Saileshwara and I have a meditation practice called I Pure Soul. We are often asked ‘what type of meditation do you teach’? At first, I struggled to answer this question and mumbled something along the lines of ‘soul meditation’. I struggled as meditation is not an activity, a doing. In fact, meditation is a relaxation of all doing. It is a precise, scientific process of focusing and resting the mind inward, in the present moment. It’s like teaching someone how to sleep! Meditation arises or blossoms, as described by the masters. It is not something you can do. As many meditators would vouch for, meditation just happens through dedicated practice, when the mind rests in the light of awareness. The silent, wordless, almost indescribable experience of meditation is as much the goal, as is self-realisation. Everything else that passes off as meditation, is mental training, which is also important. Meditation cannot be tried or done. Through the preparation and cultivation of the body, mind, emotions, energy and intellect, meditation will occur. This cultivation is represented by the eight limbs or stages of yoga.
Much like yoga in the West is an incomplete trend, taken out of context and somewhat over-commercialised, meditation is much the same. There are so many ‘types’ of meditation: mindful, mantra, zen, transcendental, vedic, sound bath, body scan, noting, visualisation, loving kindness, resting awareness, qi gong etc. Many people have told me that they tried meditation and gave up as they found it was very hard to do. They may have tried through a meditation app or attended a meditation class with an inexperienced teacher. Many people report that their early attempts at meditation seemed to have produced more thoughts, not the mental peace they searched for!
If you are searching for physical and mental health benefits, meditation apps and youtube guided meditations are available (here is the link to mine). These largely teach meditation as an activity and I would not discourage anyone from such techniques. There are many studies indicating that meditation as an activity improves concentration, reduces age-related memory loss, generates compassion, controls pain, improves sleep and decreases blood pressure. It also reduces the symptoms of anxiety and depression. Many of these benefits are associated with the generation of delta and theta brain waves during meditation, which are associated with a relaxed state of mind (as compared with beta waves when we are activated and busy). The relaxation response produces similar health benefits and undoubtedly, meditation triggers the relaxation response in the autonomic nervous system. These health benefits, whilst very worthwhile, do not deliver freedom and lasting mental peace. For these, we need to dig a bit deeper.
When Sai Saileshwara ‘teaches’ meditation, he spends half the class on the cultivation process – facilitating the meditators to dig a little deeper through sharing wisdom about internal struggles and habits (yama/self restraint), human values (niyama/observance) health and lifestyle (asana/posture, pranayama/breath control and pratyahara/sense control), and dissecting the mind and emotions, in preparation for dharana (contemplation).
It is not possible to master yourself if you do not know who you are and how your body-mind vehicle operates. Western science explains meditation through the brain. Eastern science explains meditation through yoga (the process) and the five sheaths of consciousness that encase the soul, or Atma (the spiritual physiology and anatomy).
You can learn to chant a mantra that keeps the mind focused and receptive, or receive guidance through a relaxing visualisation, but if you are eating stimulating foods and habitually engage in stimulating unconscious behaviours, you will find the practice challenging and the benefits will not be sustaining. If you want to experience permanent and lasting peace and the light of your awareness, to be meditative, it requires a full lifestyle reorientation. This creates the most conducive environment – external and internal – for meditation to blossom.
The last three stages of yoga, dharana (contemplation), dhyana (meditation) and samadhi (integration) are described by Patanjali in one chapter, Vibhuti Pada. This is not a coincidence. These three processes involve withdrawing the mind into the consciousness, and the consciousness into the soul, Atma. To prepare for this, the first five stages of yoga did the groundwork – conferred good character, a strong body, vitality, introversion and most importantly, calmness. The intellect, or buddhi, when developed, is broad and strong and wisdom is activated. It is the intellect that discerns truth from untruth, temporary from eternal, ignorance from wisdom, arrogance from innocence and thus ‘the seeker becomes the seer’.
BK S Iyengar, a revered yogi and author beautifully said: “Through practice of these five stages of yoga (yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara) all the layers of the Self from the skin to the consciousness are penetrated, subjugated and sublimated to enable the soul to diffuse evenly throughout. This is true sadhana.” (Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali by BKS Iyengar).
- Anatomical sheath: the body – annamaya - Earth element
- Physiological sheath: the vital force – pranamaya - Water element
- Mental sheath: the mind – manomaya - Fire element
- Intellectual sheath: wisdom/knowledge – vijnanamaya - Air element
- Blissful sheath: bliss – anandamaya - Ether element
According to Patanjali, the first three sheaths or layers of consciousness are within the field of the elements of nature. Saileshwara always says ‘there is no difference between your body and nature, whatever you do for nature you do for your body’. The intellectual or wisdom layer is the layer of the individual soul (jivatma) and the bliss body of the universal soul (Paramatma) according to Patanjali. Through sadhana and meditation, an involution process takes place described as a bird folding up its wing – the physical, vital and mental bodies fold inwards in the light of our consciousness of existence, life, Atma. This is the mergence or integration of yoga and the full blossoming of meditation.
