplari, based on templum ‘physical place for observation’. The term ‘meditate’ means something like ‘focusing one’s mind for a period of time’ or ‘to think deeply about something’. Our English word is derived from the Latin verb meditari, from a base meaning ‘measure’. For me, yoga meditation encompasses both meanings and yet is different becasue of the ultimate goal of yoga, as I hope you will see when/if you get to the end of this piece.

What can we expect when we try to meditate? Well, for one thing, it is hard. Indeed, it is very hard to do. In the same way that we can’t expect, knowing little about music save what we have heard, to sit in front of a piano and immediately play Brahms’ Waltz in A Flat. We have to practise under the guidance of a teacher. Our first few months of practice will feel hopeless. When we try, we rarely feel like we are actually meditating or making any progress at all. Give up then? No. I assure you meditating is worthwhile.

What I found helpful was changing my initial goal from wanting to do or master meditation to focusing on getting the habit of trying and accepting what happens for what it is, neither liking nor disliking the results of my repeated attempts to practise. This is actually what Patañjali tells to do: abhyāsa-vairāgyābhyāṁ tat-nirodhaḥ (mastery comes from practice together with dispassion). This is so important I need to say it again: the first steps to success with meditation is to recognise that it is hard and that you must practise and keep practising without regard to how badly your attempts at mediating might be. So what if you didn’t do well at meditating? The important thing is that you made the time and you put in some effort into your meditation practice and that you sustained that effort of a period of time. Eventually you will notice the difference the continual practising makes to your life. This approach is true for the ballet dancer, chess player, footballer, cook or the violinist as much as it is for the yoga practitioner.

Can I meditate while driving my car? Definitely not! However, we do need a comfortable seat and a good place to sit. Sitting cross-legged on the floor is great if we can do it, but so few of us in the West can for any length of time. Meditating is hard, a little like marathon running is to those not used to it, so why make it harder by sitting in an uncomfortable āsana (this Sanskrit word can mean both seat and sitting posture) while trying to meditate? Would our marathon runner place a small stone in his running shoes before a race? He would do the opposite and ensure that his shoes gave him the most comfortable and pain free support possible. We should, therefore, avoid placing our bodies into a disagreeable position; we don’t want the body to be a source distraction. That won’t do at all! Patañjali is helpful here. He tells us that the way we sit should have the qualities of both steadiness and ease (sthira-sukham) and he means that not just for the body, but also for the mind, which should retain its awareness and be unstressed [4].

One’s head should be above the spine. This sounds silly, but I once attended a meditation class where someone tried meditating lying down; within minutes she was asleep and snoring for almost an hour. She never returned to try again! The Bhagavad Gita suggests that we should direct the mind to a single object while ‘holding the body, head and neck erect, motionless and steady’ [5]. A chair can be a very suitable seat for meditation, as can kneeling on the floor, sitting on a zafu or a meditation stool or in a more traditional cross-legged posture, like siddhāsana. There are walking meditations, of course, but that’s another story.

Having sat down to meditate, we need to think about the type of object most suitable for us, having due regard to our circumstances and needs. This is where a teacher is of great importance. Because we develop an intimidate relationship with the object upon which we meditate, we must choose something conducive to success in yoga. Yoga should bring peace, stability, total awareness and clarity to the mind and therefore the object we select for the mind to ‘look’ at should have some of those qualities too. Natural objects that hold no special significance for us, like a seashell, leaf, twig, pinecone and so on, are generally satisfactory objects, at least to begin with. We should avoid objects with strong associations.

I have found that learning to look at this object without engaging my analytical mind is the better approach to meditating in the manner I describe here. In other words, meditation of this type should be a wordless activity that does not use language to mediate the experience. This is one reason why meditating is so hard. We want to use language to think and we want to do so all the time. We have an inner ‘voice’ that we use to describe, criticise, think, solve problems, and tell stories about what we are seeing. We don’t want to use this natural functionality of our minds while doing this sort of meditation. Even in those meditation practices that use sound (mantra) I have found that listening to the mantra without the aid of language more useful. Lawrence LeShan gives this useful tip: look at your chosen object as if you were feeling it. He suggests this experiment to make the technique clearer:

Take a part of your sleeve or the cloth covering your thigh. Stroke it with your hand, “feel” it. Do this for half a minute [or so]. Then look at it for the same amount of time. Really look at it, learn it by eye. For most people there is a real difference between the two perceptions. With the visual sense, you tend to use words to describe the sensation, to translate the experience into language. With the tactile sense, you tend to accept the experience on a nonverbal level. [6]

As I said earlier, meditation is not easy. Notwithstanding this fact, we can cut ourselves some slack in a number of ways:

  • Firstly, accept the fact that our minds will wander away from the object of our meditation. This is perfectly natural and to be frank, our minds were born with a propensity to be distracted and they have had a lifetime of doing just that! So we can be gentle with ourselves. Every time we notice that our minds have become side tracked with something it thinks is more interesting than really noticing our meditation object, all we have to do is turn back to perceiving wordlessly our seashell, twig, pinecone etc. We need to learn the art of choosing whether to follow our thoughts or feelings, and we can do this whenever we notice that we are drifting off by simply and lovingly saying to our distracting thoughts and feelings: ‘Not now, later. I’ll be with you later.’
  • Secondly, we can approach meditation with a sense of humour. We know we are going to get distracted. Why not chuckle silently to ourselves as if we have just seen the antics of a lovable, innocent but cheeky child? Smiling to ourselves we return for the 84th time to the object of our meditative practice, without worrying or getting upset about the continual interruptions we cause ourselves in the attempt to meditate [6].
  • Thirdly, we also need to keep alert to the process of meditating. It is so easy for the mind to become dull and bored by the activity of sitting and looking at our chosen object. Let’s console ourselves with this thought: we might think this is unique to meditating, but actually our minds do this all the time. We take the beauty that surrounds us for granted, not giving a thought to the beautifully crafted granite wall or the majestic tree opposite our homes, or the magnificence of small flowers that survive invisible among the cracks in the concert or the majesty of the ever-changing sky and sea. We see these things everyday, yet the mind fails time and again to find them interesting or worthy of attention. ‘Been there, done that, got the T-shirt’ says the mind, ignoring the fact that each moment is unique. I find it helps to pretend that I am seeing the object of my meditation for the first time, even though I’ve been trying hard to notice, really notice, my seashell everyday for the last 6 weeks. My mental alertness returns when I imagine that this is the first time I have noticed the meditational object, even if it is only for a brief instance. In that instance, a wordless connection is made between mind and object. But never mind that the link breaks more easily than a cobweb in a football match. We’ll break the link as soon as we notice that we made the link: ‘Wow, I think I’m meditating!’ exclaims our excited minds and poof goes the link. Smile, we knew it was going to happen, and we get back to the business of trying and trying again.

And we keep trying to meditate this way, every day, if we can, for about 10 minutes to start with and with the same object for 6 to 8 weeks. After this time we could try another object or extending the time of our meditation by five minutes. Then, a few more weeks later we can make another change, gradually building up the time we spend practising meditation. Generally, meditating between 10 and 30 minutes a day is enough, particularly when we have full time worldly commitments. To get to this stage in meditation requires a lot of practice and that is why the most important thing we can do is to get into the habit of making the time and putting in the effort to practise. Practise (without being influenced by what might result from practising) is the only key you need. Practise is perfect, in this case, rather than practise makes perfect!

Wishing you all the best for your meditation practice!

Michael

Michael Wegerer practises, studies and teaches in the yoga tradition of T Krishnamachrya and TKV Desikachar.

References

[1] Moors, Frans, 2012, Liberating Isolation: The Yogasūtra of Patañjali, Media Garuda: India; Yogasūtra I.2
[1a] ibid. Yogasūtra I.3
[2] ibid. Yogasūtra I.30ff
[3] Shearer, Alistair, 1982, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Rider: London; Yogasūtra III.2
[4] Moors, Frans, 2012, Liberating Isolation: The Yogasūtra of Patañjali, Media Garuda: India; Yogasūtra II.46
[5] Sargeant, Winthrop, 1994, The Bhagavad Gītā, State University of New York Press (VI.12-13)
[6] LeShan, Lawence, 1974, How to Meditate, Bantam Books / Little, Brown & Company: USA (p.52-60)

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