Yasho opened his eyes slightly. It made little difference since his cave was totally in darkness. The entrance was sealed with a solid wooden door. And behind that was a wall of snow from the winter blizzards that had been pummelling the mountainside for weeks. It could have been weeks, or was it months? Yasho found it hard to tell any more. Time had become a construct soon dissolved when the daily light from the circling sun was absent. The cave smelt slightly damp but otherwise remained much as it was since he first entered it 39 months ago. His meditation retreat of three years, three months and three days was about to come to an end. In coming hours he would begin winding up his deep internal journey that had taken him beyond the earthly planes of existence, even while his body remained in the small mountaintop cave.
With his eye’s still half closed, yet focused up and between the eyebrows, Yasho kept his attention upon his pineal gland, situated in the centre of his skull. The third eye was the seat of the soul according to some philosophers, but they didn’t really know what they were talking about. Nevertheless the pineal was the source of peak consciousness for the living entity housed temporarily in the physical body, and this 39 month meditation retreat was meant to activate its powers for the benefit of the soul that resided within. And it had. Yasho had experienced first hand what it meant to glimpse beyond the veil and see eternity within. By closing himself off from the outside world in one of the monasteries caves, he had stilled the mind by stilling the senses. And with the mind stilled, he had been able to enter the eternal now, the timeless moment in the still centre of the universe around which cosmic storms revolved.
Yasho shifted slightly upon his straw mat and deer skin seat, tensing his muscles and relaxing them again, to allow the blood to continue circulating. He focused on his breathing routine and heard nothing but the sound of his breath flowing in, followed by silence as he held it, and then flowing out slowly and gently, until his lungs were empty, after which he paused again before the next in breath. He had been practising this for technique of breath control throughout the three years and three months in his cave, and now it came naturally, without effort. By slowing down the breath like this, the heart beat also slowed. He could feel – or was it hear? - the blood flowing through his veins in his ears. It glided along like waves at the sea shore washing up along the sand and shells, only to wash back down again over and over, without cessation.
Yasho had seen no external light for 39 months. His eyes were a distant memory and he wasn’t even sure if they worked any more. But that was a small price to pay for the gift of sight he had gained from his sacrifice of these past 39 months. By limiting the light intake via the two eyes, he had allowed the pineal gland to become more active in its production of finer brain chemicals, like melatonin, known ad the sleep hormone. The body’s circadian rhythm was aligned to the light intake via the eyes during its daily cycle. When the sun was up, the pineal released less melatonin, and when the sun set, the pineal was triggered to produce more of the sleep-inducing hormone. But by removing all light signals from the sun, the pineal was no longer triggered to stop the melatonin production and as a result, Yasho enabled the brain to facilitate much deeper states of meditation. He had already spent ten years in the monastery down the mountain training and preparing for this point. He practised amongst the other monks in the small cloistered cells of the massive monastery building built into the side of the hill high above the village in the valley below. But nothing he experienced there was anything compared to the insights he had gained from this marathon endeavour he was now about to complete.
Yasho had learned the yoga science from his wise old teachers and guru, the head monk at the monastery down below. When the time was right, and he was seen to be physically and mentally prepared for the ordeal, Yasho’s teachers had condoned his wish to go to the next level by setting the date at which he could embark on the ultimate meditation retreat of three years, three months and three days. That date was the full moon during the last months of winter, when the snow had just begun to melt enough for one to make the climb up the cliffs to the caves set aside for this purpose. And in a matter of hours it would be that full moon again at the end of the winter season, it would be possible to actually open the cave door and make the journey down the mountain slope to back to the monastery below. Despite having no light from the sun to tell him the time of month or year, still his body’s circadian rhythms were able to perceive the waxing and waning of the moon. How curious it was, he would think to himself sometimes, when his consciousness rose back up to the level of thought, that he relied upon the moon which was hundreds of thousands of miles away to tell him the time of the month. Yet that was how under the influence all living beings were of that little moon planet revolving around our earth. The gravity of the moon affected all living beings whose bodies were mostly water. The pull on our brain fluids is far stronger than we realize, and affects our most personal conscious thoughts and feelings. There is no escaping it. And all of nature sways to its rhythms.
By allowing the sunlight to be removed from his life, and allowing the pineal gland to become more sensitive as a result, Yasho was able to mechanically facilitate greater production of not only melatonin, but also serotonin and also another powerful brain hormone called DMT or dimethyl-tryptamine. His training had taught him that yoga and meditation was not a religion based on myth or superstition. It was a mechanical science. By using the breathing techniques he had been taught in the monastery, and by applying the right conditions to the body and mind, anyone could activate the shifts in consciousness that opened the doorways of perception to the vast internal and even cosmic vistas that remain blocked to the average person caught up in their daily existence of eating, sleeping, mating and defending. Most people were little more than polished animals, led by their survival instincts from birth to death, with little to show for it in between. However, all human beings have the potential to use this rare and valuable human form of life to awaken consciousness to its fullest, and use this life as a springboard to step out of the wheel of “samsara”, the wheel of repeated birth and death. That is how science works. Anyone can perform the experiment and come out with the same results.
The science of yoga and meditation was, however, not revealed to anyone or everyone. It was kept preserved by the monks only to be shared with those who sincerely inquired and who showed their sincerity by making the initial efforts to advance their consciousness. It was given freely but this was not a cheap thing. No money was required to attain the knowledge, and no amount of money could give you the results either. The knowledge and their results had to be earned via the development of certain character traits. And these traits came from a combination of intelligence plus feeling. Both hemispheres of the brain need to be healthy, mature and in synch with each other for the aspirant to really be ready for the further training and awakening to occur. The head and the heart need to be in congruence, resonating in harmony, for the organism to really make the most of the yoga science and the mediation techniques.
Yasho learned all this while training in the monastery for the ten years of his youth, from the age of nineteen to twenty-nine. And now, as he approached the age of thirty-three, after his thirty-nine month retreat, he was ready to leave the cave one more. He felt the pull of the moon upon his brain fluids and felt their tug on his mental state. Soon it would be full moon, and he would be opening the door to a world he left behind so many moons ago. No one needed to tell him the time and date. Just as no one needs to tell the baby when to leave the mother’s womb. It all happens according to the natural cycles, which are influenced by the lunar and earthly rhythms. Add to that the solar cycles plus the influence of the more distant and subtle pole star in our galaxy, though few may know of those distant stars and their connection to our solar system. Yasho was aware of them though. By stilling the external impressions his mind was stilled and thus his consciousness was able to travel beyond the physical vehicle in which it is temporarily housed. It becomes easier the more one applies themselves. And with the cave firmly shut from outside influence here so high up in the mountain, there was no risk of being disturbed. Not even a mountain lion could enter the cave, what to speak of a person who might wonder up during the summer months when the path was free of snow.
Yasho felt a sense of curiosity as he contemplated seeing the world again. However, the process of exiting the meditation retreat was as delicate as the one for entering it. And it could not be rushed. He had to acclimatise like a diver who had plummet to the depths of the ocean and lived in a rarefied atmosphere with quite different pressures. Yasho had plumbed the depths of consciousness - or the heights if you prefer – and his body, mind and entire organism needed to adjust to the normal world upon re-entry. Coming out of his cave was just as gradual a process as going in. These last three days leading up to the coming full moon were the time where he performed all the necessary techniques to allow him a safe re-entry.
For a start, Yasho had not moved much or used his bodily limbs for the past 39 months. The cave was tall enough to stand in and had place to walk around, and in the initial phase of arrival and acclimatisation he had done some daily movement to keep the body supple and the circulation in flow. But as the months went by, his physical movement had become less and less, until the last three months where he had hardly moved at all. Remaining seated in his meditation posture, with legs crossed, back and neck erect with head level, allowed him to circulate the life airs through his body, which kept him in a healthy condition. After all, the “prana” or life airs, which were divided into five types, were what kept the body functioning smoothly when it came to assimilation, elimination and general homeostasis. The cave had a trickling water source which flowed through the cracks in the rock. Most caves were like that. The underground water followed the downhill path of least resistance and trickled into the cave by itself. Yasho used his one steel bowl to catch it for his survival needs. Other than that, he had a sack of chickpea flour as his only source of food. On the journey up one of the novice monks has assisted him in bringing three sacks of flour to the cave on the back of a donkey. That was over three years ago. Each year he had used up one of the 50kg sacks. The last few kilos were all that remained. For one who had mastered the yoga techniques and could harness the life airs successfully, food was not needed every day to survive. It was possible to absorb subtle prana or chi from the atmosphere and sustain the body on that. By eating less, there was less need for energy to digest the food. Thus Yasho had lived on only raw chickpea flour and water for the past three years and felt just fine for it. Never once did he light a fire or want for anything else. He had attained a state of harmony and balance both of body and mind. He was at peace.
(image pixabay)