For those who are interested in meditation, the best place to learn about the art is from the text books on meditation, namely the Vedas of India. And one classic which mentions the specific details on how to meditate is the Bahgavad Gita. There are various applications and techniques, and the one I was trained in during my youth living in a Bhakti yoga ashram, is called japa meditation. It involves reciting a mantra repeatedly while counting a fixed amount of times that the mantra is chanted by using counting beads.
The technique is simple and is designed to capture the attention of the senses, and thereby ultimately the mind, which is led by the senses. One sits comfortably and simply recites the mantra to oneself, in this way engaging the tongue and the ears in hearing and chanting. That’s the main focus of the mantra recitation – to engage those two senses – and by ignoring the various thoughts that come and go, one brings the focus of attention back to the mantra constantly.
A third sense that is engaged is the sense of touch, by carefully counting on the string of beads each mantra as it is recited. In this way one is able to count a specific number of recitations daily. The string of beads is made from Tulsi wood, which is considered medicinal as well as sacred in India and comprises of 108 beads, an auspicious number based on the Vedic tradition, with hidden esoteric symbolism.
In the previous century yogis or meditators would chant at least 64 rounds of these 108 beads. In other words that’s 108x64 mantras chanted daily. That’s 6912 recitations of the mantra, which consists of 16 words, each word being a name of the divinity, 8 masculine and 8 feminine. In this way one chants 110592 names of god daily. With practice this would take up to 8 hours a day.
Now in modern western society very few people can sit and mediate for 8 hours a day, so my teacher and the founder of my yoga ashram organization who came from India, saw that we westerners were less adept and also more busy in material life, so he reduced the amount required to 108x16 rounds on the beads instead of 64 rounds. This takes only two hours a day instead of 8.
So I would sit for two hours a day in meditation, softly reciting my mantra while keeping count of how many mantras I had chanted on the string of Tulsi beads. This mediation technique is simple but effective in focusing the mind on the divine couple, the masculine and feminine features of the godhead, whose Sanskrit names are being recited. It obviously brings balance and harmony as well as training the mind to reduce mental chatter and become focused on the goal.
If you want even more intricate methods of meditation, which were more popular in previous centuries when people had the lifestyle to really go deep and leave the material obligations behind, then you will find them in the Gita, like this for example:
स्पर्शान्कृत्वा बहिर्बाह्यांश्चक्षुश्चैवान्तरे भ्रुवो: ।
प्राणापानौ समौ कृत्वा नासाभ्यन्तरचारिणौ ॥ २७ ॥
sparśān kṛtvā bahir bāhyāṁś
cakṣuś caivāntare bhruvoḥ
prāṇāpānau samau kṛtvā
nāsābhyantara-cāriṇau
“Shutting out all external sense objects, keeping the eyes and vision concentrated between the two eyebrows, suspending the inward and outward breaths within the nostrils, and thus controlling the mind, senses and intelligence, the transcendentalist aiming at liberation becomes free from desire, fear and anger. One who is always in this state is certainly liberated.”
Bhagavad Gita As It Is chapter 5:27-28 translated by Swami A. C. Bhaktivedanta
Here you can see that there is a specific technique by which one can focus the mind, namely by controlling the ingoing and outgoing breath. When I chant my mantra and count on my beads during meditation, I also regulate my breathing, so that I vibrate the mantra on the outgoing breath, and then also chant the mantra in my mind silently during the ingoing breath. The chanting thus also allows me to finely regulate my breathing process for two hours. And this adds to the ability to bring the mind and senses under control. The mind becomes pacified in this way, allowing the mediator to focus on the divinity.
Also mentioned in this verse is the technique of focusing the vision right at the tip of the nose, in the very close foreground. This prevents the attention from being distracted by sights in the distance. Obviously it is recommended not to close the eyes completely because it then becomes easier to fall a sleep, and believe me in the early days of training in mediation I would fall asleep repeatedly. Especially since we were trained to rise before dawn to practice our two hours of meditation daily.
Eventually with months and years of practice I was able to sit for two hours and meditate before sunrise without falling asleep. So the Bhagavad Gita clearly states the specific technique required for a specific purpose. And the focus of the gaze on the tip of the nose, or between the eyebrows, is interesting because it also suggests to me a focus on the pineal gland, which is the so-called third eye, situated in this very region just behind the eyes, in the center of the brain. This is the region of the brain that produces the chemicals or hormones that bring heightened consciousness and spiritual or mystical experiences.
So as you can see, meditation is not a whimsical thing. Nor is it speculation or something that you make up according to your fertile imagination. There are exact details for you in the text books on meditation if you really want to apply yourself to the process of enlightenment. Using the method of chanting the names of the divinity in a mantra, as well as keeping count on the japa beads, is a slightly easier method for us novices from the west who are not raised as kids in the culture, or taught from youth to apply our minds to the process of meditation.
I recommend any sincere spiritual seeker to apply themselves to the practice of meditation if you really want to gain insight into your hidden potentials of consciousness. The instruction manual is there and the techniques that I’ve mentioned here today are bona fide and ancient, handed down from the masters in the art going back centuries. There are more details which I have not mentioned but if there are serious seekers, then there is still more that I can reveal based on my learning and training if you are interested.
(image pixabay)