Moving Inward- The Journey to Meditation Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Preface

  The Spirit of Meditation

  The Spirit of Meditation

  Cultivating a Steady Posture

  Cultivating a Steady Posture

  Finding a Good Sitting Pose

  Refining Your Posture

  Calming the Senses

  The Root Lock

  Diaphragmatic Breathing

  Diaphragmatic Breathing

  Elements of Breathing

  Breathing with Confidence

  Drawing the Diaphragm

  Six Methods for Training the Breath

  Systematic Relaxation

  Systematic Relaxation

  The Art of Relaxing

  Sleeping on the Run

  Balancing Your Energies

  Breath Awareness

  Breath Awareness

  Mindful Breathing

  Techniques for Breath Awareness

  Breathing Through Emotions

  Nadi Shodhanam: Alternate Nostril Breathing

  Meditation and Mantra

  Meditation and Mantra

  Meet Your Self: The Mind in Meditation

  A Complete Meditation Practice

  String of Pearls: Using a Mala

  Motivation for Meditation

  The Study of the Self: Svadhyaya

  The Study of the Self: Svadhyaya

  Recommended for Further Study

  enhance your practice

  About the Author

  The Himalayan Institute

  Himalayan Institute Press

  Other Study Tools by Rolf Sovik, Psy.D.

  Yoga: Mastering the Basics

  co-authored with Sandra Anderson

  Guided Yoga Relaxations CD

  Advanced Yoga Relaxations CD

  Three Guided Meditations CD

  Dynamics of Meditation: Guided Practice CD

  True Freedom and Lasting Peace: The Wisdom of the Yoga Sutra CD/DVD

  Himalayan Institute Press

  952 Bethany Turnpike

  Honesdale, PA 18431

  www.HimalayanInstitute.org

  © 2005 The Himalayan International Institute of Yoga Science and Philosophy of the U.S.A.®

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  All rights reserved. Reproduction of this book in any manner, in whole or in part, in English or in any other language, is prohibited without the written permission of the publisher.

  Portions of this book appeared, in a slightly different format, in Yoga International magazine. The chapter “Breathing Naturally” was adapted from Yoga: Mastering the Basics, by Sandra Anderson and Rolf Sovik, Psy.D.

  Printed in China

  Creative direction and design: Jeanette Robertson

  Electronic design and production: Julia A. Valenza

  Cover photo credits: Dex/Punchstock, Alley Cat Productions/Brand X/Picture Arts

  The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Sovik, Rolf.

  Moving Inward : the journey to meditation / Rolf Sovik

  p. cm.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-89389-247-0 (trade pbk. : alk. paper)

  ISBN-10: 0-89389-247-5 (trade pbk. : alk. paper)

  1. Meditation. 2. Yoga. I. Title

  BL627.S68 2005

  204’.35—dc22

  2005012489

  With respect and appreciation for

  the teachings and guidance of

  Sri Swami Rama

  Acknowledgments

  Let me begin by expressing my indebtedness to teachers whose lives were lived millennia apart from ours, but whose influence persists in these pages. In particular, the instruction described in this book has its roots in the Upanishads and the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali, sourcebooks of yoga philosophy and practice.

  I am personally indebted to Pandit Rajmani Tigunait, Ph.D., spiritual head of the Himalayan International Institute. In his public teaching as well as private guidance, he has continued to shape my own practice over the past decade. I also wish to thank Dr. Usharbudh Arya (now Swami Veda Bharati), founder of the Meditation Center, for his early instruction.

  Sections of this book are derived from material published in Yoga International magazine. Deborah Willoughby, editor of Yoga International, has been kind enough to make these previously published writings available for reworking here.

  Madalasa Baum, Sunita Singhi, and others at Himalayan Institute Press provided energy for this project from conception to conclusion. Elizabeth Kugler gracefully edited the manuscript, and it was a pleasure to have had her assistance. Thanks to Anne Craig, who thoughtfully edited very significant portions of the text earlier in its production, and to Emily Keating for last-minute revisions. Much appreciation to Jeanette Robertson, the book’s designer, whose work so beautifully complements the message of the text. Thanks to Jagati Mainwaring for photographs, Roger Hill and Roz Savage for illustrations, Barbara Gerhardt for providing technical assistance, Don Margaritonda and Ginny Mazzei for modeling, and Mary Cardinal for modeling direction.

  The ideas found in this book were partially explored in lectures and conversations at the Himalayan Institute of Buffalo—my home since 1991. I am very grateful to students in Buffalo.

  Finally, my wife, Mary Gail, has been at my side throughout many years of affiliation with the Himalayan Institute and shared not only in the labor of creating this book but in the meditating that inspired it. Heartfelt thanks.

  Preface

  Over thirty years have passed since I sat across a low table from the person who inspired me to meditate. The room was small—a makeshift space, created for a brief interview with the accomplished yogi and visiting teacher Swami Rama. During our few minutes together, he seemed to assess me. Then quietly and with a deep voice he asked, “Do you meditate?”

  As he spoke, I remember feeling that his voice had emerged from a remarkably calm place. Nonetheless, a rush of thoughts went through my mind in response to his question. I had made a number of experiments with meditation. I had sat quietly with a group of friends, trying to be as present and mindful as possible. I had also read many well-known books and essays on meditation. But the truth was that I did not meditate regularly and I was not certain how to meditate. Further, I knew I was sitting in the presence of someone who did.

  I answered, “Not really.”

  With the same deep and quiet tone he replied, “You should learn to meditate. I will teach you.” In that moment I gratefully accepted his offer.

  At that time I was twenty-five years old and earning a very modest living playing the cello in Minneapolis. I created a small meditation space in my apartment and began attending weekly classes with one of Swami Rama’s principal students who directed a local center called simply the Meditation Center. As a musician, the concept of daily practice was well engrained in my mind, and soon I was meditating morning and evening.

  Some months later, in the summer of 1973, Swami Rama returned for another series of lectures. The setting was idyllic—a grassy hill overlooking a small lake in the farmlands of southern Minnesota. There, a lecture tent had been set up to provide shelter, and students pitched smaller tents around it for sleeping. A soft breeze blew through the tents and overhead, a broad sky domed the land.

  Twice a day Swami Rama sat on a small platform, lecturing and answering questions. As he spoke, a sense of timelessness pervad
ed the gathering. His aim, he said, was not simply to inform. “Lectures give indirect knowledge. This is useful, but does not lead far. Direct knowledge of inner life is superior. It comes from the experience gathered in meditation, and it is the highest knowledge.”

  He emphasized that meditation is not a process of fantasizing. “Imagination is the opposite of direct experience,” he stressed. “Meditation is a systematic method. When this is understood, meditation becomes reliable and leads to deeper experience.” He then proceeded to explain how to meditate and which were the most important features of the meditative method.

  His talks, full of the good-humored stories and personal anecdotes that often dotted his lectures, were confidence building. During that summer I received a personal mantra to use in meditation and became even more convinced of the importance of meditating regularly. As I did, the inner and outer terrain of my life gradually changed, and within a few years I became a resident at the Meditation Center, where I deepened my practice, helped with administrative matters, and learned to teach. It was the beginning of a new vocation.

  Over the next two decades until Swami Rama’s death in 1996, I was fortunate to maintain periodic contact with him. For his part, he more than fulfilled his early promise to me. He provided meditation instruction and, at crucial moments, lent advice on other matters as well. He encouraged me to return to graduate school for doctoral studies in psychology. He opened doors for trips to India, Nepal, and Tibet—opportunities to learn more about the meditative tradition. With his support, I began teaching within the Himalayan Institute, the organization he founded in 1971. And in his final years, he unfailingly visited the Institute’s center in Buffalo, New York, where my wife and I settled in 1991.

  This tells the bare story. As it unfolded, meditation acquired more than theoretical or technical meaning for me. It brought my own habit patterns, emotions, drives, and spiritual aspirations into sharp relief and offered itself as the tool for sifting them—a work still in progress.

  For his part, Swami Rama regularly reminded students of the Buddha’s words: light thine own lamp. He placed responsibility for following the meditative path squarely on the shoulders of each student. In doing that, he also made sure that the preliminary means of practice were available to all.

  That is what this book is really about. It is an extension of the training that I have been fortunate to receive over the past years. It fleshes out the details of practice and illustrates how meditation can become a daily habit. It resolves conceptual problems that might otherwise hinder progress. And it is meant to anchor meditation at the heart of yoga, where it really has been all along.

  Meditation leads to the simple pleasure of knowing one’s self. One young student, pondering this in ancient times, replied honestly to his teacher, “I do not think I know myself.” He continued, “My ignorance is such that I cannot even say that I do not know myself.” This was an admission that lies close to the truth for most of us. It echoes the doubts that raced through my own mind many years ago, when Swami Rama asked me whether I meditated. For the most part, the remedy for such doubt does not lie in collecting more information about ourselves or in more contemplation. Self-knowledge is acquired through an altogether different way of knowing, one in which the mind is engaged in being. This is meditation—the path we are about to explore.

  The Spirit of Meditation

  The Spirit of Meditation

  Such music I never dreamed of . . .

  —The Wind in the Willows

  At its core, meditation is a blossoming of spirit—an individual reply to a call from within. Unlike the more familiar ways in which we normally think and act, meditation asks us to take a seat and quiet ourselves. Then it whispers to us about how to be creative in life, about what is true and not true, about how to heal and how to mourn, and about the joys that come from simply being, rather than wanting and trying. All this amounts to a welling up of spirit that permeates both heart and mind.

  We may be especially drawn to meditation during times of need. These are times when life’s storyline takes an unexpected turn: a health problem may have escalated; we may have made a mistake we cannot reconcile with who we are; or we may have lost something valuable that we cannot accept has been lost. At such times, the strategies we normally use to manage affairs no longer work, and we look to a deeper, more silent source of nurturance to help us redefine life.

  Of course, not every inspiration to meditate is spurred on by trouble or need. Beauty also inspires meditation—the beauty of nature, art, and music. When we are moved by the desire to trace beauty to its source—that is the call of meditation.

  Meditation sometimes begins as a way to bring order to inner life, a method of disciplining the mind. It may also arise from a sense of gratitude or from simple curiosity. Most often of all, it is a response to a spiritual yearning—a belief that a direct knowledge of higher consciousness is, in some way, the purpose of life.

  Each of the many reasons for meditating serves as an invitation—a gateway, opening the door to practice. Having done its work, the invitation may remain quite close to the surface, like a reminder note that must be attended to, or it may recede into the background.

  If we are fortunate, whatever brought us to meditate will prompt something greater to emerge. It will blossom into a state of mind that cannot be contained in words. That bountiful fullness of consciousness is the fruit of meditation. It is the reason that our hearts persist in practice. It is the all-knowing into which we surrender our modest knowing. In its paradoxical way, when the call of meditation whispers, it does it with sounds that return us both to fullness and to silence.

  The Journey Inward

  Eyes closed, spine erect and balanced, a person sitting in meditation seems to embody serenity. There is surprising delicacy in the stillness of meditative postures. And the willingness of a meditator to sit patiently without interruption conveys that meditation, whatever it consists of, is absorbing—taking precedence over physical discomforts and worldly distractions.

  Yet despite these impressions, it is difficult to know just what meditation is without training. Visible signs give few clues to a meditator’s state of mind, and popular lore about meditation is not very trustworthy. Asana classes often neglect meditation, and even when it is included in class time, it is rarely the most important focus. As a result, relatively few yoga students seem to understand the process of meditation with enough clarity to invest in a daily practice.

  Mistaken ideas about meditation cloud the picture even further. A colleague I once worked with had a familiar reply to virtually any new idea that was proposed to him. He would respond, “Let me meditate on that and I’ll get back to you.” However, he did not meditate. What he meant was that he wanted time to think about the idea. He considered quiet thinking or contemplation to be meditation.

  This is not the meaning we’re looking for here. Meditation is something other than using the mind for reflection. In meditation, the body is rested, the senses are calmed, the everyday activity of the mind is quieted, and a transformation of consciousness itself gradually takes place. Like falling asleep at night, meditating brings about a shift in consciousness. But unlike sleep, meditation is a deliberate and well-considered change in the way we use the body and mind.

  In this sense, meditation is more than a simple technique. It is an inward journey. Along the way, seemingly unrelated yogic practices work in accord with one another to establish a stable and enduring center of health and awareness. Posture is made steady; breathing is smoothed and regulated; emotions are channeled positively; and concentration skills are gradually honed. In the end, an unchanging inner presence is awakened, bringing harmony to body, breath, nervous system, senses, and mind.

  Swami Rama often teased that a definition of the mind might be “that which is not here.” He would say, “When we are here, the mind travels there, and when we are there, the mind remains here.” His observation was a reminder that meditation practi
ce centers attention in the present moment.

  This centering process involves three important elements. The first is an inner focus, a resting place for mental energies and awareness. The second is an attitude of non-attachment, an attitude that allows distracting thoughts to come and go without disturbing attention or acquiring new energy. The third is the awakening of a pervasive inner quietness, a state of mind unlike the ones we normally experience in life. In this state of mind, called mindfulness, awareness naturally turns inward and becomes aware of itself.

  As a process, meditation begins by resting attention on one thing. Objects used in meditation may vary, but sensations of breathing or the repetitive sound of a mantra are common focal points. The concentration process in meditation is not labored or strained. Just as a person develops good night vision by identifying finer and finer points of light in the night sky, a meditative focus is refined slowly. Once a focus has been acquired, the relatively scattered energies that normally occupy the mind are gradually integrated, and attention rests in a tranquil center of awareness.